City Council Seeks Advisors

Written by Estero Bay News

December 16, 2021

The City of Morro Bay is looking to fill several seats on citizen boards that advise the City Council with the deadline to apply set for early January.

The City needs four people to sit on its Oversight/Finance Advisory Committee, which oversees the City’s expenditures of its two special sales tax measures — Measure D and E-20, which total 1.5% and bringing in an estimated $3 million a year in a good economy.

“The Citizens Finance Committee, formerly the Citizens Oversight Committee,” reads the City’s advisory board webpage, “was established to review the semi-annual expense report of the City relative to activities funded with the additional general purpose local sales tax monies. The Committee is to present its findings and conclusions to the City Council for its review not later than Dec. 31 of each year.” It is also one of two boards along with the Public Works Advisory Board that reviews expenses for the Water Recycling Facility (WRF) project currently under construction.

The Finance Committee meets once a month in January, February, April, May, August, November and December at 3 p.m. on the third Tuesday of those months at the Veterans’ Memorial Building, 209 Surf St.

The City also needs two Harbor Advisory Board seats filled, but these represent specific stakeholders. The City needs a South Bay/Los Osos resident to represent that area, and a member at large.

“The Harbor Advisory Board reviews, advises, and makes recommendations to the City Council on items pertaining to use, control, promotion, and operation of vessels and watercraft within the harbor, docks, piers, slips, utilities, and publicly-owned harbor facilities and water commerce, navigation, or fishery in the Harbor,” according to the City’s website. “The Board also reviews and recommends rates, tolls, fees, or other payments to be made for use or operation of the Harbor. The Harbor Advisory Board makes reports and recommendations on these issues to other City Boards and Commissions on harbor-related matters and when requested, will review items referred to them by other City Boards, Commissions, or the City Council.”

The next year should be interesting for the HAB if a group of citizens’ petition drive is successful in getting an annual parcel tax on private property placed on the ballot, and intending to supplement the revenues of the Harbor Department, and pay for needed maintenance projects that have been piling up. It could be expected that some HAB members will be active in that effort.

The HAB meets at 5:30 p.m. the first Thursday of the month — except for January, April and July — at the Vet’s Hall. 

The City also has two seats open on the Recreation & Parks Commission. It’s main duty is to “Act in an advisory capacity to the City Council in all matters pertaining to parks and public recreation and to cooperate with other governmental agencies and civic groups in the advancement of sound recreation and parks planning and programming.”

Rec & Parks meets at 6 p.m. on the third Thursday of each odd-numbered month (January, March, May, July, September, November) at the Vet’s Hall.

The deadline to apply is 5 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 4 and City Council interviews will be held on Jan. 11. Applicants should plan on being present for the interviews, however, it should be noted that currently all of the City’s boards and commissions, as well as the City Council are still meeting online via Zoom, so applicants should plan on attending via computer. 

Also, these board meetings are all so-called “Brown Act” meetings, meaning they are open to the public and taped for broadcast online at slo-span.org, and on Charter Cable Ch. 20.

Get applications off the City Clerk’s webpage, at: www.morrobayca.gov/advisorybody, and email the city clerk at: cityclerk@morrobayca.gov for more information.

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