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12:00pm | This week's City Council meeting was a doozy, lasting almost five hours. Several big issues were brought to the dais, including a hotly contested issue of how best to fill vacant firefighter positions in the Fire Department (sorry, I could not resist the pun).
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Due to last year's budget cuts that canceled this year's Fire Department Academy class, the city could find itself with more than 50 empty firefighter positions by the end of the year. A full academy class, like that canceled, typically provides about 24 firefighters for the department at a cost of about $1.7 million. Well, since we didn't have that money last year, the solution this year is to try to fund a smaller academy class to provide up to 10 firefighters at a cost of $400,000--about 50 percent less per head than a normal academy class.
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Now it is great that we are trying to keep our ranks filled, but I have a simple logical observation about the proposal: If we didn't have $1.7 million last year and we are going to be in worse budget shape this year, where is the $400,000 going to come from? Why was this even brought up?
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During the discussion, the city's Civil Service Department told the City Council that time is running out to prepare for not only for the smaller academy but also for the planned full academy set for 2011. The reason--the department said that the only place that can accommodate a one-day civil service test for the projected 5,000 applicants would be the Convention Center, which is only available on April 28.
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I won't even bother to comment. Mayor Foster did it for me.
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"That sounds so bureaucratic I can't believe it," Foster told Civil Service Director Mario Beas. "I just cannot believe that we're limited to that. With the technology we have and the kind of facilities that we have in this city, I believe that is the tail wagging the dog."
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In the end, the council voted to abandon the idea of the smaller academy and discuss next year's full academy at a later date.
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As a side note, and I say this with no knowledge about the intricacies of recruiting for public safety, but why on earth do you need 5,000 applicants to fill a total of 34 academy slots?
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And, in my effort to be helpful, here is a crazy idea: Instead of paying $1.7 million for a total of 24 academy cadets, why not take out a $1,000 ad in Firefighter Monthly (or whatever fire folk read) and offer already trained and employed firefighters with other cities a $20,000 bonus to sign for, say, a minimum of five years with Long Beach. That would only cost $1 million to fill all the projected 50 slots at once (and if a $20,000 cash bonus is not enough to lure someone to Long Beach from another fire department, then we have some other more serious problems that need to be addressed first). Heck, you could even save the cost of the $1,000 ad by printing up some flyers and just posting them at other cities� fire stations.
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My silly ideas aside, I did want to pull out a few of the smaller agenda items that came up at the council meeting and that went by so fast they took no more than a collective ten minutes to read, discuss and pass unanimously.
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First, fearless readers of this column might remember a few weeks ago when your intrepid writer talked about a certain pub in Naples.
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This pub, located among a stretch of Second Street that includes a handful of drinking establishments, wanted to upgrade from a beer and wine license to a full bar license. Despite the fact that state agency in charge of liquor licenses had never found any violation at the establishment,�that the police had not had a single complaint about the establishment, and that even the Councilmember for the area didn't think the establishment was any kind of a problem--the city refused the request. Not only refused it, but actually recommended to the state that the requested license not be granted. Why? Because a handful of Naples residents came to the podium and said that they thought that the establishment MIGHT be a problem once the pub had the full liquor license. 
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This week, the Council was asked to look at a similar request--this time by The Pike bar on Fourth Street.

The Pike, which I happen to like, wanted to get permission from the city to have live entertainment--a permit they held until a business reorganization last year. Unlike the pub in Naples, The Pike is literally surrounded by residential apartments. And anyone who has been to The Pike on a busy night--which is often--knows that there is often a large group of people outside and that there is zero parking available if you are not one of the lucky few to get a spot in the bar's small lot. With no other bars close by, it is also obvious that any late night bar-related problems in the adjoining neighborhood--like litter, public urination, or worse--can only logically be blamed on those visiting The Pike.
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Despite a letter from a certified health department official who lives near The Pike testifying to the types of problems nearby residents experience--some of which require a water/bleach solution to clean according to her letter--the Council approved The Pike's request.
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The major difference between the two situations--in one you had irritated wealthy homeowners complaining and in the other you had annoyed apartment residents. It is clear by the outcomes which of the two groups gets the ear of City Councilmembers.
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The second item I thought was of interest requires you to think back to those days of Reaganomics, big hair, and bad synth-pop.
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Ah, the 1980s.
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Do you also remember the horror stories of government contracting that led to $465 hammers and $640 toilet seats?
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What if I told you the government was right now spending more than $300,000 a year to maintain a 17-year-old computer system that the life and limb of the citizenry depends on every day. What if I told you that by design the only people that can maintain the computer system are the same people that manufactured it and that in addition to the city's original purchase costs for the system this firm still rakes in the annual $300,000 maintenance contract?
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Sadly, this is not a hypothetical situation.
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Back in 1993 the Long Beach City Council approved a contract with a Pleasanton-based technology firm known as Tiburon, Inc. for what is called Computer-Aided Dispatch/Records Management Systems, or CAD/RMS, software.
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The software system is used by the city's public safety personnel for such things as dispatching police and fire calls, logging calls, storing and retrieving public safety-related files, etc.
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The Tiburon system, however, is proprietary, meaning that you can't have a guy from Bob's Computer Emporium come and work on it. Only Tiburon services the system.
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So for 21 times in the 17 years since, the City Council has had to approve an amendment to the original contract to allow Tiburon to perform maintenance and upgrades.
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While pre-2005 Council agendas are not readily available, since 2005 the city has paid out $2.4 million to keep the 17-year old system operating.
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On Tuesday, the City Council approved contract amendment number 22, allocating $333,000 for the Tiburon contract for this year.
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However, this time, I guess someone finally realized "Gee, we have been paying a lot for this thing."
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This time the City Council brought up the idea of going with another system and has asked staff to look into it.
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The thing that sent the Council into a tizzy this time as opposed to the previous 21 times--well, the original contract calls for a five percent increase each year in the maintenance contract and when City Hall balked this year pleading poverty, Tiburon refused to lower their price. It seems Tiburon has a simple policy of not discounting any local government contract.
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Here's my angle on this. Why on earth did it take 17 years and somewhere in the neighborhood of $4 million in annual maintenance costs for City Hall to decide, "Maybe we should find a cheaper alternative."
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I mean, in 1993 I was running Windows 3.1 on a 486DX-2 clone running at 33 MHz. Can anyone out there imagine trying to use any part of a 17-year-old computer system for anything--except maybe as something to smash with a $465 hammer or as something to flush past a $640 toilet seat?

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