Members named to Infrastructure Planning Committee

Torus Tammer

HUNTINGTON BEACH -- The City Council unanimously appointed six members

from the city’s Infrastructure Advisory Committee to the newly formed

Infrastructure Planning Committee at its meeting Monday.

The planning committee, which was approved after the Aug. 7 council

meeting, ratified the appointments of Dick Harlow, Gerald Chapman, Mary

Urashima, Al Bell, George Mason and Art Rosen. The council also approved

the appointments of Chuck Bohle, vice chairman of the city’s finance

board, and Bob Riffenburgh, chairman of the city’s public works

commission, to round out the eight-member planning committee.

Chapman, who also serves as the advisory committee’s vice chairman,

said this is an evolutionary step to deal with the city’s infrastructure

problem.

“Hopefully, we’ll be able to educate the council as to why the

advisory committee made the recommendations they did,” Chapman said. “We

hope to encourage them to take the tours of the various infrastructure

components that we toured and hope that if they see them, they might

think that it’s more of a problem than they believed it to be.”

The advisory committee met Aug. 17 in response to Councilwoman Pam

Julien’s request to appoint six advisory committee members to the panel.

The advisory committee, which was formed about 1 1/2 years ago, studied the infrastructure and made recommendations, identifying the

possibility of problems, Councilman Dave Sullivan said.

“The infrastructure problem is the same everywhere,” Sullivan said.

“People just expect that their toilets are going to flush.”

Sullivan said the next step is in the hands of the planning committee,

which was created to inform the public of the magnitude of the

infrastructure problem. Sullivan said that one of the purposes of the

planning committee is to deal with this problem early and avoid having to

go to taxpayers for money.At a later date, two alternates will be named

to the committee to step in if needed.