05-05-1975 - Regular Meeting - MinutesMINUTES OF THE ADJOURNED REGULAR MEETING OF THE CITY COUNCIL
CITY OF WEST COVINA, CALIFORNIA
IN
JOINT MEETING WITH
PLANNING COMMISSION
MAY 59 1975.
The adjourned regular meeting of the City Council called to order
at 7:32 P.M. by Mayor Ken Chappell.in the City Manager's Confer-
ence room at City Hall. The Pledge of Allegiance was led by the
Mayor.
ROLL CALL
Present: Mayor Chappell; Councilmen: Shearer, Miller,
Browne, Tice
Planning Commission: Vice -Chairman Bacon; Jordan, Christopher,
Kochis
Absent: Jackson
Others Present: George Aiassa, City Manager
Lela Preston, City Clerk
George Zimmerman, Public Service Director
Michael Miller, Planning Director
John Lippitt, City Engineer
Ray Diaz, Ass't. Planning Director
Ray Thurston, Ass't. Rec. & Pk. Director
JOINT MEETING ITEMS
FREEWAY LANDSCAPING John Lippitt, City Engineer, stated that
PRESENTATION BY Council did approve the landscaping agree-
CALTRANS ment providing for landscaping along the
walls outside of the freeway fence;
Mr. Dick Pryor, Senior Landscape Architect
of the Division of Highways will make the
presentation.
Dick Pryor: (Introduced Ed Bole Associate Project
Landscape Architect
(In summary)
Roughly we have two projects for the
community of West Covina. The first one is from Puente Avenue to
Azusa; second one is from Azusa to Via Verde; at a.cost of
$400,000 and $420,000 for landscaping purposes only. This will
include trees, shrubs and ground cover, automatic .irrigation system
and one year's plant establishment, which the contractor who is the
winning bidder will maintain. This work will include clearing and
grubbing and the installation of the irrigation system, planting of
plants and one year's plant establishment whereby the contractor
guarantees.all plant growth for the first year and guarantees
everything is in working condition as far as the irrigation system
goes and all,plants are living and growing a proportionate amount
during the first year of establishment.
We have some unique problems on this freeway.
It is one of the oldest freeways in District 7. It has been
widened numerous times, your City has grown along with the need
for the freeway; and therefore there is a very limited amount of.
right-of-way in which to plant outside the travelled right-of-way.
We have an agreement with your City whereby we will be planting
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Re: Freeway Landscaping
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outside the State's right—of—way fence along your frontage roads in
lieu of the asphalt paving originally called for in the construction
contract.
We have $89 000 with which to landscape these
minor areas throughout the City of West Covina. The $899000 will
. be used in the same manner as the $400,000 and $420,000 projects,
that is planting, irrigation and plant establishment work. The
contractor will have to maintain for the one year.period. At the
end of that period it will be turned over to the City for main—
tenance. We have had two meetings with your staff and members of
your staff have looked at these particular plans having had them
for about a week. (Displayed presentation type drawings of the
landscaping projects and explained in detail. Stated plants in
1 gallon containers will be used mainly because it is found they
do better in the long run than those of larger sizes, but will
intermix with plants in 5 and 10 gallon sizes. Detailed the type
of plants and trees and flowers to be used.)
(Commissioners and Councilmen asked questions regarding the upkeep
of plants, the -maintenance required, the life of the plants, etc.)
(Slides shown of projects in other areas depicting site immediatel
after planting, 9 months later, etc.) (.Open discussion followed.
Councilman Tice Mr. Zimmerman, after we take .over the main—
tenance will this be under a maintenance
contractor or under our own staff?
Mr. Zimmerman: The only part we will maintain is outside
of the fence along the frontage road; and
staff has discussed and through the Recreation
and Parks Department it will require two additional men. The State
maintains everything within their right—of—way.
(Councilman Tice suggested that some thought
be given to maintaining the areas without additional staff.)
SEISMIC & SAFETY CONSULTANT'S BRIEFING ON TECHNICAL REPORT:
ELEMENTS
Mr. Miller: You have all received copies of the Public
.Planning Director. Safety and Seismic Safety Elements report.
We did not send you the technical data and
if you desire we do have copies and we can
make this available to you. Basically.what we are here for tonight
is we have Joe Johns from Envicom Corporation, the cons6ltant from
Azusa, Covina, West Covina and Industry, to provide you with some
technical background and a brief overview of what he has in the
technical -area and then open it to Council and Commission to dis—
cuss the policy section and be able to tap his talents to ans.wer
any questions you may have in the technical end of things. The
real meat that I think the Commission and Council should zero in on
is pages 29 to 359 which is the Public Safety policies and imple.
mentation recommendations, along with various implementation modes,
education programs, emergency service programs and so on. There
are about seventeen recommendations on policy along with a page
and a half of implementions of same.
Joe Johns: (Stated he was the author of the report the
Council and Commissioners received; and
gave the names of those involved in the
Technical report.) (Two basic maps displayed, Plate I — Seismic
Hazards Map; Plate II — Fire and Flooding Map.)
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Re: Seismic & Safety Elemeots
(In Summary) Plate I - Page 10. The four
city study area we are concerned with basically consists of three
fault systems - the Sierra Madre Fault System,(the Duarte Fault
and the lower Duarte Fault -ire apart of the Sierra Madre Fault
. System) the Whittier Fault System and the San Andreas Fault System.
Of the three Fault Systems the Sierra Madre has the highest
potential in terms of causing damage and destruction to the West
Covina area; however, the San Andreas Fault has the highest
probability of occurence and that is considered eminent. It has
been 117 years since it has last moved and it is building up
approximately 211 per year. In 1857 this Fault System's last
move was approximately 8.5 in magnitude and moved 25 to 301.
A Fault on any of these Faults here will create a situation in
the immediate area similar to what occurred in San Fernando.
As you get further away the shock waves are dimmed through soil
and bedrock and we do not have as tense a fact as we would have
in the Azusa area. In the State Mandate we are to look at a lot
of different kinds of hazards.
In terms of flooding for this particular
study area we have two prime problems. One, in the Azusa area we
have the possibility and likelihood of surface rupture which is a
very severe problem. You do not have that problem in West Covina.
The reason you don't have that is because there.is no faulting in
this area capable of rupturing the surface. In Azusa we have
established a ban of a mile on either side of the fault in which
we are recommending the restriction on any development in this
area until suitable studies can be done to pinpoint the e*g et:
locations of the fault systems now. This may seem a little bit
strict but this is exactly what the State of California is doing
and we are consistent with what they are doing.
The second major seismic problem - page 2 -
is pointed up on.this circular chart which comes from the -Urban
Geology Master Plan for California. The largest figure in terms
of cost to the California taxpayer is earthquake shaking - a
21 billion dollar problem - and this estimate through the year
2000 does not take into account the loss of life or the inflation
we have had in the last few years. West Covina does have this
ground shaking problem, as do all the cities.
You will note Zones 1, 29 39 4 and S. West
Covina is in 4 and 5. This means Zone 1 will have ground shaking
much harder than in Zone 5. West Covina is in the two zones in
which the ground shaking is the least of the four cities. Most of
Zone 5 the Uniform Building Code pretty much covers construction
in that zone depending on the area you are in. (Explained)
Land Slide Potential: We have ranked this
according to slope instability. The stability of the bedrock
inverse so C-3 would be more unstable than C-2, or would have a
tendency to be more unstable and to have more land slides. In
the hillside areas there may be development/there is development
and what we wanted to point out is where in the hillside areas
the higher degree of land slides might occur so when you have
grading plans or development plans they can look at this map and
• see if they are likely going to encounter land slides or unstable
conditions.
Liquid Faction Zones: These are basically
in the area of the City of Industry, including the Puente Hills
Mall. This means if you have strong ground shaking such as would
occur from the Sierra Madre Fault shaking and the presence of
ground water less than 30' deep (which is thecase dawn there) then
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Re: Seismic & Safety Elements
the potential for liquid faction exists, which is simply'the loss
of bearing gravity on the soil. (Explained) Category C71 is the
lowest rating of slope instability. C-3 is the highest rating.
Pointed out areas C-3 and C-2. C-lis what we would like to have.
• Mr. Miller: If you will recall in the Conservation
Planning Director Element of the General Plan we called atten-
tion to the fact of the steep slopes and things
of this nature and this gives more credence to
the program and to try and keep the lot sizes big so you don't get
the heavy density and possibly restricting building in certain areas
to the point they cannot build because of the pretty steep slopes in
there. (Spoke of the circumstances recently involved in the
excavating of the Alpha Beta.) This will call to attention to staff
through our zoning and things of this nature that we better pay close
attention to what is going in here and also call to the attention of
the developer just in case he is going out to get a boiler plate
geological study.
Mr. Johns: We are looking at the land slide situation
from two standpoints. First is what the
geologic perimeter is that makes the bed rock
weak and point up.those areas. T;he City should be keyed so that if
a development is going in that removes 12 million cubic yards in
C-3 you can expect buttressin and sheer caves and all kinds of
problems. (Explained further}g The second thing is in terms of
ground shaking the C-2 and C-3 areas, especially in the wetter
parts of the year, are the areas where land slides will be triggered.,
Commissioner Bacon: You don't see any liability attached to the
City just by putting a report like this out?
(Answered: No.)
Councilman Browne:. How did you determine these factors - by core
drilling?
Mr. Johns: By using available maps, by doing aerial photo
work, by looking at geological work done and
information available.
Councilman Tice: Do you have access to the Cal -Tex Siismicgraph
information?
Mr. Johns: Yes, in fact we used quite a bit of that in
our computer programming on the earth shaking
model information in our technical report.
It was pointed out this also gives warning that if development comes
into that area we are going to want more intensive soil and geological
information than what -is required.
Commissioner Bacon:
In these areas it would be our job to see that
any loading would be avoided?
Mr. Johns:
Yes and number two would be to call attention
to this to any geologists working in this area
•
so they will be looking at this and be on their
toes. Like here we
have the potential for liquid faction and a soil
engineer coming in not
knowing that may just do a standard survey.
(Pointed out comparisons
in the potential land slide areas.)
Commissioner Kochis:
Page 32 of the recommendations recommend that
the City get a qualified Engineer/Geologist -
is that really something for a City the size
of West Covina?
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Re: Seismic & Safety Elements,
Mr. Johns: What we are trying to do is protect the City.
If the City requires that a geologist submit
a report in a C-3 zone when it comes in all we
want to do is allow Planning and Building &Safety the flexibility
• of obtaining a third consultant to review the report. We are not
saying you have to do this but we want to give you the flexibility
and the teeth to really do that.
Mr. Miller: If in a situation like C-2 or C-3 someone
comes in with a major development we may
want to get a separate opinion. What we
could do is hire the geologist at the expense of the developer.
Mr. Johns: Yes and the other thought you might keep in
to consideration in the Sierra Madre Fault
is if you have a major shopping center
going in pay attention to the technical report in terms of the
ground shaking because it does get up to about three times the
lateral forces of the building code. It may also mean that it
might pose a slight economic consideration on his development, so
he may change from a 6 story to a 3 story.
Plate II — the large letters with the bold
black lines are the Fire Hazard areas ranked in terms of Extreme,
High, Medium and Low. The Flood Inundation zones which are taken
directly from the Inundation Maps that are required t.o be made for
each dam and filed with the State, we have the PUddingstone Dam:,
the San Gabriel Dam, and there is also evidence that there are
other inundation areas here from the Santa Fe Dam which we will look
at and provide data on that. We asked for this information but
somebow it was not provided but we will give you a map on it.
This is flooding strictly from inundation. The critical area
that this report addresses is the first 60 minutes in the arrival
of water.
One of the primary decisions that needs to
be made is on Page 10, which is the decision on the level of risk
that the City is willing to accept. We have given recommendations
here on Page 10 with respect to the three flood systems we are
concerned with.and the occurrence interval of earthquakes that
would occur on those flood systems. We tried to stay within
reasonable limitations of what we decided it is in terms of
flooding, like your 100 year, 300 year or 500 year flood. On
the Whittier Fault we would not be looking at an 8.0 because it
occurs only about once every eight thousand years. So look at
Page 10 and Page 27 — the more often an earthquake occurs — like
every 50 or 25 years — the lower will be the magnitude except in
the case of the San Andreas. This is 8.50 all the way through.
We are recommending the 8.5 be the minimum design, no matter
what you are building here. Surprisingly enough the only time
that the San Andreas Fault overrides the zoning of Sierra Madre
is in Zone 5. So we really are not placing a real burden on the
City. That justshows you how much the Sierra Madre:is going to be
generating. What we are saying in this chart on Page 10 is that
we feel it is reasonable that you design your limited occupancy
• type of facilities to a lesser event because we really don't
need automated or warehouse facilities designed to a 7.5 earth—
quake that would occur in the Sierra Madre fault. But we certainly
would want our hospitals designed to that because they are the
very facilities that have to remain functioning not only during but
after the earthquake. (Explained further)
The normal occupancy would be in the range
of 100 to 200 years; this is in keeping with what we designed for
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in terms of homes along the Santa Ana River or other flood courses.
On Page 27 we have gone into more detail. and have included all of
the zones, and we have made some subjective judgments. This report
has been through review and is going through review now and you may
. not agree with all of these but this is our recommendations. It is
certainly open to question. What you classify under critical
facilities is entirely within your realm. This is just a list that
we recommend. You may not want radio stations or public buildings
in critical but under normal. Further, we have indicated whether
it is suitable, provisionally suitable or unsuitable or restricted
to place that land use in a Iparticular zone. We'have restricted
land use only in the area of inundation within the first 60 minutes
of dam failure placing critical facilities in that category such
as power plants, regional services headquarters and major
electrical facilities. All of the other ranges you can read and
discuss. On Page 12 it gives reasons why these are called critical
facilities and our justification for ranking is due to two reasons.
First, the potential effect on loss of life; second, facilities
required for community functioning. These again,staff, council and
the commission may wish to change. These are our recommendations.
Pages 29.through 35, these are the recommends-
tions and the implementation procedures which again we are
recommending to carry out a plan of public safety knowing what we
know now about the area. On Page 29 through 31 these recommenda-
tions primarily relate to Plate II aed their public safety
satisfies the safety element of your General Plan. On Pages 32 to
35 these recommendations are keyed to Plate I and they are meant.
to satisfy the Seismic Safety Element of the General Plan.
(Pointed out some of the Policy Recommendations that they had dis-
cussion on in other cities and explained their reasons and basis
for the recommendations made.)
Councilman Shearer: In terms of the impact to the City the 6
story building now under construction in
Eastland Center if we had adopted this could
it have been built as it is being built?
Mr. Johns: Office buildings are generally suitable.
If you are in the .3 area you should be con-
cerned but .22 - it is marginal. It could have been designed a
little stronger. And we'are finding out that in terms of design-
ing for a .13 -,.22 - the cost is very nominal. A fire station
recently built in Palm Springs had to design to .45 which is quite
high and it was a $300,000 station and the cost to bring it up to
.45 was $10,000. They had to go to a different type of re bar
or different size and they had to tie it differently. If the
structural engineer knows about it ahead of time he can make
compensations in his design - he can put in sheer walls instead
of glass and it normally wouldn't cost anymore..
Mr. Miller: I think having this information available,
and one of the requirements of the
Government Code is that you make this
information available to the public - we can charge them for it,
we don't have to give it to them but at least make them aware
• of the fact they are in a situation that they will have to pay
attention to this. Whenthey come in with their plans we will be
checking this again and make sure they get a second opinion if it
is needed to be sure they come out exactly as they are supposed to.
Mr. Johns: Item 4 - this calls for upon completion of
the seismic program that a building inspection
program be initiated in terms of taking a
look at structures in the City that you feel are questionable, or
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Re Seismic & Safety Elements
know for sure wouldn't meet modern earthquake standards. Some
judgment has to be used in the application of #4 and we recommenc
in the report on Page 21 - and we only concern ourselves with
buildings that have a ranking of 4, 5, or 7 -,we are not
• recommending that you start looking at single-family homes,
condominiums or that sort of thing, we are saying you should take
a look at your critical facilities - NOW. One of the things that
happened in San Fernando, a very simple oversight, let's say the
hospital had not been destroyed it still couldn't have done much
good because.all of the ambulances were parked under a structure
which fell and wiped out the entire fleet of ambulances.
Councilman Shearer: Is the inspection something the City under-
takes or the owner must do in complying
with certain things and who pays for it? Say it is Home Savings,
can we say you have to do it or do we put a sign up in front saying
this is .5 Dangerous in time of earthquake.
Mr. Johns: One of the responsibilities of any City is
to protect the citizens' welfare. In terms
of a bank building that has a lot of traffic
or an office structure that has 700 people in it, I think you could
certainly do more than just notify the owners. Two approaches are
being taken by cities that we know of. One, they are taking the
Seismic Element and notifying the owners of the ground accelerations
and the existing seismic conditions in their area and asking them
to have their building inspected and to issue to the City a letter
in either support that the building is okay, or the building needs
to be modified. The other approach is some cities are taking it
upon themselves in terms of their own Building/Safety Department
to cause to be inspected buildings, especially the critical
facilities and either retaining on the outside structural engineers
or have working relations with the County on a loan basis to use
their structural engineer to take a look at the buildings. What we
are specifying is the seismic conditions of the foundation of the
building and once the construction engineer knows that .he can look
at the recommendations for a particular building and have a very
good idea of how that building would fall in that type of a
situation. This is really what the State is trying to get people to
do. The State knows, it has been said by many scientists, that an
8.5 earthquake 20 miles north from here will cause the destruction
of 409000 buildings in L.A. They know that and.have known that
since 1933. They are now trying to put something.on the ordinance
books to do something about it. (Explained further, relating
things L.A. is now doing re inspections.)
Councilman Shearer: My second part of the question was once the
structural engineer determines there is a
1 certain risk what kind of teeth are being
applied? Because there we get into a very sensitive political
situation.
Mr. Johns: You specifically raisa the question of a
private building - I don't know of any case
where this particular element has come to
• court in terms of a private building but I think the critical
factor in terms of city action would betas to how many people work
in that building - what kind of a building is it? I don't think
you can force the owner of an existing building to upgrade his
building, although some cities are going to try and do this.
Some cities have sent this report, or similar reports, up to the
State and asked them to take a look at a school or hospital.
The City of Bell is actually putting the owners of the old four
and five story buildings on notice that their buildings are
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Re Seismic & Safety Elements
structurally inadequate and they are giving them 5 years to bring
up to code. At the and of 5 years I don't know what they are going
to do, whether they are going to change the use of the building,
• down zone the use of the building or what. I think the State is
really forcing this issue simply by the requirement of this
element.
Commissioner Kochis: This report is kind of a.loaded gun because
it looks like the City can get hung for
doing something and then for not doing
someti,.ing on a certain building. A lot of this hinges on the
fact that everything in here is gospel. Now What liability are
you willing to assume for what is in this report?
Mr. Johns: This is a General Plan element. The intent
of this is for the General Plan program.
We have used in compiling this the most
recent state of the ark work that is being done and has been done
to document why we assign a .22 ground acceleration to Zone 4A. I
would be the first to say it is an imperfect science. To show you
how inadequate our knowledge i3 the San Fernando earthquake
doubled our knowledge in terms of ground motion. Nevertheless,
our philosophy is good and we stated in the report that we have
gone ahead and done this work based upon the philosophy that we
are going to submit a General Plan element on what we know today
rather than waiting to know what we would like to know. Because
what happens if you talk to the scientists in the academic field
he never has enough information and this is something that planners
always have to cope with — if you ask someone what do you think of
this situation, what should we do here, the first thing we get is
— well we really don't have enough information.- We have gone ahead
and much of the information is subjective. Perhaps as much as
one—third of it.. It is interpretative type information based on
our experience and judgment. The people that prepared the report
are licensed by the State. I think we have presented a fair
interpretation of what can be expected here.
Mr. Miller: Granted it is going to have costs in the
future but the advertising here related to
the environmental impact is not going to
have a physical impact but more of a social and economic impact
and it is a General.Plan. It is red flagging those areas we can
have a problem with and green lighting those areas we will not
have problems with. The burden of proof will be upon the developer.
When he comes in with a plan it is going to be his obligation since
we know this in general terms and I agree with Mr. Johns — the
seismiclogical data we have now is inadequate — in fact some of
the professors I know are still waiting for information and will
be for 50 years. But the thing is we know the situation as best
we can know it now and it is up to the developer to come up with
the input to prove us wrong. I firmly believe you can have an
education program and say you let Queen of the Valley know that
they are in this situation, you better believe they will have an
engineering geologist go out and check that building because we
may be liable, we don't know, but you better believe that Queen
of the Valley is going to be liable if it is not a safe structure.
All we can do is bring the information to them and.for $10.00 or
$5.00 give them a copy of the report. I. think it is a matter of
getting .the information to the people and saying okay we have two
ways of doing it ei',her you do it yourself or we go into an
intensive program of inspecting every building that we feel is
structurally unsound. That is a costly thing for a City to do
and really the burden should be on the private sector to prove to
us that it is not structurally unsound.
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Mr. Diaz: The whole reason of this policy dis-
Ass't. Planning Dir., cussion is for the City to make a
choice as to what areas do we want to
concentrate it. Where do we want to
put the great preponderance of our physical resources to concen-
trate on. The policies we adopt may be very different from
Covina's or they may be the same; I am sure they will be very
different from those of the City of Industry or Azusa. In the
hazard zones the State requires specific studies which the City
of Azusa cannot afford and an individual developer himself on a
single development cannot afford.
(Open discussion followed)
Councilman Browne: You have done this same report for the
communities around us - have you not?
Mr. Johns: Yes, we skipped Irwindale and then we did,
eleven cities to Glendale, all as one
regional study which is the largest done in
the State tod<,.y. (Explained)
0
Councilman 9rowne: Will the State require us to -set policy based
upon this report? (Answered: Yes) How soon
after it is adopted?
Mr. Johns: At the time you adopt it,you are essentially
adopting policies. One of the things you
still have flexibility in even after adopting
is in terms of what type of structures do you
classify under the various categories - page 27. You still have
flexibility as on page 10 as to how to shift the categories with
respect to what earthquakes. Also you could say I don't want to go
300 to 500 years there,I only want to go 250 years and that would
lower the 7.5 to 6.0 and the 8.5 to some lesser number, which is a
lesser judgment. This is a reasonable judgment but we wanted to
get some kind of a logical spread here and these are in magnitude
jumps of 10 on the log scale. And secondly, the State of California
says that a 7.5 is possible on that fault system -.Sierra Madre.
So we really can't in good conscience go something less than 7.5.
There may be 8.5 there but the probability of that is point something.
(Explained further)
Mr. Miller: All the State is requiring is that you recog-
nize the problem and take steps to correct it.
There is no time limit.
Councilman Browne: How do you intend to approach it from your
staff angle?
Mr. Miller: From our standpoint I think .the Building
Department will address itself through their
building codes and bring alternative packages
back to Council for adoption or modification for new structures
based on this map, the charts on Page 27 and 10, as to what degree
the Council wants to deal with them. As far as Planning is concerned
• we are just going to.be paying far more attention to ground shaking
areas and things of this nature -and require more as part of the
environmental impact report. It is an informational tool for us to
use putting on.notice the public sector, and from the building
standpoint and public safety standpoint the Building Department
and the Police and Fire Departments have reviewed these matters and
will bring appropriate actions to Council for funding, ifrequired,
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or approval of an educational program or. whatever. This. Police, Fire,
Building & Safety., Engineering and Planning Departments have C:,Il
gone through these documents and much of it is geared to tha exist-
ing Civil Defense plan, there may be some modifications there.
• Some cities don't even have a Civil Defense plan. Basically it is
a matter of each department reviewing what they want to do and to
what degree they want to enforce it and bring it to Council for
approval.
In the hillsides we know we have steep slopes
and +:his puts us on notice. We also know now that we have some
geologic conditions in there that may not warrant going under one
acre of land and there may be some areas where 5 acres would be the
minimum.
(Further open discussion followed.)
Commissioner Kochis: How' did you arrive at the numbers for
Whittier and Sierra Madre?
Mr. Johns: Based upon our studies and the studies made
by others. Each fault system is separately
documented in the technical report. In terms
of Whittier there has been a lot of micro work done by various
people. (Explained) Primary consideration for the Sierra Madre
overrides the San Andreas and Whittier Faults for everything in
Zones 1 to 3, not zones 4 and 5. And then in zone 5 the Whittier
Fault in terms of.6.0 overrides the Sierra Madre.
(Councilman Tice pointed out that on Page 38, Item 39 the'Safety
Procedure, there was evidently a typographical error, the paragraph
was not complete.)
Mr. Johns: We would like to see this section retyped
correctly and handed out over the counter
as part of your educational program.
What we are calling for in -this report, and
this is one of the subtle recommendations, that is for the owners
of these dams to put on record a letter with this City that says
we have looked at this dam, zone 3 and 4b, and say yes or no-, that
the calculations on that dam will accommodate a .3 acceleration.
That is the onus we would like to place on the owners of those dams.
We have further stated in this report that Cal -Trans take a look at
their freeway crossings, etc. In terms of what would happen I
don't know but I c`an say that the Van Norman reservoir that almost
collapsed in terms of postmorten studies on that the dam had
failed when the calculations came out. It was a set of circum-
stances that were quite ironic that it hadn't and I:think it would
have been the greatest natural disaster in the United States. Most
people have no conception of how close we came to that. So what we
are really saying is we don't want that condition to happen.
It is not so serious down here because the ground accelerations
down here really aren't that bad. When we start talking about
Morris Dam then we really talk about a problem that should be
looked at and Sierra Madre is the same. (Discussed further,
pointing out other things called for in the report such as public
works, Southern Cal Gas Compan , Edison, etc., especially the life
line systems. Also railroads.
Mr. Miller: Mr. Mayor, we are going to be advertising for
the June 4th public `»a ring in front of the
Planning Commission and shortly thereafter
bringing it to Council so we can get on;with the redevelopment plans
on Eastland. In the 30 day rev,et,i period we can s i up briefing
�iZ
CITY COUNCIL, and Page Eleven
F'LAIrINING COMMISSION 5/5/75
Re Seismic & Safety Elembnts
sessions with individual Councilmen ,'get their concerns, and do the
s�mc Wi..th the Planning Commissioners. We have the Technical Report
but we have to reproduce copies of it, and the .final technical report
is being printed up now and the maps just received today will appear
• in the final report.
Commissioner Kochis: Something that would help me more than
anything else in trying to figure out how
.much of this we want to implement,
especially among the recommendations, especially D on Page 59, I
think we would all want to know what sort of an effort are we
talking .about when we talk about building inspections and
necessary corrective measures. What sort of an effort is envisioned
in this?
(Open discussion followed; it was poir:ted out that this would be
done at no cost to the city. Various methods were discussed.
The mayor then thanked Mr. Johns for his very enlightening report.)
WEST COVINA CITIZENS' Mr. Millar: Mr. Mayor and gentlemen, the
POLICY CONFERENCE Policy Conference is somewhat
GUIDELINES of a replay of 168. It is
not an ongoing thing where you have a Citizens'
Committee meeting more than once. All we are
after here is to try and 'get together with a Citizens' Committee,
review the existing goals we have for the City, the policies and
things of that nature and get suggestions. Owen Menard and
his Associate,.Ron Smothers, are present. What we are asking for
tonight is a Council blessing — so to speak — first of all to go
along with this proposed work schedule that calls for a selection
to form the Citizens' Committee and that the names be submitted
by the Councilmen, Planning Commission, and if Council agrees,
Department Heads. Ten names from each. We are aiming for about
two hundred names that we can'go through and pull together a
representative group along the guidelines attached in the report,
compiling a Committee of 75/100 people. In advance of the meeting
they will be supplied with a copy of the report; the Committee
will meet on a Saturday and discuss. We will then bring that
input along with the information staff and the consultant has
to a public hearing at the Planning Commission level to get an
adoption of goals and policies and then take to City Council for
adoption and then proceed with the updating of the General Plan..
(Mentioned areas that would be under discussion.)
We are trying to tie this down to the point
where we can get some citizen input and bring to the Planning
Commission and Council before we do hard line drawings. We need
to have the Commissioners and Councilmen, (and if you go along with
the idea — the Department Heads) submit ten names each, also a
subcommittee of Council, probably the Mayor and Mayor Protem, to
sit down with staff and go over the list the week of the 14th
and put together one hundred names, send out the invitations and
get the Council to ratify the Committee at their last meeting in
May. This is the direction we are going and we are looking for
input from Council tonight.
• Mayor Chappell What kind of background are these citizens
going to need? Or do we want them to have
a particular background?
(Mr. Miller advised the fourth page of the report has the criteria;
explained. Owen Menard then asked if he might add.a bit to that
answer.)
— 11 —
CITY COUNCIL Page Twelve
Re West Covina Citizens' Policy Conference Guidelines 5/5/75
Owen Lenard One of the things that we are not looking
Consultant for is resident experts on any particular
subject. We don't particularly want traffic
engineer's who might be with Cal -Trans or traffic engineering firms.
• We are basically looking for a very concise clear cross section,
that is why we indicated some of these general categories. We
have conducted this kind of process about 8 or 9 times in the
last 22 years, we have become rather convinced.that we are trying
to get new faces involved at City Hall. We think attendance at
Planning Commissions and Council meetings in going over the
minutes as to what those people are interested in local govern-
ment and how they feel about things has given us.some input,
but there is that very great field - the person that works
outside of town or the housewife and they all do have a great
deal to offer in the goal setting process. So we would hope you
will look at this list and say who do I know that is certainly
equipped to input for such a conference but not deeply involved
previously in this city government. Using this kind of
philosophy we have been successful in getting innovative thinking
and finding out a lot about a community that we didn't know,
and quite frankly that the City Staff and Councils didn't know.
So we are trying to tap that new resource of people that have not
been heard from before.
Motion by Councilman Tice to approve the guidelines as presented;
seconded by Councilman Browne.
(Discussion followed as to the screening
process and how it would be done. Names were to be submitted
with a small amount of information as to the person's profession -
housewife, secretary, lawyer, etc.)
Motion carried.
(Mayor Chappell advised that the Mayorand Mayor Pro tem would
be part of the Conference Committee.)
ADJOURNMENT Motion by Councilman Shearer to adjourn
meeting -at 10:07 P.M. to Friday, May 9,
1975 at 7:30 A.M. at the Holiday Inn.
Seconded by Councilman Tice and carried.
ATTEST:
CITY CLERK
APPROVED:
MAYOR
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