Wednesday, June 11, 2003 O'Neill criticized for post actions   By Jason Gewirtz, Staff writer LONG BEACH Mayor Beverly O'Neill was criticized Wednesday for not filling a key slot on the Redevelopment Agency Board and not providing earlier notice of her nominations to several city commissions. O'Neill announced her nominations to seats on seven city commissions on Tuesday. The City Council will consider those names for confirmation next week. O'Neill said Wednesday her list was released at the start of a City Council committee meeting on Tuesday because of last-minute adjustments in her nominee roster. That shift included a late shuffling in one nomination for Harbor Commission, the most coveted commission appointment available. On Wednesday, however, O'Neill was faced with more questions about a position she didn't appoint, rather than ones she did. While O'Neill announced names for four open seats on the Redevelopment Agency Board, another open seat to be filled by the Central Project Area Committee went unannounced. The central committee and its counterparts in west and north Long Beach are each intended to have a seat on the seven-member Redevelopment Agency Board. Project areas are redevelopment tools that divert property tax increases back to the areas from which they are collected to spur new construction. The Project Area Committees, or PACs, help oversee the distribution of those funds. In recent weeks, the PACs have become central players in a political debate as the city considers a plan to merge the areas into one. The Central PAC could stand to gain the most in the merger, as it currently receives less money from the tax scheme than its counterparts in the west and north. On Monday, the Redevelopment Agency voted to move forward with a plan to merge the PACs. The city's municipal code requires the PACs to nominate at least two people to the mayor to fill their seats on the Redevelopment Agency Board. O'Neill received two names Don Darnauer and Alan Burks from the Central PAC. O'Neill then asked the Central PAC to submit another name, saying she wanted at least three names from each committee. But the Central PAC later voted to stick with its two, who are founding members and past chairmen of the committee. "We had done everything that was required of us by our ordinance and our bylaws," said Andrew Kincaid, Central PAC chairman. Darnauer and Burks have each received rejection letters from O'Neill's office with regard to their commission nominations, Kincaid said. The Central PAC, he said, is concerned that its seat may now be filled by another agency, or by someone at large. "We feel quite distressed," he said. Technically, O'Neill is not required to fill the empty Redevelop ment Agency Board seat with a Central PAC member, City Attorney Bob Shannon said. The ordinance merely requires her to make a selection from among all nominees from all PACs. But O'Neill said she intends to select a Central PAC nominee to fill the empty seat. She said she is waiting for at least one more nominee from the group. Asked why her office sent rejection letters to Darnauer and Burks, O'Neill said it was a mistake. "It had nothing to do with the people," she said. "It had to do with the number." Process questioned The city has more than 30 advisory commissions, including several mandated by the City Charter. Commissioners are nominated by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council. O'Neill's announcement Tuesday was made to a three-member City Council committee, which forwarded the names to the full council. The council will vote whether to confirm the nominations on Tuesday. Councilwoman Tonia Reyes Uranga, one of the three members on that committee, said the council and the public should have received advanced notice of the mayor's list. Councilmembers received a list of potential nominees last weekend, but the final list wasn't presented until Tuesday, she said. "The process truly needs to be clarified and streamlined," Uranga said. "All the ambiguity needs to be taken out of it." Shannon, the city attorney, said that to the extent there is a final list of nominees, the state open meetings law requires the public to see the list at the same time the council sees it. "A technical reading of the Brown Act would require, in my opinion, the name to be released 72 hours before the meeting," he said. But on this selection process, he said, the mayor contacted him because she was not complete with the list. O'Neill said she was fine-tuning the list while at a U.S. Conference of Mayor's convention in Denver through Tuesday. As for her notification, she said the process used to provide less warning. Past mayors nominated commission members in the afternoon with the full council asked to approve the names that night. "It's not anything we hold in surprise," O'Neill said. " I hadn't gotten done with it until practically the last minute." Harbor switch Still, O'Neill's final list of nominees looked different than the earlier version the council received over the weekend, Uranga said. The biggest shift was in the Harbor Commission. O'Neill nominated former City Manager Jim Hankla and local attorney Mario Cordero to two spots on the harbor board on Tuesday. O'Neill said she had initially tapped Cordero for a spot on the Planning Commission and had picked Mike Walter, dean emeritus of Cal State Long Beach's College of Business Administration, for one of the Harbor Commission seats. Walter was also a finalist for a Harbor Commission post that O'Neill filled with former City Councilwoman Doris Topsy-Elvord in February. When O'Neill reached Walter Tuesday, he declined the post, citing health reasons. The nomination then went to Cordero. Cordero said he could not comment on the selection process because he was unaware of the circumstances. But he said the Harbor Commission had been his first choice when he applied to serve on a city commission. "I applied for the Harbor Commission and that was always my goal, my direction," he said. "I'm well qualified and I hope to prove it." The shift leaves one open slot on the Planning Commission, which O'Neill will have to fill.