It’s a busy week at City Hall, with full Council meetings Monday and Tuesday and the Public Safety and Livable Neighborhoods Committee and the Active Transportation and Infrastructure Committee both meeting on Wednesday. Today, we'll cover the Council meetings. We'll post tomorrow about the committee meetings. For staff reports on the agenda items mentioned here, click on the agenda, then click on the item and find the staff report and supporting documents over on the right.

City Council — Monday, Jan. 27

You all remember that big vote we had in November 2018 on what to do with all that land in Mission Valley that is currently home to a stadium where a certain professional football team used to play, right? There were two proposals on the ballot, and the one that won was Measure G, which authorized the City of San Diego to sell 132 acres of land to San Diego State University, whose leaders envisioned a satellite campus, sports stadium, and other amenities collectively known as SDSU West.

Well, this week, San Diego reaches a big milestone in the development of SDSU West. The main attraction on the City Council’s agenda this afternoon is a draft Purchase and Sale Agreement (PSA) between the city and SDSU. Council members are being asked to discuss any changes that they might want to make to the PSA and direct the City Attorney to revise the PSA accordingly, and then authorize city staff to send the revised PSA to SDSU and negotiate any changes that SDSU desires. After that, city staff will return to the City Council with a final draft of the PSA.

Specifically, the project includes roughly 86 acres of parks, recreation, and open space, including a 34-acre River Park; about 1.6 million square feet of education, research, entrepreneurial, and technology program space; a 35,000-capacity stadium (and demolition of the existing stadium); roughly 4,600 homes and 400 hotel rooms; some 95,000 square feet of retail space; and improvements to the Green Line Stadium Trolley Station and accommodation of the planned Purple Line.

SDSU is offering a base purchase price of $86.2 million for the site. 

Here is SDSU’s updated offer letter, which includes new details surrounding the construction of a Fenton Parkway Bridge, among numerous issues.

And here is a memo from the City Attorney that frames the discussion that will take place at today’s Council meeting, including an attachment that lists unresolved issues on which additional Council direction is requested, highlighted by several questions on affordable housing at the site.

In a related item, the Council will consider retaining the law firm of Kane, Ballmer & Berkman for legal services on the city’s sale of the Mission Valley land. The contract won’t exceed $150,000 over a two-year period.

Monday’s meeting begins at 2 p.m. on the 12th floor of City Hall, 202 C St., Downtown. You may attend in person, watch it on Channel 24 on television (Cox and Time Warner), or stream it on CityTV. 

City Council — Tuesday, Jan. 28

There are three items slated for discussion on the Tuesday agenda, and the first two are informational items on City Auditor investigations into reports submitted to the city’s Waste, Fraud, and Abuse Hotline.

One investigation revealed that the City’s Environmental Services Department (ESD) was improperly providing free nonresidential trash collection services at the estimated 16,000 short-term rental properties that are occupied for less than a month at a time. Such properties do not qualify for free trash collection.

Under what’s known as the People’s Ordinance, with some minor exceptions, trash collection is provided free of charge to occupants of single-family homes, but not to those in multi-family homes or short-term rentals.

The City Auditor has provided a recommendation with three options: 1) stop providing free trash service to short-term rentals, or ask the City Council to submit an initiative to (2) repeal the People’s Ordinance, or (3) amend the People’s Ordinance to allow free trash collection at short-term rentals.

The second City Auditor investigation revealed sufficient evidence of improper handling of a multi-million-dollar cooperative procurement contract award. The deficiencies included a lack of due diligence when it comes to considering the services of alternative vendors, among other issues.

The Auditor made nine recommendations, mostly to shore up procurement rules and regulations.

Also on Tuesday, the Council will hear a status report on the city-owned building at 101 Ash St., Downtown. The building was closed on Jan. 16 after asbestos-containing material was discovered.

And finally, in a related issue, the Council will consider allowing the City Attorney’s office to retain the law firm Hugo Parker to provide legal services pertaining to asbestos issues in city-owned or -occupied buildings. The cost of the agreement would not exceed $150,000 over a two-year term.

Tuesday’s meeting begins at 10 a.m. on the 12th floor of City Hall, 202 C St., Downtown, breaks for closed session at around 11 a.m., then retuns from lunch break at 2 p.m. You may attend in person, watch it on Channel 24 on television (Cox and Time Warner), or stream it on CityTV.