Council Recap: City Moving Forward with Pacific Cove Plans

Pacific Cove Mobile Home Park, and that land it sits on, dominated Thursday night’s Capitola City Council meeting. But with a tax ballot measure to discuss, a presentation from Policy Chief Rudy Escalante on a new public notification system, Pacific Cove was just one of the items covered over the three hour meeting.

Here are the top five moments from Thursday’s proceedings:

1.  In a unanimous vote, the council directed city management to move forward with plans to turn Pacific Cove Mobile Home Park into a temporary parking lot, and expressed support for this to be one step in plans for a permanent parking structure in the current upper Pacific Cove parking lot.

After three parking lot plan options were presented it was clear lower Pacific Cove will be a parking lot, it was just a question of how big. After deliberation, the council approved directing city management to move forward with plans to develop the land to the full parking capacity of approximately 220 spaces.

The presented 220 space plan also calls for restroom upgrades, adding pay stations, lighting, landscaping, and shuttle service at projected $720,000 cost. While not accepting every provision in the plan, (councilmember Dennis Norton objected to that figure and asked for the budget to not exceed $500,000) Mayor Termini summed up what the council wanted city management to move forward in planning.

“In concept this council is for the most part from what I’ve heard: wants the maximum parking down there; we want it to be temporary; we want to go full steam ahead on the planning for the large parking structure; and we want to keep the price of the temporary parking as low as possible,” Termini said.

2. Before the debate on Pacific Mobile Home Park’s future, the council announced a two week extension to reach a settlement with park residents. Some of those residents, and Bruce Stanton a lawyer representing some of the mobile home owners, addressed the council and expressed concerns over the buyouts offered.

“My clients are in a position where they cannot afford to leave without being paid comparable in place value for their homes. They won’t leave until they’re paid value,” Stanton said.

Park resident Ann Schroedel asked for an offer closer to the current market value and not the $7,300 she has been offered for her remodeled doublewide mobile home.

“None of us should suffer financially because of an underground pipe failing,” said Schroedel.

3. Policy Chief Rudy Escalante gave a presentation on Nixle, an electronic messaging system used to quickly provide information to the public. The free system sends text or email alerts to subscribers and the Capitola Police Department has recently used it for everything from the recent shark citing to traffic alerts. With more serious issues such as missing persons or criminal suspects, a picture can be attached to the message as well. Almost 400 people subscribe to the Capitola Police’s alerts. To subscribe via text message, users can just text the Capitola zip code, 95010, to 888777.

“It’s a great opportunity for people to get information from us,” Escalante said.

4. In a 3-2 vote, the council approved placing an increase in the hotel tax on the November ballot. The measure raises the current tax from 10 to 11 percent. Council members Harlan and Storey voted against placing the measure on the ballot and both stated concerns that as one of six tax measures on the ballot, it could potentially harm the passage of other, more significant tax measures such as an increase in the city sales tax.

5.  Stephanie Kirby was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Capitola Historical Museum Board.