City Manager Tom Hatch presented accounting supervisor Christine Tsao with the September City Manager Leadership Award at this month’s Meet and Greet on Thursday Sept. 28.

“Christine is a part of our top-notch Finance team that continues to earn awards for excellence in budgeting and just recently helped us bring our Standard & Poor’s ratings to Triple A status,” City Manager Hatch said. “I truly appreciate the leadership and dedication that Christine brings to her job each and every day.”

As Accounting Supervisor, Tsao is in charge of year-end closing and assists in the annual financial audit and CAFR preparation. She also oversees accounts payable and payroll and serves as the backup payroll coordinator when necessary.

She is universally described by her co-workers as always positive, gracious, responsive and willing to help. She has been especially helpful in assisting the interim assistant finance director. She works very hard and is efficient, prompt and accurate.

In her service to the City, Tsao has been responsible for various accounting assignments, including reconciling the City’s monthly bank accounts, accounting for the City’s capital assets, filing the quarterly federal grant claim report, and preparing journal entries for accounting transactions into the general ledger. She was also very involved in the Successor Agency dissolution accounting process in 2012.

Tsao joined the City of Costa Mesa in 2001 and worked as an accountant for six years and was promoted to Accounting Supervisor in 2007.

Prior to joining the City, Tsao worked for two years at Arthur Andersen, one of the world’s largest accounting firms at the time, as an accounting information system auditor. Then she joined another regional CPA firm, specializing in Governmental Accounting services.

As a lead auditor, Tsao conducted financial audits in many different cities and special districts in southern California before she took her first government job as an accountant in the city of San Clemente.

Tsao received her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, majoring in accounting, from Eastern Michigan University in 1992. She continued studying and earned her master’s degree in Management Science Information Systems from Cal State Fullerton in 1995. She also has been a Certificated Public Accountant in the State of California since 2000.

In addition to Tsao, City Manager Hatch welcomed several new employees and congratuled others on promotions and one on her retirement.

Robert Matsuura joined the city as a Human Resources Technician, Jeffrey Tol is the new Building Technician II in Development Services, Lily Lorenzana is the new Management Analyst for IT and Ashley Avalos has been hired as a Recreation Leader II.

Hatch recognized Kelly Dalton, Irina Gurovich  and Christina Oquendo, who were all promoted to Assistant Engineer and Cherie Pittington, who recently retired as  Senior Communications Supervisor after 31 years with the city.

The City of Costa Mesa received excellent financial news this week as its credit ratings with Standard & Poor’s jumped from AA to AA+, the highest possible rating issued by the financial services company for this type of financing.

The new improved ratings were issued in a report that came out today. This upgraded rating is the direct result of significant research by Standard & Poor’s during many meetings and discussions with Costa Mesa administrative and finance staff to analyze the city’s financial procedures and practices.

The high rating will allow the city to get the best rate possible for the sale of bonds that will be used to complete the Lions Park Projects.

“This is great news for the city and this AA+ rating assures the taxpayers of Costa Mesa that we will be able to complete the Lions Park projects with lower financing costs,” Mayor Katrina Foley said. “Congratulations to the current and former city councils, city staff and the Finance and Pension Advisory Committee for the prudent fiscal policies and management that helped us achieve this accomplishment.”

The Standard & Poor’s report also credited the effort to responsibly manage city reserves and debt. Indeed, Standard & Poor’s report cited several reasons for this top rating.

Click here to see the full report.

According to Standard & Poor’s, the following findings played into the rating being raised to the top level.

• Very strong economy, with access to a broad and diverse metropolitan statistical area (MSA);
• Very strong management, with strong financial policies and practices under our Financial Management Assessment (FMA) methodology;
• Strong budgetary performance, with operating surpluses in the general fund and at the total governmental fund level in fiscal 2016;
• Very strong budgetary flexibility, with an available fund balance in fiscal 2016 of 54% of operating expenditures;
• Very strong liquidity, with total government available cash at 81.8% of total governmental fund expenditures and 26.4x governmental debt service, and access to external liquidity we consider strong;
• Strong debt and contingent liability position, with debt service carrying charges at 3.1% of expenditures and net direct debt that is 21.9% of total governmental fund revenue, as well as low overall net debt at less than 3% of market value, but a large pension and other postemployment benefit (OPEB) obligation; and
• Strong institutional framework score.

Mesa Water District, which supplies water to 110,000 residents throughout Costa Mesa and parts of Newport Beach, invites the community to a free family-friendly festival at its headquarters in Costa Mesa. The “I ♥ Mesa Water” festival, to be held on Saturday, Sept. 23 from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m., will celebrate health, happiness, and community.

The festival will kick off with a ribbon-cutting ceremony to officially launch Mesa Water’s new water vending machine. After the ceremony, festival attendees will receive a reuseable water bottle (while supplies last) for a free fill-up of fresh drinking water from Mesa Water’s new water vending machine.

“With Mesa Water’s mission of satisfying our community’s water needs, we are dedicated to engaging with and serving all customers, while also contributing to our community members’ health and happiness,” said Mesa Water Board President Jim Atkinson. “Our new water vending machine is a convenient source of affordable, quality drinking water for our public to enjoy and stay hydrated.”

Alongside Mesa Water, eleven local nonprofits and community organizations will host a booth at the festival to provide activities and giveaways for attendees, while also sharing information about their resources that support health and happiness in the community. To date, participating partners include the following:

– City of Costa Mesa Parks and Community Services

– Melinda Hoag Smith Center for Healthy Living

– Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce

– MIKA Community Development Corporation

– Costa Mesa Family Resource Center

– Save Our Youth

– Share Our Selves

– Friends of the Costa Mesa Libraries

– Youth Employment Service

– Vanguard University Jesse Miranda Center for Hispanic Leadership

– Los Angeles Chargers

Taking place in the parking lot of Mesa Water’s headquarters in Costa Mesa, at 1965 Placentia Avenue, the festival will include live music by VOX DJs, healthy food, a “Chargers Quarterback Toss” for attendees to test their skills, a “Swift Kick Soccer Challenge” game, prizes, face painting, a bubble artist, caricature artist, and more!

This Monday will mark the 16th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of approximately 3,000 people, many of them first responders.

As in years past, the Costa Mesa Fire & Rescue and the Police Departments will join together in remembrance with other fire/rescue and law enforcement agencies throughout the region (and the country) in memory of those lives who were lost on that day in history.

“Sept. 11 is an important time for all of us to come together to reflect, honor, and pay a special tribute to our brothers and sisters in the uniformed services (343 – fallen members of FDNY, 23 fallen members of NYPD, and 37 fallen members of the Port Authority Police) and all of the innocent victims (2,574) who lost their lives on 9/11,” Fire Chief Dan Stefano said. “We will always remember.”

The Costa Mesa Fire & Rescue Department and the Costa Mesa Police Department will have personnel gathering at all of the city’s six fire stations and are extending an open invitation to city residents, community members, and visitors to join us from 8:30 a.m. – 9:15 a.m. for some shared time of reflection.

The gathering areas will be in front of each fire station and similar remembrance ceremonies will be conducted concurrently with all of the Orange County Fire Service Agencies participating.

Public Services recently announced the arrival of Jennifer Rosales as the city’s new Transportation Manager.

Rosales has over 20 years of experience in transportation engineering, transportation planning, project management, and transportation management. She most recently worked in the City of San Clemente where she managed the City’s traffic signal system, traffic calming program, transportation programs including seasonal trolley, and complex multi-modal transportation/civil engineering design and construction projects.

Rosales is recognized internationally as an industry leader in innovative street design and contextually complete streets. She is active speaking and publishing internationally with over 25 publications.

Rosales developed an award-winning, comprehensive practitioner’s guidebook called “Road Diet Handbook: Setting Trends for Livable Streets.” For her work on the Road Diet Handbook, she was named to the “2007 Trendsetters List” of Public Works magazine. Rosales received the Past Presidents’ Award for Merit in Transportation Engineering from the Institute of Transportation Engineers in 2007.

Rosales is a registered professional engineer, certified professional traffic operations engineer, and holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering from Oregon State University.

She is a leader in the transportation industry including Past International Director on the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Board of Direction from 2014-16, Past President of the ITE Western District, and Past Chair of ITE’s Standing Committee on Ethics Issues. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Transportation Professional Certification Board. Rosales enjoys spending time on the golf course, tennis court, the beach, bike trails and adventures with her dogs, Brooke and Velvet.