The City Council is back tomorrow for its regular meeting. Let's get to it.

If any of the items summarized here whet your appetite for more information, just click on the agenda, then click on the item that strikes your fancy and check out the links to the staff report and background material over on the right side of the page.

You still can't attend the meeting in person, but you can call in and give the Council a piece of your mind when the item you're interested in comes up. The American heroes at the City Clerk's office were kind enough to spell out some instructions for you.

City Council -- Tuesday, May 19

As per usual, Tuesday's meeting technically begins at 9 a.m., but that's just to hear any public comment on the closed session agenda. The Council will then meet behind closed doors and return to open session for the main event at 11 a.m.

Tuesday's agenda begins with 26 consent items that are considered noncontroversial and won't be discussed unless any are pulled for discussion by a Council member or someone from the general public. Feel free to peruse those items all on your own.

Six items comprise the discussion agenda. They are:

• Eviction moratorium: On March 25, the City Council passed a ban on evictions of residents or small businesses that are unable to pay rent as a result of the response to COVID-19. That moratorium is set to expire on May 31. On Tuesday, Council President Georgette Gómez, who spearheaded the ban, will ask her colleagues to extend it another month through June 30.


• HUD Programs and the CARES Act: The U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD) annually sends money to San Diego through four programs that improve disadvantaged communities, create affordable housing, and support people experiencing homelessness and people living with HIV/AIDS who need housing. The City has an exhaustive process for determining how this money will be used, and for the upcoming fiscal year that begins on July 1, that process had already played out. 

But then a pandemic happened, and, in March, Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, which allocated to the City of San Diego an additional $11.5 million for three of these HUD programs. This is a separate pot of CARES Act funding from the $248 million that the City is getting through the legislation to provide relief to local governments.

To make sure all the t's are crossed and all the i's are dotted, the Council must take 39 different actions (!) on Tuesday. The  staff report is jammed with information on all this.

• Childcare and the CARES Act: With approval from the City Council on Tuesday, the City will also take $5 million from its share of the CARES Act and use it to provide childcare vouchers for essential workers and other vulnerable folks. The City will enter into an agreement with YMCA Childcare Resource Service and Child Development Associates to administer the vouchers. The City's $5 million matches $5 million that the County of San Diego is chipping from its own share of CARES Act funding.


• Agreements with employee unions: Memoranda of understanding with two of the City's employee unions -- the Municipal Employees Association (MEA) and the Deputy City Attorneys Association (DCAA) -- are ready for the Council to sign. The MEA represents the City's white-collar workers. The DCAA represents -- you guessed it -- the City's deputy city attorneys. The negotiated agreements for the fiscal that begins on July 1 call for increases in a flexible benefits program and other non-financial adjustments, but no salary increases. 


• Legal services for the sale of the Mission Valley stadium site. We're nearing a major action point on the City's sale of the land that will become SDSU Mission Valley. The City Council previously entered into an agreement with Kane, Ballmer & Berkman to provide expert legal counsel to help with the negotiations, and the City Attorney is requesting additional $150,000, raising the cap on the contract to $400,000.


• Business improvement district budgets: Every year, the City collects money from businesses that are members of business improvement districts (BIDs) across San Diego. These dollars then fund activities and improvements that benefit those businesses. As part of that process, state law requires the City to approve BID budget reports. A series of actions to make this all happen occurs over two Council meetings. The first half of the process went down on April 21. The second half happens on Tuesday.

And that's that. Later in the week, the Audit and Budget Review committees will meet. We'll cover those meetings in a separate post. Have a fabulous week, y'all!

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