HomeMy WebLinkAbout30 - OB-1 - Second Reading of the Excessive Use of - 1/7/2014CITY COUNCIL AGENDA REPORT
MEETING DATE: JANUARY 7, 2014 ITEM NUMBER:
SUBJECT: SECOND READING OF THE EXCESSIVE USE OF RESOURCES ORDINANCE
DATE: DECEMBER 24, 2013
FROM: CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICE
PRESENTATION RICHARD FRANCIS, ASSISTANT CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
BY: ELENA GERLI DEPUTY CITY ATTORNEY
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: MARGARET CHANG (714) 754-5618
RECOMMENDATION:
Staff recommends that the City Council give second reading to Ordinance 14-_,
regarding excessive use of resources.
BACKGROUND:
On November 5, 2013, staff requested input and direction from City Council regarding a
proposed ordinance relating to the excessive use of City resources by certain lodging
establishments.
Certain lodging establishments within the City utilize a substantial amount of City
resources, including code enforcement and emergency police services; as a result,
these establishments are threatening the peace, health, safety, and/or general welfare
of the public. The proposed ordinance will establish a notification and enforcement
process designed to collaboratively work with lodging establishment owners, tenants,
and those who manage problem properties to address chronic nuisances of a criminal
nature. It will also deter lodging establishment owners and occupants from repeating
nuisance activities and hold them accountable for the excessive cost to the City of
repeated nuisance activities.
On December 3, 2013, staff presented the ordinance for first reading. The City Council
requested the addition of some language defining what constitutes calls for service, and
decided that the threshold number of calls for service for lodging establishments is 0.4
calls per room per year.
On December 18, 2013, the Mayor and City staff hosted a meeting for lodging
establishment owners/managers to answer any questions the owners/managers may
have about any of the City's recent business items. The meeting also allowed
owners/managers to share difference management practices to help one another with
better managing their properties. Attachment 4 is a recap of that meeting.
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ANALYSIS:
The proposed ordinance will be Chapter XI (Cost Recovery for Excessive Use of
Resources) of Title 14 (Police and Law Enforcement) of the Costa Mesa Municipal
Code. The purpose of this proposed ordinance is to allow the city to obtain
reimbursement from responsible lodging establishment owners whose property utilizes
an excessive amount of police resources because of recurring nuisance activities.
Nuisance activities as defined in the proposed ordinance are summarized as follows
(full definitions in proposed Section 14-81):
Disturbing the peace (violations of Penal Code Section 415); noise/sound issues;
illegal use or sale of fireworks; exceeding maximum occupancy rules; gang -
related crime; illegal use of a firearm; illegal use, sale, or manufacturing of a
firearm; underage drinking; illegal use, sale, or possession of controlled
substances; loud parties; criminal activity; commission or attempted commission
of any serious/violent felony; and commission or attempted commission of
prostitution.
The proposed ordinance will be applied to any lodging establishment within the City. A
lodging establishment would be invoiced under the Proposed Ordinance for excessive
police calls above a certain threshold.
The ordinance is summarized as follows:
• Definitions include each type of lodging establishment, what constitutes a call for
service; and the type of activity that constitutes nuisance activity that would trigger
the provisions of the ordinance.
• Costs will be billed to lodging establishments on an invoice period basis. Staff
anticipates that the most efficient invoice period, as directed by City Council, is
likely to be a quarterly or biannual invoice period. The invoice period shall be set by
City Council resolution.
• Written notice shall be given to the owner of the lodging establishment as it
approaches its allotted calls for service threshold for nuisance activity for the
designated invoice period. Notice to an establishment that they are approaching
their threshold of allotted calls for nuisance activities shall be provided pursuant to
City Council resolution.
• The amount of the cost recovery fee shall be set by City Council resolution.
• An appeal of the cost recovery invoice can be filed within 10 days of receipt and a
hearing by an independent hearing officer will be scheduled within 45 days of the
appeal.
I&
o The amount invoiced must be submitted to the City along with the appeal
request;
o If an appeal is denied, the lodging establishment owner must pay the
administrative costs required for the hearing along with the original cost
recovery bill.
Staff is requesting that City Council provide direction regarding the method to establish the
threshold, provide notice, set the invoice period and any other procedure necessary to
recover costs. Staff will return to City Council with a proposed resolution.
Revisions of the Proposed Ordinance from December 3. 2013 Council Meetin
The following are revisions made after the December 3, 2013 Council Meeting:
• Addition of a definition for "call for service" (Section 14-81 (d)).
• Addition of a definition for "officer -initiated calls for service" (Section 14-81 (e)).
• Clarification by providing some guidelines to what would be considered "criminal
activity" (Section 14-81 (r)(6)).
• Revising the methodology for calculating thresholds from 0.5 calls for service per
room per year to 0.4 calls for service per room per year for nuisance activities.
(Section 14-81 (x)).
Threshold
Before the City can issue a cost recovery fee invoice based on excessive police calls for
nuisance activities, pursuant to proposed Section 14-85, each lodging establishment
shall be entitled to a periodic allotment of calls. Two options were presented to the City
Council on December 3, 2013, for determining the total allotment of calls for a year as
follows:
• An allotment of one-half (0.5) of a call for service per room for the crimes listed in
proposed Section 14-81(r) annually.
or
• An allotment of one-quarter (0.25) of a call for service per room for the crimes
listed in proposed Section 14-81(r) annually.
On December 3, 2013, the City Council directed staff to provide that each lodging
establishment has an allotment of 0.4 calls for service per room per year for the crimes
listed in proposed Section 14-81(r). City Council also directed staff to include additional
definitions for "nuisance activity". After reviewing the proposed ordinance and
contemplating additional definitions, staff believes there are no additional definitions that
would be appropriate. However, staff reexamined the call data for each lodging
establishment and found that there were additional calls that fall within the "nuisance
activity" definition that were not included in the original analysis. See Attachment 3 for
an updated analysis of all calls for service for all City lodging establishments and their
respective call allotment.
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Cost Recovery Methodology
The Council must decide whether to implement the flat fee methodology for cost
recovery or some other methodology.
• Flat Fee (All Calls Included): The flat fee methodology assumes dividing the total
police department budget (2013-14 = $40,248,392) by the average number of
annual calls for service (3 -year average = 95,300). Using this methodology will
yield a cost recovery of approximately $422 per call; however, it would be
prudent to offset this amount by 30% in order to counteract charges for services
not likely attributed to lodging establishment enforcement. As such, a fine in the
amount of $295 seems appropriate.
• Flat Fee (Revised Total Calls): Staff also looked at revising the number of calls
for service and Cost Recovery Methodology by removing 911 and wireless 911
calls that were unnecessary to log, unfounded, or cancelled from the total calls
for service. Patrol checks have also been removed from this methodology. The
revised total number of calls for service is approximately 78,200. Using the flat
fee methodology will yield a cost recovery of approximately $515 per call. After
offsetting this amount by 30%, the revised fine per call comes out to be $360.
The Council may choose to consider alternative cost recovery methodologies that seek
to recover true costs for more complex calls for service that require an inordinate
amount of City resources. Such an approach should be reserved only for those cases
where multiple city resources, and in some cases, regional resources, are utilized for a
protracted period of time. Examples of the types of calls that could fit this particular
threshold would be the dismantling of a drug lab within a guest room or large parties
that grow violent in which substantial resources are required to quell such a
disturbance.
ALTERNATIVES CONSIDERED:
The City Council can choose not to further explore imposition of this ordinance at this
time. The Council may also direct staff to create an alternative call for service threshold
and/or cost recovery methodology.
FISCAL REVIEW:
The City will incur costs for any appellate proceedings that are lost. Independent
Hearing Officers currently charge the City $100 per hour for Code Enforcement appeals.
Property owners will bear responsibility for payment of administrative costs for appeals
in which they do not prevail. Staff expects costs to enact this ordinance to be minimal,
as revenues will likely offset expenses.
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LEGAL REVIEW:
The City Attorney has reviewed this report and has made the requested changes to the
draft ordinance for further consideration based on Council direction.
CONCLUSION:
Adoption of an Excessive Use of Resources ordinance would allow the City to identify
certain properties for repeating nuisance activities and hold them accountable through
police service fines.
RICHARD FRANCIS THOMAS GAZSI
Assistant Chief Executive Officer Chief of Police
THOMAS DUARTE
City Attorney
ATTACHMENTS: 1 Proposed Excessive Use of Resources Ordinance
2 Proposed Excessive Use of Resources Ordinance — Redlined
Version
3 Call Allotment Analysis for Lodging Establishments
4 Recap of December 18, 2013 Meeting with Lodging
Establishment Owners/Managers
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�. Costa Mesa Police Department
Calls For Service by Address for Calendar Year 2012
January 6, 2014
Process:
Using BI Web, a report was run in CAD for the calendar year 2012.
A total of 96892 CFS were documented as being received.
CFS were sorted by address and then sub -totaled to provide the number of CFS to each location.
A threshold of 50 or more CFS to a location was used as a baseline for inclusion in this report.
Of those included, there were 45 locations where more than 200 CFS were logged
It should be noted:
Included in, but removed from, the top 45 were:
99 Fair Drive (PD Headquarters) = 3700 CFS
79 Fair Drive (Communications) = 1126 CFS
And a few Apartment Complexes are defined by more than a single street address
Of those combined, the following complexes fell into the 200 or more CFS category:
Pinebrook Villas (1555 and 2775 Mesa Verde Dr E)
The Enclave (400 to 450 Enclave Cir)
Villa Sienna (1250 Adams and 2885 Fairview Rd)
3333 BRISTOL ST (SCPL)
EW�570 W 18TH ST (Lions Park) _
2300 HARBOR BLVD (Harbor Center) _
1555 E MESA VERDE DR (Pinebrook Village) _
2775 E MESA VERDE DR (Pinebrook Village) _
2277 HARBOR BLVD (Motor Inn) _
1835 NEWPORT BLVD (Courtyards)
2855 PINECREEK DR (Villa Martinique) _
360 W WILSON ST (Wilson Park) _
2701 FAIRVIEW RD (OCC) _
2200 HARBOR BLVD (K -Mart Center)
2501 PLACENTIA AV (Estancia Park) _
1250 ADAMS AV (Villa Sienna) _
2885 FAIRVIEW RD (Villa Sienna) _
901 SOUTH COAST DR (Metro Point) _
3030 HARBOR BLVD (Costa Mesa Square) _
360 OGLE ST (Pinkley Park) _
1441 GISLER AV (Motel 6) _
2700 PETERSON PL (Harbor Greens) _
3143 BEAR ST (Shiffer Park) _
970 ARLINGTON DR (Tewinkle Park) _
3400 AV OF THE ARTS (The Lakes) _
257 E 16TH ST (Heller Park) _
3333 BEAR ST (Plaza West) _
3400 SMALLEY RD (Smalley Park) _
1870 HARBOR BLVD (The Triangle) _
2602 NEWPORT BLVD (Arco/Jack in the Box) _
2205 HARBOR BLVD (New Harbor Inn) _
2180 HARBOR BLVD (Albertsons Center) _
1780 HUMMINGBIRD DR (Tanager Park) _
655 W BAKER ST (Oakwood Apts) _
1250 GISLER AV (Gisler Park) _
425 E 18TH ST (Harper Park) _
265 MONTE VISTA AV (MVHS)
900 ARLINGTON DR (Skate Park) _
1830 NEWPORT BLVD (Goat Hill Tavern) _
400-450 ENCLAVE CIR (The Enclave) _
2544 NEWPORT BLVD (Regecy Inn) _
2701 HARBOR BLVD (Mesa Verde Center) _
1855 PARK AV (Library) _
220 23RD ST (Lindbergh Park) _
970 ARBOR ST (Canyon Park) _
99 FAIR DR (Main Station) _
79 FAIR DR (Communications) _