City Council Discusses Police Services, Retirement Stabilization

The Half Moon Bay City Council met Tuesday to be updated on the policing of Half Moon Bay, discuss elements of the Half Moon Bay Municipal Code and establish city funds.

Former Interim Police Chief Lee Violett updated the council on the current state of transition on police services of Half Moon Bay since the San Mateo Sheriff’s Office took charge at midnight on June 11.

“There’s really not a lot to report, which I guess is good news,” Violett said.   

The former interim police chief said the transition is going along smoothly and commented that the orientation training for the new officers went well.

“The current focus is working out a lot of real minor operational details,” he said.

Councilmember John Muller asked Violett to give a reminder to the community that the substation is still manned by officers.

“It is a full service substation,” Violett said. “With the shared service configuration some of those deputies are working out of a substation in Moss Beach substation, but the front office is open 40 hours a week.”

Councilmember Allan Alifano commented that he would like to see stricter enforcement of allotted parking hours, particularly along Main Street.

Violett said this will be addressed and that there will be at least 20 hours each week dedicated to parking enforcement.

The council heard a proposal to amend Chapter 10.36 of the Half Moon Bay Municipal Code entitled “Stopping, Standing and Parking—Certain Places and Purposes,” which will allow the city to enforce fees for parking.

“The city manager just reported on the Poplar Beach parking program, which I understand is the city’s first permit or paid parking program in its history,” said City Attorney Tony Condotti. “We determined that while the municipal code does express and authorize parking to be prohibited in certain areas, it does not express the parking to be regulated in such a way that enables, specifically, to charge a fee.”

The council was asked to update the code in accordance with the changing parking regulations.

The Council voted unanimously to approve the new chapter of the municipal code.

Within the presentation of Finance Compliance, Finance Manager Jan Cooke proposed the establishment of the Governmental Accounting Standards Board No. 54 and the development of a Retirement Stabilization Fund.

The GASB 54 classifies city funds into five classifications: nonspendable, restricted, committed, assigned and unassigned.

“The proposed changes are one that we reword our General Fund Reserve Policy and that is really to be more specific about how the reserves are restricted,” Cooke said. “The second is that we are asking to delegate authority for assigning fund balances on reserves into different categories so that we can really convey the intended use of those reserves.”

Cooke also spoke about the need to establish a Retirement Stabilization Fund.

“We’ve really talked about the background of this in our budget,” she said. “We see our CALPIRG and our liabilities for retirement increasing over time and we really want to adequately fund for these obligations.”

The amount for the fund is already budgeted so they do not change the city budget, Cooke said.

The council voted unanimously to approve fund balances to be in accordance with GASB 54 as well as the Retirement Stabilization Fund.

The next regularly scheduled Half Moon Bay City Council meeting on July 5 at the Ted Adcock Community Senior Center has been cancelled.