Water questions for the Seal Beach city government

This post was originally published on this site

On June 12, I sent the following mail to Seal Beach Public Works Director Iris Lee:

“I won’t need an answer to this before close of business Monday, June 19, at the earliest. According to a Feb. 2, 2023, email from John Kennedy, executive director of Engineering/Local Resources of the Orange County Water District, the OCWD board increased the BPP for the remaining five months of FY22-23 to 96.2%.

“What is the BPP?

“What is the OCWD percentage of BPP for FY23-24?

“In your reply of that same date, you wrote: ‘If at all possible, we’ll need to go 100% well for the rest of the FY.’

“Did you mean an OCWD well or were you referring to a Seal Beach well?

“If a Seal Beach well, what is the current percentage for the Seal Beach well?”

As of Tuesday, June 20, I haven’t received the answers. I’ll let you know the answers as soon as possible after I receive them.

Summer concerts return

The annual summer concert series is set to start Wednesday, July 5, with a performance by L.A. Vation. According to the Seal Beach Chamber of Commerce Newsletter, L.A. Vation is a U2 tribute band.

The concerts will be held in Eisnehower Park from 6 to 4 p.m. The last concert will be held Wednesday, Aug. 9.

“Its important to note, belongings MAY NOT be left unattended before 4:00pm or they will be confiscated,” according to the Seal Beach Chamber website.

Patriots in the Park

organizer submits park rental application

Seal Beach Recreation Manager Tim Kelsey, in a Monday, June 19, email, confirmed that plans are underway for a second Patriots in the Park event. “The City has not received a special event application yet but the organizer has verbally indicated that they are intending to hold the event and has submitted a park rental application to reserve the space. We do not need to receive the Special Event Application until mid-August to complete our review,” Kelsey wrote.

The inaugural Patriots in the Park event was held in September 2022.

Always read the fine print

The proposed 2023-24 city budget included an appropriation of $12,800 for the publication of legal notices in the paper.

Mind you, not everyone in the news business is a fan of legal notices. I, however, find them an important source of information about what our city government is doing, when meetings will be held, and some of the issues that will be addressed during those meetings.

So I’m glad that the city expects to spend five-digits out of a $102,052,579 budget.

Some cities have taken steps to legally cast aside printed legal notices and instead post notices on bulletin boards.

That system works for people who are retired or who work night jobs, but it’s hardly a “transparent” government practice. Legal notices are a tool I would miss if I did not have them in my toolkit.

The legal notices are the first section of the paper I turn to every Thursday. (I’ve already seen the front page, many, many times before the paper rolls off the printing press.)

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