Fountain Valley police to get 11.5% pay raise over 3 years

Fountain Valley police officers will receive a series of pay raises totaling 11.5% over the next three years under a package approved by the City Council on Tuesday.

Officers and sergeants will get raises of 4% this year, 4% next year and 3.5% the year after.

The previous base salary range was about $74,680 to $90,780 annually for an officer and $96,396 to $117,175 for a sergeant.

The council passed the pay packages on a 4-1 vote. Councilman Mark McCurdy voted no, calling the raises “a little too steep.”

“I do have some concerns about fiscal responsibility,” he said.

Fountain revival item postponed

The council held off on moving ahead with a potentially pricey refurbishment of the long-dry fountain outside City Hall in order to study more-detailed cost estimates.

The council was set to consider a roughly $63,000 contract with its landscape architecture partner for plans, specifications, estimates and construction support to repair the fountain, partially restore its flow and add an artful garden to portions where the water won’t bubble. But the full proposed project — which would turn on the water in the fountain section that contains the “City of Fountain Valley” sign and place plant life in the tiers closer to City Hall’s doors and on the ground nearby — could bring the total cost to about $420,000.

The city budget allocates $120,000 to repair the fountain. Anything more than that would need additional council approval and could come from undesignated reserves.

Councilwoman Cheryl Brothers wanted to break down the costs.

“The estimates alone have gotten, I think, fairly excessive,” she said. “What I would like to see us do, though, is to move forward with perhaps the fountain and water feature portion and eliminate all the other changes to the landscape, or to at least differentiate how that would impact the cost of the entire project. Is it the changing of the surrounding landscape that has driven the cost up this high, or is it actually converting the water feature?”

The council unanimously agreed to consider the item at a future meeting.

The city turned off and drained the fountain in 2015 to conserve water during the state’s long drought. The drought is now over and the city wants to revive its iconic fountain, which has fallen into disrepair.

The council also has the option to pursue a stripped-down version of the proposed redesign, restore the water feature but not the landscaping or leave the dormant fountain as-is.

hillary.davis@latimes.com

Twitter: @Daily_PilotHD