By Hector Gonzalez
Special to The Lookout

December 14, 2015 -- After putting off a decision at their last meeting due to an over-booked agenda and an unexpectedly high number of nominees to review, Santa Monica City Council members are again scheduled to appoint seven members to the new Santa Monica Pier Corporation Board.

At their regular meeting this Tuesday in City Hall Council Chambers, 1685 Main Street, which starts at 5:30 p.m., Council members will determine the new board's leadership for at least the next three years.

The scheduled vote comes just weeks before the governing terms of the interim board, called the Santa Monica Pier Corporation, are set to expire December 31.

That body was created as a result of a 2011 study commissioned by the City in cooperation with the former board, the Santa Monica Pier Restoration Corporation. The study recommended the City take a stronger role in managing the century-old pier, which the report deemed a valuable public asset.

Among its findings, the study determined that the Restoration Corporation, which originally was created to oversee the renovation of the pier after the devastating El Nino storms of 1983, needed to change its focus with the completion of the restoration in 1990.

The report recommended the City open an Office of Pier Management at the pier to better handle pier-related events, promotions and functions, which the office began doing in 2012.

But a separate entity, the Santa Monica Pier Corporation, was launched in March 2012 specifically to oversee event production and management, marketing, sponsorships, and to help the City with community outreach in matters involving the pier.

Today the Office of Pier Management (OPM) continues to provide on-site management of the pier's daily operations, including pier maintenance, maintaining facilities, capital improvements, policing and safety, planning and public outreach.

The office also works with the City's Housing and Economic Development Department overseeing leasing and licenses on the pier and the oversight of the pier's budget.

OPM also oversees contract services at the pier, including the iconic carousel, according to staff.

Meanwhile, the Pier Corporation's' seven-member board has focused on creating and promoting public events at the pier.

Members and staff have “increased both the number and range of events and activities,” while working to bring “diverse year-round programming,” staff said.

But the board always was meant to be an interim body, with the new appointed replacement member scheduled to begin working January 1.

Three of the new Pier Board members will be appointed to four-year terms, and four others will serve two-year terms “to allow for the future staggering of appointment cycles” and so that “in the future not all members’ terms would come up at the same time,” said staff.

Subsequent appointments would be for four years.

For the sake of continuity, members of the current Pier Corporation Board are requesting that the Council consider reappointing “at least five of the current members,” staff said.

Current board members are actively involved in the planning process for the Expo Light Rail due to arrive in Santa Monica by next spring, as well as the pier bridge replacement project, and could help in the transition to the new Pier Corporation Board, staff wrote in its report.