Runoff projects planned for SM bay protection
By KATHLEEN BISHOP Special to the Daily Press
(Editor’s note: This is part of an ongoing series that tracks the city’s expenditures which appear on the upcoming Santa Monica City Council consent agenda. Consent agenda items are routinely passed by the City Council with little or no discussion from elected officials or the public. However, many of the items have been part of public discussion in the past).
CITY HALL — Elected officials are expected to spend $416,000 tonight, mostly to keep tabs on City Hall employees.
The bulk of spending — $361,000 — will pay for a contract with Kronos, Inc. to expand its automated timekeeping system to all city employees. The police department has used the system since 1998 and the solid waste division started using it at the beginning of the year.
The software is a time and attendance record keeper, and manages leaves of absences for staff.
The cost of software licenses, hardware and installation is estimated at $316,000. Maintenance for the first year will be about $45,000, with a maximum five percent annual increase for the next four years.
Another $50,000 will go toward continuing work on the Urban Runoff Management Plan with contracted consulting firm Brown and Caldwell. The dollar amount is the maximum allowable for Brown and Caldwell to put together a follow-up workshop about the plan. The plan is part of the city’s overall effort to treat, recycle and reuse urban runoff, and is just one element of many in the Santa Monica Sustainable City Program.
The workshop will take place in early January 2005 and include interested parties such as the city and county of Los Angeles, Santa Monica Bay Keeper, Heal the Bay and Santa Monica Bay Restoration. The purpose of the follow up would be to get support for regional solutions for urban runoff and increase Santa Monica’s chances to get funding to execute the plan.
Brown and Caldwell has worked with City Hall since November of 2002 to develop a plan that complies with 1987 amendments to the United States Clean Water Act.
The council is also likely to approve building an underground diversion from the storm drain at Ashland Avenue near Neilson Way.
The project will be funded by the Los Angeles County Flood Control District and will help meet the goals of Santa Monica’s Sustainable City Program.
If the proposal is approved, dry weather runoff from the storm drain at Ashland Avenue will flow through the sewer system, be treated at the Los Angeles Hyperion Treatment Plant and then discharged into Santa Monica Bay. The drain takes runoff from the Main Street business district.
The parking lot entrance at the end of Ashland Avenue will be under construction from April 2005 to July 2005. Neilson Way and the other two parking lot entrances will not be impacted by the project.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 23, 2004. Read the original PDF.