Posted on 24 March 2016 by La Habra Journal
By Jay Seidel
La Habra Journal
The La Habra Heights Council will interview applicants for the Roads Committee being assembled.
After receiving 15 applications for the committee, the council had a lengthy discussion on the makeup of the committee. It was determined to have 11 members with four alternates. 
The council had previously approved a committee of 10-12 members, but all of the council members were pleased with the number of applicants of interested residents and discussed how to be inclusive. Councilmember Roy Francis said he was “very impressed with the applicants” and based on the applications that were submitted they “look like a good group to fix our roads now and in the future. It’s a great cross-section of the community,” he said. Mayor Kyle Miller suggested an interview in order to meet the individuals in person to get a sense of who they are. Councilmembers Brian Bergman and Michael Higgins agreed that a meeting would be the best route to determining the members of the committee. Mayor Pro Tem Jane Williams suggested eliminating the last three applications to keep the committee to a manageable number and wouldn’t need to schedule the special meeting. City Attorney John Brown pointed out that committees in other cities consist of about 11 people and that alternates have been used. The council scheduled a special meeting to interview the applicants for the Roads Committee for April 2 at 9 a.m. They plan to allot approximately 10 minutes per candidate. The decision was approved 4-1 with Francis being the dissenting vote. Miller said that he didn’t want to discourage people who wanted to help the community and was glad that they could get going on the process of setting up the committee. He had suggested that the committee initially set goals to discuss best practices for outreach to the community. He suggested that outreach efforts could include newsletters, community meetings or even phone banking. He said that it will be important to reach out and inform as many residents as possible. He then said the committee’s second goal would be to read and analyze the pavement management plan. Higgins agreed and said that they need to evaluate it. Higgins also pointed out that many other cities had standing maintenance schedules of when roads would be repaired, resurfaced and worked on. “This way residents know what’s happening on their street,” Higgins said, and added that having a standing schedule could benefit the city, “so that we don’t have to go through this every five years.”
The committee will be established and approved at the city council meeting in April.