Editor’s note: This story is part of an ongoing series that tracks the city’s expenditures appearing on upcoming Santa Monica City Council consent agendas. Consent agenda items are routinely passed by the City Council with little or no discussion from elected officials or the public. However, many of the items have been part of public discussion in the past.
CITY HALL — $267,667,608.
The Santa Monica City Council is expected to approve an expenditure Tuesday night equal to 40 percent of the city’s 2011-12 budget to cover a host of projects funded through the city’s Redevelopment Agency.
The money is held in a designated account in the General Fund, established solely for funding redevelopment priority capital projects identified in August 2010.
That amount will cover a number of projects that promote safety and revitalization, like traffic signal synchronization, work to stabilize the Palisades Bluffs and the $11 million Pico Neighborhood Branch Library.
Affordable housing also takes a large chunk of the designated funds, totaling a $111,561,517 investment in low-income housing and the acquisition and rehabilitation of other housing throughout the city.
According to the staff report, the Redevelopment Agency prepaid some of the projects and a $38.7 million bond issued in May.
The massive expenditure, which has been approved in a variety of actions since August 2010, constitutes the vast majority of the $269,905,192 consent agenda, which includes another $2,237,584 in new contracts and agreements.
Green means go
Approximately one-third of the remaining expenditures will go to making stoplights smarter than the drivers that use them.
The $730,000 contract will cover the purchase and installation of 36 new traffic signal poles, 500 feet of new conduit and replace 22 traffic signal controller cabinets at various locations in the city.
C.T.&F. Inc. won the contract at a price below City Hall’s original $950,000 estimate. It beat out five other companies.
The upgrades to the system are part of a five-phase project that will allow city staff to control traffic signals from one location.
The new equipment will include a variety of advanced technologies to monitor traffic and ensure that it’s flowing as smoothly as possible.
There are nearly 200 controlled intersections in Santa Monica, and many of those lights and other equipment were installed over 50 years ago, according to the staff report.
Smooth ride
Two sections of Santa Monica streets will get a $421,327 overhaul if the City Council approves a contract for structural upgrades Tuesday.
The contract with Sully-Miller Contracting Co. would involve replacing existing pavement; repairing damaged curbs, driveways and sidewalks; replacement or upgrade of curb ramps; and other work like restriping on Robson Avenue between 17th and Dewey streets and Marine Street between 16th and 17th streets.
The two streets qualify for funding through the federal Transportation Equity Act, and federal funds will completely cover the cost.
There’s an app for that
Santa Monica’s capital improvement needs are numerous and complex, as evidenced by a $267 million transfer of redevelopment funds to pay for them.
To help manage that multiplicity of projects, City Hall will purchase a software package to organize and track the massive, multi-year capital projects and will create a centralized repository of project information and financial data.
That package, produced by PMWeb Hill will cost no more than $376,164 for the next five years. That amount includes a $259,164 initial cost and four years of support and maintenance ($115,000 total).
The upgrade will require approximately $47,000 for hardware improvements.
Housing the homeless
The City Council is expected to green-light a $234,000 grant for a local homeless services provider to increase the amount of permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless individuals with mental illnesses.
The grant will go to Step Up On Second, a Santa Monica-based nonprofit agency experienced in developing, owning and operating special needs housing for mentally ill homeless.
Grant dollars will help with this by paying for a grant writer and housing assistant. It will also cover a portion of the staff cost for a housing development and acquisitions director, assistant controller and chief executive officer.
Those positions will seek grants for housing development, provide property management, and research, acquire and develop properties suitable to the task.
Step Up On Second was the only applicant for the grant, which is meant to enhance the capacity of local nonprofits in creating permanent supportive housing.
People identified in a database of vulnerable, chronically homeless individuals will be targeted for the housing, which will provide them medical care, case management, psychiatric care, vocational training and meal assistance.
Play ball!
Multi-use tennis and basketball courts at Los Amigos Park will get a new lease on life if the City Council approves $200,420 to rehabilitate them.
The money would pay for new concrete slabs and repair drainage behind existing retaining walls.
TrueLine Construction Co. won the contract out of five bidders.
Airport improvements
A California-based company will likely get a contract to design capital improvements to the hotly-contested Santa Monica Airport.
Mead & Hunt won a contract to provide engineering design services for improvements to parking lots, access roads and aircraft tie-down areas, as well as pedestrian paths, slope improvements and sidewalks along Airport Avenue.
The contract is expected to cost $169,400.
That’s high quality H2O
In a continuing effort to clean Santa Monica’s water supply after years of contamination by local companies, the City Council will hire an outside firm to complete a preliminary analysis that will lead to the construction of a new water treatment facility.
Staff recommends WorleyParsons for the $106,273 contract. WorleyParsons provided services to City Hall relating to the methyl tert-butyl ether contamination of the Arcadia and Charnock basins.
That report became the basis for the newly-opened treatment facilities for those sites.
By contrast, the Olympic wells were impacted by VOCs, or volatile organic compounds, and need a treatment facility for the removal of those compounds under the terms of a settlement brokered by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Board.
Bringing in the bacon
City Hall expects to earn $656,134 from the state and county governments for parking spaces at the Civic Center structure.
The contract would cover five years with five, one-year options to extend, meant to provide flexibility for proposed Civic Center construction projects.
The spaces would be made available at $8.15 per day, 85 cents less than the maximum rate. Reserved spaces would cost three times that, $24.45, and would only be charged on work days.
ashley@www.smdp.com