Thank you.
» All right. So, Monica, um I'd like to
start the meeting. So, will you keep an
eye out for her and just let me know if
she gets on and then we'll stop and try
to do the rest of this.
Is that okay, Catherine?
>> Um I I had a question. I think you just
say what you're going to proceed and
then if if she's able to rejoin, go
through the script. So, that's Yes,
that's fine.
>> Okay.
All right, then. I would like to call
this meeting to order. So, we do roll
call.
» Coun- Yes, Councilmember Walter.
Present. Councilmember Hasko. Here. Vice
Mayor Hufty.
>> Here.
>> Mayor Taylor.
>> Present.
>> We have a quorum.
>> Thank you.
All right. So, we're still waiting for
Rebecca, but um we'll bring her in if if
she comes on board. Um so, then for
tonight, we don't have any presentations
or proclamations. We do have the town
manager report. So, Darcy.
>> Yes. Hello, Darcy Smith, Town Manager.
I have two quick slides to go over.
So,
first update,
planning and building. They've been
doing a lot of work. We have our
Planning and Building Director here,
Sarah, tonight.
So, I just want to point out some great
things that they've been doing to
improve service to our community.
Uh we now have a dedicated development
review technician at the front counter.
So, for customers that come in and need
service when we're open,
there's a development review technician
there. We formerly had an ad-
administrative assistant there.
Helped a lot.
Uh we're working hard on implementing
our digital permit software, OpenGov,
and also with that looking
at our permit processes and updating
those to be more streamlined and
efficient.
We are updating our
geographic information system or GIS
data for permit integration and we also
hope to have a public viewer online where folks
visit that website and look up all sorts
of information like that not just their
zoning and land use but other items
like their geologic stability and other
things that are important if they're
looking at buying or building on their
property.
Next, the housing element amendment
which was sent to HCD previously, we got
the comments back so they're working on
that and we will be bringing that update
to the town council soon. We just don't
have a date yet.
There's also ongoing housing element
implementation work which is partially
supported by our partners heart and hip
housing.
Um and there's information about what
they're doing on our website but we're
also launching
community engagement work.
Um their bread and butter which is their
ongoing reviews, permits and
coordination especially with the
Stanford Wedge project which if you're
driven by, there's more activity there.
The draft safety element, this is
exciting. In 2 weeks there'll be a joint
planning commission and town council
study session here at 5:30 p.m. and we
will be releasing the draft safety element
uh either late this week or early next
week so watch out for that. Um this is
exciting. And then last, there's a plan
planning commission and ASCC study
session on June 17th working on that
agenda but we're trying to engage those
groups more and bring them meaningful
content.
So, more exciting news. If you've been
outside today, you notice it's very
windy out there and we do have our local
rep from PG&E who will say a few words
tonight um cuz we have had some power
outages. I don't know of any today but
better not get one tonight during this
meeting. But today we had a tree go down
and it it's a one-way drive uh
Portola Green Circle. So they weren't
necessarily stuck, but it wasn't great.
But our public works staff responded
quickly, got out there and removed the
tree. And that's what we like to see and
the residents said they were
professional and friendly fast response.
So really great to see that with our
hard working public works team.
That's all I have.
>> Great. Thank you, Darcy.
All right, I'd like to open it up for
public comment or sorry, for oral
communications.
Um so
I'm sorry about that. No.
Is Rebecca back on?
Yeah, if you could just hold on just a
sec. Let's see if we can
get a hold of her.
» Uh Mayor, shall I go ahead and proceed?
All right. Um Council member Flynn, um
looks like you're back. Um so I just
wanted to go you go through a few
questions with you so we can confirm
that everything's working okay. Um can
you hear me?
>> Yes, I can.
>> Great. And um were you able to hear the
proceedings um
from the schoolhouse?
>> Yes, I was.
>> Great. And do you have a copy of the
agenda for tonight's meeting?
>> I do, yes.
>> And have you posted the agenda at the
location where you are?
>> Yes, I have.
>> And is the location reasonably
accessible to the public such that any
member of the public could participate
in this teleconference from your
location if he or she wished to do so?
>> Yes.
>> Is there any member of the public there
with you now?
>> No, there's not.
>> I know it's very early where you are. Um
great. Okay, so then I will just like to
remind the council um that all votes um
taken tonight uh need to be done by roll
call.
And with that um you can go ahead and
proceed with the meeting, Mayor. Thank
you.
>> Thank you, Catherine. All right, so
going back to oral communications,
please come to the podium.
>> Hi. Just a reminder you from the last
meeting, I'm Bob Bauer. I'm on the
school board in Portola Valley and
clerk. And I just came to thank our town
manager, Darcie, and Tony McFarland for
meeting with our superintendent, who may
be online. She's maybe going to try to
join. Uh
she met uh yesterday with uh with
Roberta and with our chief business
officer, and it was very collaborative
and positive meeting. And I just wanted
to express to you at the same time we
reached out to Midpeninsula Open Space
and
did not hear back. So, um that probably
won't surprise many people here.
But, we're very concerned. We have not
formed a formal subcommittee yet, but we
sort of intend to. And we sort of And we
very much like to work with the town,
because we think that that's a very
important coordination we can do for the
safety of the kids who are coming and
leaving school. So, I'm just here to
sort of bring you up to date and let you
know that we're moving forward to
have a great collaboration on this new
area. And And uh Amy Armsby, our
president, is the liaison to the town.
So, there is an easy way to reach out to
her or to me at any time on this issue
concerning the Hawthorne property
and the access. Thank you very much.
>> Thank you.
And Veronica, could you get a timer up
when people come up? Is there anybody
else in the schoolhouse that would like
to make oral communications? Please.
Betsy
Welcome, Betsy.
» Thank you very much. Um Betsy Morgan
Taylor. You may have received um my note
to you is posted this afternoon, but
because I think it's a very important uh
subject, I care to read it into the
record. Thanks.
The learnings at the town finance
committee meeting last Tuesday, May
19th, were very hard to hear.
The audits are significantly behind
schedule. The 22 2022-23
audit, already 6 months late, may be
done next month. But the 2023-24
and 24-25 audits that were to be done by
end of summer,
we were we were told are postponed
beyond fall.
We heard they'd likely become available
in 2027.
If there has been one
area where the town has been united and
in agreement for years, remedying the
town's financial reporting and deficits
were indisputably it.
The council's priority setting sessions
has consistently put it in first place,
and the residents expressed the same
sentiment
in surveys the town conducted.
Our financial priorities were to
complete the audit backlog, to make
I'm sorry. Sorry.
Uh
to make
to complete the backlog, to make the
town finances accessible to residents,
opening OpenGov to all,
and to address the town's shortfall of
money at the ballot box this November.
These issues are intertwined. The audit
schedule the town staff developed and to
which it had been committed recognized
the import of completing back audits
prior to asking for voter support for a
tax measure on the November ballot.
To further postpone the completion of
our audit backlog is to continue
repeating our past mistakes.
You all inherited this problem. And in
both volunteering your services and in
making finances your number one
priority, you adopted it as your legacy
responsibility.
With all that is riding on it, we need
to get the audits done before we vote.
Let the town actively choose to do what
we committed to do. It's protective of
our seriousness of purpose and our
credibility.
The problem does go beyond audits,
though. Town finances are not
transparent and haven't been since 2020.
They are open to the very few, none of
whom are sitting council members.
That translates to depriving the council
of the means to take your responsibility
your fiscal responsib-
as seriously as you could.
Please be a force to complete all
outstanding audits and to open open gov
in a time frame that contributes to
enhancing our November prospects.
Thank you very much.
>> Thank you.
Anybody else? Yeah, please come to the
podium.
Welcome.
» Honorable Mayor, Vice Mayor, City
Council members and staff, hello. I am
Marjorie Ruizi Valdero. I am your local
government affairs representative
serving all of San Mateo County and the
lovely hometown of Portola Valley. I
have come to you tonight to talk about
public safety. I will be coming back at
a later time in June to talk about EPSS
outages specifically, so we'll look
forward to that. But today I want to
talk to you about the Report It app. So,
as you know, PG&E has a robust safety
program. We monitor our lines with
drones, cameras, and as I know Portola
Valley knows, in-person patrols that
personally inspect those lines. But we
also have an invitation to the public.
We have something called the PG&E Report
It app. It is available for Android, for
the App Store. It's also available as a
web desktop version. And what it does is
it allows members of the public, and
I'll give you an example. Let's say
you're walking down the street and you
think you see a tree that's a bit too
close to a primary or a secondary line.
You can snap a picture, you can submit
it to the PG&E public safety team. And
what they do is they will reach out to
that customer or your constituent
directly and they'll let them know
what's happening, if we're concerned,
what the results are, what the
conclusion is, and if anybody else in
the area has reported that same issue.
Now, please hear me. I want to be very
clear.
This is not emergency response.
If you see a down power line, please
call 911. If you smell gas, please call
911. So, the PG&E Reported app is not a
replacement for emergency response.
It is simply another toolkit in our
safety toolkit in our robust safety
program that just allows members of the
public to reach the PG&E Public Safety
team directly and report anything that
they might be concerned with. It's just
another tool in the toolkit. So, it is
the PG&E Reported app. It's available
for Apple, for Android, for web desktop
version. It's incredibly easy to use.
You can pull it up on your phone now.
It's the first Google result type it in.
So, and it hopefully it's accessible for
everyone. If you have any questions,
please feel free to reach out. I've left
cards with Veronica. You can reach out
to me directly and I'm happy to answer
any of those questions, and I look
forward to seeing you later in June
where we will discuss EPSS.
>> Thank you, Marjorie.
Anybody else in the schoolhouse
or communications?
So, I see one hand online.
Rita, welcome.
>> Hi. Uh thank you for taking my comment.
Um my comment will be much shorter than
it usually is because Betsy said
everything that I'd like to say and what
I've been saying since 2020. So, I
really appreciate her words, but I I I
know uh the five of you, the four of you
on the dais and the others uh can only
do so much. But please, I I strongly
encourage that before
uh
extra money is put towards that ballot
in November that we have a a a different
type of approach in dealing with uh the
finances and the audits and that we
actually hire somebody uh I know that
our finance director is now doing
another job
and we do not technically have a
committed finance director and we need
it's a priority for all of these years
and we need somebody in that position. I
don't know if a position has been posted
or if um our current or the person that
was being our finance director has now
officially moved over into that other
job within the Portola Valley but um
we can do better and I I know it's a lot
of moving parts but uh somehow we we've
got to get control of this so that we
can have some form of
planning for our future in our beautiful
town.
Thank you for all that you're doing and
trying to do.
» Thank you, Rita.
Is there anybody else for oral
communications? I don't see anybody in
the schoolhouse.
Don't see anybody else online.
Um since since several people um spoke
on the finance issue, I would just add
at the finance committee that um our
finance director said that we will have
proformas and that our real bottleneck
here is the auditor. Um it's not our
town staff. So um I think we'll continue
to pursue this but you know, that's
the other piece that we heard at the
finance committee last week.
Okay, so I'm going to close oral
communications and move on to the
consent agenda.
So are there any consent agenda items?
>> Um I'd like to make a comment. I'm not
going to pull anything but I did want to
comment.
>> Okay.
>> So, why don't why don't you make your
comment?
>> Okay.
>> Um and then maybe I'll take public
comment and then we'll decide what we're
going to pull.
>> Okay. If um so, I just wanted to give an
update on the ADU sewer fees that I
heard about. Um they're two short uh
because we're dealing with the ADU. So,
um because and that deals with fees
around the ADUs for
um for permitting purposes.
Um the West Bay Sanitation District ha-
on May 13th, they they decided to roll
back the 5 years of retroactive
billing to 3 years of retroactive
billing,
um which they are allowed to do. It
should be noted that the CPU, which over
has oversight over private companies,
only allows 3 months of retroactive
billing.
So, um but for those folks who have
gotten West Bay Sanitary District bills,
um supposedly will be refunded for 2
years if you were billed for 2 year or
for 5 years.
Um secondly,
um local agencies may only charge water
and sewer connection fees for ADUs and
JADUs in circum- certain circumstances.
So, for example, fees may be charged for
ADUs that are 750 square feet or larger
and for JADUs that are 500 square feet
or larger.
Consistent with government code section
66311.
5C1,
any fees charged must also be
proportionate to those for the primary
dwelling based on square footage. And I
so, there has been some issues that they
are not doing the proportionate billing
at this point. So, I just wanted that to
be read into the record and for folks to
be aware of the situation with West Bay
Sanitary District. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Helen.
Rebecca, do you have a comment? Is that
what your hand's up?
>> No, I I I think the process is you have
to go to public comment first before we
pull things.
>> I'm already said I was going to do that,
but thank you.
All right, so with that first public
comment, are there any other public
comments in the room?
Okay, so I don't see any public comments
in the room.
And I don't see any online.
So I'll bring it back to the council.
Are there any consent agenda items that council member
wants to pull?
>> 6F
» I Hello, I'd like to pull
D and E, please.
» D and E. Are there any others?
>> No.
Okay.
All right. So with that, I would accept
a motion to approve A, B, C.
I think No, you wanted D pulled, sorry.
Yeah, so A, B, and C, is that
We're good on A, B, and C?
>> I move to approve A, B, and C.
>> Thank you.
>> Second.
>> I have a second. Roll call, please.
>> Council member Walter
>> Aye.
>> Council member Hasco
>> Aye.
>> Council member Flynn
>> Aye.
>> Vice Mayor Hefty
>> Aye.
>> Mayor Taylor
>> Aye.
>> Motion carries 5-0.
>> Thank you.
Okay.
So why don't we just do these in order,
so um
let's talk about D first.
» Um hang on, let me get my notes in front
of me.
Um
» So, I had questions about the um animal
control contract.
Um
So, it it keeps referencing a section
3.7, but there is no 3.7 in what was
provided to us. So,
it seems that 3.7 is the doc the portion
of the contract that actually details
how the calculation is made and how they
determine it.
Um
So, I I'm unclear on that.
Um
And then
So, and then I just I don't really
understand how the system works with
animal control. Um
What you know, which animals need to be
licensed? And then do people do
residents
come into Portola Valley staff to to
fill out some paperwork or do they have
to go to the county?
I'm unclear on that.
Um
I I'm just it's the costs are are a
little to me are pretty
astonishing astonishing to me. I mean,
for we're getting $40,000 worth of
services from
Peninsula Humane Society, I guess.
And I it just I I realize we had two
rabies since incidents and I assume some
lost pets showed up over there and they
had to take care of them.
But
I don't know. I mean, we when I look at
the the the list of um
the percentages, we we use 0.14% of
their services and because their
services are so expensive, we you know,
it ends up being a huge amount of a huge
dollar amount.
So, I'm just I I just am unclear on on
what exactly we're getting for for the
$40,000.
Okay.
Percy, do you want to speak to this?
Thank you.
>> Yes, I'm happy to speak to this and
actually have a presentation, but of
course, as luck would have it, I lost my
Zoom presentation.
Um my Zoom connection. So, first of all,
the reference to the amendment or sorry,
the current agreement, it is posted on
our website. So, it's about 147 pages.
We didn't include in the packet, but
in the staff report, there's a hyperlink
to it.
If that hyperlink doesn't work on our
town website, um
it's posted under
the website that's
included under community, the community
tab, and then community conversations
and interests. So, we have a section
there about animal control service and
barking dog dog issues, and so
members of the public can go there.
Um
but
the animal control agreement has with
the
um Peninsula Humane Society, also known
as PHS, has been in place for a long
time. I think it dates back to 1952.
It's one of the longest-running shared
contracts in the county, and all 20
cities contract.
Our perspective is that that provides a
great benefit of economies of scale, cuz
we have much lower costs than if each
city provided animal control. I can tell
you it probably be
like maybe 10 times the amount if we did
it ourselves,
because they have a robust staff. So,
they provide a lot of services. Um many
people just think of them as a shelter,
but in fact, they do a lot more.
Um
they respond to lots of calls for
service in our town. I think for example
in one month that they gave me data for
they had seven calls for service.
Um and the types of calls that they
respond to are very varied. They will
respond to cruelty investigations. They
will respond
dangerous animals and frankly we do have
a lot of off-leash dogs here and they
get called when an animal presents
itself as
um
being challenges that challenge they
will respond to sick, injured, or stray
animals and frankly we do get a lot of
those. We have a lot of animals here
that wander out into traffic or into
other people's yard. We also see a
pretty big amount of calls for dead
wildlife unfortunately.
Um but for example in in February they
had three calls for dead wildlife and
two sick or injured wildlife. So I think
given the amount of wildlife in our town
including raccoons, deer, birds,
you name it. You know, we did have the
dead bat on the playground and they were
very helpful for that. They also deal
with quarantining animals and I have had
uh members of the public report to me
that their dog bit someone and so that
dog had to be quarantined for oh,
unfortunately dog bites are a reality.
And in respect to the licensing, so they
do that. All dogs and cats are required
to be licensed as in part to ensure that
they're vaccinated
Um that is
done online. So that's administered
through Pet Data which was is also a
pretty big cost of theirs, but So that's
typically done in person or individuals
can go to their shelter in Burlingame or
a Samateo office. Other things that they
offer at low cost are things like
microchipping, vet care, um they have a
spay neuter clinic, they have a
vaccination clinic. Those are much lower
costs than if you went to a normal um
veterinarian.
Also they have a wildlife care center.
So they do education for that, but they
have a very elaborate wildlife care
center where they do rehabilitative care
for sick, injured, and orphaned native
wildlife. And for example, they came to
one of our music series and had a whole
booth about wildlife care. Um
So, that's a big part of it. But,
another thing, if we do have a dangerous
animal, they provide administrative
hearing process, and that is very
efficient. And again, if we were doing
this ourselves, including the fact that
they provide 24/7 response,
um
for animal control, it would be very
expensive. So, the staff recommendation
here is to approve this amend We think
it's very efficient. The cost this year,
our next fiscal year, is about $23,000.
And again, we think there's immense
economies of scale there.
>> Thank you, Darcy.
Is there any other discussion on this
topic?
>> Discussion.
>> I had one other question. Was about this
pet data?
I mean, it sounded like we're being
charged the the whole contract is
$219,000 a year for pet data. Can you
address why a
what would sound like an online pet
database is $219,000 a year?
>> Sure. Well, yeah, so that's
sounds simple, but my guess is, having
dealt with town software, that it's
more complicated than it sounds. And
also, what we've seen, I think our
finance director raised this, is that
most softwares are now
to subscription services, and they're
getting to be very expensive.
Um
So, that's the key.
>> I'm under the impression that's even
more than OpenGov. That what we're what
we're paying for OpenGov.
>> True. But,
>> pet database.
>> Keep in mind, they're providing service
to the entire county and all 20 cities
in the So, they may have
I don't I don't want to guess at how
many dogs and cats are in the county,
but a lot. This is a a high-volume
service.
» Okay, thank you.
>> Comments? Uh Um
Are you taking public comment?
>> did.
>> Okay, so we're done with that. That's
fine.
Now, um PHS is a pretty special resource
for the town and the county. I've
adopted from them. My husband's
volunteered for them.
Uh they do a lot and there's high value
and we are the lowest we're charged the
lowest amount. I'm very supportive of of
continuing this contract as proposed.
>> Thank you.
Any other discussion?
>> I also was a naysayer in before, but having been in
this job for a while now, I'm pretty
convinced this is really an important
service that we're provided by the county.
>> Okay, thank you.
All right, I would entertain a motion.
It's either going to be to approve or
deny.
>> A motion to approve item 60.
>> Do I have a second?
>> Second.
>> Thank you. Roll call, please.
>> Council member Walter.
>> Aye.
>> Council member Flynn.
>> Aye.
>> Council member Hasco.
>> Aye.
>> Vice Mayor Hufty.
>> Aye.
>> Mayor Taylor.
>> Aye.
>> Motion carries 5-0.
>> Thank you.
All right, moving on to 6E.
Becca, this is yours as well?
>> Okay, um I had a couple questions. I I
spent more time thinking about this and
since it was um pretty rushed
um
at the last meeting, there was just so
many things to deal with.
Um there were some stuff that just kind
of sped through and um
I had a couple of questions that come up
came up. Let me pull up that those notes
real quick. 80 units.
Um
so we had talked about the fact that the
code
us to require one parking space per ADU
and the concern that was brought back by
staff was that
if we allowed this that there was a
possibility that applicants would
take advantage of that and um do some
massive earthworks
that required ASCC approval
um
that normally would require ASCC
approval and they'd be able to get out
of it.
And we were told that somehow that was
just unreasonable and I'm just when I
think back through that concept I'm just
a little concerned that we couldn't just
write
um
into our code a sort of an exception
that says we require uh one parking lot
one parking space offsite
off street um
Sorry, my brain's a little slow this
morning. Um
that we require one that we require one
parking space off street
unless it required you know
so much earthwork that that that it fell
into Portola Valley's ASCC site uh
development requirements and if it did
then we didn't then in that case we
would not require the parking space
unless somebody and if somebody wanted
one they would have to go to the ASCC.
It seems that verbage could have been
put into the contract into the ordinance
that would get rid of that um concern of
the staff and I'm just curious as to why
that wasn't offered to us as a
as an option.
And I guess my second one was again um
going back to the idea of the size of
the ADU. I mean I think we're all in
support of allowing people to have 1200
square foot ADUs.
The biggest concern however was that
those ADUs would be placed four could be
placed four feet from on property line
because of the interpretation of the
law.
However, when I look at this, I when I
rethink this, um
my concern is that next year
we're going to have to go back to this
ADU ordinance because there's already
laws going through the system that
probably will get passed. So, we're
going to have to make a modification and
then
I'm hopeful that by next year we will
have our objective design requirements
finalized, so we will need to
incorporate them into this.
And since this uh current version has to
go to the HCD next month or within 30
days of our approval,
HCD will see this, will see the 1,200
square feet, and then next year when we
go back
and if we make a decision to then
not continue to allow the 1,200 square
feet because somehow we're starting to
see them replaced 4 feet from the
property line and we retract that and go
back to what the the minimum the maximum
that state law allows us to to put,
that HCD is going to take a look at that
and say, "Why are you reducing, you
know,
your
allowances, if you will?" So, I'm just a
little concerned about that. And so, I
um
I just wanted to have some feedback on
that those two items.
» Thank you.
Catherine, please.
>> Thank you. Yeah, I can I can start and
perhaps Sarah Darcy wants to chime in. I I guess I'll start with a procedural
point, which is that um
so, this this item is before you on a
second reading.
And so, if the council um
wants to make sub- substantive changes
such as changing the size of um the ADU
or the parking requirements,
uh that would um trigger the need to go
back to a to reintroduce the ordinance
at a new public hearing. So, you would
not pass the the ordinance tonight, and
rather you'd provide direction to staff
to bring it back for reintroduction.
Uh so you know,
discretion is fairly limited to make
changes tonight. I guess is the bottom
line. Uh in terms of the um
the size of the ADU of course Council
does have discretion um to make that
determine it that was considered by
Planning Commission. Um they looked at
1,000 square feet I believe and there
was quite a bit of back and forth about
that and I know that was debated before
Council as well.
Um I don't know that HCD would
necessarily
um
retract. I mean the Council has
discretion um in that way in terms of
the size and so uh when the when the
town decides to update the ordinance
um
you know, it it can use that discretion
how how it sees fit.
Um we will get comments back from HCD as
Councilmember Flynn Flynn noted and you
know, it there may be um an opportunity
or a requirement to to make changes at
that time and respond to their comments.
We don't know yet.
Uh in regards to parking um I guess I I
um I thought there's lots of different
ways to word the ordinance so I'm not
sure if I can say one or the other why
certain certain options were weren't
presented. Uh but ultimately the current
ordinance um does not require parking
for ADUs but then goes on to say if
parking is provided um parking space
design shall conform with section
1860020 parking dimensions and access.
Um I know Sarah you're up here at the
but if you want to say something more
along those lines or um regarding the size.
>> Sir course Planning Building Director.
So with the ADU ordinance what was
proposed was what staff felt was the
best um option and best proposal to put
forward with that was a lot aligned with
um
state law and policies and
recommendations that were coming from
HCD. So So, wasn't necessarily
discussion around a variety of options.
We were putting forward the option that
was on the table for town council to
vote on that night, and that was also what was confirmed with
planning commission and sent to you
after that.
Um I believe I guess to respond more to
that question about parking, again
looking at what is best in compliance
with state law, and given you know this
question, it sounded like this might be
more of a policy level discussion or
additional research
um
you know, or guidance might be needed to
determine
what should be required in terms of
parking. And there were a few other
discussion topics, and we felt like if
there are
you know, additional needs for research
and data that that would be potentially
a separate project that might be a
little bit different than really trying
to get through with the ADU organs and
kind of the minimum requirements with
state law.
» Thank you.
>> I had another question.
If the ordinance had stuck with the 850
or 1,000 square feet, and somebody had
come to the town wanting a 1,200 square
foot guest house, if you will,
what would have been the process for
that person to build it? Would it be the
normal ASCC review process, because it
wouldn't be an ADU according to
you know, state law?
» It would not be an ADU according to
state law, and there would not be a
discretionary process for it. Um most
likely they would need to go with an SB9
project.
Uh also that would not require ASCC
review.
Um unless I don't know if there's any
other ideas about how that could be
processed.
Yeah, probably SB9.
» Okay, thank you.
» All right. Any more discussion or
comment on this item?
No? No?
Okay. Um
I mean, I have to say that I mean, I
feel like we talked about this last time
and we got a proposal from staff. The
difference between 1,000 and 1,200, if
it's already on the 4-ft property line,
I'm not sure it's going to make the
difference.
Um but we also have an opportunity to
revisit this. So, my recommendation is
that we move forward with this, get it
on the books, and then the question I
would have for planning is to make sure
that when we come back to this, that
these issues are reconsidered.
All right, with that, I would entertain
a motion for 6E.
>> I move that we approve uh 6E.
>> And a second?
>> Second.
>> Thank you. Have a motion and a second.
Veronica, roll call.
>> Council member Walter.
>> I.
>> Council member Husco.
>> I.
>> Council member Flynn.
>> Yes.
>> Vice Mayor Hefty.
Yes. Mayor Taylor.
>> I.
>> Motion carries 5-0.
>> Thank you.
All right, moving on to 6F. Judith, this
is yours?
>> Yeah. Um so, I I just need more
explanation, I believe. Uh we're
increasing the compensation value under
this contract from 200,000 to 650,000,
which is a bit of a sticker shock for
us, given our financial circumstances.
The fiscal impact does note that
you know, there there's increased
compensation of 450,000,
most of which are going to be funded by
application fees and deposits and are
passed through. So, I'd like an
explanation for why such a big swing. Is
this surprising? And
um
and
you know, I hesitate to say most of
450,000
is going to be funded by application
fees. So, what is
the actual potential exposure to the
town's budget?
Net net of
reimbursements or
application fees and deposits.
>> So,
who would like to speak to this? Is this
Sarah or Darcy?
>> Let's pass the buck. Um
>> No, no, I mean I I have
somebody in mind.
>> Sarah has some data points, but I will
just explain sort of how we got here cuz
I would did work on the contract in
October and Sarah wasn't here. So, it
would not be fair to pass this all off
onto her. But, if you remember in
October, we brought forward three
different contracts. And what we
envisioned then was distributing up the
work amongst three. And honestly, all
three of them totaled, I think, 600,000.
And we thought we'd sort of
see how each consultant is doing. And
you might recall at that point, we were
using different consultants.
What we found pretty quickly, um as
Steven and I, the former interim
director, worked with the different
contractors, is that this one rose heads
above the rest. And so, we have
sole-sourced essentially all of our
building permit work with them. And
again, that wasn't envisioned
originally.
Um another thing we've seen is that we
have a greater demand for work for the
Stanford project, for example, that is
quite actually like gigantic. If that
was a T-shirt, it'd be an extra extra
large. Whereas, normally we do like the
small projects. Um we've also seen
increase in code enforcement work, for
example, cuz we've been more responsive
through our systems.
Um
another thing is we've been carrying a
vacancy. We didn't know that in October,
but we have a vacancy. We have not been
able to fill that. We tried. So, one of
these uh one of the vacant staff
positions is being filled by a
contractor that's pulled from this fund.
And we had no idea. So,
Sarah can talk a little bit about the
actual cost of the budget, but I what I
want to emphasize is that we are not
asking for any more budget
appropriation. We are funding it from
the existing budget and we're in line
with that and
for the exact amount of what we call
pass-through or sort of applicant
payments that are then pay our country
uh our contractors, Sarah can speak to
that.
» Mercy.
Um so, with this contract, CSG really
provides a wide variety of support for
the town. So, as a reminder, they also
include our building inspector, building
official, code enforcement, building
permit reviews and a variety of things in that
regard. So, with looking at the specific
costs that we've spent, it's about 24%
is
in the kind of non-pass-through category
and the rest is pass-through. So, about
75% of that is pass-through cost, which
is pretty significant in terms of the
amount that we're doing for reviews and
the projects that we're getting into
that.
» Can I ask a follow-up question?
>> Yeah, please.
>> Um so, 24% is not pass-through, but
there's no budget impact. So, that's
where I want to come out is
are are we adding to the budget by
increasing the amount and by how much
roughly?
>> I'll speak to that a little bit and I'll
let Tony chime in if he wants. So, sorry
and I forgot to mention one of the key
points is they also cover permit tech
support as well. So, we did increase
some of the permit tech support because
it's been needed. So, looking at permit
tech support and code enforcement, those
are kind of the two main categories that
are not pass-through right now, which
we're hoping to address with the new
updated master fee schedule to make sure
that we are including permit tech where,
you know, within
um our kind of pass-through and with our
fees.
So, with this, typically the town has
had development review technicians on
staff and right now we we have any DRTs
or senior DRTs in staff right now, so
that has been coming from consultants.
» And Tony, did I mean I I think what
Judith getting at I certainly like to
hear the same is
we had a position for a DRT, but we're
not funding it, so we're using the money
for consultants or we have these other
contracts, but we're not using those as
we've sort of moved it over to CSG. Um
and so this all nets out to
is this within the budget that we have?
Yeah. Um and given we have contracts out
there, is it possible because the
contract exceeds our budget that somehow
we could spend through the budget?
>> No, with the the town work which is in
the budget is we're within line there.
Uh we are using data vacancy savings to
offset some of those costs. The other
issue is that with the work being done
in the project applicant area, which
would be funded out of fund 71 customer
deposits,
that is
difficult to budget
from year to year because it's pretty
volatile. So but it is applicant deposit
money and it's technically not our
money. We're holding it as you know, the
custodian.
So if if if they are doing work on
behalf of the applicant deposit, we have
to spend this money. If dollar amount
does exceed what was already approved by
the contract total value line, then yes,
we have to come back and say we need to
increase the value of the contract, but
it's not impacting the budget because we
have vacancy savings
to offset some of those costs.
>> Okay, thank you. Judith, does that
answer your question?
>> I wanted.
>> Okay. Any other discussion on this
topic?
No.
All right. Um with that, I would
entertain a motion for 6F.
>> Motion to approve 6F.
>> Second.
thank you. A motion is second.
Veronica, roll call, please.
>> Councilmember Wolcott?
>> Aye.
>> Councilmember Hesko?
>> Aye.
>> Councilmember Flynn?
>> Aye.
>> Vice Mayor Haftie?
>> I.
>> Mayor Taylor?
>> I.
>> Motion carries 5-0.
>> Thank you very much. Thank you, Sarah.
All right. I'd like to move on to number
seven.
So, remind me the exact words I'm
supposed to use. Do I open a public
hearing? Is that the
>> Well, first you can take this this staff
report. And then you will be opening the
public hearing. Yes.
>> Perfect. All right. So, is there a staff
report on number seven? Thank you.
>> Yes, but it doesn't appear on any yet.
So, we need
>> Okay.
Having locked in Tony in?
Okay.
So, so where are we at?
Okay.
» I'll just introduce them.
Uh Tony McFarland,
newly appointed assistant town manager,
is presenting tonight as well as
Courtney Ramos from Matrix, who I've
actually known, I think, for 10 years.
Um
Yeah, so she's our consultant from
Matrix. She's very well qualified on the
fee schedule work and can answer the
questions, and Tony has a PowerPoint,
which maybe he's bringing to life.
>> We have two PowerPoints.
>> Oh, two PowerPoints. Okay, you got a
twofer tonight.
» I will just start by introducing Well,
Darcy already introduced Courtney, but
the the first presentation is going to
be about uh the results of the user fee
study and the dollar amount being used
and then
accordingly we'll be uh handling that.
So, with that, thank you for the
recording.
» Good evening, everyone.
>> So, you really really as you notice when
I speak into the mic, it has to be right
in front of you. It can be a little
below, but you have to speak directly
into
Yeah, yeah, you can chew on it if you
want. We'll We'll clean it up later.
Thank you.
>> Uh I while you're getting this up, do
you want me just to start the
presentation?
Okay. Fantastic.
Uh well, I've Good evening, everyone. Uh
appreciate this opportunity to meet with
all of you and kind of talk about
high-level details with you
of the
comprehensive user fee study that we've
conducted.
I'm just going to jump into some of the
slides just
fast.
Um but to kind of give you a little bit
of the overview of the why we conducted
a user fee
It is important to set context.
And the reason we do that is
services and service level assumptions
that go behind uh fees for the services.
>> Uh my apologies. You people are saying
you need to speak more directly.
» And then I go this way? Okay.
Is this better?
Much better? Okay.
You can almost kind of hear the echo
now, too. Okay.
All right. So, starting over. So, why do
we conduct a user study? We do the next
slide.
The I I
sufficiently installed long enough to
get us there.
Um so, a user fee study helps us
document the service
and the service level assumptions behind
the things that we provide. So closer?
Okay. Wow, really just all Okay.
Um so, we want to document those
services and those service level
assumptions. We want to document the
full cost associated with that. So,
that's not just the salary and benefits
associated with a staff person who might
plans or providing inspections, but
that's what does it cost the town to
provide those services. Um, so we've
got, you know, HR costs, finance costs,
all of those things that go into
supporting that staff person to provide
that service. So, what this study does
is it identifies all of those things. It
lets us know what is that full cost. Um,
it also ensures compliance with Prop 218
and 26, which are very important. I'm
going to get into those in the next
slide. Um, but it also aligns with um,
fiscal best practices. So, the um,
government finance officers association,
GFOA,
um, outlines several best practices
associated with understanding your cost
of service, benchmarking, and things
like that. And so, these types of
studies help us understand that. It
gives us that factual documentation.
Um, but to go a little bit more about
218 and 26, the slide.
Maybe.
It'll catch up.
All right, I'll just start talking about
it. Um, the core principles of 218 and
26 require that there's a direct benefit
between the fee that's being charged and
the cost associated with it. Um, so fees
have to be cost-based. They can't exceed
the total cost of service. So, what this
study does is it essentially gives you a
ceiling. It says, this is what the total
cost of service is. You can set your
fees up to anything up to and including
that fee. There is a caveat or that, and
that would be for parks and recreation.
Um, and there is a carve out in Prop 26
um, for recreation services. Part of
that is because if you're building your
house, here. Um, but
it uh, you know, you want to have a
picnic, you want to use some fields, uh,
you know, you can go to Palo Alto, you
can go to Menlo Park, you can go to
Woodside, right? Like we could go to
different places and use that. And so,
parks and recreation services tend to be
market-driven. And so, it's really
taking a look at what the market can
bear, and also looking at a comparison
between what is that What's the value of
what you're getting
versus what that value might be
somewhere else. So, there is that kind
of carve out there. Um but generally
speaking, when we're looking at
planning, building, engineering
services, administrative services, um
the cost for that service that we're
charging an applicant cannot exceed the
cost that we incur. And again, that's
the total cost that the town incurs, not
just for a particular staff person who's
providing that service.
Next slide.
All right. So, as I just kind of
mentioned, um the services that we
looked at um incorporated administrative
services, building code enforcement,
planning, and recreation.
Um so, pretty much all the application
services provided by the town.
I miss anything easy? Uh so, if we go
for the study objectives, right? So, we
know why we're doing the study, but what
were we doing? So, first we want to look
at fee structures.
Um it's been a while since the town has
conducted a fee study, so we want to say
we want to look at what is it that we're
charging for?
How um
how relevant are those applications, the
nomenclature that we're using, the
structure of those? How relevant is that
to the
um to the services that we're actually
providing? So, we might want to
streamline that, we want to condense,
consolidate, we want to eliminate uh not
necessarily a fee here, but my favorite
example is a lot of times we still
microfiche fees, something that we tend
to get rid of nowadays. Um but you know,
taking a look and seeing are there
outdated services? Are there new
services? You know, obviously we've got
new things that are coming online,
different types of solar permits and
solar applications, right? So, looking
at those and making sure that we're
accounting for all of those services.
Um we want to calculate fully burdened
hourly rates. So, we want to take a look
at what is it costing per employee,
right? What is that fully loaded rate?
Salaries, benefits, um overhead, lights,
buildings, vehicles if we're using
those, kind of taking a look at that
full cost.
Then we're going to talk with staff, and
we're going to collect time estimates,
and look at the assumptions associated
with those services and those service
levels.
We conduct a comparative survey because
I know everybody here and I'm sure
everybody watching and and and behind me
is curious to know what is everybody
else charging for these services. Um so
providing contextual information for
that as well so that you understand
when we're doing those comparisons how
comparable are they.
Um we want to make sure again that legal
compliance making sure that we have
appropriately accounted for costs or in
compliance with the
fixed.
And then finally kind of putting
together that master fee listing. So
what is that consolidated list of fees
look like?
Um next slide.
So the methodology for determining cost
of service is it's not super
complicated. It's great times time
equals cost.
Um but there's some nuances in there. So
when we talk about time estimates and
we're talking to staff to understand
what it takes for them to provide a
particular service
we're asking them to not think of the
easiest project they've ever done. Also
not the most complex project they've
done. So we want to look at what is the
average time that it takes to process a
particular application or permit.
We also want to take a look at if we
have different skill levels with our
staff. We don't want to peg that time
estimate at a junior level staff who's
maybe only been here for a couple of
months. We also don't want to look and
peg that time necessarily
at somebody who's been here for 20 years
and you know practically wrote the code,
right? Again, we want to look at what is
the average time that it takes to
provide those services.
Then we look at those fully burdened
hourly rates. That's salary, benefits,
it's looking at productive hours,
services and supplies and town wide
overhead and that gives us that fully
burdened cost. Again, that gives us our
maximum justifiable amount that we can
charge.
So then we get into
the good stuff. Remember.
Um so it's been about 14 years since the
town has looked at its fees.
Um so obviously in that time costs have
increased, on levels and uh way we
provide services has changed
significantly. So, it's really important
that we do this. I mean, especially
because, you know, in the last 5 to 6
years, we've had some pretty significant
changes in technology and how we're able
to accept plans, how we're able to
review things. So, this is really um
a really good time to have this study to
understand what those service levels and
those costs are. Uh we looked at about
245 fees. So, we looked at flat fees, uh
which means what you see is what you
pay.
Uh we've looked at valuation-based fees.
That's how building fees are assessed
based on the value of a project. Uh
we've also looked at deposit-based fees,
understanding when we have when we put
down a deposit and we bill against that.
I'm taking a look at what were those
services, were those deposits
appropriate, could we convert some of
those to flat-based fees? And uh well,
history on deposit-based fees usually
charge that for a service where it could
just be, you know, so varied in what
that service is that in order to make
sure that not only does the town get an
appropriate cost recovery, but the
applicant isn't overcharged.
We do those on time and materials or
deposit-based.
So, overall, this study um
found a $500,000
um under-recovery. And I will I do want
to highlight I know that there was a
previous uh number here. Um and and I
just want to call that out and highlight
that. And the reason that this number
has changed is because the previous
number we're showing kind of all revenue
and all costs,
uh which kind of gives a misleading
understanding of what the town could
actually recover. What I mean by that is
that the town uses a lot of consultants
and contractors to provide plan review
and inspection services related to
development services. Um and the part of
those contracts is that the part of the
revenue that you get goes directly to
them and gets offset. And so, that
previous number that was getting shown
made it look like the town could be
getting this this revenue. Uh and what
we really wanted to do was be um
narrow-focused and reflect what it was
that you could recover by increasing
fees. What would the town get to collect
in fees for those costs and those
services? So, we wanted to be more
accurate.
Um, and ultimately, that results in 55%
cost recovery level.
Uh, which is a bit lower than what we
would like to see, but obviously, it
depends on what that particular
vision is. If we go into that, moving on
to the next slide.
So, if we kind of dive deep into this,
um, building is at about 93% cost
recovery.
Code enforcement, uh, not so much. We're
not really collecting a lot for that.
Now, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
It could mean that, you know, obviously,
code enforcement, the goal is, uh, to
get compliance. So, we're not looking to
generate revenue, we're looking for
people to comply with the code. So, just
because we have no revenue there,
doesn't mean it's a necessarily a bad
thing.
Um, planning, uh, has the biggest
deficit at $260,000,
um,
and 33% cost recovery. Public Works is
at about 52,000 at 42%, and recreation
is at about 58%.
And so, to kind of put this in context
for you,
um, if you go to the next slide,
you can kind of see what those typical
cost recovery ranges are. So, that blue
band is typical cost recovery.
Um, the dot is kind of where you fall,
um, on that cost recovery.
Uh, so, if we look at something like
building, between typically between 80
and 100%. So, at that 93%, doing good.
Um, for code enforcement, again, it's at
that 0%. Not really concerned about that
cuz again, it it doesn't necessarily
mean that you're not recovering, it
could just mean that we don't have, you
know, again, we're abating those issues
before they come to fees.
Um, for planning, a little bit low at
33%, but typically see
70%. Public Works, again, a little low,
we see, uh, at 42%. Typically see it
between 80 and 100%. Uh, and recreation
is actually doing pretty well, um, at
the 58%. Um, a little bit higher than
what we would typically see it at. So,
doing
Um,
moving on.
Oh, what the whole thing?
About
Oh, about recreation recreation at 58%
is really good. It's it's it's higher
than most than what we see. Usually
we'll see a much lower like 20
something. So
Um
>> So before you go on, I mean just because
you're speaking about it. I mean you
just showed a range. We're in the middle
of that range and you're saying it's
higher than most. That doesn't make
sense to me. I mean it's either you're
in the range or you're not. I mean
>> I I actually think this the range on
this graph is actually I think wrong
because it should be between 20 and 50%.
For recreation. For recreation. Correct.
>> All right, so I'll repeat it. So she
said she thought for recreation that the
bar should be between 20 and 50
and we're at 58. So that's why she's
saying that we're high even though if
you look at the graph it looks like
we're right in the middle. So thank you
for that clarification.
>> No, thank you.
Um and then finally just to kind
obviously we have all these numbers
and we're going to talk all about that,
but I think some of the recommendations
aside from, you know, reviewing the
report, understanding what your cost of
service is, determining what your cost
recovery levels are is just kind of
understanding what are your goals
um
as a town as a council
for what you want to do. Again, this report gives you that ceiling. It
lets you know kind of legally what you
need to do in order to comply. That does
not mean that you need to charge full
cost recovery.
Um so what is kind of before all of you
is to determine what cost recovery
levels want and that can be holistically
as a town we want 100% cost recovery,
although we would we would typically
recommend that you look at it more
nuanced and say
you know, as an example, we think
building should be 100% cost recovery.
We think building should be 70% or
whatever that happens to be. Um but that
you take a look at and say based on your
understanding of the community and
what's before you, what is it that you
are looking to recover for these
services? Document those assumptions
so that as you move forward and you look
at these things again in the future,
that you understand why fees were set
the way they were set. Um, and if there
were subsidies and we can always make
exceptions to that. So, for example,
with building, you might say you want
100% cost recovery, um, but there might
be certain fees or certain areas that
you are choosing to subsidize above
that. So, again, just kind of
documenting those policies, those
assumptions of why it is that we want to
set these lower.
Maybe we want compliance, we're trying
to promote certain things.
Um, we can do that. Um, to also kind of
take a look at once you've you know,
staff and everyone has done all of this
work, you all have are putting in the
time
to help create these policies and make
the decision on where fees should be
set. We don't want to just set the fees
and forget them. Um, to adopt an annual
inflationary factor um, that'll allow
your fees to increase in a certain with
your costs. Um, so something like a CPI
or cola factor. Again, what that does is
it means that next year when fees come
around, because costs will have
increased, the fees will increase and
that'll help you maintain whatever cost
recovery levels that you
put out there.
And then lastly, we would say that, you
know, we want to recommend that you
conduct a study. You don't need to do a
study like this every year. Uh, it's
intensive and they're good for a while,
right? But about every five to seven
years, it's important to kind of
re-evaluate those services and those
service levels.
Codes can change. The building code can
change. The municipal code can change,
right? You might change some zoning
codes or other things within the city.
Like I mentioned earlier, we've seen a
lot of changes with technology and what
we're able to do and how we're able to
provide those our services. And
sometimes that means that we can be more
efficient with what we're doing or as we
were talking about earlier, sometimes it
can add additional cost Um, because of
certain technologies that we need in
order to provide those particular
services. So, conducting a study again
in about 5 to 7 years will allow you to
reevaluate and make sure that you're
still on track and in alignment with
So, with that
I'm sure everybody has a lot of
questions.
And I'm happy to go back to any previous
slides or
» Okay, and Tony, do you have anything
else you want to add or she is
» Um while we're reading, do we have any
idea what the temperature is set in this
room? Because I I don't know about you
guys, but Yeah, like can I mean, can
somebody go look?
Yeah, I mean, it feels
Yeah, I was going to say, it feels like
it's 75 in here.
» Thank you for that.
» Yeah, okay, well, put your jacket on.
Sorry.
Yeah.
So, Veronica, what's the temperature in
the room?
What did you turn it down to?
How about like 68?
We can open windows.
I mean, it's going to be a long meeting
and if it's this warm for the next
4 hours, I'm probably going to wilt.
You got to find the right Not all
windows open, it's an old schoolhouse.
» All right.
>> So, I'm just going to be supplying some
supplemental context.
More specific to the town.
So, as we're discussing earlier, uh
side the item is we're reviewing and
approving the study report.
Looking at setting a cost recovery
levels and then considering adopting a
resolution.
So,
I you seen the slide earlier, uh user
fee study that shows $500,000 in the
recovery
uh or 55%.
Um
looking at the different categories of
recommended rate of cost recovery is
100% for the rate of
building code enforcement, engineering,
and planning.
But, uh carving out recreation, uh
looking at the different categories of
recreation, the recommended rates
um 80% for classes, field rentals range
from 60% to 100%.
Um park rentals 80% to 100%.
And then looking for other rentals,
local non-profit in town, and public
agency, these are for community hall.
Um 60% for local non-profit, 100% for
public agency, and then for special
events is 100%. Um as Courtney alluded
to earlier, these rates can be uh
not necessarily adopted at 100%. We can
set these rates at any uh rate uh
um council um desires. Um
and but I just wanted to provide this
context to council as to see where uh
the NEC scale that you did see in the
report that these these were the numbers
that drove the recommended cost of of
the recommended fee.
And but as as we said, uh council does
have discretion um where we want to set
the cost recovery levels for certain
categories within recreation.
Um looking at recreation results for
2024-2025,
uh we had 11 community hall rentals for
almost $17,000.
Uh sports user groups, uh these are our
little league fees and our uh soccer
leagues and our
um
and adult leagues as well. Uh, we had 14
uh, rentals, um, almost $77,000.
Again, these are the numbers from
2024-2025.
Uh, picnic spaces, we had 17 rentals for
$1,200.
Other, we had 24. Those Those looked
were instances of insurance being bought
or other small minimal rentals, but um,
over than the $4,000.
And then, uh, parking lot rental for
Ford Field, we had three uh,
rentals for almost $25,000.
So, total revenue for 2024-2025
recreation actual results uh, was 124.
In the fee study, we were using budgeted
numbers um, for 2025-2026.
So, looking at some specific fees that
uh,
for council direction, solar panels, um,
there is an option there. Number one is
you can adopt um, the state fee or uh,
you can
adopt the recommended fee because the the code does allow for a variance,
um, if we have a fee study that
justifies the cost being higher than the
state rate, then council can implement
the state rate.
Also looking at the business license
application processing fee, um, I
believe it was $230
or $240.
Um,
that would be per uh, business license.
Uh, we're looking for compliance with
the business license, so we would
probably want to set that dollar amount
uh, significantly lower.
Um, and then with the regulate the same
with the recreation application
processing fees,
um, the numbers were um, over $240,
about $240. Again, um, looking for not
wanting to um,
cuz some of these are for the
instructors. Um,
so we don't want to
make their cost more than what they're
already doing.
And then uh the sports user groups
um some of the costs were the
recommended fee was a pretty significant
jump. Um and there's also concern that
if we do have any if we do increase uh
rates or fees significantly,
uh there's a potential that we could
lose some of these groups and lose uh
some of that revenue. Uh and it was a
significant portion of recreation
revenue, so
um these are items for council to
consider as they're doing their
deliberation.
Um and that concludes my report.
And I will give it back to council, but
I will bring back up Courtney's
spreadsheet or PowerPoint.
Um
You want that for reference.
>> Okay. Thank you, Tony.
So Catherine, can we do council
clarifying questions, then go to open
the public hearing? Great, perfect. All
right. So, clarifying questions for
either Courtney or Tony.
Mary.
Uh you turn your mic on.
>> The
uh Courtney, I uh
I
It's a huge package, of course, and uh
full of uh
stuff that doesn't really where a lot of
us are here thinking about the fees for
the pickleball uh courts or uh whatever,
but it's really not about that. It's
about a bunch of permitting and fees and
penalties and uncollected things over
the years, etc.
Um my question is
uh when was the last uh
such evaluation? Uh going through it and
talking to chat GPT about it, I learned
that we did do fee adjustments in 2024.
We were do Were we doing that just
completely blind? And and I guess it's
many point many part
to the question because how long has it
been required that you do this kind of
formal regulated fee evaluation?
And uh uh
I mean, you say you're supposed to do it
every 5 years. Has it been more than 5
years that people have been supposed to
do it? Uh when did this whole thing
start?
And uh there was obviously PE evaluation
changes happening all along because
the few PEs that I followed through on
myself
have changed radically since I've been
here for 35 years. So, I'm just uh
confused as to when people say, "Well,
it's been a long time since we did a
evaluation."
What does that mean?
>> Absolutely. Okay, so I'm going to
There were a lot of questions there, and
I think 99% of them I can answer.
Um so, um my understanding is that it
was I think it was about 2014 was the
last time that a study like this
meaning where you go in and you you
comprehensively look at all the services
that are being provided, you kind of
collect time estimate information,
determine fully burdened cost, um and
you you do that kind of an analysis.
Um now, that was the last time that the
full analysis and like I said, the
recommendation, right, the best practice
is every 5 to 7 years. I will tell you
right now that there are not very many
jurisdictions, certainly that I have
worked with in the past, who kind of
follow with that. Um I've worked with
jurisdictions where it's been 10 years,
20 years, um and some that just don't
know. Um and there's no historical
information. So, to have have it been
that long, so the 2014 is the last I
think study that that we could find that
is that detailed. Um you know, that's
12 years. Um
>> Not bad.
>> Right, it's not bad. Um
and but you know, again, what I was
talking about when I was talking about
the the annual inflationary factor. So, lot of times you will see that a
jurisdictions will change every year,
every couple of years. And that's
usually because staff have gone in and
they have updated those fees to account
for changes in cost. It doesn't mean
that they have done a study like this.
It's more just that they're looking at
it and they're saying, "We haven't
touched these, we haven't increased
these, and we make sure that they are in
alignment with our costs." Um and
sometimes, you know, you will say, "You
know what, we need a fee for this." And
so, staff will kind of do an internal
calculation and they'll bring it to the
council uh and get that fee approved.
So, you can sometimes also see those
one-offs um associated with that, but
that's that's the one that's the 1% um I
think of all the questions that you're
asking that I can't answer is if there
were um updates in in 2024. I don't know
specifically what went into that or what
was behind that, but that's my
assumption based on kind of what you
typically see.
>> I think that helps.
>> It was adjusted by CPI, and we were
doing that every year.
And the the CPI number was the February
uh 12 months, which is what we use for
the the cola as well. So, that seems to
be our benchmark is the February
>> And
then the other sort of driving question
for me is uh was this exercise worth it?
Uh
you know, I we weren't that far
out, and uh what it looks like is we
weren't that far wrong, and we got a lot
of other problems we're trying to solve,
and we're doing zero collections, uh and
we're not doing any enforcement of our ordinances, and etc. etc. What
How do we justify this kind of
expenditure of our staff time and our
limited finances?
» Besides from the legal Besides from the
it's illegal not to have it.
>> Then then no, that aside. I think um
well, I'm I'm obviously I do this for a
living, right? And I've been doing it
for about 20 years.
So I kind of enjoy it.
Um, but for me, I think it is really
important to understand what your costs
are and to be making fact-based
decisions. And I think that that's what
this report and these types of reports
do. Um, is that it lets you know, and I
will say, you know, your your under
recovery is not as significant as I have
seen it in other areas. However, I would
say that $500,000 isn't nothing. Um,
there are things that you could do with
that revenue
in a lot of different places within the
city. And so if you look at a study like
this,
the cost associated with that and you
annualize it over 5 to 7 years, uh, you
know, the return on what you're getting,
I think is is worth it.
But like I said, I think for me, the
biggest thing is just making sure that
policy makers are informed because I
think a lot of times we sit there and we
think, oh, my my everything is covered.
It's fine, right? Um, and and that may
be true, but we also might be covering
that with other money.
Um, right? Because if we're not
generating fee revenue to offset these
services, then we're using tax dollars
or other dollars to be providing that
service. And I think it's just important
that it's a conscious decision. Um, that
that's how you want to fund those
services.
» Now, I certainly learned a lot from it.
And one eye-opener for me was how we
budget
our allocations for pre-personnel
positions.
Um, like for recreation, for example,
Justin, he's primarily funded out of
public works.
So his costs are not necessarily being
charged to
community hall, park and fields. And
whereas, Cindy, our administrative
services manager, she does spend a lot
of time in recreation processing. And
her costs are allocated out of
administrative.
So, this is an eye-opener for me that I
need to reallocate some of our costs
in our personnel budget so that it can
actually reflect
the source of the service that's being
provided.
» Other questions, Mary?
>> The other is an intangible and I'm not
quite sure how to but we have funny
little town
and uh do you feel that in your process you
got a sense of
the funny little town and why we have
our fee structures and permit structures
and uh
how those permit structures and fee
structures actually
uh underline the quality underline and
refine the quality of our community.
» I would say that I mean that's kind of
the purpose of you know a lot of times
some these schedules get developed by
looking to see what our neighbor is
doing.
Um and so a lot of times then and that's
another reason I think that you need to
do these studies is to make sure that
it's reflecting your services your
service level assumptions. I know
um you know when I talk about service
level assumptions um some jurisdictions
are very much like you know what it
should only take you two trips it should
only take you two inspections.
So, that's all you get and if it takes
me three then I'm going to charge you
for that. Other jurisdictions are a bit
more lenient, right? And they might say
you know what we understand things
happen so we're going to give you that
third inspection it's going to kind of
be included in that cost of service. Um
and so I think that's that's
I think one of the things that I enjoy
about doing these types of studies is
understanding the different service
level assumptions um the different
things that make a jurisdiction
um and while there are certain things if
the building code is the building code
you can't get around that, right? Uh but
you look at something like parks and
recreation and the different types of
services and the different philosophies
that communities and stakeholders have,
um, I think can be very informative and
can give you a different picture or a
different part of the picture of
community benefits.
» Good work.
Is it Mary?
>> Yep.
>> Okay. Who would like to go next?
Judith? Thank you.
>> Yeah.
Um,
okay. So,
um,
I spent time with the packet as
originally
distributed. The new numbers, and I this
is a question. I want to confirm my
understanding because the original
numbers were kind of crunched without
giving I'll use my words, you correct
them, appropriate recognition for how
much we rely on independent contractors.
Um, you redid those. What
because I assume if it takes a
consultant
two hours to review an application,
that's viewed as a pass-through and that
is not cost recovery for the town. Is
that essentially the way to think about
it? Cuz the swings are pretty
significant. It was public works 24% to
42%.
Um, recreation 33% to 58%,
building and planning 52 to 93%.
And uh, or sorry, building and then
planning was 76% down to 33%.
So, that's a little bit difficult to
process in terms of how to think about
this for policy, right? Because I don't
think we're going to change
like the we might we're going to be
discussing later a couple of different
positions we might add to the roster,
but essentially in the next couple
years, we have who we have and we have a
limited budget. So,
um
are are we out So, A, you're nodding, so
I'm getting it right in terms of the the
reasons. Um are we very unusual in in
that um use of outside contractors
relative to
peers?
>> Not to peers of your size.
>> Okay.
>> Yeah. I mean, obviously, I mean, even
I would say even even someone like um
Palo Alto
um uses a significant number of
contractors.
They have obviously much more in-house
staff than you do.
Um and bigger than you are. Um but are
still using a fair number of contacts.
Where you would see
very minimal is in a much larger city,
you know, like San Francisco or San Jose
um or something like that, where they're
they um have enough projects that they
can afford to have a full-time staff
person because they have enough projects
that they can work on, right? And the
fee revenue to generate um associated
with that. But for jurisdictions um this
size, especially jurisdictions, and it's
not just the size of Portola Valley, but
your unique makeup. There's not a lot of
commercial here.
>> Yeah.
>> And usually that's where you'll see a
lot of those projects. Um so, we're
talking about lower
um
a lower frequency of projects. We still
not to say that you're not getting
projects coming in, but they're not the
types of projects that are associated
with um commercial projects.
>> Yeah.
>> Um and so, it yes, I would say that
you're very
comparable in that
>> Okay.
And in terms of the questions you have
for us on policy, how much up to 100%
that we want to
be saying um we should recover.
It's a little
I'm trying to process the the large
swings in these numbers and how to think
about it in terms of policy because
we use the contractors more for
planning, for example,
um yet we may want to subsidize certain
EDU
uh out uh funds.
Um but the 33% that we
are currently recovering it as opposed
to the 76%
before you took into account the
contractors,
um it seems like there's just less room
there to really subsidize much.
Is that
>> Well, I mean I I think I would look at
it like
it it's now a known known
from the perspective of we have this
half a million dollar subsidy.
>> Mhm.
>> And
uh
as Sakti was saying, you know, it's it
it's not that bad
>> Mhm.
>> comparatively speaking, right? And so I
think then the question becomes what
could we do with increases? Um so for
example, you know, does it make sense to
build institutional knowledge in
planning?
And maybe what we do is and maybe it's
not tomorrow, maybe it's not the next
year, maybe it's in two years, but the
goal is is that we have an in-house
planner.
>> Mhm.
>> Or we have somebody given the type of
work that we get um from building plans.
Um but maybe the goal is is that we want
to increase these fees. We don't need to
you don't need to rip the band-aid The
other thing is you have to rip the
band-aid off, right? Our goal could be
100% and our goal can be to achieve that
100% in two or three years or four
years. So we can take a while to get
there.
>> Okay.
>> But again, I think it's it's
I think it's taking a look at what could
you be doing with that additional
funding, whether it's in planning and
building and engineering and parks and
recreation, or whether it's um
hopefully not
opening a wound here, but you could be
using the tops at animal services.
Right? Like they could be using it
elsewhere.
>> Animal services.
Okay.
that's that's helpful. Um
now getting down to Tony's
couple of slides, you were identifying
solar panels, business license
applications, recreational fees, and
sports user fees as areas where there
could be some policy
considerations, and you kind of put your
thumb on the scale on a couple of those
saying
we want to encourage compliance, so we
don't we might not want to go to 100%
for example on the business license.
Um so drilling down into that solar
panels, there's a couple of different
charges. There's EV stations, and then
there's storage. So if you're talking
about solar panels, how do I translate
that into the numbers in the matrix
report?
» So the if we're talking about solar
panels
uh and most people are going to be the
single-family residential.
>> Mhm.
>> Um so you're either going to have
roof-mounted
>> Yep.
>> roof
or ground-mounted. Uh and it'll be per
kilowatt. So that's going to be
primarily there. Uh the
>> Okay.
>> the chargers
right? So I want to uh I've got a Tesla
or whatever, and I want to do that.
That's going to be your energy storage
system. The ESS, that's the batteries.
Um and then we also there's also the
solar app
that is there. But those would be your
primary fees that would impact 90%.
>> That policy, okay. Business license
apps, I get. The recreational fees
um looking at those sport user fees
$44, 137. Are those per participant?
They are. So how are they paid? Like you
the the soccer organization comes and
says we have X number of people
>> Yes, they they submit their application, they
identify the number of participants, and
it's
per
So, it's currently 44 per
I think for the soccer league it's 44
per participant.
>> Okay.
>> Um and um
and then yeah, they they submit their Do they pay by check,
credit card, e-check?
>> Okay.
>> They can pay them online.
>> Okay. And then they handle distributing
those charges however they will in their
own organization.
>> Yeah, in their own organization, but on
our end there's a deposit. Um and
there's also including in that deposit
is
you know, um
just um
how they leave the the conditions of the
field.
>> Mhm.
>> Uh but uh the deposits are are refunded
when the season's over.
>> Okay. And um getting down to the last
questions,
um
so if you I don't know if you can
might not be easy to flip to that uh
slide
um but
are these all areas where
you're kind of saying people often
subsidize more? In other words, go for
less than 100% recovery?
For all of them, I just wanted to
confirm my understanding of what you
were saying.
» Work really well.
>> Are you talking about the recreation
breakdown?
>> Uh
Yes, that's the slide cuz you're you're
kind of having recommended rates. So,
that's the one I just wanted to look at
again.
>> Mhm.
>> So, field rentals at 100%
but then there's an indent for local
organized adult youth
>> Mhm.
>> So, can you explain for example the
field rental organization here? What's
100%?
>> So, it's 100% of its full cost.
>> Mhm.
>> Um and that's what's reflected in the
recommended rate in the fee schedule.
>> Okay.
>> However,
um
there's another
slide that they or another
spreadsheet they provided that said
you know, the the 80% of the So, it's
80% of the 137.
Um so, that's
>> Mhm.
>> still
it goes from 44
to 80% of that number, which is still
pretty significant increase
uh to these
uh local organized groups. So,
you know, the
council's being asked, you know, do we
want to set it at 100%? Do we want to
set it at 80%? Or do we want to
>> Mhm.
>> uh maybe come in at a lower percentage.
That way it's not
>> much of a um
shock to the groups.
>> Um
>> And like I said, they do provide almost
half of the revenue.
Uh actually a little more than half of
the revenue for recreation.
>> Mhm.
>> Um but
with all fee studies, there's always
going to be sticker shock at the initial
um
>> I think it's both.
>> Yeah.
>> Um and but, you know, it's just this is full cost recovery. However,
council can go and
we
and shift levers on certain off certain
categories of costs.
Taking into consideration one compliance
or you just want to subsidize because I
mean
with recreation is there is a group
benefit, not necessarily a specific
benefit
uh to the individual and it's also
voluntary.
>> Mhm.
>> So, um those were some considerations
that council prepared.
>> So, so the way to read this is $137 per
participant is
what's on the matrix schedule.
And you're kind of dangling out there. I
don't know if the 80% is what we
currently
charge or what the $44 equated to or
you're just saying 137%
>> We are currently charging 44.
>> Right.
>> Full cost is 137.
>> Right.
>> Recommendation is 80% of 137.
>> Yeah, okay. Got it.
Okay, if you could just leave that up
there I'll I'll peruse it while I'm
people ask questions.
» You're done?
Great, thank you. Helen.
>> Um so similar to council member Pascoe,
um I did not see the other
email coming at 4:46 this afternoon
because I was at work.
Um
that that's unfortunate. So can I just
go explain the one that we were sent
originally and I worked off of?
Could you explain that, please?
>> Oh, and just to be clear, the only
change between what we got before and
most recently but was that just this
table or did that trickle through
everything that's there? Just this top
level table, right?
>> It only impacted the what the the
allowable revenue deduction.
>> Right, so that's just table two.
>> The table two full cost recovery table.
>> And there's a table in
table
10, also.
>> Okay.
>> It's in the
annual impact section.
Um cuz they're essentially the same
table.
Um but that was the table that was
impacted. Um but to kind of reiterate
what changed
um is that before
um the table was capturing costs and and revenue that was not
town related
and or in the case of with public works
um not only just fee related. So, I'll
use public works as the example um that
public works as a as a budget unit
includes field maintenance and um other
kinds of public works related things
that are not fee related. Um so, that
was kind of artificially um inflating
what the cost of fee related services
was and that's what we wanted to do was
um be clearer and more transparent about
what you know, before was making it look
like, "Oh, you could generate I think
the number
to a million dollars, but that was not
revenue that the town was actually going
to generate um and nor was it accurately
representing the town's cost.
You have consultants, those are costs
that you pay, but they're immediately
offset through pass through of that
revenue. So, that's why we adjusted that
table because we wanted to be clearer um
about what we're doing.
>> Okay.
>> all those and not getting
noticing that sooner and not getting
that
>> Okay.
Thank you.
Um
a couple of specific questions.
Um
uh
in terms of
uh temporary What What is a temporary
occupancy permit versus a
permanent occupancy permit?
» I'll take that one.
>> Okay.
» A temporary occupancy permit is one
that's given when the building permit
isn't 100% final. Maybe they haven't
completed landscaping.
They have to have met all life, health,
and safety requirements, but for a
bigger project, it may be that a small
component is delayed that doesn't affect
the ability of humans to safely habitat the building. And we do charge
for that because it's
it is quite a bit of time to go through
the process to validate that it's safe.
And then ultimately they get the final
certificate of occupancy. Could It can
be anywhere from 3 months as long as
I've seen it even be 2 years later where
they get that.
>> Great. Thank you.
Okay.
Um
in terms of public agencies versus
nonprofits,
um
obviously other public agencies, the two
that I can think of recently have been
Congressman Sam Liccardo hosting an
event, and then Assemblymember Mark
Berman.
Neither of those teams have any budget
for hosting
those type of events actually. So, if we
were to charge them, the town
like is
like were you we thinking of different
public agencies and or what type of
public agencies are we usually talking
about here?
>> So, the specific example for that was
Monterey County or
San Mateo County
has They'll They've They've had like
work events here.
>> Ah.
>> Uh and like they've had They've taken
over the community hall for like 3 days
and
I mean, they just take over the whole
complex. And so, uh there was no fee in
place for public agencies. So, this is
specifically
uh shouldn't say specifically, but any
other public agency that wants to use
the community hall for any type of
retreat or
>> For a actual rental versus hosting a
>> Yeah.
>> out, you know a community event for the
town. Okay, thank you for clarifying.
>> And then can I just follow on that just
to mean so in the the other two cases
like say San Mateo I mean
would we charge them or be is he
basically coming because we've invited
him to come?
>> Um
>> Yeah, we don't charge because we're
co-hosts.
>> Yeah, exactly. So I just I just wanted
to clarify that.
>> Yeah, we are co-hosts. We waive that
fee. We also sometimes waive fees for
example third events like for the
Woodside uh
things like that where they're partner
agencies with us.
>> Yes. And this is a case-by-case basis
that we evaluate.
>> Um thank you. Um next question about the
solar
uh
in your calculation so currently
the solar
I hope I get this straight. My
understanding is that solar
installations
um
currently have a property ex- tax
exclusion.
So that expires in January 1st of 2027
is my understanding. It sunsets. So
does your calculation take into account
I'm assuming it doesn't but I just want
to make sure it doesn't take into
account any of the
tax reve- potential tax revenue that
will be incurred from solar. Is that
correct?
» That is correct. It only looks at what
is it what's the service that's being
provided, right? So what do we need to
do do those plans and conduct those
inspections to make sure that it meets
the code uh and what is the cost to the
town to provide
» Okay, thank you. Um in terms of uh field
rentals back to field rentals um
and I'm glad the slide is still up here.
Um, is there any difference some cities
I know do a difference um,
for the AYSO volunteer model versus the
club model?
Um, and I don't see that that and we do
have both types of organized youth
sports in around soccer in town. I'm not
as familiar with baseball. So, um,
Little League. So, I'm just curious if
there would be a way to break it out.
AYSO is volunteer led, far less
expensive, provides easier access for
instance,
um, or lower cost access initially for
kids
um, and their families to try out the
sport.
Um,
and I know like I know city of Mountain
View breaks it out differently from
um, club.
I don't There's a different verbage, but
um, for you know, I don't Some of the
clubs are for profit, some of them are
nonprofit. So, versus AYSO for instance,
which is very volunteer based.
Did that make any Did that So, basically
could we further break it out for
like a non-prof
I don't I don't know how you would do
it, you know, for AYSO versus club. I'll
leave it at that. Yes. So,
>> Uh, you can you could make those
designations.
Uh, some jurisdictions kind of stick
high level resident, non-resident,
profit, for profit.
Uh, and other jurisdictions will kind of
really get into the nitty-gritty and, you know, resident, for profit,
resident, non-profit, that kind of
stuff. So, if if that was what you
wanted to do was to further subsidize or
promote more volunteer based organized
sports youth or adult, um, you could
certainly create additional categories
in your business plan.
>> Okay, thank you.
Let me just make sure let me see what
else I have.
Can we also talk about
the tree permit?
Okay.
Where is that tree removal permit?
Obviously,
your recommended tree cost
compared to the average fee of other towns is almost
at least double if not triple.
So, I am curious and right now I think
current fee is under $100. You're
recommending a 10% or 10 time increase
to $1,000.
Can I get clarification on that where
that
cost comes from?
recommendation
>> So, that it's the report is just telling you what it's
costing the town to provide that. So,
and I would say that they can look at
from a comparison perspective.
Tree removal
especially in the Bay Area can be a hot
button item and is often something that
is subsidized. So, when you see
something on somebody else's fee
schedule as a lower fee, it doesn't mean
that their cost is lower. It means that
they've that that's what they've chosen
to charge for that particular service.
And I will say that
you know, we I have seen
in my experience in
other like I said Bay Area jurisdictions
where tree removal can be something that
especially back when we had all those
storms a couple of years ago,
things like that that was something that
was purposely chosen to be subsidized.
But these are usually if you know this
we're not talking about the tree got
damaged by the storm. This is usually
you know, I don't want this tree here
because I want to build an extension.
So those are the types of things and
given the promotion of forestry
and things like that that kind of goes
along with that and and
usually maybe arborists and other people
to come in for that. But again, that's
what it's costing you to provide the
service. It's not
Again,
you have the
ability to set that fee lower.
» Could you clarify
where those costs are?
And
like
is it staff time? Is it I mean, we only
have three species that are heritage
trees in town.
Um
So and then it goes before you know, the
tree our tree board.
So could I get clarification on where
$1,000 per tree and is it per tree or is
it per
right?
>> I don't think it's per tree.
» It's a tree permit. So
tree removal.
» So it's a it's a deposit.
>> Okay.
>> Meaning that the town would we would
take the $1,000 deposit. You bill
against it.
If it didn't cost you that much, right?
You would return the difference.
For some reason it took more time than
that. You would take
request more funds. So it's not a flat
fee. And then so therefore it wouldn't
be it could be one tree, it could be
five trees.
>> Got it. Thank you for clarifying. Okay,
and can you and is it's expected staff
time primarily? Is that where the ex-
potential for cost could come from or
are there other
>> It's all staff time. I mean, it
this is probably a place where we've got
um, consultant
time.
Um, so it's not necessarily just staff
who are
um,
paid by the town, right? Um, who are
staff of the town, but uh, you know,
you're getting an arborist involved. Um,
other specialized people can be involved
in it. So, that's where that cost comes
from.
>> Okay.
Um, thank you.
Let me just make sure. Okay.
Um,
And in terms of recreation, there's
um,
we seem to be missing some things.
Like I didn't see
the court fees. Maybe I just missed it.
Okay, court fees are missing, I we
think.
For instance.
Although I really liked the the the
pricing right now.
But
>> I would have to look into that. I don't
know that those were part of
I don't know that that was in the fiscal
year 2020.
>> Okay.
>> I can look into that.
>> Okay.
great. Um, thank you. Those were
my questions.
>> Thank you, Helen. Rebecca.
>> Uh, yes. Um, I wanted to just start with
sort of a process
question. Um,
So, there were three things we were
supposed to consider and I'm looking at
Tony's slide right here in terms of
recommendations just for
um
recreation.
And um it has all these percents and it
sounds like we have to kind of do the
percents in our head versus the fee
schedule that's listed in the document.
So that's a little challenging.
Um is the expectation is that we just
accept these recommendations that staff
have provided and then we
vote for this fee study and then that's
it or is this fee study based on all our
questions
going to come back again for another
public hearing? What what what is the
process we're doing tonight?
» Yes, we are reviewing and
trying to establish some uh
cost
um recovery levels.
Um
we can continue the item uh to a future
meeting and I still have to close
uh the public hearing
um if we don't come to a consensus
tonight. Um but uh or we can agree to
uh adopt the fees that we
are
uh okay with at at the recommended rate.
Uh we'd still continue
uh for items that we haven't come to a
consensus on tonight.
» Okay. Um
So
my other question is as I understand it,
you spoke to staff. Our staff is brand
new, so
I'm not 100% sure they would really have
a good sense of how much something
takes, you know, except that they have
experience working in other
jurisdictions.
Um I assume that you spoke to Good City
who does a lot of our planning
and to maybe CSG and some of our others
to get a sense of how much time it takes
to do these planning and building
checks. is that a good understanding of
how the process went?
>> Yes, we talked with both town staff and
the various consultants
that the town utilizes to provide those
services.
And then if there were
deviations, let's say,
between what we've seen in other
jurisdictions,
we had conversations about why that is.
You know, for example,
your planning code could be different
than Hillsborough's planning code.
So what might take them 2 hours to
review could take you 4 hours to review.
So there was also that kind of vetting
and understanding if something seemed
extraordinarily
excessive or extraordinarily kind of
under
you know, under the time. You know, we
had those conversations with staff to
understand to make sure that we weren't missing something one way or
the other.
That if there was something unique about
the town,
which would
mean that time estimates were higher or
lower than someone else,
that we kind of vetted that information.
>> So in terms of unique, I know that the
consultants have mentioned many times
that our code is excessively complex and
therefore it takes much longer to
do planning projects, for example.
Um
And then we have the issue of our
planning consultants tend to be a
revolving door.
So we're constantly having to retrain
people, so things of course take longer.
Um
So I'm just wondering, I mean, I
understand you kind of compared it to
other jurisdictions, but and you
mentioned at the beginning that you're
kind of between a junior employee versus
an experienced employee. You're trying
to find a middle ground, but
I guess I'm not totally clear on where you even found a middle-ground
person given the the change, you know, how much
turmoil we've had in planning for the
past, you know, 2 years or whatever.
» I think that um you know, like I said,
the um
there can be you can have a
more complex code. Um it doesn't
necessarily mean the time estimates
could be double that of somebody else.
Um so, you would you know, kind of take
a look at is it within a reasonable
range that you would see for a for a
tree removal, for a conditional use
permit, um for any of those items. Um
and there were certainly discussions
with with staff and with management to
say, "You know what? Um you know, I'm
new and this this will take me an hour,
but it should only take me 45." You
know, something, you know, think having
discussions like that. And then pegging
those assumptions based on that, and
looking at what you know, what it should
take, not necessarily what it is.
>> Okay. And then um when we talk about
recovery of fees, so when I look at this
new table
for planning, we're only getting 33%.
That's I think our lowest, but yet when
I look at the fee schedule, it seems to
me as if we've lowered a lot of our
planning fees, or maybe I think I mean,
it was this is a lot to absorb. Um
Is is that correct, or was am I
confusing with building fees?
>> Well, I think there there is a
difference between So, the the detailed
table is giving you you per unit result.
Um and depending on where your workload
is, right? So, you could have a lot of
fees that are going down, and then you
have only a handful of fees that are
going up, but if your workload is where
the fees are going up, right? You would
see a a greater
um subsidy. So, that's
And it And it's hard because we didn't
There isn't great information on
specific workload tied to the way the
fee schedule is structured to be able to
do a detailed line item comparison,
which is why it's kind of this
high-level
um cost to revenue comparison.
Um but that's why you will see a mix of
things going up or things going down,
but still showing um a deficit.
» But these fees are set in a way to get
rid of that planning deficit. Is that
correct?
>> I believe the recommendation is to set
fees such that you would eliminate the
subsidy.
>> Okay. And then um our planning and building departments
are going through a huge uh new software
implementation project, and they're
going back through all of our processes
to kind of figure out what's inefficient
and to try to make it more efficient. Um
Do Do you think these fees these new
fees are taking into account these
future efficiencies, or are they just
looking kind of backwards into what
has been the history of how long it
takes a good city planner, for example, to
deal with a particular type of
application? I mean
» So, I think if if it's a
if it's something that was if it was a
known
quantitative
um process change
that was coming down the pipe, let's say
in the next 6 months, then that process
change would have been accounted for.
But if it's um I I use AI as the
example, right? We It's there, it's
coming. There are a lot of different
ways that it can be incorporated, but we
don't know how it's going to be used. We
don't know how specific the town may
want to. So, trying to estimate
um impacts on time estimates wouldn't be
appropriate in this case.
But, that's again why we kind of have
that recommendation for at that
reevaluation within every 5 to 7 years,
or if some I mean, you could do it
sooner if you had some significant um
technological change um to take a look
then at how is that impacting the
process. I will say though that
sometimes the technology
makes it faster, it doesn't always make
it cheaper.
Um because there's the cost of the
technology. So, there is this you know,
like I said, it can make the process
happen faster, you can get that permit
within a day, within a week, within a
month where it might have been 3 months,
6 months. Um but, there is a cost to
that technology, and that's also
something that has to be considered um
in that.
» Okay.
And um
I guess I have some individual questions
related to the various fees, but um I
don't want to
belabor too many of them, but um
Uh let's see. Engineering
what are the typical revenues for
engineering? Is that just curb cuts? Is
that Is that the type of revenues that
we typically get?
» I'll answer.
>> I think encroachment permits.
>> Yeah, we see actually quite a bit of
encroachment permits, not just for like
construct residential construction, like
curb cuts, but actually the utilities
have been pulling a lot of permit.
AT&T, PG&E, they're all required to get
town permits, and then they have
sometimes have all just say complex
traffic control plans, so that takes a
bit of time to review.
>> And our resident and our residential
project required to provide uh traffic
>> Not typically.
Because they're not shutting down a
street or partially closing a street.
>> Okay. And then the my understanding is
the building permit fees are now going
to be based on
um
deposits based on valuation.
Uh
um is that what the way it was currently
or is that new?
» Um they it it it is not a deposit. It
would be a flat fee, but it would be
based on
the value of the project.
Um I believe previously there was some
um consideration for square footage.
>> Mhm.
>> Um
And so it it it is a it's converting it
it's a common
mechanism for
assessing
building permits.
>> So when I look at the table, it it
struck me as a little odd when you're
2,000 to 25,000, each additional
thousand is 14, and then for the next
segment it's 12, so you're going down,
and then for the 50 to 100,000 somehow
the per thousand fraction thereof jump
doubles, it goes up to almost doubles to
21, and then from there on each of the
other segments each additional thousand,
the numbers keep going down and down and
down. So is there some reason the 50 to
100,000 that
fraction
price per thousand went up so much? I
mean it it kind of went against the
trend.
» Well, that
the um
the the cost would be it it it based on
the time estimates for for ranges. And
so there are different types of projects
that would fall into the this, the which
can mean that it kind of increases a
little bit. So you wouldn't necessarily
always see it um
continually decreasing from an each
additional unit perspective.
>> So you're saying that for projects
typically in the 50 to 100,000, there's
just a lot more
smaller things that just take a lot more
time. So therefore the the cost kind of
needs to be higher.
>> You kind of jump up into a different
kind of level of of project. Yeah.
>> Okay. And then under construction and
demolition waste management review fee,
it says each additional
What does that refer to?
This is page
one 14 of the report, 145. Well,
145 of the original packet.
So it says each additional.
Is that ton?
» I believe it's each additional review.
Uh but I would have
>> Oh, okay.
And then it it has this
technology surcharge and general plan
maintenance fee are listed as 5% and
16%. What what does that refer to?
>> So the technology surcharge and the
general plan maintenance, those are are
common surcharges that you will see. Um
the technology surcharge is meant to
account for um
amortized costs associated with like the
permitting system.
Um so what we do is rather than layering
that on as overhead, it's it's itemized
as its own fee. Uh those revenues are
put into a a special revenue fund, as it
were.
Uh and those monies are set aside
specifically for
um the replacement of technology costs.
So you have a a nice permitting system.
Uh eventually it will become out of date
and you will need to get a new one.
That's what those funds are for. The
general plan maintenance fee um is to
help offset impacts to the general plan
associated with development.
So, that's
>> So, every building permit that comes in
will be charged this building permit fee
for the valuation of their project, and
then they will be charged in addition
this technology and general plan
percentage of the
original fee.
Is that how I'm understanding these
fees?
>> Correct. Um and I'm not I
would have to double-check, but I don't
know the general plan fee gets applied
to every building permit. Um I believe
it's um I believe
» Who would determine that?
The
I mean, when somebody comes and
considers a permit, how do they know
kind of
a general sense of what that thing's
going to cost without having to come
into the town, have a staff, spend time
figure out what it is
for which they're charged presumably?
So, you know, it's kind of you One would
hope that one could look at the fee
schedule and actually figure out before
they walk in kind of what their project
might cost cuz it goes into a
determination of whether they really
want to move forward with it or not
per se. So, I I guess I'm a little
unclear based on the way this is set up
how people can read it to to understand
what will be charged to them.
>> Um well, I would say one that these are
common fees and common ways of
representing those fees. However, um
there are some jurisdictions um where if
that's a concern, they'll put examples
on their website to say uh you know, for
example, a common fees associated with
an ADU or common fees associated with uh
a renovation or a remodel. Um and
they'll give examples so that it's help
it helps the public understand what
categories might be applicable because
you might think, "Oh, I'm you know, I'm
updating my you know, my kitchen." and
you're only looking in one place, but
there might actually be other
that could be applicable.
Um, and if you are navigating that as a DIY
um, home improvement person,
um, you know, it might be more
complicated than obviously if you have
an experienced contractor who is
well-versed in in reading these types of
fee schedules, but that is a way to kind
of combat those issues if if the town
thinks that that there could be that
kind of confusion.
>> So, once this is approved by town
council, it takes 30 days, I think,
before it starts getting implemented or
is it we're we're planning to try to
implement it by July 1st?
>> The planning, building, and engineering
fees require a 60-day waiting period.
So, I believe the goal was September.
>> August 1st.
>> August. August 1st. Um, but the
recreation and the administrative fees
would be they would go into effect July
1st.
>> And what is our staff bandwidth in order
to put it onto the websites these
examples that you're suggesting?
And when would those go up?
» Uh
I mean, it would take some time on our effort on
our part. Um, I don't have a time estimate for you
at this time.
» Can you give a range? I mean, if this
were to go into place August 1st, would
we have those examples up for the
housing and for the building and
planning numbers or are we talking end
of year or something?
>> We We could target for August 1st, but
um
you know, it's
» Presumably, if you start implementing
it, then you'll have some examples right
then and there, but
>> Right, but I mean, we'd have to come up
with examples and develop it and then review it and then put it on
the website.
» And the staff time to um
get trained up on these new numbers, is
the software going to spit them out
automatically or somebody going to
actually have to kind of
learn how to go through this?
>> Someone's going to have to put it
together, yes. But I don't have a time
estimate for you.
I don't know how long this is going to
take.
>> Okay, but it But will the software
actually do the calculations or is that
not part of the
Yeah, part of the
or software not able to do that?
>> Sorry. Siracusa Planning Building
Director. So, with the updated digital
permitting software,
we would have to ultimately incorporate
this new master fee schedule within it.
So, we've already talked to the person
we're working with with OpenGov and gave
them a heads-up about this new master
fee schedule, how we're going to
incorporate the fees. No matter what,
it's going to be put into that and we're
trying to roll that out almost around
the same time,
aiming for potentially August-September
of launching the new permitting kind of
process and software.
So, as part of that project though,
we'll also be rolling out a lot of the
other information related to our
permits, processing, and things like
that. I think we could wrap in this
information related to the fees well.
>> Okay, that's great to hear.
Um okay, going on the solar app for
$191,
what is that exactly? What what
This is this external at soft software
package?
» Yeah, I mean, I I I don't want to get
too technical on it cuz
I'm not a solar expert, but yes, it is
it's a new software package that is
» So, somebody is paying to get 15 kW,
they're paying the $450, and then
they're paying the $191 for the solar
app, which is provided I thought for
free by the state.
Um
And then if they're putting battery,
they also pay 536 for the battery
storage. Is that my understanding if
someone wants to put solar on their
roof, they're out about a little over a thousand dollars?
>> That is correct, although I don't know
that the solar app is a requirement
for it. So, all all in that might be,
but I don't
Again, I'm not 100% on that.
>> Okay.
Um it says in here under code
enforcement that the fines are not
actually included in the fee schedule.
So, my understanding of fines are
defined by the municipal code, is that
correct?
>> Correct.
>> So, how do we go about changing the
fines? Because um when I look at
Woodside for tree illegal tree cutting,
they charge $5,000 per tree for the
first tree, and then I think it jumps to
7,500 for the second heritage tree, and
then it gets to be like 10,000. Somebody
was charged I think last year the year
before $225,000
for having cut 22 trees. Or I I don't
know what I forget how many. But anyway,
um it seems like we need to have our
fines updated as well. So, why would
that not be part of this fee schedule?
>> That would require a code update.
>> Yeah, I was going to say we're we're
talking about the master fee schedule
tonight, Rebecca, and that's those fines
are in a different place. So, we could
update our ordinance, but that's a
different conversation than tonight.
>> But why would fines not be part of a fee
ordi- a fee part of the fees master fee
schedule? Why are they in the ordinance
and not in the fee schedule? That's my
question.
» I I part of the reason is because it's
not a fee-based service. It's not a um
it it is a penalty
um
for doing something that you shouldn't
be doing. So, it's the the amount has no
correlation to um staff time and cost.
Uh and that's why it's not included in
the fee study because it's not a
service-based cost assessment.
>> But, it takes service. It takes staff
time. So, and part of our code
enforcement
here we want to recover our costs for
code enforcement and a big chunk of that
is involved in
assessing a fee. So, that to me is the
revenue of the code enforcement
department. So, I'm a little confused
about that. But,
>> Hey Rebecca, can I ask that we move up a
little bit? It it's going to get late
and I haven't done my stuff yet. So, I
was hoping you could wrap up. I feel
we're we're starting to kind of deep
dive.
>> Well, I think that's the point, isn't
it? To deep dive into this? We're
changing all the fees for the entire
community. I think it's I think that's
the point of the town council to deep
dive. I I don't know, but
>> You're you're deep diving into fines,
which isn't part of fees. So, I'm just
trying to move us off the fines. And if
you have more stuff on fees,
we should continue on the fees.
>> Okay.
Um
So, under code enforcement, it it says
Oh shoot, I'm about to lose my battery
here. I'm sorry. It says there's a fee
inspection. So, if somebody calls in to
complain about somebody,
uh who gets charged that code
enforcement fee?
» I believe that this fee would be
and somebody can correct me if I have
the process wrong here, but if you if
somebody calls to complain, code
enforcement will come out and do an
assessment. If
something needs to be abated, they'll
let you know, and they will give you
time to appropriately abate the issue.
If they come out again
and you have not abated the issue, that
would be kind of your first quote
unquote inspection
and that would be the $290.
And any and any additional trips that
they would need to take,
um
wherein you had not abated the issue,
that would be the increased.
» Okay.
Um
So, debris box, 194, is that just every
debris box or only those that are put on
the street?
» I would have to defer to staff on that.
>> It's listed under the header
encroachment into public right-of-way,
so it would be
debris boxes in the street.
» Okay. So, I
Yeah, so fence wall,
why would there be a fence or a wall in
the public right-of-way?
» It'd be pretty rare, but they have been
known to happen.
>> And that looks like it's only $17.
I mean, that seems like a pretty serious
issue. A fence in the right-of-way
or a
wall in the right-of-way.
>> I I would believe it's $17 per linear
foot.
>> Okay. That makes more sense.
Um
Let's see.
So, it's a pretty dramatic increase uh
being recommended for the 51 for the
site development permits?
Um
I assume it's just because there's
somehow a lot of engineering involved in
review engineering review involved. Is
that why the prices are literally it
would appear to be doubling?
>> I would also
call back to the beginning when we
talked about it's been about 14 years
since the last time these were actually
studied. So, it's not so much that there
has been a significant increase in
service or cost. Um but that your
current fees were not aligned
appropriately with your cost of service.
>> Okay.
Um
So, general plan amendment and zoning
ordinance amendment, I'm now under
planning, I guess.
What do those refer to?
» Um the a general plan amendment would be
if somebody wanted
plan. Um
So, and you know, the general plan that
you have as a town, if somebody wanted
to make changes to that
and that would be that was the other
one. And then the zoning ordinance, is
that the other one you were asking
about?
» So, an applicant is asking for a general
plan amendment
and they would pay $6,000 deposit for
that. What I don't know I'm see what
that's where that scenario would happen.
>> Well, the fee schedule also has um
services and and applications and
processes for things that may be
uncommon. Um general plan amendment is a
very common thing to have on a fee
schedule. Uh it's definitely something
where should it happen, you want to have
it on your schedule. Uh but the
likelihood of it um actually being used
or having been used in the last 5 or 10
years is is minimal.
>> So, why are we reducing the cost on
those two? Because it seems like those
are enormous amount of work. They
require public hearings. They require a
lot of staff, a lot of legal time. Why
would we reduce the amount on those?
>> Sarah, do you want to speak to this?
» I can just chime in a little bit on
this. So, also something to keep in mind
with the planning fees is that they are
deposit-based.
So, there is opportunity if something
did take longer and cost
additional funding that you could cover
those costs. Or if it costs less, you
could get a refund as well. So, that's
why we kept the planning at as a deposit
because there is such variability
sometimes with some of our projects
because some of them ultimately might go
through commission review and others
will not. So, it's really just to
accommodate the fact that we recognize
this town and that there's a lot of
different types of projects we get. And
so, to make sure that we kept it
flexible in that regard.
» Okay. It seems like we're under pricing
the deposit there and people are going
to end for a bit for a huge shock once
they do that if they want that. Um back
on the tree removal permit, this one is
concerning to me. I realize it's a
deposit, but when we talk about arborist
um we actually have the conservation
committee is tasked with evaluating
trees. They do that for free.
Um so, I don't know where this thousand
dollars why that people are being asked
to put out a thousand dollars when the
conservation committee does the work for
free. So, are we planning to change our
process and actually use a
an arborist
um
for evaluating tree tree removal
permits?
» So, I'll just chime in that this was the
best estimate for now for a deposit for
a permit for tree removal. So, it does
include planner time for this and
coordination as well.
>> So, I had removed some redwood trees a
couple years ago,
four of them, because they were
encroaching on my foundation.
Um it required me to fill out a paper
one piece of paper. I had to provide
pictures of the trees.
Uh the staff sent that my application
over to conservation. Conservation
called me up, took a look at the
pictures.
>> Rebecca, Rebecca.
>> Yes.
>> like you're going I feel like you're
going into discussion. Like you asked
the staff a question, they've answered
it. Um and now I think you're going into
discussion on what you think it should
be, which is fine, but we should hold
that for the discussion period.
>> Okay.
Um so So, back on the tree, um were the conservation committee, were
they consulted for for the cost and for
these sorts of things?
Since it's their responsibility.
>> No, because I think as you stated, they
volunteer their time for this.
>> Okay. Um
And then when we get into recreation, we
have a note from the chair of the the
parks and rec committee, where they said
that they weren't consulted either. So,
um
and it would appear that
um our fees are quite a bit more than
some of our surrounding towns. So, was
there a survey done of the surrounding towns
in terms of
field fees?
» There There was a a look at that. Um
again, there there's there's what it
costs you and there's what it you choose
to charge for the service.
And parks and recreation would would be
one of those areas where
uh just cuz you see a number on another
jurisdiction's schedule does not mean
that that's what it's costing them to
provide the service, it's what they've
chosen to charge for that.
So,
um again, there will be differences in
what that is and which is reflected in
that kind of 50% cost recovery that we
did with the DC in 20 to 50% cost
recovery
um for those uh particular rentals or uh
programs, etc.
>> Okay. And then under the community hall,
um I you know, in general under the
facility rental fees, I don't see
anything for non-resident fees.
So, if somebody non-resident wanted to
rent the community hall who's not uh
agency, who's not a non-profit, somebody
wanted to have their wedding there,
that's not a resident, what would their
fee be? Or they are we not allowing
that?
>> So, we I'll Darcy Smith, I'll answer
this one since it's been a subject that
I've been contacted about many times.
Um
we're proposing to charge the same fee
for residents and non-residents and
agency
um and the reason why is because the
town
cannot exclude non-residents.
You do have the opportunity to reduce
fees for residents if you want to, and
that for example could come into field
rentals for residents versus
non-residents or
community hall rentals, you could again
subsidize the cost for residents, but
it's really important that we do not
have a fee schedule that's
discriminatory or exclusionary to
non-residents.
>> But we can charge more.
>> I I wouldn't say charge more, I would
say you can charge the fee at 100% for
non-residents and then reduce it to say
50% or 75% for residents. So, you would
be
subsidizing with local funds the local
use of parks and recreation facilities
by residents.
And it's important to note that you can
only do that if, for example, state
funds or federal funds haven't been used
to fund those recreation facilities, for
example. So, for example, Ford Field was
partially constructed with state funds,
so you couldn't apply It would not be
appropriate to apply to that.
And that's just a little bit of a
nuance.
>> Ford Field would not be appropriate to
subsidize?
» Reduce the cost for residents in part
because state funds were used to build
the field.
>> Oh, okay.
So, when we're talking about soccer
players playing at Ford or Ford Field is
baseball or so or softball or Little
League.
» Correct, but I think most of the users
are local. Our main field that's used by
non-residents is Risati Field, and I'm
not aware of any state or federal funds
that were used with Risati's Field.
>> And um I I see Ford Field parking lot.
So,
the commercial price there looks like
it's going
to 117
and the parking lot is 3,500.
Is this the the
So, this is Ford Field. Do we have
anything for the Risati's Field parking?
>> So, the Risati's Field parking is a
separate topic. It's not a user fee
based on appraisal for market rent,
which isn't covered in this fee
schedule. And I just want to point out
for the public and for the record that
this parking lot fee is for a special
event, which would not be a
um
a parking lot usage by a
commercial use. It would be for
something like a special event, like a
commercial auto show or
a summer camp that was renting Ford
Field and the parking lot. But this
isn't this would not be utilized in a
um repeat repetitive rental use. That
would be handled through a lease and
through a a market appraisal.
» Okay.
Um
Okay. Yeah, so I guess those are my
questions. Thank you.
Rebecca.
>> All right. I have a bunch of questions
as well. Thank you for your patience.
So, I will try to keep them brief and I I'm happy to get very quick short
answers.
Um COLA versus CPI?
Sounds like that's one of the decisions
we're going to need to make. What's the
typically what's the difference?
>> Well, we we use CPI to determine the
COLA.
So, for the fee schedule,
um it's always been adjusted based on
the CPI in February. So, that's the
standing practice right now.
Um we're not recommending changing that
at all.
>> Um but if we if if all these fees are
based on
effectively employees and their
salaries,
isn't COLA effectively
being factored in?
So, shouldn't we be using COLA instead
of CPI?
I mean, anything that's got an a
significant employee cost to it seems
like that's a COLA. It's going to
increase with the cost of COLA. And it
seems like our our
fees should keep up at COLA rate. Is
that the right way to think about it?
» I think in in this instance, the city
uses the city the town uses CPI as the
COLA. Some jurisdictions will say uh,
annually staff will get a 3% raise.
Whereas your cola the CPI for that year
could be 2 and 1/2% it could be 4% 5%.
So, in that instance you could look at
either or, but the town's practice right
now is that that staff costs and fees
are increased by the February CPI. Um,
so I think what what's being said is
that for Portola Valley cola and CPI are
energy.
>> Okay. I mean, I would have thought
they're potentially different, but do
you need us to make a decision tonight?
I mean, that's the only reason I'm
trying to clarify.
» Well,
certain decisions need to be made so
that we can develop cost recovery
policy.
Um, and you know, I guess that we do
have a standing practice to adjust based
on February CPI. So, if council is okay
with that, we'll continue doing that
practice.
Um, like I said, I'm not making any
recommend or recommending any changes to
the annual
inflation factor, but
um, if we do
anything tonight
is if we can adopt building and planning
fees, that way
they can go into effect.
And the rest we can come back with
um, more analysis.
>> Yeah, and I was going to get to So, so
it sounds like we could stay with CPI,
but in the future if we chose to we
could change the rate that we increase
this without going back to the schedule
itself. And it's we don't need another
study, we just decide the multipliers
are a little bit different. Yeah, okay,
great.
Um, so then you you led into my next
one. I just wanted to be clear. So, we
can go through take the building and
planning those are the things that have
60-day clock.
We can basically
um, continue say the fields um, and
other issues to a date certain.
And that would allow some of our
committees a chance to opine on those
fees.
Does that
the right idea?
Okay, great.
So,
talk about residential and
non-residential.
So, there's
a bunch of tables
sort of at the intersections, and then
there's the big table at the bottom.
Of all is the big table at the bottom
meant to be all the little tables all
combined?
Cuz it seemed like I and then this is
just a nit, but like there was like
weddings like $18. And then in the big
table I couldn't find that, but it was
in the little table one of the little
tables.
So,
is the bottom table meant to be
inclusive? I know we're getting way into
the weeds here, so
but I'm just trying to figure out
whether it should have been there and we
just missed it.
» I am not sure exactly what you're
talking about.
>> Okay.
>> I I I I'm sorry.
I would have to
» Okay, well, the thing I was talking
about is in each of the sections like
the administrative section,
there's a table.
Um
Oh, here. Look. I mean, let's let me
just find this I mean, this let's just
be one. This is a pretty minor example,
but I will use it just so we can find
it.
Um so,
All right, so,
Where is it? Can I find it now?
So, under the total cost per unit
results recreation. So, that's that's a
table. It's not the big master table at
the very end.
And that is on page of the
on the old one,
which I assume the pages maybe haven't
changed you that was in page 24 of your
number.
There was a thing here that said Redwood
Grove weddings only.
And then I didn't remember seeing that
again later in sort of master. So I'm
asking is the table that we're looking
here on page 24. Is this meant to be
sort of duplicated like are they meant
to all be concatenated together as the
big table at the bottom?
» I
>> This wasn't there.
>> Believe so. Although it's so in the
recreation chapter it details the per
unit
results for each of those items and I
guess at the very end of the report
>> Yeah.
>> is the comparison.
And so those are separate tables. So it
calls out like picnic rentals and it
talks about the different jurisdictions.
>> Um well the thing I'm looking at now I'm
on page 40 again of the thing that got
sent out
um not at 4:00 but before and it says
master fee schedule and it's like fee
name and then building and building fees
and it goes on from there. I was just
trying to understand is that table meant
to be all the other tables combined or
is this table something different?
>> Yes, I think what you're referring to is
the master fee schedule. So it lists all
of the fees all together whereas each
chapter is only focused on the
individual fee of that particular
department.
>> Right. But then that means there's some
things that I can see in one of the
section tables that I can't find in the
master fee schedule.
>> Okay.
>> And I use the wedding just as as as an
example. I didn't do a thorough analysis
to see
but
are in the master? Okay, did I miss it
cuz maybe I just
Uh that's not going to help me. But what
can you tell me what page it's anyway,
if it's there I'm fine. I I'm let's move
on. I don't want to spend too much time
on it. I just want to make sure um it
does bring me to the question that like
some of these numbers seem like
ludicrously low.
Like reserving for a wedding, like
somebody's got to go put a sign out
there that says it's reserved,
somebody's got to answer the phone,
answer questions.
At like $250 a burden fully burdened
hour, like $18 is like 2 minutes or something. So, I I
don't want to drill into all of these,
but I just I sort of question the
outliers cuz if the outliers seem wildly
off, then I kind of wonder how we got to
some of the rest of it.
>> Well, I think some of those and I I'd
have to find it specifically, but I
believe it's a per hour fee. And so,
when you look at how long somebody
actually rents it for that type of
service, it's at that cost is actually
more than that, right? So, it cuz it's
if it's $18 an hour and you're renting
it for 4 hours,
right? It you're
>> Okay.
>> So, I think that's kind of why so it's
spread over what that
average rental would be, right? Because
the staff time that the time that staff
spends
is kind of set
>> Sure, for event. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, no,
that that that makes sense to me. Um
then the only question I would ask is
how would we know that?
» The unit should be in the master fee
schedule.
>> Okay. So,
>> And
>> All right. And since I couldn't find it
in the master sheet and I was only
looking at the recreation table, maybe I
see it. So, okay. Well, all I'd ask
staff is to go through and and make sure
that these super low numbers are some
kind of per unit where the unit's per
hour or whatever.
Okay. Um
So, then um you have some
recommendations relatively near the end,
not at the very very end, but you have
some recommendations. And there's also
some text after the different sections,
which also kind of look like sort of
recommendations or best best practices.
Are tonight are you asking the council
to review the sort of verbage at the end
of the sections and the recommendations?
Or is that for another day? I mean it
wasn't clear to me what what we would do
with some of the information.
>> I believe the recommendations pertain to
like establishing a CPI establishing an
annual inflationary factor, which would
be continuation of what you're doing.
Um
establishing cost recovery policies
um for the different areas
um and then
kind of a a policy regarding how often
you would re-evaluate these.
>> Okay, cuz there I mean there's you know
there's paragraphs here that talk about
the township would review review excuse
me, review results um help bridge the
gap, blah blah blah. And
it felt like I'd read through a couple
of these and I just So you think that
your recommendations incorporate all of
that verbage.
>> Correct.
There are
in the staff report, there are three
recommendations.
» Oh, in the Matrix report, is that what
you're
>> No, I'm actually saying in the staff
report that introduces
>> Right, but there's also I'm talking
about the ones from Matrix though. I was
just trying to understand those um
>> Thank you.
Um
there's a bunch of and again, I'm
willing to defer this just have staff
look at it and particularly if we
continue the um
field costs and and other um
costs in that area, but you know, some
of the fields are per person, other
jurisdictions use monthly. I couldn't
figure out like even how to compare
those.
Right? Cuz one was telling me per person
and the other told me monthly, so I
didn't have any comparison. So I don't
need an answer tonight, but it seems
like if we come back, I would like to be
able to compare them to other
jurisdictions in some meaningful way.
Does that make sense?
I mean, there's got to be aware. I mean,
we even if we just go to look at past
data and just say, well, these fields
get used, you know, this many times with
this many people. If we translate that
into a monthly fee, it would be this
versus the per person fee is this. I
mean, I just want some way to be able to
compare those so that we have a
reasonable analysis on what we're
charging people who are playing sports
here.
Is that I just want to make sure I'm
clear. I don't need an
I'm not looking for you to give me the
what the number is cuz I don't think
that's probably Yeah.
>> In those particular instances, some some
comparisons might be more
easily determined than others just
because of right, per per person versus
per month, but how many times are you
using it? That all that there other
factors to go into it. So,
I understand what you're asking for and
I to the best of our ability we
>> That's
Right. And all I'm looking for is I'm
not looking for there's an you know, a
perfect equation where X is going to eat
X. Like I get that, but you can still
come up with a pretty good approximation
cuz I think, you know, when it basically
goes to the committee, they're going to
ask the same question.
Um
So, just to to clarify, reasonable
recovery rate, like that five $500,000,
that's assuming we recovered 100%.
Right, which is unrealistic. So, I mean,
just so everybody's clear, we're we're
not going We're not likely to recover
that.
Um
Public Works,
I got to say I'm still confused about
the two table twos.
Um cuz there's I mean, Public Works was
$900,000
different of the difference. It was the
largest by far. So, just help me
understand again, what is it that's
s-
the town only costs versus the other
like 900,000 that sort of showed up and
then disappeared. I mean, I I think
you're doing the right calculation. I'm
just want to make sure that everybody
understands if we've gone to this new
table
why it was drastically different, and
that's the biggest contributor.
>> Well, it would it was also it wasn't
it was not just about it being town only
cost that it needed to be town only fee
related cost. So, public works as a
budget unit includes the town engineer
and includes maintenance and workers.
Um it includes services that are not fee
related, that are general town
maintenance
related services. And so, those costs
shouldn't Again, those
the revenue is not meant to offset those
costs.
>> Got it. So, so public works, the 1.26 is
the actual cost of that department, all
in.
That's what we pay per year, not the the
fees part of it. Okay, that's that's
helpful. Thank you.
Okay, um small fees we talked about.
So, there's a thing in here that there's
an appeal. It was like $14,000
that seemed, you know, like it was a
huge outlier when you looked at the
comparisons.
Was that a flat fee or was that a
deposit?
>> Um let me
Is it a deposit? Um I would also say
that this is
um
the when I first started
20 years ago, you would see these fees
at $75 or $100.
Um these have uh
the philosophy on appeals um
has certainly changed throughout the
years. Uh these are
staff time intensive. They take a lot of
time, thereby a lot of cost associated
with them. Um and different
jurisdictions have different
philosophies on
barriers to entry to provide those
um services to allow for appeals of
projects.
>> Sure.
>> Um so,
what you see on another fee schedule is
not indicative of what it's costing,
it's what they're using to charge for
that appeal.
» Um yeah.
Okay, I mean $14,000 sound like a lot of
money for an appeal. Forget about
whether it's, you know, people are
subsidized. I mean, it just seemed like
a lot of money, period. Um but, I think
what I'm hearing is we could do that as
a deposit
rather than the flat fee. Since since
>> Okay.
Great.
» All right. Um
I'm sure I have more Oh, one other small
question. Indirect costs, does that
include building maintenance costs that
for where offices are?
>> Includes lights.
>> Yeah, so
>> and so forth.
>> Yeah. Okay, perfect.
Okay, thank you. I know that was kind of
exhausting, but thank thank you very
much. Um
as you can see, we care about the
details, so thank thank you. Um please stay around. Um
I think Catherine now
So, open the public hearing, take come
public comment, and we'll close the
public hearing, bring it back to the
council. Yeah, okay. All right. So, with
that, I'd like to open the public
hearing. Is there anyone in the room
that would like to speak? Please come up
to the podium.
And thank you for your patience.
Yeah, we
So are we all, but thank thank you for
being here.
>> I'll be quick. Be quick. Okay, my name
is Cindy Rowe, and I organize pickleball
for the town. I, you know, run So, we
don't use the fields.
Yet, there is no um schedule fee
schedule for the courts. So, we have to
pay the field prices, and it's
inappropriate. But, works out for us for
the amount of time that our leagues um
reserve the courts, we're paying $100 an
hour. Now, all the other towns in the
area charge 10 to 20 for court rental.
So, we would like to see a separate
section for courts in the fee schedule.
Is that Yep. Then the other thing is
that I saw on the classes, I also teach
pickleball through Parks and Rec.
You can all take the course.
Um, you're charging
the instructors
a new fee of $197 just to apply to teach
and then take 20% of the proceeds. I
don't like it.
That's all.
Thank you.
Please.
Hi, I'm Karen Askey. I am a member of
Parks and Rec
uh and a resident of Portola Valley. Um,
and first of all, thank you Courtney for
the presentation and Tony. And this was
a lot of data to absorb in a very short
period of time and I almost wonder if
there should be um
further review or a subcommittee that
looks at each of these and makes sure
that things are
um clarified for residents and those
that are charging. Um, but what um the
other thing I appreciated hearing was
that Parks and Rec is actually doing
really well, that the recreation fees
are good and that we are above the norm
in what we're recovering compared to
other communities. I think that's
important to think about because
recreation is not just about cost
recovery. There's a lot of soft elements
to it. And I have been asked to read a
letter from the Alpine Little League
because uh they had playoff games
tonight and couldn't make it.
Alpine Little League is very concerned
by the proposal to raise field usage
fees by 86%.
This unexpected decision mirrors many of
the inquiries raised by the Parks and
Recreation Committee specifically
regarding whether this change is driven
by actual maintenance cost increases or
if it serves as a strategy to burst
boost town revenue.
At all events, as part of the PV
community for over 65 years, the league
is committed to working together with
the town to ensure the league payers pay
a rental fee sorry, the league pays a
rental fee that covers its fair share of
the maintenance costs.
The league thoroughly appreciates the
tremendous work done by Justin Bixby and
his team. Since his arrival, Justin has
shown he is dedicated to providing the
youth and adults of Portola Valley the
best possible field conditions for
competitive soccer, baseball, and
softball.
To complement his and his team efforts,
Alpine Little League has demonstrated a
significant commitment to field
maintenance as well. In 2026, the league
invested approximately $42,000
in an environmentally friendly electric
maintenance tractor for the Town Center
and Ford Fields. Maintenance of the
infield dirt at these locations remains
primarily a volunteer-driven effort with
over 48 hours of manual labor
contributed by volunteers since January
alone.
Not to mention the collective work in
prior years for upkeep of the pitching
mounds, infield dirt, as well as an
investment of over $20,000 to renovate
the batting cage and install new
backstop padding, etc. This rate hike is
particularly surprising given Alpine
Little League's existing $60,000 plus
pledge toward the bathroom and snack
shack development at Ford Field. We
respectively inquire whether the rate
hike is in lieu of or in addition to the
substantial pledge.
While the league intends to avoid
passing these costs on to players, the
increase may force a strategic shift.
Woodside has allocated $1.5 million for
field and facility enhancements with a
target completion date before the spring
2027 season. We understand costs are
increasing across the board in this
current economy. I'm almost done.
>> almost done. Okay.
>> Which may include field maintenance
costs. We respectively invite a
discussion to learn about the costs
incurred by PV to maintain Ford and
Portola Valley during youth baseball
rental periods.
And just so you know, they do we are not
the only field in the area that is used
by both the soccer and baseball teams.
Thanks.
>> Thank you.
Please.
» Maryanne Plunge the chair of the
conservation committee.
Um, I strongly urge the town council to
keep the fee of $95 for the standalone
tree uh uh permit application at $95 and
not make it into a thousand dollar um
uh dep- deposit. And the reason is is a
sort of twofold. The the work that is
needed for the approval of a or or
denial of a
um tree permit which is only significant
trees. If you cut down a eucalyptus,
there is no tree uh
um uh
approval requested. It currently needs
or historically needs clerical work by
town staff to take the application, to
send the application which
may or may not have a um arborist report
because that is not required
um their email to the conservation
committee.
then does all
the work
and sends a comprehensive report back to
the town and then all the town needs to
do again clerical work say approved or
not approved and and
send that to the um
applicant.
Um I failed to see how this could be
costing a thousand dollars.
And then the second thing is if we make
tree uh
um
tree removal applications expensive,
what will happen is that some people in
town will use unlicensed uh
people to cut trees down. These um
contractors have no idea about um
processes to to clean the chainsaws
afterwards so so uh diseases are not
carried in. So this could have
significant um
we could get sick trees in town um which
then uh uh costs uh
that I don't know who who would be
paying. So I just urge you um it's
doesn't seem to be completely clear to
some people what is really
what the costs are because the
conservation committee does all the work
and we don't cost anything. And so I I
wanted to to bring this in front of you.
Thank you.
» Thank you.
Can I just ask
are there arborists on the conservation
committee other than Megan?
» Megan Megan is the only arborist and
almost everybody brings an arborist
report. So we go out and we work off the
arborist report and of our judgment.
>> Thank you.
» Madam, please.
» Uh Nona Ceriello, I'm also on the
conservation committee and I also work
on the tree permit uh team.
And I I just want to add two points to
what Mary Ann has said. One is that we actually appreciate the question of
what are the costs? What are things
costing you? And as Mary Ann said, it's
not costing the town very much to uh
decide on these tree permit requests.
The second thing is,
you know, we're not a revolving door.
We're not like staff in that sense. We
have a member of our committee who's
been doing tree permit removals uh for
50 years and the rest of us have been
there, you know, doing them for 10 years
or more. So, uh we appreciate the
question and we also appreciate the
importance of compliance with the town
ordinances. So, please reconsider
what it is costing the town to uh either
in terms of deposits or actual fees to
do the tree removal permits. Thank you.
>> Thank you.
Bob, please.
» Uh Bob Sportola Valley.
Um
I didn't see anything in the report
about courts.
Uh and you know, I've been up here
before about courts a couple of times.
Um
so, I'm trying to understand the uh
expense for the court and the the cost
recovery for the court. Um the only
thing that I can see that's done
regularly with the court, but in fact
it's not regularly,
they occasionally wash the court and
they occasionally trim the uh leaves off
the the um
the the fence that has leaves that come
into the court.
But other than that, we clean the
courts, we dry the courts, we fix the
nets, we do all the things that need to
be done on the court. So, I don't think
there's much town expense.
But, if it's put in with the fields,
which it seems to be done been being
done, then we are subsidizing the field
costs. And so, I'd like to see that that
the general ledger has a line item for
courts.
So that you can identify what is a court
expense versus a field expense. Fields
are much more expensive. They have to be
maintained every week. They have to be
watered every week. We don't have any of
that. So, I'm asking that there be some
judgment made about fields versus
courts. Also, just for the leagues, that
we have a slightly different orientation
to leagues because the way you charge is
for leagues.
We play short three times a year.
Most of leagues play longer leagues
twice a year. So, we end up paying 150%
of what others would pay for their their
league fees. So, we
uh and normally our teams are four
players are playing in a league versus
12 to 18 players playing on a soccer
team or a baseball team.
Uh so, I just like to have you
understand that it really is a
difference and I think it should be
accounted for differently. Thank you.
>> Thank you.
Is there anybody else in the
schoolhouse?
All right, going online.
Patty, go ahead. Welcome.
» This is uh Hi, it's Patty Deuce, chair
of the Parks and Rec Committee. Sounds
like um
you all read my letter. I do want to
clarify
that
the Parks and Rec Committee did not vote
on the letter. However, we did discuss
the issue and we are all in agreement
with the components that I put in the
letter,
but we did not vote on it as a
committee. I do respectfully request
that the council
um allow more time
for the recreational fee portion of the
study
and continue the approval of these fees
until a future meeting.
And we've talked through a lot of the
issues that already got them at touched
on. Not going to go into a lot of
detail, but I think
there are several reasons why we want
this to happen. One,
Courtney mentioned that
again, we are over above the range of
normal cost recovery. However, if you
look at schedule that Tony put up,
we're recommending or they are
recommending
100% cost recovery on many, many of the
like items well above the 58% that we
already have.
We think we need to take a look at that
for a couple reasons. Number one,
competitive. Greg already pointed this
out. We do a cost per user. Many of our
the community
do a cost per hour. Let's translate that
so that we understand the competitive
costs.
We've done it in the Parks and Rec
Committee before. We can do it again.
The other one is, and I'm going to
lean on my old econ 101,
do we really understand
the elasticity of the rates that we're
charging?
As Courtney has mentioned, couple other
people as well,
there are choices that are clubs
and uh uh
leagues can make in terms of alternate fields to
go play on, and they will make those
choices based upon the economics of
where they play. So, we really need to
understand
um what it would cost us
to
raise the rates, and are we really going
to get the revenue that we think we're
going to get? So, we need more time to
take a look at the rates. We're willing
to work with the town, with Matrix,
to
uh work in tandem and so that we can
come up with the best solution for the
town, our users, and our residents.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
done?
» Hi. Thank you for taking my comment.
This has been really hard to to listen
to and uh
you know, this meeting started off
during oral statements from residents uh
talking about
uh the delayed audits and finances
uh that are delayed till 2027.
And and then now we're asking for uh
you know, uh fees to be raised
uh when the books aren't right.
And it's just really hard This is This
has been like really hard to listen to
and you know, as far as the the fees for
the trees, you know, PG&E has been
coming into our town and decimating the
trees um
while the wires aren't being underground
for our issue and their issue.
Are they paying any fees
to do what they've been doing to the
trees? And
um are we Are they giving arbor reports
on
how they are breaking those trees down,
which are now growing all kinds of ways?
Um
But
this meeting has been hard and it looks
like the you know, the paperwork has
been updated this afternoon
uh without an alert.
And uh it needs to be clarified and this
information along with the
you know, the audits that have been
corrected and it seems like there's from
this presentation there's another
$500,000.
There's lots of numbers rolling around
here.
While we don't have our books in order.
So please if if someone can
just clarify that and get it to the
residents.
I will be all in a much better state to
make some decisions. Thank you.
» Thank you, Rita.
All right, one last time is there
anybody in the room? I don't see any
hands in the room.
Uh Christine.
Go ahead. Welcome.
» Yes, I just wanted to thank you for your
presentation.
Um
the fact that it came in so late and the
public was unaware that it came in.
We usually ask for any changes to be
redlined so it's obvious to us what the
changes were. So I'm just hoping that
can happen in the future.
Uh also an alert to go out to people
that read it prior and that they need to
go read it again. So I don't know if
that would be on PB forum or what.
Um
I also agree with Cindy and Patty on the
recreation fees and that we need more
time for to be analyzed.
I didn't really appreciate well, they're
volunteers. Well, we the committees have
advisory roles.
And the advisory roles are really
respected in this town. And I hope in
the future
uh committees are respected in this town
uh to
look at past history, past knowledge. We
really need to reach out and learn about
past knowledge.
Um the 86% increase in Little League
fees is not okay. We've worked with um
the Little League
closely in the past and we value that
relationship.
Um
I I want to see if you can really
explain the difference between your
Nexus study and this study.
I I really want to understand and the
public needs to understand the
difference of those two studies. Nexus
study we had $68,000.
Where does that stand? How does that
compare to this study?
And please explain that. I didn't see
the land rental fees that I was hoping
to see in this A study presented
anywhere. And that's Ladera Oaks half
acre we're running out annually for a
field
and Alpine and parking lot. So I would
like to see those how those were figured
in detail.
Um
let's see.
Um I am noticing that in Independence
Hall at Woodside,
um they are saying it's for the Woodside
resident and they're doing $100 per
hour.
So I just looked that one up just for
information.
And
I think that's all I'm going to say for
now. Thank you. Oh, I noticed that one
other thing that Woodside put in $30,000
for a grant writer. So we in the future
may want to get grants and I I'm always
for a grant writer. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Christie.
Um I I would add that the comment about
the volunteers wasn't that we don't
appreciate them. I mean, they're the
core of what we do. When you're doing a
fee and they charge us zero, their fee
is zero. So, you don't you can't put
that in the fee study that the master
fee study. That was the thing that was
being mentioned. So, it wasn't about the
quality or the expertise.
Okay. So, with that, I don't see any
hands online. I don't see any hands in
the um schoolhouse. So, I'm going to
Now, let me ask um before I close it, if
we are going to bifurcate say the
recreation fees from the rest, can we
still close it? And then council can
discuss it, decide what we're going to
do, and then continue part of it.
>> reopen it and continue for the purposes
of continuing it to a future date.
>> Perfect. Great. Okay, then I'm going to
close the public hearing.
Okay. So, with that, it's been 3 hours.
Um, I'd like to suggest we take a short
5-minute break, and then we'll come back
and the council will deliberate.
» We have a slide that you're going to see
» All right. Welcome back, everyone.
So, now we're going to have council
discussion.
Um So, obviously everybody's going to,
you know, discuss the various fees. If
you think there's something we should do
different than what's in the staff
report, I'd also like to hear your
opinion on whether we should um separate
out the recreational fees or any of the
other fees. Um, I think what we heard
from staff was that their preference is
that the building and planning fees
get approved so that the 60-day clock
can start. But again, we could choose to
continue those as well. But I'd like to
hear everybody's opinion on the idea of
bifurcating um some of the fees.
So, who would like to go first?
» First or second? You started first.
>> Yeah, I'm around
I'm I'm actually waking up. Um
I think we should the building and
planning should be bifurcated for sure.
Uh there's plenty of
>> Do you mean recreation fees?
>> Yeah, I mean dig go ahead and
>> separate out recreation fees, but keep
everything else. Well, I'm I'm trying to
separate out building and planning and
then there's administration fees.
There's a bunch You can go We can go
different ways.
>> fees?
>> Well, Tony Tony, could you bring up
>> three days, that's not a bi- a
bifurcation. That's a trifurcation.
>> Well, no, I'm proposing that we
bifurcate, but the bifurcation with
recreation fees and everything else. And
you were saying planning and building
and everything else.
>> It would be to bifurcate building and
planning.
And engineering.
>> Well, so can you bring up your
>> That's what That's what That's what I
was trying to do.
>> Well, I yeah, and I'm I want to say you
can do that. I'm I want to make sure
that as we respond, we're
>> Right.
>> responding clearly.
>> And does administration need to be also
the three month?
>> No. Administrative
um recreation
um can go into effect.
We can adopt all the way up until
>> June 30th.
10 days?
>> But Tony, if you can bring up that
slide, then we know what we're
» So, I guess what I Well, I can keep
discussing a way which basically that we
go ahead and approve the I'd be in favor
of approving the building and planning
fee schedule.
Realizing, of course, that the devil is
in the details and in the instituting of
it because
we're have to going to have some They're
going to have They're going to have some
administrative leeway in order to be
able to actually do a decent job cuz
some of it doesn't make sense.
Got to say.
Um
but
uh
it seems like we should be able to
approve that and then
keep out the administrative and the
recreational
for further work.
Also,
although I got to say the tree ordinance
is got to I I think we have to uh
tip our hats to the conservation and and
keep the uh tree removal fee the same.
I don't know what to do about uh the
compliance and I thought I thought uh
Rebecca's points were really extremely
good. Uh
the
we're just not getting uh people to pay
for these things uh
cuz
it's first of all, it's very awkward
trying to get them uh trying to get to
get on the website and get it done and
so forth. They
the mechanisms are just not there for
people to pay.
Uh
and the uh
the devil
is in the details of how we actually
make these monies available.
So, anyway, I'm I'm for the bifurcation.
» Just to clarify, it's building,
planning, and engineering.
>> Does that include the trees?
>> Cuz it's well
the tree permits are included in that,
yes, but building, planning, and
engineering cuz there's there is a
development component to these fees and
require the 60 days. Administrative and
recreation, those fees
um
we can adopt those
um
these 10 days prior to adoption.
>> Yeah, so for sure with the exception of
the tree ordinance.
I don't under I mean
so complicated
uh
and to us to uh
do this level of detail
in this context is is is pretty um
daunting.
Um because there there are things that
are like we're talking about $17 for a
fence permit.
I is stepping back and wanting to
discuss it. I I I feel the need to say
that
uh the things that uh we're focusing on
are things like fences,
uh all the all these
uh the trees, these are the things that
people care about and and whether or not
we're actually
we need to make exceptions for those for
those things. I think the fence permits
were were pretty outrageously cheap in
this. Uh and and penalties are only
twice what the fee is. So, who who would
ever uh
ask the uh
It It It It doesn't seem to respect the
things that
completely make our make our our our
town unique,
which is the the um
the easements, the enforcement of the
easements, the keeping of the easements,
the keeping of the fences, and the
ability to and the and the ability to
enforce those.
Uh and without those, we're just not
we're going to lose our town.
So, anyway, maybe that's not quite what
you wanted because I don't see an option
for you.
But I do think we need to move ahead
with some of the building.
>> Sure. Well, and Mayor, I would say that
enforcing the rules is not what the fee
schedule is about.
>> Well, there is
>> No, it's No, it's No, it's not. So, I
just let me try to answer because what I
heard was you were saying like the the
fee on the fences, that's what they're
going to charge if you ask to put a
fence in the right-of-way.
That's what they're going to charge you
to process your request. That's not a
we're going to come and say you can't
put this fence in. That's a That's an
enforcement thing. That's not what that
money is. So, it just seemed like you
were conflating a little bit
>> Yeah.
>> enforcement of our values, which I
completely agree with you, versus
somebody who is asking permission to do
something.
Does that make
>> Yes, it does. I mean, it doesn't clarify
to me because I didn't I didn't
understand that to begin with.
But, uh the the it is a component of I'm
just trying to figure out how
to get these fees to feel like they're
trying to get us a better town.
Thank you. I appreciate your help.
>> Look out. It's getting late.
Stuff's flying.
I am, man. I tell you, stuff's flying.
>> Okay, somebody else go. Okay.
>> So, you are you Are you
>> I'm done.
>> You are you Are you done?
>> AI is apparently was about to
>> So,
>> take over.
>> So, hang on just a sec. So, before we
leave, so what I heard is you're for
bifurcating building, planning, and
engine
>> Yeah.
>> Okay, great.
>> But, I do have some corrections. I think
we should go with the public input that
we got.
>> Okay, well, what So, what let's Let's
capture So, the corrections are
>> Trees are
uh
>> So, what What's your proposal?
>> I think the tree fee should stay the
same.
>> Okay. So, stay
the $95 or whatever the existing fee is.
>> sure Yeah.
>> Okay.
And some Is there
>> We'd have to get people to sign up for
it.
>> That's okay. And Is there anything else?
I'm just trying to capture where you stand.
» I think that Well,
No, I think I I have to trust that
they're going to make it right.
>> When they when they put it in in place.
No, I think it's okay.
>> Okay.
Helen, go ahead.
>> Thank you. Uh Um
you know, obviously master fee schedules
are comprehensive and deep. So, I
appreciate the opportunity to have to
comment.
Um
So, first um
this is a minor thing. Community Hall
public agency. I just would like it to
be noted like that it would be exempt if
we are co-host. Like I know that sounds
weird, but I would like that like in
case there is institutional knowledge
that is lost along the way.
Um that is a minor one.
Um
Uh ch- ch- ch- ch- ch- ch- ch-
Okay, great.
Um
in terms of recreation versus
um
Uh I think especially because of the
lack of court fees that we have noted, I
think we should bifurcate. So, I'm fine
with that.
Um
>> And can I ask just
>> Yep.
>> the bifurcation, are you saying
>> for recreation.
>> Okay, so yours is slightly different
than Mary's cuz Okay, that's
>> Yeah.
Um
>> not administration.
>> Yeah, that's actually that's what she
says, right? Yeah.
>> I mean, that's the only difference and
I'll get back to what it mean
administration means. It's pretty small.
>> But right.
>> And I might be missing something with
administration, but I think right now I
just I'm saying recreation.
Um I would also recommend a lower price
for CYSA over AYSO.
Or
uh excuse me, vice versa. A higher cost
for CYSA versus and lower for AYSO.
Um
EV chargers,
I actually
um
I actually would like to see a lower
cost for that as well.
Um
we want to try to encourage chargers. Um
I would
I I I don't know what the right cost is,
but we're one of the highest. Um what
this doesn't take into account, having
put in an EV charger, is the trenching
that's involved.
Um
which is exorbitantly expensive. So, I
would and to incentivize it to lower a
cost for an EV charger is what I would
like to see.
Um
and
we didn't I should have asked your
recommendations for that one or what
would be some cost recovery, but to give
them some sort of a break.
Um ADUs
Um
you know, again, we have one of the the
zoning clearance. We have the highest
of any jurisdiction in the comparison at
1,000. Hillsborough is at 685.
Um and again, to incent potentially
incentivize a little bit to give some
sort of cost break um
because of our housing element. Um I'm
not saying huge, but something a little
bit
is what I would like to see.
Um
The tree removal, I absolutely I'm also
concerned because of um
vegetation management, you know, there
are trees out there. They're pine trees
that are not they don't need a permit.
There are other trees out there that
um
for
uh for fire safety, again, I would try
to incentivize, so I would consider
lowering that cost.
Um
>> Would you lower the existing cost?
I mean, matching married or are you
suggesting something there?
» So, I'm looking at Woodside at 125
Uh um um
and then Los Altos Hills at 250 and
those two jurisdictions are similar fire
hazard. So, I personally would put
something in between those two.
Um
uh just to do some
Right, somewhere in between those two.
Um
So, there is some cost I think to
process them to staff. So, I want to
make you know, but I agree like I do
really
want I don't want it to be
too excessive. Like I think $1,000 is
excessive and we want we want to help
manage the tree the canopy. So, I want
to make sure that
tree removal is accessible and not um
and not have people avoid it. In terms
of the fines, we're not that's not on
the agenda, but some history Woodside
incorporated their ex-
their very high fines because someone
cut down trees without permits rep- rep-
like a
you know, 10 years ago or something and
that's when they instituted their fines.
Just um
and
um instructor fees
um
I know we're five or we're it looks like
we might go towards recreation at a
later date, but I would
you know, to have
one-time fees for a new instructor and
then
if it's a long-time instructor, not it's
a one-time fee and not a repeated fee.
Um is what I would ask.
Um
» Do you want to have an
instructor?
>> We do, but to have I mean and I don't um
the 197 I um
I
didn't have a chance to compare it to
other cities. So,
um
but we're I'm just saying like I'd like
exemptions for long-time
instructors. I'm not making a comment
like exemption like a one-time fee for
new instructors.
But to have people potentially
grandfathered in or some something to
have a one
um and probably lower, but I don't I
haven't done enough research on that
particular fee, but it does seem like
people that have been an instructor for
a long time
to have them have to pay $200 every
you know, every session or something
seems expensive to me. And it
um
and then the EV charging fees um often
like piece you know, PCE
you
um I don't know if we can do a midnight
to 3:00 p.m. rates.
You know, usually that's 23 cents per
kilowatt, not 43 cents and that 43 cents
is a higher rate. So, I don't and I
don't know if we can do that, but I
thought I'd
uh
again to incentivize EVs. Right now at
43 cents, that almost is comparable to
gas cars. So, to lower the cost when
it's cheaper and there's solar going
um and it could be cheaper from if we
put the chargers and I don't know
because we have ChargePoint if we can do
that. Um right? Like I don't know if
they can do a load shift timing.
>> So, are you you talking about installing
EV chargers or you char-
>> No, EV charger is a the It is included
on this rate master rate
>> Right, I'm just trying to understand
which one you're So, you're talking
about
>> about the 43 cent rate. So, I don't know
if if ChargePoint allows us to do any
load shift or when it's cheaper.
Um for them like I know ChargePoint is
private and wants to make money, but I noticed that the 43 cents was in
our
So, do you Sorry. Does ChargePoint offer
reduced rates during
>> I haven't seen it. I don't but that
doesn't mean that it's not offered or
that it's not possible, but it's not
something that I have seen in
municipal fee schedules that ChargePoint
>> Right. Yeah, I don't know if it's
possible.
Thank you.
So, um
that's all I got.
Um
Oh, did I say Little League fees?
>> Yes.
>> Uh
>> I mean, at least you talked about I
guess you talked about soccer, I think.
>> Yeah, I haven't looked I missed the
Little League fees. I'm not going to
comment on that because it does seem
So, I'm not sure. It seems high, but I
haven't done enough research, so I'm not
going to actually comment on that. But
yeah, if we're going to do recreation at
a later date.
>> Thank you.
>> Thanks.
>> Rebecca?
>> Uh yes. Um so, I'm in favor of
bifurcating out the recreation.
Um I wasn't clear on whether code
enforcement was included
in the 60 days.
» No, there's no development component
to code enforcement.
>> Okay. Um
I mean, code enforcement to me, the only
change you're making I think is
Uh hang on, let me pull up that page.
Uh
Oh, it doesn't have a master fee
schedule. It just has a table, right?
It's the only
table six, right? That's it for code
enforcement?
The inspection reinspection fee and the
permit investigation fee is just
that that's it though, right?
» I believe that's correct.
>> So I would favor including that
in not with parks and rec, but including
that with the building and planning. Um
And so Tony, you have on the screen your
the staff is recommending 100% for all
of these areas,
but I vaguely remember you saying
>> Sorry, go ahead.
>> That's what was in the matrix study
report.
>> Oh, and but you had a different
recommendation, I thought.
You had different percentages because
you had something about
Uh oh, the business license fee.
Oh, yes. You so
>> Yeah, so the the application processing
fee.
Yeah, it was um
uh I would recommend a lower fee.
>> And then um I didn't actually see the
annual business license fee. Is that
something different?
>> No, the annual business license fee is
in the fee schedule, and it can't change
because it's a tax.
We would have to we'd have to uh
we would have to have a vote to increase
that.
Or change the methodology of how it's
collected.
>> And you're saying it is in here?
>> It is in the fee schedule, yes.
>> Under administration?
» Table four.
>> Yes.
>> and then the $4 uh
ask fee and
>> I'm looking at table four, and I don't
see a business license fee, annual fee.
But I mean, obviously we can't change
it, so it's
neither here nor there, but I don't see
it in table four, but okay.
>> Well, table four is just highlighting
the the the fees that are changing.
>> Oh, okay.
>> But in the master fee schedule it'd be
under administrative.
» Okay.
Um okay, so yeah.
>> Yeah, it's just $134
a year, right?
>> 134 and then there's a $4 task fee, so
it's $138. Yeah.
>> Okay, so yeah.
This report was a little challenging. Um
Okay, so let me go back to my notes
here.
Um
So again, I'm in favor of the
bifurcation of just
rec recreation.
Um
Uh let's see, you are recommending
reducing some solar panel fees, business
license fees, and then the rest we'll
deal with later. So what what is your
recommendation for solar and business
license? What what percent
I don't know what's your
>> The solar panels, there's two options.
You can you can go with the state rate
or you can go with the rate that's been
calculated based on the study.
Um
So the state rate I believe is 450.
And then we've calculated a rate that's
higher.
Um we can adopt the higher rate because
we have a user fee study to justify the
increase.
» And what are you proposing?
we use the higher rate
or you're proposing that
>> No, that's
council.
>> Okay, do you do you have a
recommendation or you're just saying
those are our choices?
>> Those are the choices.
>> Okay.
>> And then with the business license
application processing fee,
um I was looking to reduce that to $45
uh for compliance purposes.
>> Okay, so just I'm just trying to capture
all the So, business license processing
fee you're proposing 45 and for solar
panels you're saying we have a choice
between 450 or 1,000.
>> No, it's 680.
>> Oh, sorry.
>> 680
Okay.
Go ahead, Rebecca.
>> The application processing fee for this
business license, is that one-time or is
that each year?
>> It'll be for new
>> New. New businesses. Okay. Okay.
So, I'm I'm in favor of that lower rate
for the business license application
fee.
Uh for solar I
Solar falls under which section again?
» Building.
» Um
I I don't I don't
I mean, this is the sort of thing that's
kind of a last-minute thing where we're
shoving stuff you know,
Um and we don't have enough time to even
evaluate it cuz this is the first time
I'm hearing that there's two potential
fees. So, it it's a little frustrating
for for me. I I I don't know.
Um
Do we have an idea of what other
municipalities are charging for solar?
» I think right now the most jurisdictions
default to the state fee.
>> Well, then I guess it would make sense
for us to do the same.
Okay, let me go on to the next thing.
Um
I would expect that I would think that
the general plan amendment and zoning
ordinance charges should be higher, a
higher deposit even though I know it's a
deposit. So, but I think to avoid the
sticker shock of what it will take, I
think it should be higher. Maybe not as
high as what we used to charge, but at
least a thousand dollars more.
Um
Let's see. The CPI versus COLA, I was
only mildly following that, but I think
whichever one is higher, I think they're
kind of supposed to be the same. They're
kind of the same.
But um
Well, no. I think
when we looked at the staff, we decided
to take the
CPI, right? For our COLA?
» Correct.
But council has the option to adopt a
higher COLA.
So we did
>> your recommendation for these fees?
Should we adopt a higher COLA or is the
COLA based on staff?
>> our current our current practice is the
CPI.
And I'm not proposing to make a change
to that.
>> Okay. So let's keep it at CPI. Um the
tree permit, I would put it at a hundred
twenty-five dollars as a deposit, not as
a flat fee.
That way in the event it takes
more effort, then we would have the
option to recover it, but in general,
the basic the basic tree permit, which
includes however many trees you put on
that day's permit, would be processed in
the normal way, go through the to the
conservation committee,
and it would one expectation is that it
would be a hundred twenty-five dollars.
Only if it all of a sudden required
completing arborist reports or something
like that, at least the town could
recover those costs.
Um
The res- residential data report and
allowed floor area, this is under um
administration, I think, or is it
something else? I
» It's I mean it's seated in the building.
I think it's planning.
Residential data report.
» I'm sorry, it's I have a small screen
here and it's
» Yeah, it's under planning.
>> Okay, so does that require a uh 60 days?
>> Yes.
>> Okay.
So
they both seem extremely high. The
second one in particular. The first one
okay, I can get requires quite a bit of
work. The second one the
im- um impervious coverage and lot
coverage just seems like a lot. Um
I would hope eventually that this would be data
that's collected into our system so that
it's a push of a button, in which case
then those fees would need to be
lowered. I guess it's a deposit, so
eventually that would be the situation.
Am I correct?
Is that a correct understanding that
it's a deposit, I think. I don't have it
right in front of me.
>> It is a deposit, yes.
>> So in the future when we start we get
our GIS system working in a couple years
and all that, then the the the staff
time it takes to generate that may be
zero because somebody can just look it
up themselves, right? Is that kind of
sort of the understanding for the um
lot coverage numbers and stuff?
» I cannot speak to the future.
>> Okay.
Um
let's see.
>> Buyer's choice.
>> Uh so
um
I guess just a quick comment on public
works. You know, we we have this new
table with different numbers. I assume
the original number included all the
road repair stuff, which is why it was
so high.
Um
The fence permit, I just wanted to say
that there's two different fence
permits. One is under
planning or building, I forgot which,
and that's a thousand dollars deposit.
And then there's this other fence permit
that's just encroachment,
which is $17 a linear foot. So, I think a and fence permit's deposit,
it's a lot of money,
but I think it's okay cuz it's goes
through the ASU C, so there are definite
expenses required there.
In terms of giving lowering the ADU
cost, I personally would only lower it
for people who are planning to do a
rental ADU.
Um
and I don't They can rent it whatever
price. I'm not restricting it that way,
but I would not lower the cost for ADUs
unless it was for a rental.
Um
Uh and then EV chargers, Helen brought
that up. I actually pay peak rates at
over 60 cents an hour, and then off-peak
is obviously down at 23 26, depends the
number. So, I guess the 48 was just an
average of these. I would
want somebody to talk to ChargePoint to
kind of understand if they are capable
of doing that um
pricing because
um if we're only charging 48 cents an
hour during peak, and that's peak is
really from 3:00 till midnight, we're
going to be losing money. So, um
uh you know,
I think peak should be what what what I
think we should be charging what peak
is.
Uh you know, certainly during peak time.
So, um
Okay. So, I think those are the main
things, and then just a real quick
because we're going to be coming back to
parks and rec stuff. I would like to
have these changes made. I want
community hall. I want the rental for
non-residents to be listed as a line
item. My understanding is that we can
charge facility fees and we can charge
market rate for facilities
legally.
That's my understanding, you know, and I
think for non-residents we should be
charging market rate.
For you know, if someone wants a
wedding, we should be doing comparison
of other wedding venues and we should be
charging appropriately, which means
several thousand.
Um AYSO and CYSA should be different
price. Uh Little League for search
should not be more than about
$50 or whatever the kind of comparable
somewhat increased to handle the
um
uh the inflation over the past few
years. So, just a little bit higher.
Um
Courts charges, we need that included.
Um
And then I like as people have said, we need when we come back with Parks and
Rec, we need to kind of have a
comparison of per hour, per team, per
you know, league, for whatever to kind
of understand what what other people are
charging.
And that I think is it for me.
>> Thank you, Rebecca. Judith?
>> Then a point of clarification.
Um so, say we
don't subsidize ADU costs right now.
Um
but separately, does that impinge on our
ability to
subsidize if we develop an ADU policy,
if there is rental
to subsidize it or to pay it out of a
affordable housing fund? Cuz I I want to
know what other tools there might be
besides this rate schedule
decision today.
Like how much are we locking tonight on
stuff like that? Um
couple couple responses. One is we're
the council will revisit this fee
schedule annually
and could you know make adjustments in
addition to the CPI could make other
adjustments.
In terms of the use of affordable
housing funds to incentivize ADUs
um
that would remain an option. The council
can also consider
fee waiver requests as it's done in for
other types of affordable housing
projects.
>> So those are the tools that are
available and not precluded by this. So
the way we should think about it is we
still have flexibility to formulate
policy using other tools and then
annually
we could do it through this as well.
Okay, that's very helpful.
>> And Judith could I just add on quickly?
>> Yeah.
>> Um if I understand this, this is sort of
setting the ceiling.
Like we it's hard for us to justify
going over this. It's easy for us if we
decide to charge less.
Right, okay.
>> Okay, that that's going to inform
um
some of my comments here.
So the thing I'm struggling with I do
agree to bifurcate. One question is do
we bifurcate recreation and admin or
versus other?
And I'm hearing differences in my
colleagues views on that. The reason I
would bifurcate rec and admin is I don't
feel I have a good understanding of the
EV charging fee.
Um and I I would have a hard time having
an opinion.
Um we can't go
up from here is my understanding.
So I guess I could get comfortable if
others really feel strongly
about
needing to have the admin fees
um in
finalized tonight. I I would be okay
with that, but but to me, I don't
understand that enough to really make an
informed choice.
Um because of the other tools on the
ADUs and because, you know, concepts
like if it's rented, we'd be more
willing potentially to
quote subsidize. And by that, I just
mean give give fee breaks.
I think that needs more of a policy
thought. So, I would probably just
leave that ADU
uh fee as
it is proposed.
On the tree removal, I do want to remind
people we're a town that doesn't have a
lot of money. One of the big drivers for
years has been we ought to do a fee
study so that we could increase fees and
get something more than nothing from
these fees. So, um
because of that, I certainly don't want
to keep things 14 years old fees. I do
not want to keep them. Everything has to
come up a bit um where it's justifiable
under the matrix study. So, to me, the
tree removals
um you know, I can see that not a
thousand
dollar deposit may or may not make any
sense, but I certainly wouldn't go any
less than 250. Um and what that looks
like is a deposit
um versus anything else. I don't know. I
mean, it that just still seems pretty
low and very reasonable to me.
Um
business license, I would reduce it to
$45.
Uh recreation
Sorry, is there something going on?
>> This wants to comment, please.
>> Okay, no problem. Um recreation fees,
when we get there since we're I I think
we're going to end up bifurcating, I do
think being more thoughtful about the
courts
and and breaking that out really is is
something we ought to do. There's so
much interest in that and it doesn't
strike me as fair the way it's coming
over right now.
The instructors, maybe give repeat
instructors a break. Um, I would be open
to that and I do think we ought to
be subsidizing or giving teams, you
know, a a break. So, what that looks
like, I I'm open
to what,
you know, future input might be from the
community, but when we get there we
ought to be looking at not going to the
maximum on those.
And then on solar, I would go to the
state rate
and I'm perfectly fine with the CPI. Let
me know if I missed anything.
>> All right, thank you. Um, one more
comment.
>> Thanks. Sorry, I think I forgot some
things. Um, I absolutely support lower
rates somehow for residents as long as
we can make it
legally. Um, I support the CPI.
Um, in terms of the tree, I agree with
um, Council Member Hasko bec- um, for
250.
Um,
I am worried that Megan could step down
and the conservation committee could not
have an arborist and the town could then
need arborist to hire an arborist. So, I
am worried about that in case Megan were
to step down.
Um, in terms of the EV charging, just to
clarify to Council Member Hasko, um, I
was wondering if we could do any if
ChargePoint, who is our service
provider, does need load shifting
potentially to make it cheaper for
people during the day when it's not um,
and and um,
Rebecca, you need to check out your
different rates because they're um
they're are they're 53 cents at
that you can load shift to and during
prime 3 8 and midnight. Um but I don't
think that's feasible it sounds like. So
I'm I'm guessing we are probably set at
43.
Um and I'm fine with the solar
being at the state rate.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
Okay. Um so hopefully I can wrap this
up.
So so we just talked about EV. I I think
the only thing I'd say about EV is I
would expect that we charge what we pay.
Whatever that is. So and and I can't
quite the current fee says modified and
the things is total cost. So if 43 cents
is our total cost could be 43 cents I'm
fine with that. Um I'm in favor of just
taking out recreation and just going
ahead with the administration, building,
planning, and engineering. Um
other than the EV stuff, the rest of the
stuff that's in administrative I don't
have any issues. So I'd recommend we do
all of those.
Um business license I'm happy with the
$45 for the sort of initial processing
fee. Solar panels at 680 seems
reasonable. Trees at 250. CPI.
Um
I had
one question. Um
if somebody wants to replace their deck,
you know, it's just a replacement.
That's a $500 charge?
Is that the right way to look at this?
Because I mean that that's what's in
here it as I understand it because it
would be sort of zero to two $2,000.
» If it's if it would be a valuation for
me.
>> Well, and that's my question is if I
want to replace an existing deck. I'm
not building a new one. Just I'm just
replacing one that's there.
Because I mean here's my concern is
replacing old redwood decks, replacing
fire hazards, things that are going to
make us fire safe. I really don't want
to penalize people cuz it then you're
just going to replace it with whatever
they had before. They're not going to
come get a permit. So, this is a little
bit like the tree argument that, you
know, we kind of want to encourage
people to get this permit and do
something. So,
do we know if I'm just doing a
replacement versus a new deck cuz I
can't tell when I look at this
whether replacement fits under this
valuation.
>> I I believe it would.
>> Okay.
All right. So,
yeah.
» So, that would
if you're
if it's like there was a fire and I'm
reconstructing it and that's what No,
you're just like in general, I just want
a new deck.
>> No.
no, no, it's like I got an old
rotten redwood deck
>> Uh-huh.
>> and I I want to replace it
>> Mhm.
>> and the town would say, if you're going
to get a permit, you're going to have to
put class A material down.
>> Mhm.
>> And so, we're going to charge them $500
before they even get started just to
replace what they had there.
>> Mhm.
>> And I'm suggesting that that's something
we want to encourage, not discourage.
Cuz if we discourage them and they just
say, "Okay, I'll just have my contractor
come up and I'll hope the building
inspector doesn't show up and I'll just,
you know, replace the boards and be done
with it."
>> Right. So, there's there's two options.
One is that you create a standalone fee
for
decks
or deck replacement.
>> Right.
>> And that would apply to any replacement
of a deck
regardless of the circumstances.
>> Well, yeah, good but as if as long as
like for like, if you will. I mean, you
know, you you're you're not expanding
the deck, you're not doing wild things
to it. You're just basically putting
back the same deck. And yeah, I don't
care whether it's cuz your house burned
down or you're just the boards rotted
out.
>> Right.
>> Yeah.
>> Uh and
to make the standalone fee
what we should do is work with staff to
say if it's a deck, how much time does
it take, what is the cost?
Uh
because
the obviously right now it would be
under the valuation schedule, so it
would depend on the valuation
uh deck
that's being replaced.
Um so we wouldn't it it's not as easy as
just saying we think it should be
$513.
That's it.
>> Is this a deposit we're talking about or
are we talking about a
>> The flat it's
>> Okay.
>> It's a valuation fee.
for you.
Um
yeah, I mean alternatively you might be
able to create a policy that caps the
fee.
So you could say if it's a deck
replacement
um that your policy is that the fee
should be no more than X. So you would
still go through the valuation table and
if it calculated out less than whatever
you thought the amount should be
it would be capped.
>> Okay, so what you're proposing is we
could pass the fee schedule and then
later define a policy that capped the
fee.
>> Right.
>> I'm I'm I'm would be comfortable with
that. Um
and then the last piece is that yeah, I
would remand to the Park and Recs the
basically all the recreation fees and
have them follow up on this discussion.
Um cuz I think you know, we've talked
about courts, we've talked about rental
fees
um and I I would have them
talk about room rentals as well and just
all the conversation cuz what I would
hope would come back to the council is a
you know, sort of fully vetted set of
ideas for the council to decide.
So
with those thoughts, um let me try a
trial balloon and see if this is close
enough. Oh, and I had I I had one other
thing I wanted to add. Um this is where
I was asking earlier about some of the
questions that are embedded in the the
document. You were proposing that we use
construction cost tables um with a
modifier for the region.
So um
So So I think my trial balloon for a a
proposal here would be that we do that.
So this is basically instead of what
happens today is a contractor comes in
and says, "Oh, this is a $5,000 job."
And he bills the client 15,000, but we
never know because
we're not doing what
>> No, we we changed the process last year
and we're
>> Do we already use the
>> Yeah, we already use this.
>> Okay, so we All right, well, it talks in
here about potentially council should
decide that. So you're saying that's
already decided. Okay, great. Then I
will leave that off my motion. Um then
business license at $45,
solar panels at 680,
tree removal at flat 250, CPI.
I'll leave off the deck and we'll think
about a policy for the future um and
that we remand the recreation fees to
Park and Rec.
Yeah. Yeah, please.
» The 680 for solar, is that state or the
schedule?
>> the state.
>> That That is the state. Thank you.
State fee
>> Yeah, that's what I thought.
>> I'm My apology. Okay, so So let me take
that. So where where is the council on
the Are we at state fees or at 6
>> I was at state.
>> State.
>> Okay, I I'm I'm okay with state. Great.
Then state. So the 450. Thank Thank you
for that correction. Okay? Anything
else?
» I I prefer to have admin held off.
>> And And what is it in admin that we're
holding off on?
>> Um I think we need a conversation with
ChargePoint to find out what their
capabilities are.
» Right, but I
So, my suggestion would be just like for
the deck flat fee replacement, we could
do that as a policy.
» Alternatively, you could adopt this fee
and then work with ChargePoint. Cuz I
don't know how long that would take for
ChargePoint, so this gets you a new fee
now and then once you get that info cuz
that that fee that isn't for you don't
have a 60-day implementation for that,
so
um otherwise, you're sticking with what
you have now
till you
>> I mean, was an analysis of our PG&E bill
done for this number?
» No, it looks at the the cost of the of
the charging stations at
There's other
components in that, but I don't I again,
I don't know whether or not I mean
um
>> So, the cost came from ChargePoint? Is
that they took an average of all their
of all our stuff? Is that where this
number came from?
>> The number factors in costs associated
with ChargePoint as well as the
um
material and electricity costs.
>> Well, like depreciation of the charge
units, stuff like that, is that
>> Yeah, all of those things get get
factored in.
>> Factored in.
>> And and and all of that, but um
like I said, I don't know that what
you're looking to have done can be done.
>> Right.
>> So, I think that's just pointing that
out.
>> Yeah.
So, I mean, Rebecca, if it's okay, I I'd really like to move this forward
tonight,
um and we can look into this. We do have
the option to change it in the future.
Rather than, you know, delaying it. Um
we've got plenty coming up when the
deputies come back.
>> So, and can I can I also say I support
moving this forward as well? Um
I this I actually met with PCE last week
and asked them the same question, and
they didn't know if it could be done
either. So, like I was just trying to
figure out if there's any way we if
anyone knows if there's a way to do
that.
So, I think for the time being we should
move it forward.
Okay, so
I'm
>> So, when does it take advantage when would that particular fee take
effect? Would it be a July 1st?
>> July 1st.
>> Okay. Okay, I'm fine with moving forward
and then we need to do an analysis in
the future with PG&E's data
and ChargePoint. But, okay.
>> Okay, is there anything else people feel
like be added? Otherwise, I will make
this as a motion.
All right.
So,
whoever's taking notes here, do you feel
we have enough for this or do you want
me to repeat this?
>> I I have one other thing. I'm sorry. Um
it says we're going to bring this back
annually.
Um
I don't think this is a good time to
bring this back annually. I think the
annual should be more in
March or April, not at this end point.
So, just I don't know if that's part of
this whole thing, but
it's just too much. There's too many
other things going on. So, just if we
need to specify that, we should.
» Next year will be in April.
>> Great. Thank you.
>> So, that we can meet the 60-day deadline
if there's any changes in development.
>> Perfect. Thank you.
>> Okay. So, do I do I need to
>> Do you want to check with with um Tony
um to make sure you're
and
uh
Matrix to make sure you're comfortable
with all of those changes to the fees.
>> Couldn't make any notes because I had my
screen
>> Sure.
>> shared.
>> Why don't you unshare Why don't you
unshare But, I did
>> Yeah, just wanted just so it was $45 for
well
>> Yep.
>> And it was 450 for solar.
>> Correct.
>> 250 for the tree permit.
>> Correct.
>> Um deck was not
>> I left that off. Use Use the CP Use the
CPI.
>> CPI.
>> Um, and then we're going to remand the
rec remand it back to parks and rec.
Okay.
All right. So, I made a motion. Is there
a second?
Okay, roll call.
» Councilmember Walter.
>> I.
>> Councilmember Hasco.
>> I.
>> Councilmember Flynn.
>> I.
>> Vice Mayor Haffty.
>> I.
>> Mayor Taylor.
>> I.
>> Motion carries 5-0.
>> Thank you everyone. Thank you for an
excellent presentation. Sorry to keep
you here until 11:00 at night, but you
did a stellar job. So, thank you.
There's a lot of complexity here. Um,
I'm sure you're going to get called back
cuz park and rec is going to want to dig
in through a whole bunch of stuff with
you. Um, so be prepared for that, but this has really been wonderful. So,
thank you for all your hard work.
We think this is really interesting,
too.
Okay, with that
let us move on. Yes.
Now, we had to wait before we I don't
need to think you need to say, but so
now to make this formal, I need to
reopen the public hearing. Continue the
park and recs.
>> Correct. Yes, we actually do need to
continue that to a date certain. Thank
you for reminding me cuz that way we
don't have to re notice it.
>> Right.
>> Yeah.
>> So, can Do we have a date that we think
that's going to fit?
» And and if we don't, we can just re
notice it.
>> Yeah.
Let's Let's continue it to June
10th cuz June 24th is a big so
>> Well
>> I will So, you do want to pick a date.
Oh, no.
>> Yeah, we want to get it to park and rec.
I think we're going to just continue it
and
>> Oh, okay.
>> I think that makes sense. I mean, I'm
sorry, but it it's not that big a deal
to re-notice it, right? I mean, I mean,
we had
>> Uh, the the challenge is that it were we
have to back up about 4 weeks.
So, you're essentially deciding the
noticing process for 4 weeks.
>> and rec. You have to get a park and rec
meeting on the calendar. They have to
discuss it.
>> They are I will emphasize they are not a
Brown Act body.
And so, they could meet
basically anytime, anywhere. They could
meet tomorrow in my office.
>> I don't I mean, we're trying to get this
done
for what?
You You ideally you'd like these fees
for July You were hoping for July 1st,
Tony, is that
for the recreation fees?
>> Yeah, recreation fees July 1st, yes.
But, I mean, if if we can, then it's going to be August.
>> August, yeah.
I'm just worried that I mean, we
have a lot of things coming up. That's
the only thing I'm trying to be careful of. So.
do you have a I mean, if we continue
it, we could continue
>> Do you think that continue it to a date
certain, and if for some reason
uh staff isn't ready, uh you could
continue it again?
>> To a date certain?
>> Yeah.
Uh, so I I guess I'm looking
We would not need to re-notice it if we
continue it tonight to a date certain.
So, I guess the question is what is that
date that we should choose?
That we should recommend to council. Is
it Is it the next meeting or or the
second meeting in
» Do we need to look at the roll forward?
>> Here. No, I know. I'm thinking June
24th. Continue it to June 24th.
We'll do our best to to make that date.
Yeah, cuz then we could still have the
fees go into effect in July.
>> Okay. So,
I read So, if I reopen the public
hearing, I take public comment again?
>> No, you can just
>> it, continue it, and then close it.
>> Yes. Just ask for a motion to um
continue the public hearing to June
24th.
>> Okay. So, I'm trying to follow the
script here. So, I'm reopening the
public hearing.
I'm looking for a motion to continue the
park and rec fees
decision until June 24th.
>> So moved.
>> Second.
>> I have a
motion and a second. Roll call.
>> Council member Walter.
>> I.
>> Council member Hesko.
>> I.
>> Council member Flynn.
>> I.
>> Vice Mayor Hefty.
>> I.
>> Mayor Taylor.
>> I.
>> Motion carries.
>> Thank you. All right. So, now I close
the public hearing
and we're ready to move on. All right.
Again, thank you everyone. Tony, thank
you for your patience. Um
Thank you for the consultant. That was
interesting. All right. So, moving on.
Let's see if I can find the
agenda. Okay. Um
Yeah, yeah. I know. I got it.
>> where
town committee funding
>> Way ahead. Right. Unfortunate
Yeah.
>> Yeah.
we're just We've just finished
seven.
>> Page 180.
>> All right. We've just finished seven.
We're moving on to eight. All right. So,
provide an update and receive direction
on town committee funding request for
the fiscal year '26-'27. Tony, please.
>> I will be brief.
>> Thank you.
» Okay. So, this is a town committee
funding request um
» Is this it, Blaine?
>> Yep, this is it.
So, again, thank you. Review by
direction on town committee funding
requests.
Um couple of add-ons since
um
the
agenda was sent out on Friday,
um I received an email from uh
Nancy Lyon, the the historic resources
committee.
Um she said she sent it in, I did not
receive it.
Um
but um
there were some technical difficulties,
so um I'm including this in the packet.
Um their request is $4,500.
Uh one a new computer that's compatible
with Windows 11,
and then their online historic archive
project of $3,000, so total of 4,500 is
their request.
And then um
the trails and paths
request did not have a breakdown
of their or did not have an itemized
budget. Um but it is a carryover from
this year this fiscal year's
uh
request of $10,000, and
I've itemized the list
as you can see.
Um
and again, their request is $10,000.
So, looking at total requests of 61,000
um
with all of these funding requests,
there will be some staff time involved,
uh some more than others.
Um and also, I also added um
you know,
how each funding request ties to a
certain council priority.
Uh most of them are community, uh but um
three of them are for safety and regards
to emergency preparedness, geologic
safety,
and wildfire preparedness.
So, this table is the funding what's
going to be recommended. uh 61,000 was
proposed.
I'm recommending 48,000.
Um
with the historic resources
being reduced or or not funding historic
resources request. This could tie into town work.
Um specifically with the
historic online
or historic archive online project. They
could also work with the library
as well.
And then
if they need use of a laptop, we do have
surplus laptops with town hall that are
Windows 11 compatible. The other
reduction is geologic safety.
Um and again, that's also related to a
project that is
um
that is tied to town work as well.
So the budget requests are the fund the
recommended amount is for committee
work.
Um but
council also has the discretion of um
changing the dollar amounts, reducing
them or increasing them.
Um so with that concludes my report and
I give it back to council for discussion
and direction.
>> All right, are there questions for Tony?
>> You know, go ahead.
>> Since those numbers are adjusted, can
you
blow that up or pinch it out a little
bit cuz I I honestly can't see that and
they're different than
what I've got.
» While he's doing that, can I just make
one clarification?
>> Yeah.
>> I had a conversation with the chair of
the geologic safety committee today, Nan
Shostak, about her request because it
overlaps with a staff work item that
planning is working on, which is
updating the geologic maps to reflect
amendments.
The council authorized budget for the
GIS work
with the mid-year. We talked about that
and she was in agreement that that the
staff should do the work. However, she
did text me and clarified that they
would still like to request
a thousand dollars for
copying to digital format some blueprint
size figures and she requested a
thousand dollars for that. So, her
budget revises sixteen hundred dollars.
But I would
>> what what is the thousand dollars for?
>> Yeah, so
to be honest, I'm having a hard time
understanding it.
Copying the digital format or copying to
digital format the blueprint size
figures and plates in common in old hard
copy geotechnical reports.
That may be something though that staff
could do. So,
it it
>> Yeah, I guess I sort of expect that
would be part of the staff project to
get I mean, if it's a record we need,
the staff should be responsible for it.
>> Yeah, agreed. Agreed, yeah. I just don't
want to ignore her request.
Yeah, but it would be what I'd like to
do with especially even with some of
these other committees is have a more
in-depth conversation
about
Like I'll I'll give you one example.
They some committees had money for
mailers and I told them, "Hey, we're
doing a town newsletter. We can include
it." That's an example.
» So, other questions for Tony. I really
that you're starting to get a little
into this.
>> That was my bad. I apologize.
>> I know. Do you Does the town have one of
those big scanners? No. Okay. So, maybe
that's what she needs.
>> So, I changed it to the Excel
spreadsheet. Does that help?
>> Can you expand it in the lower
right-hand corner?
It'll
Can you comment again on what was
reduced?
» There's
>> proposed and recommended, so
>> The recommended.
>> Are you Are you asking specifically on
geologic safety, which is what we were
just discussing, or in general?
>> In general. In general.
>> So, historic resources, they requested 4,500 or recommend zero.
And geologic safety
um proposed uh 9,100.
Uh we're recommending 300, but
plus
>> Okay. Do we have a a policy on food?
at events?
>> No.
>> Because um I feel that a $1,000 for food
is a little excessive. Um if anything
um
in in the past
>> Which one is this?
Rebecca, which Which one are we talking
about?
>> Cultural arts.
>> Okay.
>> Um I I just I don't think we need to be
budgeting for um
caviar and uh salmon things and
expensive food like that. So,
um
I I personally don't think we spending
more than $300, $400 on food for events,
if that. Um so, I I think we kind of need to think about
that.
>> And And are you proposing this relative
to the Spring in Portola Valley event?
Like
There isn't a $1,000 with the food on
the cultural arts budget that I'm
looking at.
>> There is.
>> Um okay, maybe we looking at different
things.
>> Spring Spring in Portola Valley has food
$1,000 opening night and closing party.
>> Okay.
» So, I I don't think that's reasonable.
>> It's for sub
>> Yeah, there's a There's additional
documentation behind the budget
worksheet for
um
>> Okay. Um but again, we're getting into
discussion. These are questions right
now for Tony. We haven't taken public
So, are there other clarifying questions
for Tony?
Ellen?
>> I do have a question. In term uh the
horse night
um the horse night or horse day has $500
for a
taco truck, I think.
>> Mhm.
>> Um is that
just to get the truck here or are we
paying for people's food?
>> Yeah.
>> We're we're just paying to get the truck
here. It is
the consumer pays for it. But usually
food trucks do have like a base fee,
especially to get them out here.
>> Fine.
» And
can I just ask um for staff's
clarification, the recommendation? Like
I'm I'm concerned that like emergency
preparedness has been cut down, but
horse the horse day
is still quite robust. So, could I get
clarifications on that?
>> It's just been historic practice with,
you know, parks and recs and their event
with the town fair. Trails and paths has been doing the horse fair.
And it's it's been their request for the
past couple of years and council has
funded it.
>> And I can speak to emergency
preparedness. Um we just moved a bunch
of their things
into the town budget. Because it didn't
really belong to the committee. It was
like Starlink, paying for Starlink,
stuff like that. Seemed like
it should be paid for out of our
operational budget, not out of their
committee. So,
the things that were normally there, it
was roughly the same number until we
moved those things out into the town
operational.
>> Right. And then okay. And then we've now
cut historic Obviously, um
computer What is the historic resources was
You remind me what they were asking for
again?
>> So, they've been working on a project to
digitize or put online the town's
historic records. So, what they were
asking for was money for the host the
host website and I think some support
for that.
I'm the one though who's tried to
facilitate them working with the
library, which may be able to do it at
no cost or other resources. So, we just
want to keep looking at that and
if there are IT costs for example, then
the town would look at that as part of
our operating budget much like EPC and
some of the other committees.
Okay.
>> Thank you.
That's all. Those were my questions.
>> Thank you.
Any other clarifying questions?
>> Yeah, yes.
>> Okay.
>> Did I miss the detail for the horse
fair?
Was that provided somewhere?
>> That was on the first second slide.
>> The
>> presentation.
>> It's not in the packet though.
It's in the packet.
Can we bring that up? I mean, I guess
you're on the other thing, but it's
» Yeah, the packet just has a lump sum of
$10,000.
>> And in the past actually, I distinctly
remember that at least a year ago that
somebody had volunteered to pay for
that. So, whatever happened to that that
payment?
» You can say they pledge it until I
receive it. It's just a pledge.
>> But does nobody follow up with them to
ask them for the the follow up on the
money?
>> I don't know who made the pledge.
>> Oh.
>> So, right. Can you pull up the Oh, you
are pulling it up. Thank you.
>> So, just on a on a similar question and rec, are we paying for the food
trucks as well? Their base fees? Is that
part of the 25,000?
» Are you talking for the
um
town picnic? Cuz they don't have food
trucks at the town picnic. The only food
truck I'm aware of is the horse fair
food truck, which again we cover a $500
base to get them to come here.
>> But we have food trucks for the
concerts, the Palooza concerts.
>> are
Yeah, the town doesn't pay for that.
That's PV Palooza and I think they do
some sort of in-kind or sponsorship for
that.
» So, it doesn't not make sense to have
people who are buying the food pay for
the the cost of the truck?
» I think I'll
the issue is that we have to pay them a
base fee to get them here.
And for the taco truck at the horse
fair, that's $500 base to get them here.
And then the consumers do pay for all
their own food.
>> Well, technically they're not because
they're not paying the base fee. You
know,
it's a subsidized fee, but
» Okay.
All right.
Yeah, there you go.
>> Thank you.
>> Keep going. Keep going.
» Well, now I can't see it.
>> Just scroll up. Just scroll up a little
bit. It's It's all right. We We can see
it.
You can come stand on our side and see
it.
Okay.
Can everybody see that the
We stop there. That's good. Don't Don't
go any more.
>> So, I and I will Okay, you're not asking
for comments. I'll make that.
>> No, so this is just clarifying questions
for Tony. Anything else?
» So, I I had another question was that
there's some It's not overlap yet, but
couple of different committees wanted
technology fees
payments for Google Drives and for
Dropbox and what have you.
I mean, I think it
So,
are we Is the town looking into kind of
consolidating these different options
for committee
their committee database, if you will?
Several committees are embarking on
these projects, so
» We have no plans at the moment.
>> I have a question.
>> Okay.
>> Then go ahead, Judith.
>> What
How has the committee budget then, I
assume, reduced
over the last 3 years, ish, ballpark
numbers?
>> For all committees or
>> Yeah, what we're doing the exercise that
we're doing now. Yeah, all of them
together.
» So, these are actually actual results,
um but I mean, it was 24 25
we spent over 30,000,
with cultural arts cuz
cultural arts at the time was PV
Palooza.
>> Oh, right.
>> Um and then Parks and Rec was the town
fair.
Parks and Rec has been the town fair,
uh pretty much consistently.
>> Mhm.
>> Um and then we've actually 25 26, we
actually increased the town committee
budget.
Um and
>> Mhm.
>> recommended 26 27 is actually an
increase from 25 26.
» Thank you.
Mhm.
>> And Tony, one question I had is on the
Park and Rec budget, um, you know, like
the town picnic related expenses at like
18,000. Do we get reimbursed for any of
that through
Zots to Tots registration or any
>> The revenue generated from Zots to Tots
gets deposited into the town
committee's.
So, that actually does reduce the
subsidy
that the general fund does provide, but
their budget is still 25,000.
>> Right, but that's not 25,000 going to
It's not going to end up as a 25,000 hit
to the general fund.
>> No.
>> Okay. Do we know roughly
>> Um
Well, for this fiscal year, it's a
10,000
hit to the general fund because we
received $8,000
in Zots to Tots revenue, plus we also
received a $1,000 donation.
>> Okay.
So, that was like $9,000.
Is that Am I getting that right?
>> It's Yeah, it's 10,000 611.
>> probably 10,000. So, so it might be a
this If if it's they spend the full
25,000, it might be a 15,000 hit.
>> We did budget 6,000 of this for
bathroom.
That was part of the mid-year budget.
>> Okay.
Um
I'm not sure I So, are you saying the
Zots to Tots related expenses What
what's the 6,000 on You just lost me on
that last comment.
>> So, for the mid-year Parks and Rec said,
"Hey, we're only going to spend 19,000
of our 25."
So, they offered the 6,000 for the Board
Field bathroom study.
>> Okay, but I I'm asking you about this
budget, not what happened last So, if
they spent the full 25,000, and you're
projecting we might get 10,000 back
in
revenue, it might be a $15,000 hit to
the general.
>> Correct.
>> Okay, thank you.
Okay, any other questions for Tony
before I go to
public comment?
All right, anybody in the room want to
speak? All right, I see no hands.
All right, Nan, you're up. Welcome.
» Okay, unmute. Thank you. Can you hear
me?
>> We can. Welcome.
>> Thank you. Okay, before you slash my
budget to $300 for the Geologic Safety
Committee, um please consider the 300
was for
I believe insurance, estimated insurance
for um
one of the
monthly events that Rebecca has proposed
for the town. So, we have a We think we
have probably have a speaker. This is
just for the insurance. It's not even to
buy the speaker a dinner or anything
like that.
$200 I have
um
which is really for a reimbursement for
personal
um expenses for especially printer
expenses,
which
far exceed the 200, but I put that in
for reimbursement
to
especially Bob Rocky, whose personal
printer has printed out maps for the
whole town,
for the um borough
evacuation map for fire following
earthquake and and other maps. So,
we owe him money. I don't know how Maybe
it doesn't come out of budget, but it We
do need um
a way to reimburse for expenses.
And the 9,100
I arrived at uh because there was an
estimate of 7,500 for updating maps, And
I just wanted a placeholder
to remind everyone that
uh we absolutely need to update the
maps, but I think Darcy's taking care of
that. So, that's that's
and uh between Darcy and Sarah
that's going to be done. So, that's
fine. That leaves me with 1,600, and I
would be satisfied if you would leave me
with
500
600 would be more comfortable, but
minimum 500, please.
Not just 300. That's not going to cover
expenses.
So, thank you.
>> Thank you, Nan.
All right, Patty.
You're up.
Welcome.
>> I'm hanging in there.
Um
two quick points
on the picnic, we will do
uh everything we can to
continue to have that come in under
budget.
Um that is not our expectation to spend
the entire amount. And the second point
is we do have a food truck at the town
picnic. It is a taco truck. We do not
pay them anything. They just come out,
and all they get is what they generate.
So, there's no fee for the food truck
for the town picnic.
Just FYI.
» Okay. Thank you.
Is that it? Patty, I broke up at the
end.
>> Oh.
Yeah, that's just my voice.
>> Yeah, no no worries. And it's late, so
we're all starting to
>> Yeah, it's late.
>> Did you have anything else for us?
>> No, I'm good.
>> Thank you.
>> All right.
Christie, you're next. Welcome.
» Yeah, thank you. I I think these
committees are so important, and to
slash the historical and and absorb it
in the current
staff. I I'm just afraid it won't be
done and I believe that the history of
this town is is worth putting some money
into and keeping the history.
Uh I spent a lot of time going through
things in there and I believe they do
need an upgraded system.
So, I would ask you to keep the
historical budget
and
restore
um the geological.
And again, you're you're saying that
it will be done by the staff and so
we're going to be watching that it is
done if these two areas are cut.
Um I would prefer these two committees
to be fully funded things.
>> Thank you, Kristy.
Okay.
Um I think that's everyone.
We'll leave you in the schoolhouse. All
right, so I'm going to bring it back to
council.
So, discussion? Anybody want to lead us
off?
I got to just pick somebody. Helen, how
about you?
>> Yeah, so I'm happy to go, but
I know people here are not going to like
what I have to say.
Um the next item
we are cutting from people who are
hungry.
Meals on Wheels 1,500
430 to heart, 900 to hip
and it looks like 3,000 to cert.
Um
and I'm worried that we're
supporting
the horse day with no cuts when we need
geologic for our safety reason and
historic, you know, Nancy Lund is a town
jewel.
Um
So, I actually would ask that we cut
something out of the horse day to make
up some of the areas.
Um we've cut everything else.
Um So,
you know, obviously
like what is being proposed in the next
item is that um without cert it's 2830
which I think
I would take out of the horse day.
Um personally, and I know people are not
going to like that. Um and then I would
app you know, non I would definitely
push the geologic at least a 600.
Um and historic, I'm not sure what to
app propose that. So, I know and I'm
sorry and I love you know, I appreciate
horses.
Um but I am worried about people who
can't eat right now and can't afford
housing. And you know, these programs
really rely on funding. So,
um
I you know, like I want a horse day, but
maybe everything else has been cut. So,
I would propose cutting horse day down
to 7,000 and
uh taking the $3,000
in the next item. Um and I don't know
about what to do about the cert. And
that's safety, too. So, thank you.
>> Thank you, Helen.
Rebecca?
>> Um
So,
um I support giving GO their full 600.
Um
historic, I I it's not in the packet and
they asked me for a computer. Was that
their full amount or was there something
else?
>> It was a computer and it was some online
archive stuff. So, it was 3,000 for
online, 3,000 for online arcade, and
1,500 for a computer.
And Tony said he had they could get a
computer in five
>> Right. So, I definitely don't support
that. And the online I I don't
understand exactly what's being asked.
Is this another database? Because I
don't I would not support spending 3,000
on a database,
um given that Conservation's got a
fantastic database, and they're not
charging nearly as much. So, I think
Historic needs to coordinate with uh
Conservation
for that, but um if if I mean, I would
support giving them maybe $500 just to
get them started so that they can detail
a little bit more about what their needs
are, but I we don't have enough
information to
I don't have enough information to
support $3,000. Um
I don't support paying a base fee for a
food truck. I I I mean, just to supply
food for for people. I I don't support
that at all. So, that definitely needs
to go, especially after Patty said that
they don't pay for that. So, there's no
reason for Horse Fair to pay for that.
And the Horse Fair is from 10:00 to
2:00. It was a lovely event, um but I
have to say that even though I don't
know everybody in town,
um most of the booths were not booths
from town things. Um only the horses I
don't even know if all the horses were
from town horses, but most of the booths
were for Los Altos uh riding rink. Um
Whatever. All these riding rings and
riding programs that are outside of the
town. So, I And a lot of the kids there,
I don't know that they were necessarily
Portola Valley kids, but
10:00 to 2:00, I'm not sure anybody
spends a full 4 hours there that we need
to even supply food for them. So, the
food's got to go. I tend to agree with
um Helen that, you know, we we last year
we cut all of the committees by a
certain percent, I think. And then we
cut some out completely. So, we are
until until July January, we won't
really know whether we have enough
funding. So, I think we need to be a
little careful about
providing free events for everybody. Um
So, I might support cutting them by
you know, a couple thousand.
Um
uh let's see. What else was on this
list? Oh, same thing for cultural arts.
I do not support spending a thousand
dollars on food.
Um
max probably 300. Um I think
I I it's not the food that people come
to for these events. It's for the actual
activity. I mean, their photo photo
exhibit was fabulous. It was a wonderful
event. Um it didn't need a thousand
dollars worth of food, that's for sure.
Most of it actually ended up being
thrown away because there weren't that
many people at the opening night. So, I I don't think we should be spending
that kind of money on food. So, I would
cut way back there. The rest I think are
completely reasonable. Um I think people
were careful
and really thoughtful the committees in
terms of what they presented as
reasonable. So, I'm I'm fine with
everything else, I guess. Was there some
Oh, yeah, with Yeah, yeah, I'm fine with staff recommendations otherwise.
» All right. Thank you.
» I'd like to go next.
» Sure.
Um
Well,
our town is a volunteer town.
These volunteers have created these
budgets.
And we've
minimized the budgets
over the last several years.
Um I think it's pretty demoralizing to
go in and second-guess line items for
people who
donate dozens of hours.
And while I would request that people do
things like
not order a food truck if you can get
one for for
don't pay for it.
I think I would want them to get that
direction and
act as a good committee would
in a town that is under financial
distress.
But this is a core principle for our
town, so I would approve the budget pretty much
as it is. Um, I would make sure
geologic, which has already
been paired back hugely relative to its
ask,
they only want, you know,
5 600, I would absolutely
um, support them getting that. And the Day of the Horrors, I think, is a a
big community thing. It's not quite as
big as our town picnic by any means, but
it's an important event for many in the
community.
And
you know, looking at the food truck
costs is something I'd ask them to do
and manage and see if there's a
different way and ask them to be more
creative. But I want people to continue
to
feel good about volunteering for the
town, and I think cutting back anymore
than, um, what Darcy's already outlined
is taken care of otherwise,
uh, makes no sense. So, that's where I
am.
>> Thank you, Mary.
» Well, I second the emotion that, uh, we want
to give a a good message to the to the
volunteer committees.
Uh, and that that this is not sounding
like that. Uh,
and, uh, but I think, um,
Darcy's done a good job working with the
geologic safety committee, which I could
have done, too, cuz I was the liaison.
Um, getting it down to 600 is very
reasonable.
Uh, I think the same goes for historic
resources. They need guidance. They're
digitalizing all the uh, the
our historic data. It's really
important. It's got to be done.
These people are just giving their time
and they're expert. They've got a
younger guy who's
willing to do it and it's it's a great
project.
Um
again, that's a manager's it's not even
a manager's committee. It's just I'm not
even sure why we
uh
why we have it on our budget list. It's
not either of it. Manager's committee or
a
it's a group of people.
Um so you know, you could just as a good
you could just do 600 for for historic
resource and
uh and at least and give them some
guidance on on how to use the library.
Is what I would do.
Rather than pointing out that they need
to either be a Brown Act committee or a
manager's committee in order to be able
to take
Just a thought.
Um
but we don't want to demoralize Nancy
because
anything we can do to support her, we
need to do it.
>> Right.
now.
So no for the food truck. The food truck
uh
the horse fair uh
has always been heavily subsidized by
the members of of who bring their horses
there. We all ensure our horses because
the town makes us. I get out of policy
every year in order to be able to bring
my horses over.
Uh it's all very bureaucratic and and
troublesome to to participate in it.
Uh lots and lots of difficulties getting
um permits, getting the horses there,
getting
they sort of rural uh quality
represented and it's very well done.
Uh it it feels completely different from
the Woodside Day of the Horse.
Um it's a it's a real country fair.
Uh
and uh I think
that the town has been extremely
generous in supporting it.
Uh it was we were asked to do it
originally as part of the 50 50-year-old
the 50th anniversary.
Uh and we've done it every year since.
Um
the finance has always been difficult.
Um but everybody's so generous.
Um
we had got a don- a donor for 2,000 this
year.
Um they just wrote us a check for 2,000.
I don't know where it is, but anyway,
hopefully it's coming to you.
Um
and so we think that
the cost were only about 8,000 that what
people put in. It doesn't count the
thousands and thousands of dollars that
people did not put in more.
Um
so I'm for
I guess I decrease it to 750 maybe 800
750 7,500
in the spirit of of of community
tight belt tightening. Um
I don't know what we'd lose. We might
lose the heavy horses, which are of
course
what makes it amazing.
Uh and that's where the the big expense
is and I think that the insurance issue
I I think I saw that the insurance was
on the uh line item. So apparently we we
build it.
The insurance for the heavy horses was
probably 2,500
to get them there.
Um
I I I don't know what we'll lose, but at
any rate we'll probably be able to raise
the money somehow.
So, that would be my thought.
>> Thank Thank you.
Um
All right, I'll try again to sort of
float a proposal. Um I think I what I've
been hearing that seems generally
agreeable if we went to 7,500 for the
horse, 500 for geologic, and 500 for
historic.
>> 600?
>> Well, I I didn't hear what it would be
spent on. So, I was thinking that we're
giving historic 500, I'm comfortable
giving geologic 500. Um
>> Geologic, I'd like to she Non asked for
600.
>> She said five or six, and she didn't she
wasn't specific. That's My issue is if
it were for something specific, I'd be
fine with it, but it's kind of like I I
got part of what it was for, and then
the rest was just like I need some more
money. Like maybe to take somebody to
dinner or something, and I'm not sure
we're in a place to pay for people's
dinner. So, that's why I was proposing
five. I was trying to not, you know,
completely drop, you know, down to what
was 300.
>> So, she said
>> Mhm.
What was it?
>> She has an itemized budget.
>> Right, but this is
the things We cut the things that were
in the itemized budget, and then
the new thing was I need more than 300.
How about five or six? That's what I
heard her ask for. So, So, anyway, that
I'm I'm floating a trial balloon. I'm open to suggestions. I'm just trying
to get us to a place that we can get
some kind of motion and move to the next
item.
» Well, geologically
we only cut the external coordination
for the 10-year update. So, the
remaining three things are still on her
list, which is $600.
>> Yeah.
>> I I would respectfully submit 600 for
both of them. And that we're splitting
hairs.
>> She does have a evacuation maps
report and public communication for six
but each is broken down.
And it adds up to 600.
>> Right. And she said that
evacuation maps was reimbursing somebody
for costs that are already expenditure.
So it's budget this year, not next year.
I mean, I I just had a difficult time with the budget items. But if everybody wants
to go for 600, I mean, somebody can make
that proposal. I'm just trying to get us
a a motion that we can vote on.
So does somebody have a ultimate
proposal?
» Can you finish the proposal? I think you
were starting.
>> I I think I'm done. I I was going to
leave every I was seven
750 7,500 for the horse, 500 for
geologic safety, 500 for historic, and
leave everything else the same.
>> Cultural arts, 1,000 on food?
>> I was going to leave everything else the
same.
I mean, you're you're welcome to make an
alternate proposal. I'm just looking for
either
some consensus or we can put a motion
and see if we get a second and vote on
it.
It's getting It's obviously getting
late, so we're starting to lose our
effectiveness.
>> Yeah, our effectiveness.
Uh
would it be simplifying to give 600 for all three of those, cultural arts,
geologic safety, and historic resources?
Or is that too disrespectful of the fact
that they submitted a budget?
>> I'm sorry, say that one again. Historic,
geological
>> and cultural arts.
» Well, cultural arts has um
uh
>> Actually, I'm not sure if they wanted
>> They've asked for Yeah, they've asked
for 40 almost 4,500 4,350.
Um
» Tony, could you help me put up the slide
with the staff recommendation on the
numbers?
» There's nothing
» Can I just clarify through the chair?
The We don't need a motion. This is a
direction, but we would definitely
appreciate clarity in the direction cuz
at the next meeting we're bringing the
budget.
>> I see.
>> Thank you.
for the clarification.
» Well, I would recommend um 600 for um
geo- geologic safety. Um
I would cut cultural arts by
um 600 at least.
Um
and then trails and paths, it sounds
like three of us have said 7,500.
>> Yes.
>> And I actually I would support
cutting cultural arts the thousand
um as well.
Um other Yeah.
Pot It's It's potluck, I'm
unfortunately.
» Yes.
» It'd be down to 3,350
for cultural arts.
» Which is more than last year, which I
think we gave them 3,000.
» So, maybe cut it back to 3,000 again?
Uh
Can somebody make a motion?
>> Yeah. I'll make a motion. So, um 7,500
for horse day
um
>> horse fair.
thank you. Um We'll we'll do
I'm cutting a thousand out of cultural
arts, we'll give them 3350.
Um 600 for geologic and 600 for
historic.
» I second.
» There we have a motion, we have a
second. Is there any more discussion?
>> I thought we weren't
>> I'm not sure. You know, you're you're
right. We're
Well, I guess what I So, you're right.
We don't need a motion, so thank you.
Again, it's getting it's getting late.
Um but is there any more discussion? Is this acceptable direction for staff?
>> And yeah, I think everything else would
be what staff recommended except for
those four changes.
>> So
is everybody else comfortable with that
direction to staff?
>> No, but I'm happy to be the odd person.
I don't
No, I'm really not happy, either. What's
your What do you want?
>> I said my peace. There's nothing more to
say, so.
» Yeah, well, unfortunately, I feel like
we need to give staff some kind of
direction. So, there
>> Rebecca and I I I put a motion on the
table. Rebecca
>> no motion.
>> I know.
>> And I I'll take it off the motion, but
there's the two of you agreed on
>> Yes.
>> some numbers, so
>> Those four.
>> Yeah, so I got that. But Mary says she's
unhappy.
>> I'm just
>> Judith says she's unhappy.
>> Uh
>> And they're not the numbers I would have
picked, either, but I'm willing to go along
>> as
>> probably, but
What's your What's your issue, Mary?
>> Um
I I am puzzled by cultural arts. I that
came in and
I know I should have been ready for
this, but
it came as a surprise that all of a
sudden they need that much food.
>> It's too high, you think?
>> too much, yeah.
» Okay, well, but so
>> in comparison to the 600 bucks we're
giving to Nancy is for the first time in
her life ask for money.
>> So
the the general proposal was just to
reduce their budget by a thousand
dollars.
>> Yeah, I mean I can do I think that I I
personally feel like we've got to give
them enough direction to the staff to
realize that what we're trying to do is
make it feel generous in a way.
We're trying to provide education.
How do
use our own resources there
to them and
suggest potlucks
and we hopefully we'll get this money
back.
» Okay.
>> We haven't even spent it. So I'm I'm
going along with it.
>> Okay. All right. So staff I think you
have direction. So
and I think in addition I would add that
we asking all committees given that the
town is in financial
um issues that they try to economize in
every possible way including using
potlucks and other ways to reduce
All right.
So
Sure.
Whatever.
All right. So now somehow my
I have to go back to the
I don't know.
I'll give me a minute to get thing back
there.
agenda
No, I got it. Thank you.
All right. So that closes out um 8 A.
We're moving to 8 B.
So Tony you have a presentation?
>> The presentation will be brief.
>> Thank you.
» So this is the not for profit not for
profit funding requests.
>> Thank you, everyone. I appreciate you
being here.
» Um so, basically tonight it's review and
provide direction
on not-for-profit funding requests.
Um
Historically, we've spent around $21,000
on not-for-profit funding requests.
Uh this year, we we received a request
of over 56,000.
Um
with uh EPIC at 15,000,
Human Investment Project or HIP at
15,000,
uh HEART at 1361,
Joint Venture Silicon Valley at 5,000,
Peninsula Conflict Resolution Center at
5,000,
uh PV Palooza has submitted two
requests, one for 4,000 for the actual
PV Palooza,
um and then 4,000 for the Summer Concert
Series.
Uh Sustainable San Mateo County has
$5,000 request.
And uh CORA, um
their request is I I put in 1,700. It's
usually around
it increases each year, but it shouldn't
go above 1,700 for next year.
Um this year, uh given our financial
constraints,
um the recommendation is that we focus
our funding on
nonprofits to do services within uh the
town of Portola Valley.
Uh so, that's why we're recommending
EPIC for 7,500,
uh HIP uh 15,000,
uh HEART for 1361, which is the annual
dues.
And then PV Palooza, um the $4,000 for
the PV Palooza Foundation
that's going to be an in-kind
contribution.
Uh cuz we
uh
staff time alone is over $6,000 in
support of PV Palooza then there's also
the use of the field which could be
another 6,000. Um so I believe with our
in-kind contributions we could meet that
4,000 uh request. Um the summer concert
series is a community event. It is well
attended.
Um and um
so posing a $4,000 contribution
uh for the the summer concert series and
then Cora at $1,700. So total
requested is 56,000. Well we're
recommending funding 33,561
of which 16,361
will be coming out of the affordable
housing fund.
So the impact to the general fund would
be 17, 561 which be would which make it
um matching 25 26 um actuals.
>> Thank you Tony. Questions for Tony?
Rebecca, do you have any questions?
>> The HIP Housing fee of 15,000 is that
the their uh consulting for us or is
that completely separate?
>> It's separate.
» So what is it that they're providing for
that? So it
>> It's not related to their contract.
>> But we have a consulting contract with
HEART.
>> Right.
>> Oh. Yeah, that's separate. HIP Housing
this cost covers their services to the
town which is assistance with ADU
uh
ADU rental matching and home share
matching.
And that's 15,000. We don't have a
consultant agreement because we fund
their services, so we don't put them in
that funding bucket, but this is our
contribution for assistance for housing
element implementation.
» And that fee that the amount they put
I mean we paid 2,100 last year and now
it's 15,000. Is that the normal amount
that we were supposed to be paying for
that service? Is it sort of a
county-wide thing?
>> It's It is supplemental services. Most
small towns, us, Hillsborough, I think
maybe Woodside pays this additional cost
for additional
um
work to support our housing element
implementation. And And I'll emphasize
our housing element requires this work.
It explicitly identifies funding this
program through HIP.
» Okay.
>> And they do it for the smaller cities.
The bigger cities
>> don't do it.
>> And you added it at the mid-year last
year. So, last year at mid-year you
adjusted it and provided 7,500 for half
the year and this would be for the full
fiscal year for next year.
» Okay, so it's not reflected in this that
7,500 is not reflected in this
>> Right. Yeah. Okay.
>> Right. Yeah. So,
>> And then for Meals on Wheels, by not
funding them, does that mean that our
seniors who use them will not have
access to that service?
>> We did not receive a request for Meals
on Wheels.
>> Oh. Oh, okay.
>> And we haven't received one in a several
years.
>> Oh, okay.
All right, that's my questions. Thank
you.
>> Thank you.
All right, with that I'll open it up to
public comment. There's no one in the
speaker
>> did have a question. I'm sorry.
>> That's right.
>> Um
do we know if uh these NGOs will be impacted by the
loss of VLF situation? Obviously, VLF
like do we know?
>> Well, VLF
>> I know. Vehicle license.
>> cities and counties. So, it's it's if
they're going to be impacted, it's
will the the cities governments be able
to fund requests.
>> Yeah.
>> Now, there's probably other issues
they're going to be dealing with on the
federal side, so.
>> Right. So, the
for those who don't know, VLF was not
included in the governor's May revise.
So,
uh strategically
Becker, Berman, and Papen are working on
it.
Okay. Thank you. That was my question.
» It's not
that's not in this item.
The airport, no.
>> That's not a nonprofit.
>> That's another
issue.
That's That's a Yeah, that's a
>> CBA.
» Okay.
>> Then, can I open Yes. for a comment?
>> All right. I see no one in the room. I
see somebody called Zoom user.
You could unmute and identify yourself.
» Mhm.
Okay.
» Or is there somebody acting as
Go ahead.
>> It's Dana Breen.
>> Hey, Dana.
>> I am called I I I called in just to say
that ACC did not
I mean, we're not looking for anything.
However, we used to have study sessions
when we when we had quiet times. We used
to talk about the things that we have
done wrong and done right. And and I I
I'm not going to throw that in there,
but I I think that that would be really
a wonderful thing to bring back.
Um
and
Anyway, I That's all. Thank you.
Bye-bye.
>> Thank you. Thank you, Dana.
All right. I don't see any other hands
up
in the schoolhouse, so I will bring it
back to the council for discussion.
So, anybody want to start?
Rebecca, why don't you start?
>> Um
Well, I'm I'm sad that we can't support
sustainability, but it's not our biggest
priority right now given our budget
constraints. Other I I I think the
recommendations of staff are reasonable given our constraints. We
won't you know, maybe we revisit this or
we obviously can revisit this in July in
January if if everything is goes well.
That's otherwise I support the staff's
recommendation.
>> Okay. Thank you.
Susan?
>> Um same.
>> Okay. Mary?
>> Same too.
>> Great. Thank you. Helen?
>> Same.
All right.
So, Ernie, I think you have your
direction.
>> Yes.
>> Thank you for your presentation.
All right. So, you know, close out the B
Um so, I'd like to take a short break.
It's almost midnight. I I don't mean to
break from the dais, but I I want to ask
people
are we willing to try to push through
the rest of these or do we want to try
to move to
setting up a special meeting to finish?
I know that the next one is something
you probably need for the budget, right?
Um
I'm just worried that you know, we're
it's almost midnight. We're we're
starting to lose focus. So, what do
people think? I'm I'm willing to keep
pushing. I I think we can probably
>> What I what I would suggest is at least
for
our item is that we do the first part
and and then uh continue the second item.
The two
>> Okay.
>> Tony, you need this for the budget,
right? I just want to prioritize for
>> C C is a budget thing.
Yes.
>> Yeah, we can
>> And then D and E we could
have a special meeting. I I I don't see
us moving it to the 10th. The 10th is
already
packed. We've got the safety element in starting at 5:30, so
it would have to be a special meeting if
we're going to do that. I'm okay with
that, but I did I want to get the sense
from people. I mean, should we should we
try to keep going? I just worry that the
these next two not the next two, but D
and E
may need some discussion. I'm not sure
whether you're up for it. So, what do
you think? So, just can I get a sense of
Judith, where are you at?
>> I'm willing to do the
item that's necessary for the budget.
Um
I'd prefer not to keep going. I I don't
think it's going to be a good quality
you know, analysis at that point.
>> Okay. Mary, where are you at?
>> Um
>> I think you just said
>> I'm trying to open my old agenda. It's
the one
>> I think I think you were you were
proposed So, C is the salary schedule.
That's Tony. And then this this is your
report out
>> Yeah, I mean it makes sense that this
>> I think D and E kind of belong together.
>> Well, I don't.
>> Okay.
>> is a different issue.
>> Okay.
>> And then it should be put both of them
in order
>> of what we do. When when when which case
>> I think the both of them both. But I
think we need to
You all need to know where where we're
at at this point.
>> You What do you think,
» Just being practical, I think the audit
we need to think about.
>> And then stop.
>> Yeah.
>> Okay.
>> Ellen?
>> I absolutely agree with Judith. So, uh
yeah. No, I'm fine doing C and then
doing a special meeting for D and E.
>> Okay. And then I'm sure Rebecca will be
happy to keep going cuz it's like 9:00 in the morning there. She's
probably thinking it's time to get up
and get moving. So, Rebecca, are you
okay if we postpone D and E?
>> Um
D seemed to be just a report out that
the subcommittee is recommending that we
hire this this substitute
um
substitute lawyer. So,
um
Yeah, it it didn't seem like it was a
big thing. But um if the subcommittee
itself feels that we need to have a long
discussion, then they're the ones who
know.
Um
And then E, of course, would be a long
discussion. So, I'm not keen on a
special meeting, but
it'd be great if it was in the morning,
but um
yeah, I mean, I guess what what
everybody else wants. I'm fine. Just
doing C.
>> Let's
>> I mean, unless we need to do D, unless
we need to appoint that lawyer sooner
rather than later.
>> No, I think it's Let's We don't
>> We don't. So, all right. So, let's let's
move on to HC
um and then I'm going to ask that we
postpone D and E.
All right. So, Tony, with that, do you
want to give me a sub?
>> Thank you.
So,
this item is the fiscal year 26-27
salary schedule,
which is adopted by council annually.
So, we're going to be reviewing salary
schedule, and these are the list of
authorized positions that the town can
hire.
Uh so, beginning with administration,
um
and this is the um and the salaries are
reflective of 2 and 1/2% cola already.
Um and so, we'll start with the town
manager.
The salary set by contract to
Uh the assistant town manager
range bottom 196 to 253.
>> So, Tony, I would say you probably don't
have to read each of this. We we can
read the table. Thank you.
>> Okay, so next up is the finance section.
In this one, we are adding a position,
uh finance manager.
With uh
my promotion to assistant town manager,
we need a
finance manager position to um oversee
finance staff, also add to another layer
of internal controls.
Um and also keep uh the day-to-day
functioning going. Um also, we're adding
an accountant one position
to the finance department. Um and this
is to uh close the loop on a career
track. So, now you go finance
technician, accountant one,
senior accountant, finance manager. So,
now there's a career progression uh
within the finance function.
And uh planning and building, uh we're
we are adding a position, senior
development review technician,
building inspector.
Um this is again is to provide more
flexibility to the planning and building
department uh to enhance customer
service. Um
And then public works facilities,
there's no change to the
classifications.
And so, uh all department positions do
reflect the 2 1/2% cola.
All hourly positions are based on 40
hour week. And all classifications are
authorized to be filled.
And we default to the California state
minimum wage results or minimum minimum
wage rates.
So, looking at the cola increase, it's
increase of 52,000 to salaries.
However, with um
replacing the finance director with the
finance manager,
there's approximately $90,000 in
savings.
But in
you know, increasing to an account one.
That's adds $15,000 and then increase to
the senior development review
technician.
That would add another $18,000. So the
net decrease to salaries will be 5K
by reclassifying from finance director
to finance manager.
That concludes my report and it's back
to council for discussion and direction.
>> Perfect. Thank you, Tony.
All right, so verifying questions for
Tony.
Helen?
>> Just to be clear,
and maybe your graphs don't show it. It
says the annual range of your salaries.
I don't are there steps within it? Like
ABC?
>> Steps.
>> You guys do not have steps. So just the
range within that.
And just to be clear for the record, it
looks like
um
with the cola
you
Tony, you would be making more money
than our town manager. Is that correct?
>> Yes.
Which needs to be
negotiated with town.
>> Right. That's a negotiated contract.
>> Okay.
That's my questions. Thank you.
» Do you have a question?
Helen?
>> When we see that
these positions may not be
filled, I'm paraphrasing there.
What does that mean? Cuz these are new
positions, right?
>> So it's for the when cuz the budget has
FTEs. And so we pull the FTEs from the
salary schedule.
So not every position on the salary
schedule will be authorized in the
budget.
» Um
>> But like there's one position that's
building inspector or building official.
We don't have a building official.
And it's not in the budget.
>> Right, but our action tonight, if we
approve this,
we are approving new slots
for personnel.
>> Yes.
>> Right?
>> Yes, and then
they will be programmed into the budget,
but then council will still need to come
back and approve
whatever the authorized FTEs are.
>> It'll be a two-step process by the time
we actually commit to spend that money.
>> Yeah. Just to clarify, we're not
approving FTEs tonight.
>> Yeah.
Okay.
Uh and then just procedurally,
the job descriptions here
for these new positions, how how were
they derived? I don't want to get into
the lines, but but are they from
comparable jurisdictions?
>> They are from comparable jurisdictions.
>> And pretty plain vanilla, like there's
nothing here you would point out.
>> the the accountant one classification is
being same job duty, same functions from
town to city throughout.
» Okay. Uh those are my questions.
>> Larry?
No. Rebecca?
>> Um I'm just confirming we're not
planning to fill the finance director.
We're going to try to find a finance
manager. Um has that search started?
>> That has not started yet, but once
council
authorizes this, then we can start that
process.
>> And the accountant one, you said it's
going to be an impact of 15K, I think.
So, is the plan to promote someone soon?
Is that for next year? Is that the plan?
Possibly.
>> We We do have an internal candidate that
can meet that position.
>> Okay. And then um 18K
was an increase for the senior
development review,
which is a building official inspector
combo project. My understanding is that
you did do a search for that and it
failed. So, is the increase in the
salary to try to attract more candidates
or
>> It's also to reflect the additional
duties of building inspector.
>> And um
>> And so, well, we we will budget
for that position using this higher
salary.
So, and we will and we will recruit for
that position. If we can't fill that
position,
then we will still have flexibility to
bring in
uh a senior development radio technician
if we find one.
>> Okay, great. Thank you.
» Tony, could you go back to the salary
schedule?
For which?
Uh a couple more. So, um finance There
you go. Um so,
I'm used to overlapping ranges and I
noticed that the finance tech and the
accountant one don't overlap.
I mean, I'm not trying to put you on the
spot. It's just you know, I I usually
there's room to sort of it work your way
up in one,
you know, rank and then sort of slip up
into the next one and sort of have a
steady progression rather than a sort of
jump in between.
>> Then that's an oversight on my part.
>> All right.
Okay, I mean,
so, is this something
you should consider fixing? Cuz you This
is going to come back to us as part of
the budget. Are we Again, are we
approving this tonight or are we just
giving you direction?
>> Give me direction.
>> Okay.
All right. So, I guess
I'll save my as my comment.
All right. Um
>> Can I ask one more question, sorry?
>> Yeah, go ahead.
>> Um
how many employees in these different um
categories are kind of
really close to their max already?
» Believe we have four.
» Okay.
>> Yeah.
>> All right, thanks.
>> It's three or it's it's three or four.
» Okay.
» All right.
>> That's it.
>> Thank you. I'll open up for public
comment. I see no hands in the
schoolhouse.
Um and I see no hands online.
So, I will close public comment. Bring
it back to the council. Is there any
direction for Tony other than my one
>> Just a clarification. This is adoption
of a resolution.
It's okay. It's after midnight now, but
yeah. The you would be approving this
and
certainly I think for It comes back next
year, but for this particular position
accountant one given we have an
incumbent who's likely I don't know if
that's an issue with this position, but
we will certainly look at that. Could
look at it in the future
if you choose to approve it tonight.
>> Um
>> Or you could give us direction to widen
the band, but you'd have to give us an
if you want to make it as part of the
motion, you'd have to give us
more explicit some explicit direction.
>> Well, I yeah, I mean I guess
I would widen the band and
but I you know, these are decisions I
don't like making on the fly. Like this
these are these are you know, salary
issues. So, this is not things, but
generally I mean
we may have a candidate. I have no idea
and I this public meeting. I don't want
to know, but you know,
where this candidate is in the
one's rank and where they would move in
the other and are we making too large a
jump? I mean I don't know the answer.
So,
um and I'm not I'm not looking to get an
answer to this question, but that's my concern. I mean that's what's
driving my concern here.
Um
so,
I mean I guess my proposal Tony, if you think you can
lower the range on the accountant one to
decrease some overlap, I'd be
comfortable with that and I think I
would trust your judgment on it. I mean,
you know, you have financial expertise.
But I think, you know, kind of what
Judas was asking earlier, I sort of
expect these things to match sort of,
you know, roughly what other people are
doing, you know, that are comparable
jurisdictions.
>> Right.
>> So, so is that enough, Catherine? Is
that enough direction for us to
approve this?
>> I mean, I I guess I would I would prefer
to see an actual number in there, Tony,
but I I don't know if you can
I mean, if the council's approving the
salary schedule, it seems like we need
to have a number in there for the range.
>> And if we didn't approve it tonight and
we just approved it the next meeting
when you just showed us this stuff,
like, could this even be in consent?
Would it have to be?
>> I believe it could be on consent. We
could also put it on a special We're
going to have a special meeting for the
other items.
We could potentially bring this at that
meeting as well. Uh but Tony, I this is
your item, so I want you to be able to
weigh in on some of the the options.
>> Um yeah, I mean, yeah, I'll I can adjust the range
um to include an overlap.
>> Okay.
And And are you okay if I mean, if we
put this off to the special meeting
where we're going to pick up B, D, and
E, that still give you
the time you need?
» Yeah, I'll make it work.
>> Can you make it work? I mean, cuz
otherwise, I mean, I'm I'm willing to
forego my issue
>> I I can't I mean, we're it's June.
June's next week, so I mean, it's it's
>> Right, but this is for July, right? I
mean,
>> Yeah, but it needs to be adopted on the
24th.
So,
um yeah.
>> The budget as a whole
>> is to be adopted, so
>> Right, right, but I mean, I think just
to get to Catherine's point, you're to
just come back with a number. We're
going to say, "Great. That At least I'm
going to say they overlap now. Good.
Done. Check. Move on." So, I don't see
that there's going to be a big
discussion on this the next time it
comes up. Right. So, I think we could
get it through. I'm I'm happy the next
available
um slot on the council agenda, I'm happy
to see this again.
Okay. Um yeah, sorry. I just I I think
it's important we get this right. I
think it just shows good discipline on
our part.
So, thank you. And again, I know it's
late, but I appreciate you working with
me.
>> Uh
could I
weigh in?
>> Um
>> I'm not quite getting
Look, there's there's a
2,000-plus dollar gap between a finance technician and an accountant
one.
Is that
like I think we got to view ourselves as
trying to get a lot done in a very short
period of time.
I don't get why
we would postpone this for a couple
thousand bucks. Like, I I don't get it. And I just want to move
on because coming back, someone's going
to notice a typo. And it's not that I
want to be cavalier about it. I'm just
trying to gauge how big a deal
this is. And I'm fine either way,
really, but I think we have so much
coming up in the next month.
I'm nervous about that. So, you know,
you make the decision, but I just needed
to weigh in.
» Well, we need a motion one way or
another. And so, that I I can live with
taking what we have here. Um
I also think, given we're going to have
a special meeting, we have the
opportunity. Right.
So, but again, I I would accept
So, you
>> I move to approve it.
>> As is.
I'll second it.
>> Okay. We have a motion, we have a
second, roll call.
>> Council member Walter.
>> I.
>> Council member Hasco.
>> I.
>> Council member Flynn.
>> Um.
I I guess. I I I have I I'm going to say no actually.
I'm going to say no. Cuz I I agree with Craig, you know.
No.
» Vice Mayor Hufty.
>> I.
>> Mayor Taylor.
>> Nay.
>> Motion carries 3-2.
>> So there you go Tony, you got it. So and
we'll just let's try to fix this for
next time. Thank you very much.
Okay, so do I need to do anything to
continue the rest of the items in the
agenda or can we just adjourn the
meeting and then we schedule these?
>> Uh I believe we can just none of these
are public hearings so there's no formal
action required. I think staff just has
direction to find um a suitable date for
to bring these back.
>> Okay, great.
All right, then with that I would
entertain a motion to adjourn.
I'm on but somebody else.
>> Seconded.
>> All right.
Thank you everyone.
Thank you for being here until well
after midnight. Good night.