Welp, this crazy-bad year is half over. Let's hope the second half goes a little more smoothly, with a little less drama.

Hey, we can dream, can't we?!

In the meantime, let's talk about the last City Council meeting of the first half.

If you'd like more detail on anything summarized here, click the agenda, then click on the item. Over on the right side of the page, you'll see links to a staff report and other pieces of supporting material.

City Council -- Tuesday, June 30

Typically, we don't spend many keystrokes on the consent agenda, which is where the noncontroversial business that doesn't require discussion goes and gets voted on en masse. But there's a couple of pretty high-profile items on consent this week that could be pulled out for conversation, or at least some commentary.

One is the City's sale of land in Mission Valley to San Diego State University -- you know, where SDCCU Stadium sits (formerly Qualcomm Stadium, formerly Jack Murphy Stadium). This is the second required vote on two ordinances, one approving the purchase and sale agreement and one approving SDSU's affordable-housing plan for the site.

After this vote, Mayor Kevin Faulconer has to wait 30 days before he can sign the sale agreement. Then it goes into escrow, which, unless there are unforeseen hiccups, is expected to close by mid-August.

The other interesting consent item is a proposal by Council President Georgette Gómez to extend the City's moratorium on evictions of residents or small-business owners who can't make rent or lease payments due to COVID-19-related financial hardship. She would like to extend it through Sept. 30, 2020. The ban was initially passed in March and was set to expire on May 30. Before that could happen, the Council voted to extend it through June 30. 

Under the ordinance, landlords aren't allowed to boot residents or small businesses that can demonstrate in writing that their hardship is caused by the pandemic. As it currently stands, those who are being protected by the moratorium will have to pay any unpaid rent by late September. We'll see if that changes, too.

Speaking of which!

The highlight of the discussion agenda is a proposal by Councilmember Chris Ward to create a rent-relief program for residents who will struggle to pay back rent when the eviction ban ultimately expires. In the new budget that the Council adopted on June 8, $15.1 million of the $248 million that the City received through the federal CARES Act was set aside for rent-relief efforts. 

On Tuesday, the Council will be asked to approve a program to distribute that money to renters in need. Under the proposal, a maximum of $4,000 would be available to households living in market-rate units, have lost a significant amount of income due to COVID-19, and earned no more than 60 percent of the area median income or less before the pandemic ($69,300 for a family of four, somewhat less for smaller households). Those in rent-restricted units (affordable housing) would be eligible for a maximum of $2,000. Families with children or folks 62 years old or older would have priority. The program will be administered by the San Diego Housing Commission.

The Council will need to approve this item twice on Tuesday, once while serving as the Council and once while serving as the San Diego Housing Authority.

What else is up? Let's take a look:

• North Park Gateway: Ten years ago, San Diego, through the City's redevelopment agency, attempted to start the process of redeveloping the old Woolworth building at 3067 University Ave. in North Park by buying the property. The redevelopment agency then selected North Park Gateway as the development team to do the project. And then -- long story short -- redevelopment agencies in California went bye-bye, which really gummed up the revitalization of this property.

Things appear to be back on track. On Tuesday, the Council will be asked to take a series of steps that will facilitate a project to transform the old building into commercial and residential use. On the ground floor will be roughly 6,000 square feet of commercial / retail space, and on the second floor will be 10 apartments, including one that will be rent-restricted and priced as affordable for a household earning 65 percent of area median income. 

North Park Gateway is buying the property for $1.4 million from the Successor Agency (the entity that formed after redevelopment went away and was charged with winding down the redevelopment agency's land deals). The City will provide a forgivable loan of $100,000 to North Park Gateway to pay for public improvements not directly fronting the property. The proceeds of the sale will be divvied up among the taxing agencies that used to give up tax revenue in order to fund the old redevelopment process (the County, the City, the school district, and other special districts). The City will get about $231,000.

• Get It Done Development, Maintenance, and Support: Get It Done is a phone app (pictured at right) that allows residents to report problems like potholes, graffiti, downed trees, and broken streetlights and schedule appointments for things like passport services and hazardous-waste disposal. In all, 52 different types of services can be requested. The app receives more than 1,000 requests per day. On Tuesday, the Council will vote on whether to enter into a two-year contract (with three additional option years) with Deloitte Consulting for development, maintenance, and support services. The first two years of the contract cannot exceed $8.04 million. The total for the full five years could be worth up to nearly $20.5 million.

• Fiscal Year 2021 Appropriation Ordinance: This is the last step of the budget process for the fiscal year that begins on July 1. Pretty much a formality, it sets legal limits on the Mayor and the Chief Financial Officer regarding the expenditure of funds. There will be no deviation from the budget that was adopted by the Council on June 8.

• Fiscal Year 2021 Tax Appropriations Limit: The Tax Appropriations Limit -- otherwise known as the Gann Limit, named for conservative activist Paul Gann -- sets a ceiling for how much spending cities can budget from property, sales, transient occupancy, and other local taxes, and is based on population and inflation. On Tuesday, the City's Department of Finance will ask the Council to approve a Gann Limit of $3.78 billion.

• Mission Valley Impact Fee Study: This is a proposal to amend the existing fee that developers pay to the City in order to fund public-serving facilities in Mission Valley such as parks, fire stations, bike lanes, and whatnot. It's called a development impact fee (DIF), and the last time the DIF was amended for Mission Valley was in 2013. Since then, there's been a whole lot more residential development projected for the community, which means the DIF can be lowered, because the cost of these public services can be spread over more residential units.

Here's what's proposed:

Tuesday's meeting officially starts at 9 a.m., when the Council will listen to public comment on any items on the closed-session agenda. Then they'll retreat to closed session and return to open session at 11 a.m.

You know the drill: Thanks to the pandemic, only City staff and credentialed members of the press may attend in person. However, anyone can participate and make comments by dialing 619-541-6310 and entering the access code 877861 followed by # when the item you're interested in comes up (full call-in instructions). Watch the meeting on cable TV channel 24 or AT&T channel 99, or stream it online.

Next up will be a post on the regular weekly meeting of the full City Council, which will happen on Tuesday, July 7. Please have yourself a fantastic week.

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