City to launch education campaign on infrastructure needs

Eron Ben-Yehuda

HUNTINGTON BEACH -- The time has come to educate residents about the need

-- and the hefty cost -- of repairing the city’s infrastructure, the City

Council decided Monday.

The council voted 6-0 (Councilman Ralph Bauer absent) to hire the Laguna

Hills-based public relations firm of Frank Wilson & Associates to help

convince the public to spend an estimated $1.3 billion over the next 20

years to fix everything from sewers and streets to sidewalks and storm

drains.

“It’s time to take our message to the public,” said Dick Harlow, chairman

of the volunteer advisory committee that is expected to make its final

recommendations to the council in April.

With the infrastructure problem so “massive” and expensive, committee

members worry that the the public may reject their recommendations, which

almost certainly will include issuing a bond paid for by taxes.

“Our goal in this is to explain some really very complex issues that have

taken us two years to uncover,” member Mary Urashima said.

Starting this month, the firm will begin a community outreach program

that includes taking telephone surveys of residents, holding focus group

sessions and sending out information through newspapers, magazines,

television and the Internet, according to a city memo dated Monday.

Out of concern that the firm’s fee of $200,000 may be excessive, the

council only approved half that much, with the balance paid only after

the council is satisfied with the initial work performed, a city memo

shows.