Hello, Patrick, and everyone else. I will put myself back on mute and off video. I just wanted to say hello.
Hi, Margaret.
Hey, Mayor Brica, how are you?
Okay, how are you? So I'll, I'll get a little bit as soon as we get a quorum. We'll get started. Thank you.
Yeah, it looks like Council Member Wallace-Jones and yourself are on. We're waiting for the rest of the council.
Council Member Goshay.
Is she in?
Vice Mayor Goshay, yes.
Okay.
And so is Council Member Romero.
All right, so 6.30, I'm going to go ahead and get started.
So,
good evening everyone.
I want to open up the Eastpile Autocity Council regular meeting of today, April 5th, 2022.
to. And when I start out by doing, welcome,
Mayor Abrica here, Councilmember Wallace-Jones,
Councilmember Lopez here, Councilmember Romero, President and Vice Mayor Gushay
here. Okay,
Okay, so welcome everyone. And before we continue, this is customary James I'll ask you to make a brief summary of the interpretation.
So, if you would like to listen to the Spanish, any Spanish commentary during this meeting
in English, you can use the interpretation feature at the bottom of your screen.
If you click on the world icon or on the globe icon, you can listen to this meeting
in English.
If you want to hear this together in Spanish, please print the globe that is located
under your screen and you can put it there to listen to the meeting in Spanish.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
The next item, number two, is the approval of the agenda.
We can entertain those unless there are any changes.
I move approval.
Okay.
We can move and second it if we can have roll call.
Mayor Abrica.
Yes.
Council Member Wallace-Jones.
Yes.
Council Member Lopez.
Yes.
Council Member Romero.
Yes.
And Vice Mayor Gushay.
Yes.
Motion carries.
Our next item, number three, is the approval of consent calendar.
And so I'll ask if there are any items that any council member wants to pull, or if there
are any requests from the public to pull any item.
And also, if there are any members of the public that wish to make a comment on anything on the consent calendar. So, I'll start with council to see if there are any requests to pull anything.
Yeah, I'd like to pull 3.1, please be awarded Addison Avenue improvement projects.
Okay, 3.1. And.
Right.
Okay,
so are there any requests for any comments from the public?
Yeah, it looks like we have one hand up in the audience.
Okay, for the consent items.
So first speaker here is Adrian.
Good evening council members and staff and general public, I asked that consent calendar item number three be pulled on the first retiring policy.
I have that standing question about one thing.
Okay.
So we'll pull 3.3 also.
Thank you.
Okay.
So I think if I could have a motion.
I'd like to make a motion that we approve the consent calendar.
With as amended without item 3.1 and 3.3.
I'll second.
And we could have roll call.
Yeah,
roll call. Yes. Mayor Brica. Yes. Councilmember Wells-Jones. Yeah. Councilmember Lopez. Yes. Councilmember Romero. Yes. And Vice Mayor Loche. Yes. Motion carries.
Okay, so then we'll go back to item 3.1, the Addison Avenue Improvement Project and.
Please proceed.
Oh, customer Romero, what was your just quickly, I do not see attachments. I couldn't find
attachment three. And perhaps, you know, I really should have called staff before this meeting. I know I highlighted it here, but it was one of those things that got away from me. I wanted to understand a little better the design services and whether or not I think most importantly, I think the issue for me is, do you want to
Do we have a construction manager on this site, on this project, or is it being handled
in-house?
I'm not quite sure.
It looks like maybe the contract is for more design services, perhaps what we would call
RFIs, request for information, modifications to design based on what was found in the
field.
But I am a little concerned about the project management construction management side.
How can someone, and perhaps there was some of that in Attachment 3, and I just didn't
see it.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, thank you.
Hamza Javed, City Engineers, so I can touch on that real quick.
So the Attachment 3, which is the design services during construction, is a contract
with the designer, the designer that actually designed the project.
So what happens is when, you know, the designer designs a project, and you get
into construction, there may be some design-related questions, and so you need to have a contract
with the designer who actually worked on the preparation of the plans.
And this project, particularly because there's pavement reconstruction, we need geotechnical
services for any analysis that might be needed on site.
And so the contract for that is specifically design services during construction.
Regarding your question about construction management services, this project is going
to be managed in-house by city staff. And we, with the support of the designer, we feel
comfortable that we don't need an outside consultant to manage the day-to-day operations
during construction.
So, look, just as far as the CSG contract goes, is that a not-to-exceed or is that
a fixed fee?
That's a not-to-exceed amount.
Right, so depending on either the conditions found in the field or, you know, other issues
related to, I guess, request for further information from the contractor, they may not go to the
full 110,000.
That's correct.
Absolutely.
Yeah, it's really based off of, in the past, you know, we've noticed on a lot of
these projects using Bay Road, for example.
The design services contract, I think we use like 50% of it.
It's usually, you know, for any additional design services unforeseen.
And this project, particularly because there's pavement reconstruction, a lot of the 110,000 the majority of it is geotechnical services and site meetings and as bill preparation.
So yeah, it's use the consultant as needed.
Thank you.
I'm ready to move the item unless the council members have other questions.
If
not, I move that we approve item 3.1, adopt the resolution authorizing the city manager
to enter under construction contract, approve the contract amendment, number two, with CSG
not to exceed $110,000, and actually that previous amount of that contract was 1.855908
with a contingency of 371,181.
Okay, I'm glad to see it's moving forward. Okay. Yes, it is. Thanks for reminding that
that's.
Where is Ms. Winston?
There's a motion in second, and we have roll call. Sorry, who is
the council member that seconded? I think I'm the vice mayor.
Mayor Obrika. Yes.
Council
Yes, okay.
Next one is number three, and that's the adoption of the first source hiring ordinance for city funded projects and properties and if you could allow.
Be Rachel Horst.
No, so agent, you just want to hear what the question is.
Adrian had a question. Yeah, and then.
Thank
you. Good evening again council members and staff. I again still have this outstanding
question and specifically it's related to section 5.11.030 the scope and goals. Section
B number two where it references the all available jobs as were presented to the city's designated
a job coordinator or coordinators at least 48 hours prior to hiring for any available
position. I'm just wondering why it's such a short period of time, and whomever is playing
that role of the job coordinator, that kind of makes their job harder, trying to source
jobs for two days. So I just ask again that you reconsider that little short period
of time, unless there's something that I'm missing. I didn't have time, like I
state of last time to contact staff, but if someone could possibly educate me on why you
think that that is a good turnaround time in order to source jobs. It just doesn't seem
like an ample time for the person in that position, nor the people who may be looking
for jobs. That's all. Thank you.
Mary Brickus, I could address the question.
Great. Hi, Amy Chen, Director of Community Academic Development. We largely modeled
our ordinance after some other jurisdictions that had good examples. And of course we are very open
to feedback on the 48-hour noticing. What we really want to have is set up a training program with
our existing providers to figure out where we can really build the relationships with trades
and with the other industries that we're trying to focus on the larger measurement each program on.
So even with the 48-hour turnaround, we believe that that will actually give enough time for employers
that are trying to staff up and hire very quickly without slowing down their process.
And with those existing relationships that we hope to build, I think we can connect those job seekers
and the employers that are looking for them within that timeframe. But we are open to
any feedback from the council if that time should be altered at all or elongated. And
we really appreciate the question from the audience.
Okay. Well, I guess we'll reopen this question since this is the second reading, but any
Any further questions from Council following this question or comments?
I was just going to add, Mr. Mayor, if you don't mind, it is a very good point.
So thank you, Adrienne, again, for always.
One thing that we could do is take that under consideration.
We're going to bring back the comprehensive set of guidelines in a couple months.
More time is always better.
So maybe what we could commit to now, if folks are agreeable to that.
that is in the guidelines, we'll set up what the actual detailed process would be on the
noticing.
And I don't have the ordinance language in front of me, but if it says at least 48 hours,
that could be better than, you know, because then we could take that and then the guidelines
we could actually set up a longer timeline is one option.
So what does the ordinance say exactly?
Are you saying that maybe if it modified this, well, this is the second reading.
So, Valerie could remind us any amendments to the existing second reading makes it.
We have to then go back and have a first.
Yeah, have a first reading again.
So, if that may be the best thing then we'll just continue this and.
Well, well, can we pull up the ordinance and see.
Well, I was in what exactly say, and then if there's a proposed amendment, at least we know, but then we'll have to bring it back.
Mr. Mayor, it seems like B applies to someone who is not in compliance.
Yeah, and it does it does say at least so as was stated previously.
Okay, so it does say that clarify that so I don't think you really need to make any changes.
Right. Okay. Yeah, it seems that with the at least, then as I hear Patrick saying, you'll bring guidelines, et cetera, that would be more specific to potentially allow more.
And, and Council Member Romero is correct. This is applies to where somebody who did not meet the goals to begin with.
Right.
Right. Okay.
But to Patrick's point, though, is it possible within the guidelines to structure something
that really, you know, asks or, yeah, asks our contractors or folks falling under this
ordinance that, you know, those longer time periods are either preferred or should occur,
whether it's a one-day, five-day, an extension of one-day, five-day, seven-days, I'm not sure.
Again, I think, as Amy Chen said, because the Director of Community Development said,
we're trying to fashion an ordinance that is not too onerous on the contractor,
yet at the same time meets the goals of trying to get local folks hired. So I wonder if there's
any flexibility within the guidelines to put a little more nuance to this.
I wouldn't see any reason why there wouldn't be. Again, it's setting a minimum score of at
least 48 hours. Yeah, so again, it sounds to me that this is fine, unless somebody really
objects because the guidelines will then can bring back, you know, additional nuances
like you're saying, as far as the time.
So at least for tonight, we just need to know whether we want to vote on this and move
it forward and then bring back the guidelines.
Are there any other questions or comments?
Through the chair, so what you're saying, if I understand correctly, we would approve
this with the at least 48 hours but come back with the guidelines and we can expand upon it because
I do agree when you look at 48 hours we want to remove any barriers that may be cause a problem
for anyone who's looking for a job. So 48 hours does not seem sufficient but I agree we should
bring it back and make sure we're going to follow up and follow up with it in the guidelines.
Right. Yes. Okay. Yes, I think that's what we can do. Any other questions or comments?
So, and if not, then I can entertain a motion to approve the second reading of this.
I'll move approval.
Second.
Second reading of this ordinance, of the, of this first or second ordinance.
I'll second.
I don't want to.
Yeah, I don't want to let the vice mayor go.
And so we have a roll call.
Yes.
Council Member Wallace-Jones.
Yes.
Council Member Lopez.
Yes.
Council Member Romero.
Yes.
And Vice Mayor Gossier.
Yes.
Okay.
I'm curious.
Okay.
We have no closed session items tonight, that's number four, and our next item then
is number five, which is public comment.
So, this is an opportunity for the public to, for any member of the public to address
the council on any issue that is not on the agenda.
And just understanding we cannot engage in any lengthy discussions and we'll try to
stay within the two-minute limit.
So, yeah, James, if you see any requests for that, if you can call their names.
Yes. So, first speaker here is Gail Wilkerson.
Good evening, council. Citizen number one is here.
I'd like to address the mandatory meetings that the developers and whoever, builders have to have.
It's become, I've heard people say that they weren't notified, but I became a victim of this.
I found out when they sent out one of my neighbors to knock on doors, but she only knocked on the doors of people she liked.
And I had to call the city and I was informed they sent me a flyer. And that's how I learned about the meeting.
The one thing that really upset me was when they had people to speak.
The person in front of me, she talked and talks for at least five, seven minutes.
And I said, oh, good, we don't have a timer.
And because I wanted to say a lot, because of the last time they built over there, it was all dusty and dirty.
And it seemed like they didn't care.
And neither did the management.
So the lady talked, talked, talked, talked.
And when it got to me, I got a timer.
She didn't get a timer.
And then after me, both these people,
they did not live in East Palo Alto.
They were talking, the Crescent Park Association president
and one other lady wanted to know something about street
and taxes and whatnot.
It didn't even apply to East Palo Alto.
And so that was very offensive. I don't know how the city enforces that, but that was insult.
And I also asked him about their policy of no mom and pop businesses there. And he said he wasn't aware of that.
It was several things that was very terrible. I think you ought to look into that, really.
Thank you.
Okay.
That was our only speaker.
Okay.
All right.
Well, thank you for the comments.
Moving on to informational reports.
The first one is a verbal update from our interim police chief, Jeff Lou.
Good evening, council and east follow-up to community members.
Last Wednesday, sexually violent predator Lamar Johnson moved into our community registered as a sex offender.
moved into 903 Beach Street and is currently being supervised 24 hours a day by a security guard.
I had a sergeant go out and make contact with the security guard and get to meet them a little bit.
They're both former law enforcement, so they've had a little bit of additional training.
But for the time being, he'll be monitored 24 hours a day.
Security monitor or security cameras have been installed on the property according to the judge's orders.
And the landscape has been cut way down to allow for visibility into the yard, as ordered by the judge.
I still don't agree with the judge's order. And I still believe that especially violent predator in our community puts our community at risk.
But the police department needs to respect the judge's core ruling. And so we're just going to work with that.
We will continue working with our community, keep our lines of communication open.
And additionally, we added a link to the Megan's Law website onto our Victims Resource
Page on our PV website.
So please visit that if you want to do any research on it, but just want to give you
guys all an update on where we stand with LeBar Johnson, our sexual advisor.
And, you know, if I may, I want to just add a few things to our report.
I mean, as you're well aware, the city council had, you know, through the mayor had already sent the letter and opposition to this, to the judge.
I know the police department had managed communications from the community, and I believe close to a thousand or more people in the community sent their opposition to the judge.
Nevertheless, the judge went ahead and did the ruling.
When I became mayor, I attempted several times, and I did at one point seek the assistance
of Chief Jeff Lew, interim chief, to try to talk to the landlord.
It's an absentee landlord, two investors, one lives in Texas, another one actually lives
and Redwood City, you know, to try to persuade them that the right thing to do would be not
to rent the house. They get $6,400. That is really taxpayers' money. This is coming
from the state. And a similar case had happened in Emerald Hills, where one of the landlords
lives. And, you know, people put pressure and eventually one of the landlord decided not to rent.
Unfortunately, these investors refused to meet with me. Now, I wasn't offended, you know,
because I'm the mayor.
None of that. I wasn't going to communicate to them anything different that the community already has,
but they refuse to meet. So, you know, we operate in a system that has these different levels of
authority. I know 20 years ago, we actually went and protested in front of the house on
Beach Street when a similar case happened.
You know, what I have said publicly, and I'm just
reporting that to you is that, rather than the protesting in the House, because I do intend
to protest and I would encourage anyone to do so peacefully, I'm going to go and protest
on April 15th in front of the courthouse. That's the day that we all have paid our taxes.
This is taxpayer's money that is being used to subsidize absentee landlord that appears
to have no conscience. And secondly, it's our taxpayers' money that are paying a judge who,
in my opinion, really made a not only unfair unjust, but I believe it's a racist call because our
community now is going to be more afraid. And I know that the chief and everyone is following up,
making sure everything's secure, et cetera. But nevertheless, it's really the fear that
and stills in the neighborhood. So, for me, you know, it's a symbolic protest, perhaps,
but I'm going to be doing it as an individual, not officially representing the council, so there's
no liability for the city. But I encourage those 1,000-plus people who sent letters to the judge
to continue sending letters to the judge, continue sending letters to the judge,
and send them to the landlords, too, because that is public information. Who owns the house?
how much money they're getting. And it's really an insult for these landlords to take
advantage of our community. I do support the idea of everyone having housing. And so, you
know, this person can be placed somewhere else where further away from the community.
In any way, so I want to thank, you know, Jeff and the police, I think they've done
a great job in communicating to the community, expressing their opposition, as well as the
district attorney. But, you know, judges, they have the final word up to a point. In
this case, I hope that the judge will listen to it. Thank you.
Any other questions or comments from council members on this issue?
I just want to say to Commander Liu, thank you for the report.
I understand you said that there are cameras there, but how often will our police department
check in with the House to make sure the community is safe?
What kind of communication has gone out to the residents on Beach Street so that they
are aware that he's there, that they can be comfortable?
So we don't have access to the cameras.
They're there. We've been assured by Liberty Health Care of California that if something happens, then we can get their surveillance video.
That's nothing more than verbal commitment through the court.
If something had happened, then we have other avenues to get that video, and hopefully it's in operational order.
Earlier this week, I sent out a social media update to the community, and I know a lot
of members that live right across the street from that address have gotten it because I
saw their comments on there, and I really appreciate the community's participation.
But we pushed the word out.
We've made frequent patrols of the area, but we got to find that balance right now.
balance between harassment and just keeping a close eye, right?
So I have my personal opinions, and personally, I feel like he's still at risk, but now he's
a community member of ours, so we have to protect him as well as the community around
him.
So we got to find that fine balance.
But, you know, we depend on our communication with our community, keep our alliance communication
open and encourage anybody that has any information, please let us know so we can break together
looking forward.
Thank you.
Any other questions or comments?
And then we'll move on.
To the chair, I just have one small question.
Thank you, Chief Liu, for the report.
You mentioned in your presentation that the security guards both have a background.
Is there, they understand that right there's two security guards monitoring obviously it's around the clock but how many of them are out there on a given day, or excuse me, like for the rotations itself.
I believe it's one at a time because there's two total.
So, I believe that station and I just who breaks them on day six and seven I don't know yet. I'm to have my acting commander angel Sanchez check back in with them.
And it gets a few more details, but it's voluntary, they'll give us what they want to give us.
There are no obligations to give us all the information, but we'll keep the lines communication open and be able to check in with them and see how things are going.
Okay.
Anybody else?
Okay, so if there's no other comments, we move on to the next report and that's the below market rate housing program administration.
It's an update is forced.
Good evening council members.
I am joined this evening also by Dwayne Bay, the Executive Director of EPA Can Do.
I am the Housing and Economic Development Manager.
And we are presenting this evening a brief presentation on the city's below market rate housing program and program administration.
For some very brief background, the city has a portfolio of below market rate units that
resulted over the years from prior inclusionary housing programs and redevelopment agency programs
such as home buyer, excuse me, down payment assistance loan.
And following the dissolution of redevelopment agencies in 2011 and subsequent staffing cuts,
There was no consistent monitoring of BMR units in the city. Prior to that, there was a full program. So the result of this is that typical transactions of BMR units like a refinance or resale or loan subordination, those would take a lot of staff time.
And we're quite inefficient because there was no longer an established process or oversight of the program.
So, in 2018, the city council directed city staff to release an RFP to identify a firm that could, an organization that could act as the city's BMR administrator.
And through that RFP process, EPA can do as selected with their subcontractor Baja that stands for the Area Affordable Home Ownership Alliance.
And this agreement included BMR administration in general, but also a lot of startup tasks
that were required to build back a more robust BMR administration or BMR program.
And that included, importantly, activities like reviewing all of the files that the
City had on what were believed to be below market rate units. And these were paper files that were handed over to EPA can do for review.
EPA can do hired a staff member to oversee this. And, and the review of each file included not just a completeness review but also a basic risk assessment that means to understand where
who is living in the unit is the unit compliant with the resell restriction agreement that
the city has for each of the BMR units and so on and so forth.
These files were digitized and loaded onto a database called HomeKeeper.
And also importantly, staff at EPA can do reached out to BMR homeowners to reestablish
The relationship that the city had lost over the years to ensure that homeowners were aware of the BMR requirements.
And then also to bring them back really into the annual, the rhythm of annual compliance monitoring.
So, this is from the staff report, but this is the find, the chart that really shows the findings of PAKAN-DU's review over the last, well, in the first year of the MR administration.
The numbers that are larger here are the ones to focus on, but the 108 is the total number of files that the city handed over to PAKAN-DU and said,
look at these and figure out how many units there actually are.
And then the, the other large number here is the, the number of properties that were strictly speaking BMR units in the city's portfolio that number 74.
And then the number at the bottom is the, the number of files that are currently in the MR portfolio that number stands at 53. Now, let's walk through these numbers a bit.
But starting at the top again, EPA can do found that some of these files were not actually
for BMR home ownership units, which was the original intent to administer home ownership
units.
There were some rental BMRs in there, just a few.
There were 27 files that were habitat for humanity units, which is not to say that
they were not below market rate.
It's just that the difference is that they are not in the city's BMR program.
And again, what that means is that there is no buyer's occupancy visa restriction agreement
recorded for that property.
So it's not strictly under the city's enforcement authority, not to say that the city doesn't
monitor it or count it as an affordable unit, but it is separate from the program.
Then there were some just down payment assistance loans that were not associated with a below market rate unit. They were just the loans. As I mentioned, there was a program that the city run or the redevelopment agency run.
And then there, there was unit one unit associated with volunteer effort to rehabilitate a home. So again, just a different model.
Now, from the 74.
There were 14 units that EPA can do found had a short term affordability restriction. So that was a five year term. And when that expired the units were no longer affordable the affordability restriction was no longer in effect.
Then there were seven units that were lost to foreclosure over the years and then were sold in violation of the resell agreement, meaning that they were not sold at a below market rate price.
There have been no units lost from the program since 2013, so this number is stable, rather.
In addition to that thorough file review, EPA can do has several administration tasks
that it has carried out over the last going on three years.
And that includes three resales of BMR housing units and four refinances.
And those resales resulted each time, because of a local preference lottery system, it resulted
each time in an East Palo Alto resident being selected to purchase that unit at a below market rate price.
And I believe, in at least two of the cases, and Dwayne can correct me, the household that moved out sold the unit, the below market rate unit, moved into a market rate unit.
So there was a natural transition with the money they had saved from purchasing that below market rate unit and the equity that they built up and that took out from that sale.
They were able to purchase a market rate home.
Other tasks, smaller but also very important are things like title changes and minor modifications, and of course these consultations with homeowners.
So we're in the third year of monitoring, which brings us to this slide about any compliance concerns.
Now, this chart is showing all of the files, all the review, and in the third year of compliance monitoring, how many there are, where there is some issue that CPA can do is working out with the homeowner.
It does not mean that the homeowner is necessarily in overt violation of the restriction of the
Buyer's Accuracy Resource Restriction Agreement, it means that there's some issue to work through.
Annually, the homeowner signs a notarized form saying that they occupy the unit,
that they are not renting the unit out, that they're aware of the BMR requirements,
and that they will continue to stay compliant with the restrictions.
But in these cases, as you can see, there is one case where there was no repayment on a down payment assistance loan,
a relatively small one that had a deferred payment period and what the homeowner did not begin paying back for the loan.
There is one case of a potential, the owner doesn't live in the unit.
And then there are the refinances where there was not city council or there was no city approval of the refinance lower risk versus higher risk is just that the household refinanced in the high risk case potentially for more than what the unit is actually.
So staff and EPA can do our working through these cases, but there are very, very few where the city would actually have to come in and exercise its enforcement authority.
So as for the future of BMI administration, this contract can be extended. And so we can look to 2023. And in terms of the programs growth, this of course depends on.
new units through the inclusionary housing program, all of those units are restricted in perpetuity so they do require that oversight and really from the beginning working with and providing technical assistance to developers and property managers from the very start to ensure that these units stay in the program and stay in compliance.
So I would hand it over to Dwayne if he has any closing words, and then otherwise we can take questions from.
not really you you covered it I just I want to correct one small thing of the
there are 33 habitat for humanity homes in East Palo Alto there happen to be 27
of them happen to have files in our files they do have deed restrictions on the
resale price and you know covenants against renting them out and that
sort of thing. It's just that the city doesn't have any direct power to intervene. It doesn't
have any monitoring, annual monitoring requirements.
Other than that, questions?
Okay. All right. Well, then, if we've concluded the staff report, I'll first open up for council
members for any questions or comments, and then I'll go to the public and then
come back to it. So any council member want to and
again tonight is just a report update on what's
been going on and and some issues but anybody? Yes, through the chair again,
Rachel and Dwayne thank you for the report. It was good to see that we're at least following up
or there is a process to follow up every year. Does that happen like at the beginning of the
year and are there times when you have to go physically to an address if somebody doesn't
reply?
I'll take that Rachel. Yeah, we do it. We do it every year. We start the paper process
in January and are doing a one-on-one follow-up. We just, we send out a form letter and then we
have to do a fair amount of expediting. That happens typically around February.
There is just a side note, but something we had to learn through a couple of cycles is that there are 14 units that were put into the program before 2004 that had an older agreement that doesn't actually explicitly say the city, you know, it doesn't
require monitoring cooperation. And those homeowners in addition, none of them had been
contacted recently. So some of them were a little, you know, I mean, we're asking for
personal financial information, but 14 of them, you know, said, hey, you don't really have a right
to do this. And so we just had to approach it more on a community relations basis. And
there's really at this point only a couple of households that are difficult in that regard.
But they seem to be in compliance, so it's not really turning out to be that much of a problem.
Thank you. That is great. And then, Dwayne, maybe you can talk a little bit more about the refinancing process.
Like, how would what, how would the city or your organization know that somebody's going through the refinancing process?
Well, that's a very good question. The way that we're supposed to know is that we're
supposed to remind them every year that they need to talk to us, and then they pick up
the phone and they call us.
Sometimes they don't, and so the next line of defense is
that the title officer, there's deed restrictions, the recent agreement is recorded, we're
supposed to receive a notice, the escrow officers supposed to notice, obviously some of them
that have fallen through the cracks in the past, I mean, we don't know if there might
not have been some reflies that have already cleared that we don't even know about.
So we're trying to get into a early detection and education mode.
The other thing that does happen, that how things sometimes come to our attention,
And this is also getting better as we talk to people more is a BMR refinance is it's
just frankly just a little more difficult.
There's a little more paperwork.
There's it's best to be working with a loan officer who's done a bunch of them.
So when people come to us and say, you know, who might we work with who knows the program
that sort of thing, we're able to give referrals to multiple, you know, banks
Thanks for crediting unions that are familiar with the process.
Now, this is good.
Again, thank you for the report.
The report, it's a long report.
It's very, a lot of information in there about the down payment assistance, even how houses
are supposed to be up kept when they're in a BMR.
And I don't, that's a lot of work for anybody to do.
So again, thank you for bringing the program current.
I know we lost some units during some time, but you know, with you at the helmet
and reviewing it, you know, hopefully that won't happen.
So again, thank you.
Thank you.
Okay, anybody else questions, comments from
the council?
Sorry, a quick question on the two high risk or higher risk loans that are, I guess they're
over leveraged. Is there a strategy to kind of reduce that risk or are they so highly levered
above the actual restricted sale price that there's no salvation, what's the thought on
those?
Well, the thought is to sit down and talk to them, and we're sort of carrot and stick,
where the next letter that they received will mention to them what should be obvious
to them by now, because we've pointed them to the agreement that they're going to
to be hearing from the city and that they could potentially get a notice of default
and be forced to sell the home.
We haven't played that card yet.
As far as sort of how far over, both of those homes are well below current market value.
So it's not, I mean, because the market keeps going up, it's just that the ones
that are lower risk essentially were overfinanced, but some years back, and just the formula,
formula, the resale formula that allows, you know, for appreciation, but just not at market
rate has caused the resale value to, you know, just to go up enough that it covers what they
shouldn't have done in the first place. The other two are, they're not outrageous,
but there's one that's up in the $100,000 range. And, you know, so we're just going
to work that problem but no we don't have any, you know, we've discussed a number of strategies but we're going to cross that bridge when we get there and we're consulting closely with city staff on that.
Thank you.
Anybody, anybody else.
Before I go to the public and then can come back.
Well, let me see. James, are there any requests from the public to speak on this item?
Actually, yes, there's one speaker here, Mr. Stuart Highland.
Good evening, Mayor, City Council. I would just like to say from this report that it speaks really highly to the competence and professionalism of our homegrown EPA can do.
And its ability to really be not necessarily a broker, but a good player, a good faith player in the work that we're trying to do around creating more affordable home options for residents of East Palo Alto.
So in light of what we've been going through with the OPA discussion, I would just like
to say, confidence should be restored for most folks about the ability of East Palo Alto
nonprofits to manage well for the benefit of our residents.
Thank you.
Okay.
Thank you.
Those are only speakers?
Yeah.
So I did have a couple of questions.
Yeah, and page 32 where it says that the EPA can do and the city staff are currently coordinating next step for these 11.
I mean, I assume you have already identified what kind of steps to take or, you know, I'll tell you just kind of a couple of questions I have is from people that I've heard over the years.
It's unfortunate, but I think there are some people who probably have violated.
maybe knowingly maybe not knowingly and because the BMR after all it is an
opportunity for somebody to own a house and others who don't feel they feel like
wait somebody's cheating on this and the city just lets it go and it's not fair
and it sort of erodes the trust I mean definitely I think this is the first time
we had such a complete report but I mean I just want to so I'm just
assuming that you guys are already, and I think Duane, you mentioned there's already steps
you're taking to approach each case, as it is, making sure.
Yeah, so, I mean, I assume
that that's already in progress, right? You're not just kind of letting them go, right?
Yeah, absolutely. Rachel, go ahead.
I was just going to say, yeah, we are definitely not letting them go.
We have, I get briefed quite often on the specific cases.
The 11 are not equally, how to say, urgent or they're not exactly the same nature.
So they're really only maybe one or two where there's a real concern where, as I said, the city would have to step in and issue a notice of default.
We haven't even reached that point. So, yes, we're definitely, we're not just letting them sit, but we have discussed how EPA can do working with the homeowner is the preferable line of action before we, the city gets involved
doing that you can be more specific. Yeah okay no so I understand and yeah I think it it was
definitely a good investment for the city to contract out and have this work done so my other
question was on the and I forget how where we came from but I assume it's general fund
city's general fund money that is paying for this in other words the contract that went to
Is that general fund money?
It's not entirely general fund.
The contract was actually, the funding sources were split.
So partially it was funded by general fund, but also by, I believe it was the Anlu fund.
Is it 2019?
I never get the fund numbers correct.
So it's not all, it's not all general fund.
There's a special revenue in there as well.
because so I guess one of my concerns is just that that it it does seem that oh no there
was it kind of a related one was that I think part of this was part of the contract was to
You know, between the staff and EPA can do sort of work on, and there was a line here, I can't find it, but like, like, what is the best way to administer a program like this, right?
Because I think that was something that clearly after redevelopment, and even before, but there's really no administration of it, it just kind of fell thoroughly through the cracks unless there was some huge problem that the city council
became aware of, but is that part of the discussion that, you know, from now on or in the future,
how are we going to administer this and how are we going to pay for it? Because there is,
I think there was also a little comment there about the fact that, you know, none of the
homeowners are helping to pay for this, which to me seems like they should contribute something
because they did get a huge benefit.
And I assume that it was probably not written in the regulations or in the contract and all of that.
So, anyway, I'd be interested in some work in that area that may already be going on.
It's probably something the city attorney's office could look at so that if there's any potential revisions later on,
Or did any new ones come in that, you know, because I think it did really did hurt us. I remember asking one of the city manager some years ago, like, you know, I keep getting all these questions.
So why do you.
And basically, you know, very honestly, they told me, well, we really don't have the capacity to be
doing this, tracking this, right? So, okay, you know, it's not a good answer for the public to say,
we don't know what's going on, but I think now we're in a very good position and there's a great
report. So that's one area I'm interested in how if for the future or even the current regulations,
if there are any ones that could be modified or something. One is on the cost, because I
think it would be fair, at least to consider that each homeowner contributes some amount
or something that covers the cost of helping out and stuff. But any thoughts on that?
Yes. And now I'm, I apologize, now I'm with, I understand what you were referring
to.
Yeah, well, I'm kind of jumping around but yeah, but, but this is actually a very important point perhaps was I did not emphasize it in the presentation but I think that the, the initial, the impetus for this contract was clear and the funding sources
probably reflected the fact that there was no, you know, it was kind of dormant for a time there wasn't there weren't a lot of funds flowing into the program to be you know, not all of our funding sources are not flexible that we can use them
for things like BMR administration.
So I would say the startup costs associated with this contract
and because a lot of it really was startup, again,
to build up this program, that will come to an end.
And then there is a question about the sustainability
of a BMR program.
As we have inclusionary units coming online, you know,
how are we going to be able to continue to monitor those?
We can't do what we did before, right?
It's definitely a different type of, yeah.
It's different, perhaps even a different role that the BMR administrator would play.
So for one, we do have an inclusionary program now where we will have in-loop fees coming in.
So there is that source.
But it is true also that we do not currently the model is not to charge homeowners or, you know,
indirectly collect those funds for BMR administration that does exist in some BMR programs.
And there are other models for BMR administration.
So that is definitely a conversation that we will have in the future.
But I think it would separate from these initial three years where there was really
so much setup involved getting the wheels turning on this.
Also, Dwayne, I would invite you to comment because we have a lot of experience in this area and we have talked about the nature of a BMR program as more units come online.
Specifically to the fees specifically
to the fees.
There is a range of practice. Rachel's right. Most of the programs don't charge.
The, you know, we did a study about 10 years ago at the county of the, at the time there were 11 programs, I think, in existence, and they all had slightly different funding sources using some of the in lieu fees was was one that was popular.
Another was if you have a program where there's quite a bit of turnover, you can charge, you
know, something as part of the resale process that can help with admin a little bit.
Our program, I think probably because as programs go, people haven't owned the homes
that long.
There isn't very fast turnover, but it's something that we should look at.
If I may also just, it's not something that jumped out of the staff report, but I want to give a quick shout out to our two partners in this process, and I think it does impinge on this.
The city staff actually has a real depth of experience in this several, you know, no place to put it in the staff report but I'll say it quite publicly.
There's actually years of experience in the existing city staff.
We right now, even though we're outsourcing dysfunction, so city staff can can concentrate on some other areas.
The city staff ability to oversee the program is really the highest it's ever been historically.
The other thing is that we do partner with a regional administrator.
There are about three of them that together have almost all of, almost all of the cities
who don't do this in-house contract with one of the three, you know, regional operators.
And they're able to bring some expertise and economies of scale to the administration.
So it wouldn't, because it's that concentrated and we all know each other in the business,
it actually wouldn't be that hard to do a little study of how, you know, what the funding sources
of different cities. Two thirds of the cities in the Bay Area have some form of inclusion
or housing, so it's, there's a good range of practice there to look at. Okay. And then my last
just little reminder is when there's a lottery of the people who obviously sort of qualified to
be in the lottery, and so it's been successful getting EPA residents. But in this whole world
of BMRs and lotteries, people can apply even if they don't live in the city. Is that correct?
So it's really open to anyone anywhere. And I mean, the opposite is true. EPA residents
could win the lottery somewhere else, that, and okay, all right, but that's, that's good
that is benefiting a lot of local residents, so that's good. Okay, any other comments or
questions? Otherwise, we'll just accept the report and then we'll continue to work on this.
And thank you very much, everyone, Stephanie, that all the partners,
like this air reminder.
Okay. All right, well, let's then move on to our next staff report,
difference report. This deals with the water rate. I know every so often the San Francisco
Public Utility Commission, they do their wholesale water rate increases and
It's something that nobody likes, but that ends up being passed down to everybody.
But, Jaime, who will help us with that?
You're right, Mayor. Nobody likes this.
But the news, Greg Henry, go ahead and present it, please.
The Mayor has essentially said the hold of the report.
There's a rate change pending from SFPUC.
and unfortunately that that has to be passed down to customers to cover the cost of the water so
just to just to start the report I thought I would go through some terms because we're
going to be throwing around some acronyms and stuff so first SFPUC that stands for the San
Francisco Public Utilities Commission that's who we get who the city water utility gets its
water from the wholesale rate is the rate that the city pays for that water is currently
$4.10 a CCF or 100 cubic feet, which is, you know, like if you take a football field
and it's like a two inches deep, it's hard to imagine how that volume of water.
And then the retail rate is the rate that's charged by the city to customers and it's
currently at $7.66 a CCF. And the reason for that difference is that there's additional
cost that the city water utility has to pay, other than just the cost of water, it has
to pay FIOLIA, who provides the operational elements. And then it has to provide maintenance
costs and other financial elements, so that's why there's a difference between those two
rates.
So SFPUC has indicated, has notified the city that it plans on increasing the wholesale rate.
The plan currently is to go to $4.75 a CCF in fiscal year 2223, so those new rates
would potentially are planned to be effective July 1st of this year, which would be a 64-cent
increase per CCF, well, which is an increase of 15.9 percent. And they've already informed
us that they're planning on another increase for the next fiscal year of $5.28 a CCF,
which is a 63-cent. But the increase as a percentage would be lower because they
would have already increased the water rates. This is a chart to show sort of
like over time what SFPUC rates have done and you can see that since 16-17
there hasn't been an increase in the wholesale water rates. That's a pretty
long time to go without any increases. Normally you try and do smaller
increases every year but so that's not such a shock but this year we're
getting sort of like all the catch-up on all the previous years.
So the city
responds what's the impact going to be for city water customers. The city
should increase the retail rate, right? If we don't increase the retail rate
then we have to subsidize the water utility with general fund money, which
is a non-optimal use generally of general fund money. Generally the rate
increases to customers require the Proposition 218 process. In fact, every other time that SFPUC has increased the water rates, the city has gone through a Prop 218 process to update its resulting rates.
But there is an allowance for something called pass-through costs.
So a pass-through provision, it allows you to increase costs which are outside the city's control, so that's typically the cost of water, but with other, it could be the cost of energy, it could be any incoming input that the city doesn't control, that it has to pay for.
You're allowed to put that cost as an element of a pass-through cost.
And then you have to identify what that element is when you do your regular Proposition 218.
When you do your regular Proposition 218, you have to identify the pass-through calculation.
And then, should that cost be increased, then your retail rate can be increased
through a simple resolution instead of the full Proposition 218 process.
If you do do it that way, you have to notify all the customers via a mailed notification, so all the customers would be notified through the mailer that their rate would be going up beyond the scheduled increase.
So what we did back when we set the rates last time, when we set the regular 218 process is we set the rates.
For regular scheduled increases beginning in July 2019 and then annually every July 1st through July 2023, and we added this pass through provision which said for every 1 cent increase over the $4.10, the pass through provision allows for a 1.2 cent increase in the retail rate.
So we have all of the elements that we need for a pass through provision and cost.
And so we're proposing that we would in so generally, we, we've been notified by SFPC that they're planning on intending to increase their rates but they haven't formalized that yet.
And in fact, it could be a little bit different than what they've notified us of.
And I think we got an email on Monday that they were maybe going to increase it even more than, you know, they ended up deciding not to.
But there was language as recent as last Monday that the increase was going to be more than what they were telling us.
So we're waiting until May until they finalize when they're going to, what the increase is actually going to be for fiscal year 2223.
When we have the final approved number, we'll be coming back to Council to ask for the pass-through provision to modify the rates.
at this time, you can see just, so it will, if scheduled,
it looks like it'll go to about $8.55.
That includes an increase of $0.10, which was already scheduled to the rate.
So it's both the regular scheduled rate increase on July 1st,
plus this pass through provisions, both things would be occurring at the same time.
So that's what we've got.
I'm here to answer any questions.
Yes, let me ask council members if there are any questions or comments on the, and we'll,
something will be coming back to us, but at this point just quick information, yes,
anybody.
Okay.
Are there any requests from the public, James, that you can see on this item, the water?
I'm seeing none, Mayor.
Okay.
Thank you for the report and I'm there because I think this is also a good time while we're
talking about pass-through rates to remind everyone that we're still in a drought and
that is going to be a huge issue.
But to reinforce that there's a drought, we should be conserving water anyway, but
be mindful of that at this time.
Yeah.
Yes, that's right.
Through the chair.
Yes, go ahead.
My, maybe it's part question, part concern, but we've obviously expressed many times that
we have a number of residents in East Palo Alto that are well below the AMI.
And it's also time when food is more expensive, gas is more expensive, obviously water is now
becoming more expensive as well. I wonder if it might be possible for us to explore some
subsidies or credits or something to help enable our residents to get over this hum
as they get upward pressure on costs across the board and I don't know if the Water District
or the San Francisco Public Utilities and Public Water has talked about this that feels
like something that we might need to or consider pursuing just to make sure that no one falls
to the cracks.
I would only add to that that the way that water rates are designed by state law in California should a program like that be considered by the council, it would have to come from the general fund.
We can't use the water rates themselves to subsidize some customers from other customers.
but certainly that is something that quite a few other cities or just water districts
have considered or engaged in.
Thank you.
Okay.
If there are no other questions or comments, then thank you for the report again and
the information.
So, the next item is special presentations and another water-related topic, but more
on the flooding side. And this is an update on the San Francisco Cree joint powers authority
projects. And I know the executive director of our JPA, Margaret Bruce, I think, is giving
In that, James, if anybody from our staff is also involved, or Jaime, I was going to
say, if anybody else from our staff is involved.
Hamza, will you be introducing Margaret Bruce? She is in attendance. Please.
Yes, we'll go ahead and pass it on to Margaret. Yes, she's here to give us an update.
Okay. Good evening, everyone. Members of the council and honourable mail.
It's great to see you this evening and great to be with you. Thank you so much
for allowing us to do a quick update on the two projects that are of interest to East Palo Alto.
I'm going to share my screen now and just go through a few slides.
Can everyone see my screen and are you seeing the presentation view?
Yes, I think.
Okay.
So, very quickly, this is we're going to talk about these two general areas on this opening slide highlighted in blue.
The blue line on the top is where we'll start.
We're going to start from the shoreline and work our way uphill.
So the Safer Bay program is an acronym for the strategy to advance flood protection,
ecosystems, and recreation along the San Francisco Bay shoreline.
The entire Safer Bay project extends from the northern border of Menlo Park to the
the southern border of East Palo Alto where it meets the San Francisco Creek Project at the south.
It actually, on this map, on the little blue line, it really should extend further up Highway 84 to encompass the PG&E substation, but that little part is off this map.
So the reason for, and the goals for the program are to provide nature-based protection wherever possible. Sometimes you will hear this expressed as both gray and green infrastructure.
It's to protect properties and critical infrastructure.
There are roads and businesses, schools and substations and thousands of residents who live in the tidal floodplain.
And as sea level rises, as you can see in this kind of alarming map, there are many, many critical places,
as residents, as businesses, others that are going to be impacted directly by sea level
rise and by emergent groundwater that is going to come along with that phenomenon.
What we want to do is protect these critical elements of East Palo Alto and Menlo Park
and at the same time enhance the natural ecosystems that we are able to enhance
and restore, which will also provide us flood protection in there by enhancing their restoring
their natural functions. And by making them restored and connected to our existing recreation
infrastructure, we can increase recreational opportunities. So, this is something that
goes back actually many years. There was a beginning feasibility study back in 2012.
There was a more recent one done in 2016, although we are using the, there's a reference to the estimated costs for the project that go back to 2016.
But so much time has elapsed since that feasibility study.
Those numbers are probably no longer good to stand on. It's going to cost more than the 2016 numbers.
Anyway, just to catch everybody up to where we were and where we are.
Back in 2018, there was a Cal OES FEMA grant application for a hazard mitigation grant program grant.
Those are through FEMA.
They administer the money through Cal OES.
Cal OES at the state level gets the large sums of money from the federal government and passes through and administrates that funding.
The HMGP grant has, we understand, for East Palo Alto completed its environmental and historical review process with FEMA, which took a while.
And at some point soon, we understand, and I quote marks around the word soon because I have no idea how long soon is in FEMA world.
But we all should, East Palo Alto should be hearing about the completion of that and the release of funding for the Phase 1 of this HMGP grant.
Back in 2018, it's important to remember that the city of East Palo Alto was inspired to
and stepped up to the plate for a city match of $5.5 million to the $17.2 million HMGP
grant.
So it's a very significant grant that will be coming our way, again, in phases.
And
to let you know kind of where we are with everything, this is a really quick refresher.
If you can see, and you probably can't see my cursor, but working from the lower right-hand corner of the map, working up through the various colorful reaches,
We will be releasing a notice of preparation that will encompass all of these reaches in a programmatic EIR, which means just a very high-level all-encompassing environmental impact review.
And that same document will be a project-level EIR for the Phase 1 work in East Palo Alto and around the PG&E substation.
And I'll get to that in just a moment.
So, the notice of preparation or an NOP is particularly important because it's our opportunity
to reach out to local organizations, agencies, residents, businesses, non-governmental organizations
and other interested individuals and ensure that we have good local coordination and
and that all stakeholders have an opportunity to provide their input.
We are in the process of the environmental review going to be looking at the hydrodynamic
effects of levees.
What that means is that some places a levee is going to be helpful for restoring marsh
areas.
In particular, the two green blobs at the middle top of your screen there are the
ponds that are going to be restored as part of phase one. That restoration work is going
to enable us to do what's called a self-mitigating project. Those restored ponds will protect
the 84 corridor in the West Dunbarton approach, the PG&E substation, and the northern part
of East Palo Alto. They will also allow us to continue through the rest of the reaches
because that will have already mitigated the impacts we might cause in the process of providing flood protection elsewhere.
It's important to recognize that East Palo Alto and Milmo Park shorelines are kind of like one side of a bathtub.
And the work that we're going to do with flood protection on our west side of the bay will have tidal and other hydrodynamic effects on the other side of the bay and even farther north.
So as we do our levy and seawall and ecotone levy planning, we have to be aware of and sensitive to the fact that what we do here is going to have repercussions elsewhere.
And we want to be very careful about not externalizing, you know, their costs but our benefits.
So you have to make sure that we strike a good balance in this complicated project.
So we have a draft community engagement plan.
It is available on our website and we're happy to distribute the draft to anyone who is interested.
We want to make sure that we reach as many members of the community, agencies,
non-governmental organizations, environmental groups, businesses, everybody who may have
an interest in how this project will affect, benefit, or may impact their lives.
To help with that, we are partnering with Climate Resilient Communities and Newestercasa.
We are forming an advisory board.
We will be doing our work in the outreach context in multiple languages.
And of course we want to have the outcome of this be an engaged community that understands the benefits of this project to them.
We benefit from the wisdom of the community in our design of the project.
And we result in a community that is protected, an ecosystem that is restored, and there's a sense of pride and ownership in the outcome.
So our draft engagement plan is open for public comment, and if anyone would care to review that and offer us their comment, we are very happy to receive that.
So
there are, again, these are just a couple of visuals of where we are with our funded work.
The areas in yellow are the phase one part that is funded.
The site B levy around the PG&E substation in the bottom picture is what I was explaining will help us begin the restoration work.
And the site A Levy on the southern reaches will protect the residential areas between Bay Road and the San Francisco Creek.
The entire Safer Bay project won't be complete until all of the reaches are complete and Caltrans does the Highway 84 upgrades that are necessary.
However, every single individual piece that we work on does have independent utility and benefits.
We have, again, we have funding for this work and we have preliminary funding for the upcoming environmental work.
We, of course, are always looking for additional grants and some additional support for the environmental work.
It's important to note that last February, there was an announcement of a California
program to support local governments who had provided local match for HMGP grants and step
in and have the state provide the local match rather than the local government.
I think East Palo Alto submitted a request for that support from the state, and we should hear within six months or so the outcome of that application.
And just a really quick recap, the cost estimate from 2016, we have 17.2 pending notification.
We have about $150,000 from a DWR grant.
We are making every penny count.
And we have a tentative award of $1 million from the San Francisco Bay Regional Authority to be confirmed at their meeting on June 24th.
And just real quick, this is the area of the Menlo Park Brick Grant that doesn't touch on East Palo Alto, but its completion will help protect East Palo Alto.
And our schedule that's important for you to know about, we are going to release the notice of preparation for the environmental impact report during Earth Week of April 22.
We have scheduled the two public meetings, May 11th and May 19th. These will be by Zoom. There will be Spanish language interpretation.
And we will present the notice of preparation, the alternatives that we are looking at and provide a very similar presentation to what we're providing you this evening about the overall project in more depth.
The idea is to do environmental design and documentation through 2024 and should all of the stars aligned begin construction in 2025.
And that's my update on safer and I'll transition now to working our way uphill.
As you know, we are also involved in providing protection against flooding from the San Francisco
Dough Creek. It has burst its banks a number of times. Back in 1998, it flooded and was
the catalyst for the creation of the Joint Powers Authority. The area that you see highlighted
in yellow is the REACH 1 or downstream project that was completed in 2019. We're now working
on the pink segment.
The reason we're doing that is what you see highlighted in blue and red.
The area in red on this flood map is the area that's now protected because of the Reach
One project.
The areas in blue indicate what is vulnerable to flooding from the creek bursting its
banks because of either the two bridges, one at Pope Chaucer and one at Newell, who back up the
water in the creek during high water or in areas where there are constrictions in the creek channel
and it needs to be widened. So our beach two project, area in pink again from that other
slide, we're working on replacing two bridges, one of them being done by Palo Alto, the other
by us and widening the creek channel in four or five places.
And this is what that looks like.
There's the two bridges, Pope Chaucer, kind of at the far left, the Newell Bridge, right
in the middle, and then the other areas are where we're looking at widening the channel.
So we are just about ready to submit our permit applications to the regulatory agencies
Because we work from downstream upstream, the first thing that needs to happen is the Newell Bridge.
The year after that, we can do the channel widening work and Pope Chaucer.
And the year following that, there is some top-of-bank work that needs to be done to reinforce some existing structures that are probably aging out of their useful life.
Our
project must estimate for the reach to project is $50 million.
We have approximately $38 million of that identified.
However, there are still some unknowns in the project costs and in grant funding.
And so depending on how things play out, we could be looking at as little of a funding gap as $5 million to as much as $25 million.
And I think for planning purposes, I'm asking folks to look at 12 million as the approximate
amount to be shared by the JPA members.
And that's all I have for my update at this point.
I hope you have questions.
I'm happy to.
Yeah, so let's, yeah, thank you for the report on both areas.
Yes. So, yeah, any questions from council members or comments? And then I can, I'll see if there are any public also comments.
Anybody want to ask any clarifying questions? Go ahead.
Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Marvin, for the report. Really informative. I certainly learned quite a bit through it. I'm sure the public did as well.
So, I just have a tiny sort of question you mentioned there's obviously two threats or two biggest issues of sea level rise. A lot of people know about that in the community but I think the groundwater is another issue that people might you know I think it would be who of us to just kind of a refresher
could you speak a little bit about the scale of that of an issue and what you know obviously.
Yeah, just what we're doing to tackle it.
So let me preface my comment by saying the scale of the issue is unknown. So it is more of, it's a more important question to answer than we have information to answer right now.
We know that it's going to happen because that's the nature of what happens near rising seas where there's flat ground. It's happening right now in Alameda. It's happening right now in Oakland.
We would need to do more geotechnical investigations to understand the scope of the problem. We just know that it's going to be a problem.
So that's going to be sort of part of the scoping of our notice of preparation.
How much of this are we going to need to examine?
What are the appropriate strategies to address it?
We just – what's that?
There's the known, known – this is the known, unknown category.
So super important question and one that we think about a lot.
I'm glad I asked it.
Thank you so much.
I look forward to –
Thank you for your question.
Thank you.
Anybody else?
Any other questions?
You're the chair.
I can.
I have a few questions for Margaret.
Margaret, thank you for the report as you're where I sit on or maybe where I sit on the
one shoreline board and wondering will you come to the one shoreline to have this conversation
as well?
And is there just an organic partnership with our organization as well to make sure
that these areas are covered?
Because we're responsible for all of this.
for both areas. Yes, yes, yes. Len and I speak frequently. There is more than an organic partnership
there. This is in, really, it's in lens patch. This is really in one shoreline's patch. And I
inherited this from Len's early good work. This was something that was his brainchild,
East Palo Alto and Menlo Park's brainchild, and until one shoreline is in a position to
assume the mantle of this project, we will keep moving it forward with all due haste
and focus.
When one shoreline says, okay, I can catch the baby, happy to hand this over.
Meanwhile, Len and I speak about at least once a month, and some of the things we
discuss our funding opportunities, making sure that our standards are aligned.
So if there are updates to the state's guidance, we're both following it the same way or interpreting
it the same way.
If there are city ordinance standards, for example, whether or not a city should have
have the same building code, if you will, standard for how C-level rise should be taken
into account, you know, where to the extent that the JPA has a voice on those matters,
we are in concert.
So I appreciate that so much.
One of my other questions had to do with the widening of the channel on the REH2.
Now, and I know I think there have been some changes to the formula when it comes
to widening the channels? Should we be concerned at all of water that may be coming down or
debris that's coming down after the channel has been widened and reached one? Will that
have an impact at all on reach? Reach two, will that have an impact on reach one?
It should not have an impact on reach one for a couple of reasons. The capacity in
reach one is so generous that it would, if debris from upstream made it through all of
the widened places into reach one, it would only be actually an environmental benefit.
Large woody debris provides habitat for migrating fish, for waterfowl, for estuarine species.
So it would not be a problem.
If it were still a confined and narrow place, it would be an issue, but it's not going to be an issue.
I want to caveat that with, we are concerned about the health of the upper watershed way outside of the areas we're working in.
We are living in a hotter and drier world.
Wildfires are a question of not if but when.
And we frankly have no idea how a wildfire in the upper watershed would impact water quality, debris flows, sediment transport. We just don't know.
So we hope to learn more about that someday, maybe hopefully not with real experience, but it is an issue that could impact the entire watershed.
Thank you. And finally, my question on the levies and that work, are the developers whose land would be protected as well at the table talking about the resources and what's needed to protect their land when we think about the sea level rise?
Yes, they sure are. We are involved with the Ravenswood Business District and with the individual developers and speak with them regularly. They are aware of the emerging plans.
We are mutually aware of the likely benefits to their properties. There are some negotiations to be had about where the placement of the levee is with relation to their plan development, their property line, the BC-DC 100-foot setback, et cetera.
In some places, we have a generous amount of space. In other places, there is very little space.
So our plans and designs will have to be adapted.
Margaret, thank you so much for your presentation and for all the work that you're doing to keep us protected. We appreciate it.
So, Margaret, I was going to just, and Vice Mayor, I was going to add a couple of footnotes
on the questions you asked. One, on the water and the debris moving down into reach one.
Just a reminder that when, if you remember, Caltrans simultaneously when we were working
on Reach One rebuilt the bridge on 101 and included a basically widened underneath the bridge
to allow for much more water to come down. And of course the, you know, the channel,
the creek was widened on Reach One to be able to take that water. So, and Margaret, I don't
I don't remember right now. I think that section is currently closed because it's not really needed.
Even with that rate, even with that fourth war closed, the capacity is still very generous.
Yes, so there is plenty of room. In other words, I think that we did sort of anticipate that, and just to be sure, so we were able to coordinate with Caltrans for that.
So that's just sitting there to be open in case it was needed more.
And then the other thing I did want to say, yeah, definitely I think Margaret and Len communicate regularly.
And a few months ago, so the JPA board did ask, and we do have David, Supervisor David Pine,
who sets on, you know, the JPA board in the one short line.
And so, there was a joint report by Margaret and Len on sort of the current situation with
Safer Bay in terms of jurisdictions, et cetera.
And so, I think, as Margaret said, for the time being, the JPA is really taking the
lead, but at some point, there'll be some transition potentially and stuff.
But I think the communication is pretty good so far.
So, that's good.
Anyway.
Anyway, so any other questions from council members on anything that was presented?
Yeah, just quickly. Well, I have a question about the supplemental EIR and the potential
to need one. Clearly, we've done the EIR already for this next reach, I believe, and
my concern is the supplemental may slow this down. Do you have any sense of how much
possible to commence the project if the items studied under the supplemental EIR are outside
of the creek, outside of the creek causeway itself.
And then my last point is not a question, but it's more a statement that of the $12
million you cite that at this point the four jurisdictions or five jurisdictions
should be thinking about, and I think certainly both the mayor and the vice mayor are
aware of is that an equitable distribution of how that gets paid is important. And when
I talk about equity, I don't mean we're splitting it five ways. That's not me, obviously. The
amount of money that the city put in on the first reach should be understood and respected
and seen and balanced with future contributions. So I just, I'm sure the mayor will make
that abundantly clear during those discussions, but I just want to remind folks and the
the JPA that certainly, when working with LEN, we were quite aware of that issue of up-fronting
some of those costs on reach one, clearly not necessarily.
So, I think that's going to be an important step that we'll take here in the next few months.
And to your question about the supplemental EIR, it is going to be necessary, but I don't
think it's going to slow the project down, because we can do things that are going to
in parallel and not in sequence. We can be working on the bridges and the channel widening
at the same time that we are doing the supplemental EIR and working forward, working toward doing the top of bank work.
So it's, I think it's just going to sort of be folded into the pace of the rest of the project.
If we tried to do this, like, do it at the same time as the rest of the work, I think we would be challenged.
I think the top of bank work is potentially significant enough that it would not fit within the existing EIR,
and I would not want that to be challenged. That would delay us further.
Okay, I have another question that I'll probably ask you offline because I don't want to open up a particular one discussion right now.
Okay, I would be delighted to have a caller conversation with you and we could go through this in more detail.
Yeah, yeah, and any, you know, obviously anybody feel free to call Margaret anytime on any issues that so I guess I'll add another footnote since I am representing the city and the JPA on the question of the financing and the, you know,
distribution, if you will, among the five entities. I think just like we did last time,
the board at some point, we will agendize so that the board has an opportunity to come up with
some formula, in other words, some kind of formula that will then be applied and negotiated with
each jurisdiction. But that is what we went through last time. I anticipate it will be a
very open and frank discussion, like we did last time, because there is a certain sensitivity.
Not only our city that is the smallest and less resource, but even the two counties,
if you remember the Santa Clara County and San Mateo County, are really very differently
positioned when it comes to funding.
So, but anyway, I just want to add that at some point there will be opportunities for
all member agencies to jump in and help us to develop some formula that can then Margaret
can take and start working on it with each jurisdiction.
So, thank you.
Okay, any other questions or comments?
And again, yeah, feel free to call Margaret, you know, for anything that comes to mind
if it didn't today.
Let me see if there are any members of the public who are wishing to ask a question or make a comment on this. James, do you see anyone requesting this?
Yes, I see two members of the public.
Okay.
Starting with Danny and Gail Wilkerson.
Danny, if you can please unmute yourself.
I think we can move on to Gail Wilkerson.
Okay.
Good evening again.
I just have a question and curiosity.
I attended the public works meeting and they were talking about the water back there weeks and running me.
Of course, Mark dynam brings it up all the time because he lives back there.
And it's curious. It's been flooding back there. I don't know if this is mentioned. I heard Lisa say some about levees.
But it's been flooding back there forever. I mean, ever since it's been here. That's why I was working yards back there.
Oh, how come those people haven't been satisfied? They pay taxes too. I know they did the garden part over there.
Are they peace milling this out?
How come they just can't do it all at one time?
I remember having to pick my kids up on running me
at that school from daycare and it was flooding.
And we could hardly get back there.
Some of us had to park and then walk up to the school
to retrieve our kids.
So it's all that in the plan.
Those people pay taxes, they should be satisfied.
It should not be any flooding back there at all at this point.
The only thing that one of the men told me is that, oh, we don't have enough money.
I mean, 100 years, you don't have enough money.
That just doesn't make any sense.
It does not compete with me.
And if I live back there, I started writing.
Thank you.
That was our only speaker.
Okay.
All right.
Okay. Well, if there's no other comments, questions from the council, I want to thank
Margaret very much for all your comments and presentations and stuff. All right. Thank you.
My pleasure. Thank you.
Okay. Moving on to our next item. Actually, the section is policy and action. We don't have
any public hearings. So we'll start out with number one, and that's the Interim City
Manager Employment Agreement.
And I think—
Thank you, Mayor.
I'm going to turn it over to Valerie Armento, who is a buddy.
I might have to note that Patrick is ready.
We need you to support this item so he can keep the ship afloat when I transition.
Please proceed, Valerie.
So, Valerie.
Yes.
Good evening.
So, the council has decided to appoint Patrick Heisinger as the interim city
the manager commencing basically 5pm on April 30th.
The agreement in the packet unfortunately was not completely accurate with regard to the compensation.
So I want to clarify that the agreement provides for an annualized salary of $222,500 and total compensation, including pay, health coverage, pension contributions, and leave and allowances of approximately $280,000,
which is less than the current city manager is earning, but more than Mr. Heijinger is earning as the assistant city manager.
And basically, with the exception of the specific salary, the benefits that he's receiving are essentially the same benefits that he has been receiving as a management level employee.
He also has a right of return to his assistant city manager position if an appointment is made to the city manager position that he can retain his assistant city manager position when this interim period ends for at least six months.
Okay, yeah, there any questions and thank you for that update and, you know, definitely want to thank you and Greg Larson for at the direction of the council to work with
Well, the city manager and Patrick to come up with a contract that stayed within the limits
of the council but direction.
Any questions or comments?
And this is obviously a public document that we'll need to approve by resolution.
But any questions or comments by any council member?
And do we have any requests from the public that you see, James?
Seeing none, Mayor.
Okay.
I'm ready to make a motion if you.
Okay, yeah.
So I was going to ask for that.
So if you want to make a motion and then we can.
And again, thanks to staff for correcting the incongruities in the staff in the staff report.
Appreciate that.
So with that, I would move to adopt a resolution to appointing Patrick Heisinger as the interim
city manager and approving the interim city manager employment agreement.
Second.
Okay, it's been moved and seconded, if we can have roll call.
Mayor Abrika.
Yes.
Council Member Wallace-Jones.
Yes.
Council Member Lopez.
Yes.
Council Member Romero.
Yes.
And Vice Mayor Gurshey.
Yes.
Motion carries.
Moving on to item number 2, under policy and action, is the 2223 City Council priority.
So this is a document coming back to us with more details from our retreat, which has been
you know, a while now, but I think Jaime and Greg, I think you guys are going to—
Patrick and Greg will tag team this one. Let's launch, guys.
Yeah, so just let us know what—
Yeah, actually, Greg, just hop on in. Thank you.
Go ahead.
Great. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, members of the council, Mr. Manager and Mr. Interim
City Manager. Thank you for the time and thank you for the attention you gave to
the City Council's priorities last January. For the third year in a row, I've had the honor of
serving you in this capacity, but the first time reporting back to you on this evening.
What you have before you in the packet is my staff report from that workshop
that details what the council discussed.
That begins on your agenda packet on page 116,
and that's a full workshop report that goes
through every agenda item that you discussed.
I do want to apologize in that,
my not being aware of the city's naming nomenclature for your staff reports.
We have two exhibit A's before you tonight.
We have exhibit A that's attached to the staff report,
report, which is the first draft of the staff work plan that staff usually brings back to
you by June of each year, and the draft that's in attached to the actual council agenda staff
report is the draft work plan that includes both the prior work plan items as well as
the new ones just put in kind of a very base level that pending your action and
changes you make tonight.
Staff will complete that matrix and bring it
back as part of the budget adoption process.
Actually, that's a staff work plan.
That's how they plan to fulfill
your direction with the priorities and goals.
That's the second exhibit A,
which is to my workshop retreat report.
If I could ask Mr. Collins to put up on the screen,
the PowerPoint, I believe it was also sent to
each council member as an attachment.
It's just a simple representation of what we heard,
both your staff and myself,
from the council retreat on January 8th
as your direction on the priorities,
seven priority areas and 24 goals.
Yes.
Jumping in.
Bring it up.
Thank you.
And for those who are following along
on the agenda packet. It's page 132 of the Council agenda packet on the cumulative numbering.
So, this is the, let's go on. Here are the seven priority areas, if you could step back.
And these, the main changes from last year is the ordering of the priority areas,
in terms of the preparation for the Council going into your January retreat.
I received input from each of you on the relative presentations of these priority areas.
Plus, during the course of the retreat in January, we did some slight language changes to get them all in a consistent format.
Having a verb is the first word, for example.
since over the years they have morphed into differential language and we tried
to standardize all that for the purposes of this adoption tonight.
Other than that, the only other significant change from last year is
that in the midst of the COVID crisis, you established COVID as an eighth priority area.
But as the manager has said, we're moving to an endemic.
so you've now, you know, for your direction in January,
move the separate COVID priority area as part
of number three, promoting public health and safety.
And those were really the two substantive changes,
three substantive changes to your priority area statements,
the ordering of them, moving to language consistency
and moving COVID under public health and safety.
What I'd like to do, Mr. Mayor, with your permission is walk through each of these seven
priority areas and pull up on the screen how I and your staff captured the direction from
the council's discussion at the workshop and if the council members have any changes
to either the language of the priority in the blue bar or to any of the goals underneath,
Change, if you could move forward, that would be great to any of the alpha items underneath.
Then we'll just reflect that in your action tonight when the motion is made to adopt the priorities
and goals. So here's the first priority, promote housing, economic and workforce development with the
five goals that we heard the council articulate as being the top priorities for the next two years
and trying to reflect that back to you the language the council used during the course
of their discussion. And this was the consensus direction of council. So, Mr. Mayor, I'll
turn it to you to see if there's any changes to this language.
Yes. I think, you know, as you present each one, council members, you can jump in or always
come back at the end after we go through them too. So, I don't hear anyone jumping
in right now so I think maybe we continue and then we can always come back.
Great. Let's move to number two, which is implement the comprehensive transportation
and mobility plan. The council had three goals under this. The council strongly wanted the
construction to begin on the university overpass by December 2022 of this year and then to
pursue funding strategies for public infrastructure, particularly related to streets,
but more broadly as well and to finally move ahead with the parking and enforcement program
with the appointment of an ongoing chief in the not too distant future.
Number three was to promote
public health and safety, continue the city's strong response to COVID. This is where that's
been moved for the council direction in January. Next was to resolve the sanitation
District and Corporation matter. However, the district and the city choose to resolve that and a continuing goal of enhancing flood protection for residents businesses and property owners as just discussed in your informational item.
The chair had a small question.
So, Greg, would that mean then since a, the COVID one has been sort of put in the back seat with the resolution of the Sanctuary district beyond the be the new a as it were then.
No, actually, a was inserted here. I mean, the council could clearly move the strong response to COVID lower if you wished, but COVID used to be one of the priority areas in the blue bar.
and now we've moved it here in the public health and safety realm.
Gotcha. Thank you.
The goal.
Number four, the priority of financial health has been broadened to be financial
and organizational health. And council clearly wanted to focus on staff morale, retention,
recruitment and succession planning given the number of executive recruitments and transitions
that are underway. The council recognized from staff comment that the enterprise resource planning
system that's been in development is now moving into implementation and that will be heavily
work intensive throughout the city organization. And the council reflected that by elevating that
goal. And then you did want to keep a continuing focus on fiscal resiliency
in recognizing that 10-year financial forecast may be more realistic in these periods of uncertainty
than the prior 25-year financial forecast.
Number five, continuing priority of improving the city's water infrastructure.
A very specific council focus on prioritizing the university 12-inch water main.
I don't believe that's a 12-foot water main.
That was my typo.
I apologize for that.
finalize the viola lease negotiations, complete the design of the next key water infrastructure
projects, and then to update the water master and management plans. Most of those were
carried forward from your prior prioritization.
Develop and implement a facilities master
plan that's received considerable discussion at the council retreat and an elevation
exploration of the Tank Lidge site for a future or temporary police headquarters recognizing
the immediacy of the issues there to continue working and to more directly engage in discussions
with the county regarding both the university and Beach Street properties and then to support
the continued progress by the library district for a new library.
Lastly, enhance community services and parks.
Now that the master plan, the parks master plan is all
that formerly adopted to move to implementation with completion
of the design of the MLK Junior and Bell Street Park projects.
This is a relocation of an item that had previously been adopted by council.
That was up under the workforce and economic development, but it's directly engaged
with community partners to improve educational resources and outcomes and this includes looking
at facility consolidation and shared use.
And then one that's been an issue for two years is to pursue enhanced youth and multi-generational
engagement in perspectives in municipal decision making.
That concludes your staff and my perception of what the council directed at the January
And it's presented to you for your review and action.
Okay, well, thank you.
And let me ask again, council members, if anything stood out any questions, then I'll ask the comments from the public and then come back and I guess we are the,
hold on a second.
Yeah, so we are kind of formally adopting them now.
We had given direction and you kind of have strength formalized them more and brought them
back to us.
Yes.
Okay.
So, any other questions or comments, clarifications?
Yeah, Mr. Mayor, if I may.
Yes.
Go ahead.
I didn't, I was looking at one and three and there was a comment from the public
that I think some of us agreed with during this session that talked about the issues,
the ravages of COVID, particularly on tenants and housing tenants.
And I was trying to figure out, it looks like this continue the city's strong response,
which is 8-3A for COVID impacts and community needs.
And that concern that I think was voiced by a few of us, I assume, could fall under that.
I mean, given one, the lack of support at this point from the state for folks who are
potentially being evicted, as well as funding not being there, it seems to me that I'm
just trying to figure out whether that was something that would potentially be
housed under the Housing Economic Workforce.
but it sounds like that interest could fall under 3A,
correct? Because that is an impact
in a specific community that was brought up at that session.
Yeah, I would say so. I think for us, COVID is kind of one of those catchalls where, you know,
we're going to have to be nimble and things are going to happen. If there's another outbreak
or another variant. We're going to have to be ready and nimble. So I would say from
SAS perspective, we think it would be all-encompassing in that item. But to your point,
it could be in other areas as well.
Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying it has to be called out. I just want to remind us that
it was an issue that surfaced. And certainly, you know, particularly the rental displacement
issue is something that's still with us given the changing winds of both funding, you know,
the loss of the ERAP program and even some of the eviction changes that have occurred at the state.
So, COVID impacts. Thanks.
Any other questions or comments?
Here, and following up on Councilmember Romero's comments,
Do we understand what the extension of the eviction moratorium that the Lieutenant Governor
signed means, and how do we follow up, or what is our role in following up and making
sure that residents are receiving money?
I just don't even understand that there are some people who have put in applications
for that money, and they still haven't received it.
I know these are our priorities, but that is, that money is still essential and important
to our residents as well.
Yeah,
we definitely have the background.
We can provide an informational memorandum.
It's our understanding that the action that was taken really only helps those that submitted applications.
You know, and that's kind of the bummer part of this.
So if people do have an application in and it was pending, they will be served.
The application will be reviewed.
If anybody did not submit, as my understanding, they are not eligible, and they could essentially
be the eviction process could start effective April 1, as my understanding.
Thank you.
Okay.
Any other questions, comments?
If not, let me see if there are any members of the public who wish to speak on this,
and then I'll come back before we approve this.
Seeing none, Mayor.
Okay.
Mr. Mayor, let's make a quick comment about the report that we just went over.
Greg and
I think the City Manager and the City Manager, I commend you for refining these reports every
year so that really this was probably the clearest report that I've seen of the progression
of our previous priorities than some sort of synthesis during that meeting that you captured
and ultimately turned into the priorities for this year.
I think this is a very readable document and clearly shows how we got to these new priorities.
So, I commend you, Greg, for this new format and staff for helping think through what they heard
and how you actually put this down. I think this is a great guiding document for this next year.
Okay. Any other questions or comments? If not, I'll entertain a motion to approve this.
Well, I would like to make a motion that we adopt a resolution approving the 2022-2023 city
council priorities. I can't. Okay. We move and second it if we can have roll call.
Mayor
Abrica? Yes. Councilmember Wallace-Jones? Yes. Councilmember Lopez? Yes. Councilmember
Romero? Yes. And vice mayor Goshe? Yes. Motion carries. Okay, our next item is potential ballot
measure for affordable housing revenue. And I do want to preface by saying I think there was a
definitely an honest technology mistake in not providing us the latest information,
but it was a report that was previously presented. And so, but I thought it was important to just leave it
on and hear from the staff, since we're not making a decision tonight, to say at least to continue the discussion
information and then see where we want to go. So, I think, you know, maybe you could explain that a
little more, Patrick, you know, in terms of what was being presented tonight.
Yeah, and we had a pre-meeting on this, so Amy, I'm going to turn it over to you. Thank you.
Sir, thank you, Mr. Mayor. Like you said, there was a mistake that was made where we
reposted the March 15th report and so I'm sorry for that mistake we did send the
revised or the corrected report to the city council prior to the start of the
meeting and the presentation that you'll see before you is basically
continuation of what council asked us to return to today in order to make the
timeline for the ballot measure posting we thought it would be prudent to
still give today's presentation and discuss what staff have been researching in terms of
potential ballot measure language. And then that way, we could return for full guidance from the
City Council on May 3rd, still then meeting our timeline necessary to post toward the ballot
measure. And Amy, I just want to accept that I also did ask James to upload it to,
you know, the packet, the public packet on the website. So the public also does have access to this information.
Great. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for helping with that correction. So with that, I will pass the microphone to Karen Camacho and Rachel Horst to proceed with the presentations. Thanks again.
Thank you so much, Amy. Good evening, City Council. My name is Karen Camacho. I'm the housing project manager. And tonight, like Amy mentioned, we're continuing the conversation on a potential ballot measure for affordable housing revenue.
Here's the agenda for tonight's discussion. I'll provide background and recap of the March 15th
discussion where council first discuss this, make staff recommendations, and then talk about next steps.
So on March 15th, city council reviewed the 2022 David Rosen and Associates report on potential
resources to support affordable housing activities. And the three potential revenue sources that were included in the report were, one, a new parcel tax, two, a modified transient occupancy tax, which I'll refer to as a modified TOT, and three, a modified grocery
gross receipts tax or modified GRT. And council discussed modified gross receipts tax as being
the best option to move forward with.
The purpose of tonight is to seek further council
direction on this potential revenue source, to seek council direction to draft the resolutions
and ballot measure, and return to city council before the end of May for consideration.
And that's when City Council vote would be required.
And to outline the requisites City Council actions to place the tax on the November 22 election.
Here's a brief recap of what was discussed at the March 15th meeting.
Council, in particular, wanted to move forward with the modified grocery seeds tax.
And tonight, I do want to note that staff is presenting a modified gross receipts tax that would increase the gross receipts tax to 2.5%.
I removed the tenure delay. And the slight difference from the March 15 meeting is applied to all rental properties.
So include one to four unit rental properties.
And further legal analysis by the interim city attorney and outside council found that applying a modified GRT only to parcels owned by non-East volatile residents may not be legally tenable.
So that's why we changed the modification to all rental properties.
And
based on the discussion from City Council on March 15th, staff is not recommending to move forward with the parcel tax option.
And based on the March 15th discussion, staff is not recommending to look further into the modified to option.
I do want to add new information. And if you look at the middle center of this chart, you'll see that the actual total revenue in to T.
tax for fiscal year 2021 to 2022 was 750,000, a little bit more than what was first budgeted by finance.
And if we were to calculate the potential revenue in TOT based on this estimate, it would be 125,000.
So not much of a difference from the conservative estimate that we had presented at the previous meeting.
And finance's mid-year analysis finds that the current trends indicate a positive adjustment
of $200,000 with high uncertainty due to the COVID-19 pandemic, not knowing if the hotel
will recover.
And the TOT collection remains suppressed at approximately 69% below pre-COVID levels.
And if we were to try to estimate potential revenue, assuming COVID-19 pandemic recovery,
we could potentially see $479,000 in revenue specifically to housing.
And finally, the modified gross receipts tax is what staff is recommending tonight based
on the March 15th discussion by city council.
And the specific modified gross receipts tax that we're presenting tonight is one,
again, increasing the tax by 1%.
So to 2.5% to applying to all rental properties, including those that are one to four unit rental properties and three eliminate the tenure delay.
And tonight council may provide additional direction or modifications regarding those specifics outlined above.
And in terms of the potential annual revenue increase, of course it would be more than the 1.15 million that was previously projected based on the additional applicability.
Another point of discussion for tonight is to look further into the potential uses of the measure.
On March 15th, Council indicated wanting to move forward with a general tax, which would only require a 50% plus one vote.
And to provide advisory language that would allow potential uses for affordable housing, different types of affordable housing activities.
And tonight, staff recommends using the Measure O language, which is, quote, funding programs to increase affordable housing and protect local residents from displacement and from homelessness.
And council may choose additional advisory language, such as tenant housing rent support, for example, or housing production or affordable housing preservation that is more advisory language and not too specific.
And this language will be on both the ballot measure question and the municipal code.
The third final point is that staff is recommending that City Council identify two members to help with the ballot argument drafting.
And this argument in favor can be signed by up to five individuals of the members of the community, including one or two members of City Council.
And here's a recap of what I just covered in terms of what direction we're seeking from City Council.
One is to confirm direction not to pursue a parcel tax, to confirm direction on not to pursue a modified TOT,
to confirm pursuing a modified gross receipts tax that increases the gross receipts to 2.5%,
applies to all rental properties and eliminates the 10-year delay.
We also are seeking input on the ballot measure uses language.
We're asking Council to select two subcommittee members.
And finally, we're asking Council to direct staff to return in May with the proposed ballot measure and resolutions.
And if we're directed, staff may return on May 3rd,
where council would vote to put the measure on the ballot and this would require a three-fifths vote
and to adopt a resolution calling the election in November 2022, a resolution consolidating
the municipal election with a statewide election and a resolution submitting the ballot measure
to the electorate. That concludes the presentation and we can now take your questions.
Okay, open up for council members for any questions or clarifications, comments on the
report. And thank you for the report. Anybody want to get started? Any part?
I mean, I'll start. I think you've captured, I think, the intent of what council wanted.
I mean, going all the way back, actually, to, I guess, it was three priority-setting documents
ago. We've obviously kept this priority in our documents throughout the last three years.
At the same time, I think we've also reaffirmed it in this year's priority very clearly,
funding source. And in addition, I think our housing element as well as our housing action
plan I think also kind of point to the need to come up with something like this. So I
think you've, we've hit on kind of the most appropriate form to do this. And I would
I would agree also with your recommendation that we keep the measure O language of funding
programs to increase affordable housing, protect local residents from displacement and homelessness.
I think it's broad enough yet narrows it to the issues around housing that I think are
front and center in this community as well as are connected directly to where the taxes
are actually coming from, which is a housing activity.
So I would certainly support what is before us
and would look forward to seeing some more final document
come before us at the next meeting.
Okay, anybody else any questions or comments?
Then I'll go to the public and come back
if there's any additional council questions, comments. Anybody else have a
comment at this
time or questions?
Let me check then for the public. Go ahead.
This is a small question, Mayor. This is a small question. I know Karen, you mentioned
that. Thank you for the report, by the way, that excluding it to just non-EPA residents
for the modified growth sheets taxes like legally tenuous, I was hoping maybe Valor is somebody on the line and could just kind of brief us on as to why that's the case.
Sure.
The main problem are the principles of equal protection and interstate commerce.
So, there are cases that hold that you really can't treat people in these types of situations
differently.
So, that's why we're suggesting that there not be an attempt to separate the East Palo Alto
owners from the non-East Palo Alto owners.
Thank you, Sheriff.
Okay.
Yeah, any other questions or comments?
I do have one comment.
Given that this is a, I believe, a modification of the gross receipts tax that was passed several years ago.
So, I am assuming that with the exception of these elements that we are inserting or changing,
all of the other provisions of measure O in that ordinance would essentially be in place
should we move forward with this ordinance.
I think that that sounds like a theme tent.
You are correct, Council Member Romero.
There would not be changes to the other provisions of the ordinance, obviously.
We have to look very carefully at how we put the language in to make the changes that the council would like to go forward with, but it's not the attention to change any other of the aspects of it.
So, you know, we'll look at all of that very carefully, and we can provide something that
shows what has actually been changed versus what is the current language, if that would
be helpful.
Thank you.
Yeah, you know, on that point, I think it would be good to review everything.
I'm just thinking of some maybe 20 years ago with a rent law where, when it went
And then back to the voters with some amendments, it offered an opportunity to clarify some
ambiguities that there were, to potentially clean something up.
And it seems like it's working fine, but I think it would be worth to just review that
if there's anything that might need to be included other than this.
Sure.
We'll certainly look at that.
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, so I do remember that process to okay, but.
So, let me see if anybody from the public is asking to speak on this and we'll come back and bring some closer to this. James anybody from the public.
Yes, there are.
There's a one speaker Gail Wilkerson.
Okay.
I asked me again.
I was reading today Palo Alto online. They seem to be toggling back and forth with the same thing is that despite business objects and Palo Alto advances new tax.
They are saying that they're going to raise taxes on the big businesses, not the small businesses. They don't want to put them in any more trouble because of the pandemic.
They're coming out of pancake, but they figure and some other people say, since they're making money off the city and bringing all this traffic into our city that they should be the ones taxed.
And I didn't too much listen to, you know, the five things that Karen Camacho was saying, regarding because it didn't make any sense to me to tax small people.
So, when we are on a gold mine and the developers and construction workers, they have real estate agents.
That should be paying more taxes in our city in East Palo Alto, and not anybody else. Now,
there's landlords who need to be taxed, but according to their income, because they will raise
their rent, they're not under rent control board. So, if they're subject to raising their rent,
say over $2,000, they should pay taxes on that because we're a gold mine. We have liquid gold
in that land and we should be aware of that and probably stop, you know, hate to say this.
But they think we're stuck on stupid. They come in here and they tell us anything
and they think we're going to accept it. So that's my feeling about it. Tax the big businesses
totally. Thank you.
Thank you. And that was our only speaker.
So I had another question or just clarification.
I think between the city attorney and staff on the, what the role of the subcommittee is, and if that's something that we have to decide tonight or can that wait till the next meeting or
That that does not have to be decided tonight.
It's just an option actually it's not something that the council even has to do.
And just generally in the past I know we've, we've had it several times that I remember but so the role of this committee just to help draft something that the city attorney ultimately.
Well, as I remember, the attorney writes a neutral one, and then the subcommittee writes
one for the council.
So the, yes, so there's, the city attorney writes an impartial analysis, which is neutral
and just applies to explain what the item is for all members of the public who will
be voting on it.
You're allowed to have an argument for the measure and an argument against the measure.
And the council does not have to write an argument for the measure, but it's common when it's a measure that's put on by the council.
Right.
You have a subcommittee of council members be the ones who sign an argument that reflects
the council's intention.
You're allowed to have a maximum of five people sign the argument and typically you want
to draw from different elements of the community to show more widespread support.
Right.
Okay.
Okay. And so that's something that, like I said, I think we could appoint that committee
next meeting if, or you can check with us if we want to do that.
Correct.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah, any other questions or comments on any part? And then I think we're just
given direction to actually come back with a draft language that would go to the voters?
So, what would be the next step? Again, maybe if that was my other question, just procedurally.
We give direction tonight to come back with.
So, we will come back with the actual language that would be changed in the code,
because that needs to be available for voters to review, and we will come back with the question that would be placed on the ballot, which has various limitations imposed by law.
Right. Okay.
And then in terms of time limit and just reviewing.
We definitely do have plenty of time, right in terms of when it has to be submitted to the county clerk if that's the direction to council.
I mean, there's a reasonable amount of time left to do that.
Yes.
And as you may recall from the March 15th meeting, we – all of the measure resolution, the argument
partial analysis must be submitted by August the latest.
And I know that Council Member Gautier expressed interest in doing it before August because
that's when Council has recessed.
Yeah, right.
So, yeah, we definitely don't want to do it during recess, but if we absolutely had to, we could have a special meeting, but just as a safety measure, but yeah. Okay, so we're okay on time, it seems that following this.
Yeah, any other questions or comments?
I have just one small question. Give me if it's just a misread. So is this potential ballot going to be for a 50% plus or is it two-thirds majority?
It seems based on the March 15th meeting, Council directed staff to move forward with the general text, which only requires a 50% plus one vote.
Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. Thank you. I just wanted to clarification because I saw a note on the report itself that mentioned the.
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, so that's probably something we would just want to confirm. I think council is interested in that the 50% plus one. So yeah, I think that's okay.
Well, if there—don't hear any other comments or questions, it seems that then—well,
as our city attorney mentioned, subsequent meeting will have the actual language and
that's when we really then will have to make the decision and it will require a three-fifths
vote.
Is that correct?
Yes.
That is correct.
So, four council members would have to approve.
Okay.
So, I believe then we don't need to vote.
We just, I think council is okay with bringing this back, bringing the language back for further,
I mean, for a vote standpoint.
Mr. Mayor.
Yeah.
I'm sorry, you're probably going to go to the public, but I don't know if there is anybody in the public.
No, I did.
I think I did ask for that.
Oh, you did?
Oh, for some reason, I thought I saw a handle.
Oh, forgive me.
No, we did have somebody actually speak and then.
Okay, you're right.
I'm sorry.
Forgive me.
I think at this point then we would, I think we've given direction.
My opinion, I think we're fine with continuing with this.
Okay.
All right.
Thank you.
Next items.
We actually have a couple items related to the.
efforts by the city, you know, to address the unhoused population in the city, as well
as, you know, reopening Bell Street, basically. So I just want to preface this by saying I
think the vice mayor and I did have a chance to hold a meeting with our supervisor, Warren,
and also someone from the staff level to definitely coordinate our efforts and make sure that either
through the county or some alternative form that everyone at Bell Street Park would be
offered housing and hopefully then house everyone. But we also wanted to set a date by which
we really would have accomplished that. I think the council was very firm on that
to do both in a way that worked well for our community. I think the next two items are going
to help us with that process. I want to thank our staff for connecting well with the county
and pursuing this. The first item is the strategy for providing housing for the unhoused,
currently residing at Bell Street Park. And so I think I may ask for a brief introduction here. That
might overlap a little bit on the two items. And then Rachel will get into her item. But as the
council is aware we've been having a discussion around the city's unhoused population since
last June essentially and what really caused the discussion was the the influx of folks residing at
Bell Street Park but also you know the increase in the number of folks also residing in RVs
and some other smaller encampments throughout the city. So the council today has taken a number
of actions specifically around Bell Street Park staff has also been doing more outreach to
members of the living in the RVs and has actually started doing several cleanups.
I don't want to say sweeps.
We're not forcing people out yet, but I really want to thank Public Works staff for cleaning
up the very problematic RV at the end of Beach Street a few times, and the Public
Works staff recently did another cleanup at the creek near the Woodland Park Apartments
as well.
So where there's areas where we have a, you know, an impact to health and safety or to
the environment, we have to step in pretty quickly.
So we've been kind of leveling up these, these, to interventions over time.
As the mayor noted, the vice mayor and the mayor have been very involved in this.
I really thank you both for your time.
It really helps those meetings and the county as well has been great.
It's taken some while to get some traction, not with the county, but with everybody
everybody needing county assistance. It's really taken us to kind of think through this
and get to the point of what we're going to propose tonight. Again, and the county is
really the big backer of this, because they are the ones with the assistance and the subsidies.
So we really appreciate their effort. So with that, I'm going to move forward to
James. If you don't mind going to the next slide. This is a very short presentation.
So with regard to Bellshere, I talk about the successes. Obviously, I fully understand
But there's been a lot of successes.
And I put in the staff report that because the city did not sweep sweep the encampment right away. This is what's been achieved.
Every individual at the park is now registered with the county's coordinated entry system. So for those who don't know the single point of entry is really becoming the the the most common approach the customary approach to serving homeless folks where single point of entry get in the system the county assesses them.
And if you don't build a relationship with the homeless residents or the unhoused,
it's really difficult to get people in the system.
So back in June when they started, it took several visits to the park
to get people comfortable and, you know, the partners of the outreach.
But at the end of the day, everybody there is now in the system, which is great.
And because of those efforts, eight individuals have achieved housing.
So again, it's, you know, I know there's still an encampment out there,
but that is actually very successful from an encampment point of view.
So again, I just wanted to let folks know the community has had a lot of empathy, you know, people are out there, you know, there's been events out there to help help people out there.
But we have also realized that we definitely as summer's coming we need to get the park, you know, open so as the mayor noted we've been working with the county and we've been waiting for one pivotal point and the one pivotal point is asking the county a really specific
have a question. If we were to move forward with clearing Bell Street Park, can we offer
housing to every individual there? And they finally said, yes, we think we can cobble
together the sources. So, James, next slide, please. As we head into this approach, really
what we're talking about is helping the residents, the unhoused at Bell Street Park.
And really what the plan is, if the council approves this tonight, we have a meeting
already scheduled tomorrow at the county where we will go into implementation mode.
And what implementation mode is between April 6th and May 23rd, the goals to try to house every single homeless individual living at Bell Street Park with assistance from the county.
Now, the county says, hey, that's great. We can provide the the subsidies or we can help find people beds here here or there.
But the city really needs to be the lead organization. So yes, we are committing to that.
There are several partners, not just the county that would be involved in this, but the county has several outreach, I would say contracted outreach entities that would be a part of this.
But just folks know from a local perspective this project we hope will be at the table really assisting. So Pastor Bain and his team will be there as well and try to help whether it's get people into their shelter or try to get people into another living situation.
Again, the key date is May 23rd. Ideally, every person would be housed and moved by May 23rd.
But if that is not the case, the city would be there on that day to really clean up the last bit of, you know, if there's debris or whatnot at that point.
The city, we would be on the hook to store any personal property, so if any of the unhoused at Bell Street Park say, yes, I'm ready to go, but I have all this personal property, we will have to store that property.
So, we're going to have to figure it out that might be at the court yard, we'll have to figure out somewhere with only, you know, 18 to 20 folks there we think we can definitely do that.
We're really encouraging people to make that decision is that real property or is that when I say real is that personal property or is that you know stuff that could be discarded.
When folks are moving into housing the less items they have it is easier to get people house so we will be on the hook for that.
And like I said, we'll be meeting with a multi, not just multi-jurisdictional, but multi various entities tomorrow to really, you know, lay out the specific plan about the removal.
Do you need law enforcement on the day, you know, what type of outreach, what type of marketing, but the goal really is that by the end of this week, if the council approves this strategy, we will begin the outreach process.
We will actually put notices at the park that effective May 23rd, the intent is to kind of, you know, is to clean the park.
So, like I said, there's going to be a lot more details.
We can definitely come back before May 23rd.
We can issue an information report if folks want more details.
But let me see, James, next slide.
I think that's it.
So anyway, in the nutshell, between the 6th and May 23rd, we want to house every individual.
The county is ready with subsidies, and we're ready to rock and roll to make that happen.
So with that, I'll turn it back to the mayor.
Thank you.
Okay, so any questions or comments on this first item of kind of specific plan for this.
Sure. I have a couple of questions. Yes. Go ahead.
Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Patrick, for the report. It's great to see that we're making headway into offering these folks a place to stay. That's really an opening up the park for the community in summer.
a great timing. I just wanted to ask in terms of I know you said the county sort of finally allowed
or is open to having working it out was what was the issue before just a capacity it's just
they weren't able to find venues and places for these folks or was it COVID related like they
were still trying to keep it safe until they moved them in. Yeah well there's always more
demand than there are slots available you know and you know one thing that's great about
the county of San Mateo. I think I think Rachel, I don't want to steal all your thunder, Rachel, but
you know the county has declared that they helped to solve homelessness in San Mateo County by the
end of 2022. You know they're building a big navigation center in Redwood City that you know
if that navigation center were here now we'd be able to move people into that navigation
center pretty quickly. So the county has definitely stepped up. So I think what's
happened is there's been more units come online. So more apartments have been built
but also more interim uses have been, I don't want to say acquired, but they've gotten access to
that. I do think they've invested a lot of ARPA money. So although COVID was,
so they have been able to get more hotel leases, things like that. So I think they have increased
their capacity. And I do think a lot of people that they were serving initially have graduated
on to more independent housing. So the benefit to us is there's openings. Let's take advantage
Because if not, there's a line of folks that will definitely take those slots if we don't.
So we're chomping at the bed to kind of get in there and help those people as quickly as possible.
Great. Thank you. And then just one small quick question in terms of being on the hook, would there be particular funding sources that the city would draw from to reimburse people or is it just all staff time that is the fiscal impact and so forth of this initiative?
Yeah, it's a really good question. I mean, when we look at our costs, it would probably be more the day of, you know, we're not on the hook for any of the most expensive, which would be the subsidies or the outreach workers at the county is already paying.
So, you know, I do think we'll probably have some costs for some debris removal but, you know, we already have a lot of those costs already budgeted in like I talked about earlier there's been a few clean up so we're not anticipating.
I'll say it this way.
We think that we have appropriate budget authority
with our current budget.
As we go through these next,
we're gonna be meeting weekly with the county
and the rest up to the May 23rd date.
If we see something, we cheer you on somewhere,
I go, we should go to council for that.
We'll definitely do that.
But right now we think that are,
it's like you said, council member,
it's more of the staff time to kind of coordinate
and to be the face of it and from there.
But if not, we'll definitely come back
and seek authority for that.
Thank you so much.
Any other comments, questions, and then I'll go to the public.
Let's see.
Not hearing any right away. Let me see if any members of the public. James, would you check to see anyone?
Yes, there's one speaker, Gail Wilkerson.
Okay.
citizen
number one here. Oh, Gail. Again, I just had a question because last time you
guys discussed this, you'd say something like if one left, two more would come. So how are
you going to stop those people from coming? I mean, right out there on the off ramp and
Donahoe, there's a little colony forming. I don't know if you noticed them. What's
to stop them from walking across down the whole past the Chevron station and into the park knowing
their vacancies there and a friend of mine who wanted to put on an activity at that park she's
kind of afraid because of what they call bad elements might happen you know but I'm glad to
you guys look like you did a lot of work and I appreciate it and those people should be in houses
somewhere but I'm worried about people coming back and maybe some other kind of bad element
will show up so that's that's what a lot of us fear just not just me at least six more people I
talk to. That's all. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else you see from the public? I've
seen them here. Okay. All right, let me see if there are any other questions or comments.
Otherwise, I don't think there's a resolution or anything. I think you just want to, yeah,
we just want to give direction to continue with this plan, including that date. And yes,
So, any other questions there?
I don't have any questions. I just want to say thank you to Patrick and to the staff and to the county.
We know that our parks are important to us and the residents that are there right now need a place to be some glad that we've partnered with the county and these opportunities for housing has approached.
But at the same time, summer has come right around the corner and our youth need to be able to access the park, especially with the YMCA.
So glad to see that we are getting here hoping it will be a smooth transition and in addition to project we hope we know that we have onyx village that does a lot of great work with the homeless in the park.
They had a day of love on one Sunday where they had job training vendors clothing food.
A vogue services is out talking to the homeless as well, so I would like to make sure that
where we can link them in, let's make sure that they're included in the conversation
as well, because I think they're out there every day taking food to the homeless as
well.
So, thank you.
Great.
Yeah.
So, I think one,
several people mentioned this in one of the meetings that, you know,
On the one hand, it is the city's, I mean, the county has the resources, they have responsibility
for the homeless in a certain way, but it really comes down to every city having its
own plan.
So whenever saying, well, you got to take the lead, they weren't, you know, telling
us only us, any city who wants to do something, they're going to do that.
So I think just to clarify that, so it is a joint project, but we're, you know,
were the lead agency, you might say, in this. The other thing that was very positive, I think,
was that by doing this, it does send a common message to all the people who are on-house.
In other words, we're sitting May 23rd. That is when all of you will have a place.
And so, please, you know, be ready to be someplace. And I think that whatever
organization is going by helping in any way that at some point needs to reinforce that message,
because then people will understand. And it's not going to definitely be a sweep, like Patrick said,
because in other places that is what's happened. People get frustrated and whatever and they do
that, which is not a very good way to do that. So, anyway, hoping that between now and then
we'll begin to send that message to people that there is help, more help coming, but we
need the park for the entire community including them they want to come and use it but not to
live there so yeah thank you right but there's I think you have direction from the council
and then we'll go to the next one which is another one that does have a little more
well a different area of work that the city can do to be ready for this.
Yeah and I'm going to turn it over to Rachel here in a minute but I kind of want to preface
with, so we have this plan now for Bell Street Park specifically, but in this economy and
in this market, there's going to be, as Ms. Wilkerson stated, there's going to be other
people that that are on house. And so what we're trying to do is really try to look
at our code and see how we can, you know, provide some flexibility for entities that
might want to help out with the next, you know, influx that the city might see.
It's really hard to do it when you're trying to address like everybody has Bell
Park in mind. Our hope is that before any of these things that we discussed tonight are
in play, everybody at Bell Street Park hopefully will be housed. What we want to do is really
set it forward to try to make sure that we're nimble for the next person, or God forbid
if there were a fire and so we need to be housed immediately, something like that.
So I might turn over to Rachel, but this is more of like a kind of not a long-term
but more like an intermittent term or mid-range term that would probably be to help people
out more in the future. So I just kind of want to practice with that. So Rachel,
Rachel.
Take it from her.
Thank you.
Thank you, Patrick.
Okay.
Next presentation.
Rachel Horst, again, Housing and Economic Filming Manager.
This presentation, yeah, it really is, I put an agenda here, but it really is designed
to pick up where Patrick left off with the presentation on Bell Street, but the focus
of this presentation is to follow up on what we discussed at the February 1st meeting and the
direction we received from City Council to find ways to, as Patrick said, facilitate temporary
housing solutions, interim housing solutions, because even with the county increasing its
capacity, even with more money flowing in, there is always going to be more demand for
housing and providing it now and providing it in the community to people who become or
experience homelessness in East Palo Alto is a vital part of this strategy.
So it's really just another part of the same overall housing strategy.
So just as a quick background from the last meeting where we discussed unhoused residents,
both in RVs and in encampments, staff took this direction and has been implementing it
particularly for RVs. Patrick already referenced the work that Public Works has been doing.
They have been out there and taking stock of the number of RVs that are in the public
right of way.
I believe the count today is 20.
And they are informing owners of the city's regulations and working out a time to collect
traffic debris if necessary, as Patrick mentioned, this happened recently.
it wasn't an encampment, it was a cleanup of the creek.
But these cleanup operations are very important and that continued communication with RV dwellers
is also very important.
So staff is continuing to do that.
The third bullet point there, we will follow up on the extension of the RV State Parking
Program.
That's for the next council meeting.
The other half of the discussion on February 1st was on encampments in the city and staff received direction to continue maintaining the basically maintaining Bell Street Park as it is while we developed a plan to that Patrick just presented on and also, excuse me,
And also engaging the county in conversations about how to address homelessness citywide. Finally, what I'm going to go over now is options for temporary housing to immediately address the need.
And, and to really handle the high volume of individuals experiencing homelessness at any given time in the fall.
So staff recommendation really revolved around an existing part of our development code.
So what staff did is we went back and we put our heads together between planning and housing and building,
and we also looked at what other cities are doing.
And we said what is available to us, what tools already exist,
what is needed to enable temporary housing to very quickly materialize on sites throughout
the city.
If there is an interested party, and by that I mean if there is an interested faith community
that wants to do a temporary shelter program, we have many examples of that throughout
the Bay Area of rotating shelter programs between faith communities working with a service provider.
If we have a piece of land, a parcel that is currently vacant but has a development proposal,
that will be vacant for at least a year or some period of time before construction starts,
and that property owner is interested in using that land to temporarily provide housing.
Or if there is a private landowner who or another again,
a congregation that is interested in providing overnight parking,
maybe similarly to the RV Safe Parking Program,
any of these organizations or entities can come forward and propose
one of these three categories, one of these three activities.
But today, if they were to do that, and we most certainly invite them to do that,
But if they were to do that today, there is no program, there is no, it's not very easy to navigate the city's development code or the city's building code to really understand how the permitting process works.
So staff recommendations revolve around the temporary use permit process and streamlining that process.
to that end we have these three again these are the same
There are three activity areas in this chart, and all this chart tries to show is that there
is a review process for a temporary use permit, which is a permit provided at the, so this is
a planning permit for a temporary use of a parcel. It can be applied on any parcel citywide,
but the temporary use has to be compatible with the site and the site's existing zoning
and with the surrounding uses, and it can't be counter to the ultimate use of the site, the existing zoning of the site.
The maximum length of time that a temporary use permit can be in place is for one year. So it is, again, a very temporary.
It can be approved at a planning director hearing, so there is some review involved.
And the findings have to be that that temporary use is again in line somehow with the with the parcel zoning and with whatever surrounds that parcel.
And then in most cases there's also a building permit required, not in the case of providing parking overnight parking programs of course because there's no structure placed on the property.
But there are always site standards and conditions that will apply.
We have the example of the RBC parking program.
That's a program that's been in place for three years now, where there is an operator project we hope and there it happens to be on a city owned site.
But there are requirements that are standards that are set forth in the agreement with project we hope these are things that are listed here like what is the maximum number of vehicles.
What is the spacing of those vehicles?
Is there a management plan for the site?
What are the, you know, is there access to facilities and things of that nature?
Very basic but important standards for a site even if there's going to be just parking.
If there is an existing structure that could be used as a shelter,
perhaps it's a portion of maybe the community center at a local church or the sanctuary.
any area that can be used as a temporary shelter. We would also apply standards to that site that prioritized life safety, of course, and, you know, minimizing fire danger and any basic standards that we would apply to any housing or shelter structure.
And then of course, if there are temporary structures that can be placed on the property, so these are like manufacturing housing or the modular units that don't have a permanent foundation.
Those two would have site standards and conditions that we would apply as as a city and then of course and then the fires included there because as a very important agency in all of these temporary use permit review processes.
because of course fire safety is key in each of these scenarios.
So what the staff have really coalesced around is this concept of a master TEP process where
we would create basically a universal application for any, again, any interested parties to fill
Check the boxes depending on the type of use that they would like to propose would fall in one of these categories. These are the standards that you have to meet.
This is what as an applicant you have to demonstrate in order to get that approval. This is an inspection that will occur and so on and so forth so that all of that information is consolidated.
And it is transparent and available to the applicant because we do not expect that applicants are going to come forward with, you know, with a whole team of a whole development team of architects engineers, so on and so forth.
These are, you know, we're specifically designing this for ease of use.
and for those in the community who really want to step up and provide safe but temporary housing for residents who are experiencing or unhoused at the moment.
So the other, having trouble advancing my slides, the other very important aspect of providing housing as immediately as possible and making sure that we can get
individuals who are currently living outside into temporary and permanent
housing is, as Patrick was also discussing with regards to Bell Street Park,
the need for beautification, cleanup, and activation of public sites. And this is
an ongoing need. This is not going to be just related to Bell Street Park or one
particular instance. This is an ongoing need in all cities. And so staff
has done some research and we did have a chance to connect with the downtown streets team, which is an organization that operates all over actually now throughout California and Central Valley and Sacramento and the area, Palo Alto.
So, and the model of, of, of downtown streets is to engage unhoused residents so in any particular cities on East Palo Alto, there will be outreach and recruitment of unhoused individuals to join downtown streets team.
And what that means is for four hours a day on weekdays, going out and doing cleanup at designated sites in the city.
And then having weekly team meetings and, importantly, meetings with not only other team members, but with case managers and getting connected and on a path to housing.
So it's very consistent engagement and consistent activities.
And at the same time, because downtown streets team works with public works and maintenance staff. There is a concerted cleanup effort in areas where it's most needed in the city.
Now this does of course come with a cost and staff has held initial conversations with other agencies to attempt a cost share.
We did get an initial estimate of 390,000 for one year.
That is a very preliminary estimate and it has to do with, you know, how much downtown streets team expects how many staff they would need and how basically how big of a program it would be.
But staff has already begun those conversations with the Peninsula regional base district and San Francisco to create JPA and the county. And so we're really looking into how do we spread those costs because this would be of a benefit to all of these entities, of course.
And ultimately is still achieving the end of getting individuals into permanent housing.
So that's why I recommend this evening are to direct staff to return with this temporary,
excuse me, master temporary use permit, master TUP application, the application itself to
allow for temporary housing for unhoused individuals in the city.
And then also to provide staff with direction on whether to pursue a contract with downtown
streets team to support unhoused residents and also to assist with cleanup efforts.
And if city council so wishes to look further into downtown streets team, perhaps you have them do a presentation. I know they would be very willing to do that.
And so next steps are just picking up where Patrick left off. Of course, we continue to meet and collaborate with the county on a variety of levels at the county manager level and also monthly meetings with staff.
If so directed, we will begin drafting the application and template documents for the master TUP.
And we can return with a refined cost estimate for downtown streets team or any additional information or draft agreement for consideration.
And that is it.
Take any questions.
Yeah, any comments and questions? And so there are two kind of two items within this item,
I think. One is definitely the regulatory part of amending or the temporary use permit of some
sort, making it easier. And then second, this idea of contracting out with the downtown street
team. But any question on either one of those from council members?
Or both, I'm sure.
Anybody want to jump in? Just go ahead.
I think it's starting to stay. Rachel, thank you for the report.
I do remember some years ago Bill Somerville offered to help us with downtown street teams
and as a council we considered it and I don't know why we did it move forward, so it might
be worth it to reach out to the philanthropic interest foundations to see if they would
be still willing to help fund the downtown street teams here in the city.
So that would be my one recommendation, but I think it's a good idea to work with
that organization.
Any other questions, comments?
Rachel, Mr. Mayor, if I may.
Here.
Rachel, I have a question and a partial concern about the TUP process that your master TUP
process you're putting together.
Apparently it will be subject to an environmental review.
Is that correct?
So, is that just the master TUP process in general or it's every project that goes through this master TUP process would have to have some sort of environmental review and that would that be an MND, you know, what are we talking about?
I mean, how complicated does the environmental review actually make this particular beast?
We did state in the staff report that we expect, I mean, when we will speak in blanket terms, because this could be applied to any parcel in the city makes it difficult, but we did state that we expect that it would be categorically exempt from CQA.
So, we are not expecting extended or or several need for environmental reviewer.
That is definitely not because that certainly would slow down the process.
So you think it's a cat X then.
We say yes, yes, of course, I again, we should check that with legal but it
certainly invite Mallory to add to that but yes we did we did as a team when we were discussing this.
And based on our experience with the TUP process.
And we're reasonably sure that it is, you know, but depending upon the direction from council, we'll look at it again.
Right and I know I am reminded it's an emergency order.
It would be kind of under emergency shelter crisis, I guess, declaration so perhaps that helps.
Thanks. And I think my other, so I will comment on the streets team piece. I, for the downtown streets team. I mean, they've had some challenges. We know that both operationally and, you know, staffing, I'd be interested in finding out more about how the program
and actually potentially even having the street, the downtown streets team folks present to us.
I think we need to do a lot more due diligence before we just jump into the downtown streets team.
But I'm open to hearing kind of how they operate and how they might be able to address this pressing issue we have in EPA.
Okay.
Anybody else from the council? Questions or comments?
And I'll ask if any members of the public, and then we'll come back. James, anybody you see wishing to speak?
Yeah, so it looks like there's one speaker Donita Churchill, followed by Gil Wilkerson.
Okay.
Yes, hello. My name is Denita Churchill. I've been a resident for 20 years. Also, I would like to thank council. I would also ask that you reach out to perhaps some of our neighbors that are living across the street on Bay Road and University.
city. He's been living in a tent for over five years on Bay Road. Also we still have the trailers
that are down by the end of Cooley Landing. We also have tents that are now building up over
at Cooley Landing. So I would also ask that you reach out to those areas as well. Thank you.
And also, can you reach out to San Francisco as far as the outreach?
They have a department with Ivy Street in San Francisco that does outreach for drug use
and homelessness.
Thank you.
Next speaker, Gail Wilkerson.
Yes.
I just want to say, citizen number one here.
Back in 1972, I bought my first house for $16,000 and there was a lot of choices there.
You could drive down any street in East Palo Alto where you would find 10, 15 houses vacant.
That's called Blight.
And I'm wondering, and a lot of the, I want to say is a lot of housing was bought by people who open their houses out to veterans for pregnant teens, the foster care, run the gamut of it.
That's what our city had to do and they paid taxes.
I'm saying all I have to say is where are you going to find housing for these people?
It must be going to be outside this Palo Alto because if you don't, those people who have
They're up for scrutiny, like the guy on Beach Street. They're going to find out things and they're going to add to it and everything and cause a lot of problems.
I mean, have you considered all of that also? I think everyone is entitled to housing, but you got to do it the right way and expect, well, want the best, but look at the worst, too.
because there's always going to be a problem that's happening.
I wish you success and thank you for all your reports and everything. Thank you.
Thank you. And those are our last speaker.
Mr. Brick, I believe you're on mute.
Apologize.
No worries.
No, I was asking if any other questions or comments, and then just reminding us that we
do have to re-
Mr. Adrian Biggs has designed the last two projects in-house, so this essentially means
that all of the funds that we receive are spent on construction and implementation of the project,
and so we are using all the funds as the best we can to make improvements for the community.
I'm going to pass it over to Adrian, Mr. Adrian Biggs now. He's going to talk a little bit
about the different types of treatments for pavement and also what we've accomplished
published over the last few years and a little bit about the upcoming project.
So, Adrian.
Thank you, Hamza.
Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council.
Hamza, do you mind if I share screen to take control, or would you like to just click
when I say next?
Okay.
I'll take care of it.
Sounds good.
So, we'll do a quick background on some of the, a little bit of a technical background.
I'll keep it very brief just to give you an idea of what we say when we refer
to different treatment types.
The first treatment type is a slurry seal.
This is simply basically a manicure for the roadway. We come in, give it a nice surface coat to close up any cracks to smooth the surface and to really tighten it down.
And so as you can see in the picture on the right, the before is on the right side where you see some crack seal from where cracks are formed.
And on the left side is where the slurry seals applied and provides a really nice uniform black surface that also seals in the cracks and prevents any degradation.
This also is well improved skid resistance.
So during storms and during rain events, it can help with driving.
Next, please.
The big one that a lot of people look for is this what we call mill and fill.
Basically, it's also called grind and overlay.
I used Fordham here as a prime example since we'll be doing this on the upcoming project.
But as you can see, there's a lot of cracking and there's a lot of different road surfaces.
So in this case this road has reached that point where it cannot just be given a surface coat to repair it. It actually has to be dug out as you can see in the image on the right.
And then a new inch or a new new generally two to three inch layer of asphalt is overlaid onto the surface giving it a brand new road surface.
So it acts nearly as it did the day it was was first constructed.
The final type is road reconstruction. So this, this is a bit of a bigger challenge than managing the overall network health.
The reason for this is because generally it costs more. And the reason it costs more is because there's a lot of additional work that is needed to make sure that it doesn't quickly return back to its previous condition.
And Humson had mentioned earlier that when water gets into the soil underneath the roadway that it can cause expansion it cause cracking and it can cause other issues.
And this is what causes rose to degrade more quickly than the original curve predicts. And so, when we do these projects we make sure to not only repair the base layer, create a brand new, what we call subgrade at a new asphalt surface but we also need to improve any of the drainage
issues that are there, adding drainage systems, adding curb and gutter to help a flow to make sure that none of that water gets back and underneath the roadway.
And so, generally, because of this due to their cost, these roads are only fixed when there's additional funding that becomes available.
On average, these are what, as in what I mentioned before, these are the $10 cost compared to the one or the six. These are the very expensive fixes even a short stretch of road can be incredibly expensive.
Next, please. I've added some images here just to show you how this would kind of happen. We just use running meat as a prime example of a road that does need reconstruction as of now.
You can see on the left hand side the entire roadway is basically falling apart and nearly doesn't exist.
And this is due to drainage issues. And so generally, we'll include drainage and new subgrade compaction as you can see in the image on the lower right.
And so what we do when it comes to Rosa potentially require reconstruction, we'll send out a team with our from our geotechnical consultants to do in a geotechnical investigation to kind of determine where the underlying conditions well how high is the water table.
Is the soil still compacted is it not and they'll give us a recommendation on how we fix that.
And Addison Avenue as hundreds that is a prime example of this where we've incorporated all of these solutions to all of the underlying solution underlying conditions.
Next, please. Some examples of previous projects just to show how we've done these kind of multimodal these universal improvements. We did a millenfill here on Polgus Avenue, give it a brand new road surface we added storm drain improvements to help with the flow as you can see on the left hand side and the after
image. We've also had in pedestrian improvements we we fixed some sidewalk and we also add curb ramps to the corners. Finally added bike facilities on Polgus and bike lanes in this case which have actually helped to open up the sidewalks and people are parking a little bit
further out so the sidewalks are not as blocked as much as they previously have been. Next please.
O'Connor Street is a prime example of what we call slurry seal, where the road surface is not in terrible condition but it does need a coat to make sure it does not get for it doesn't degrade further and so we gave it a nice slurry seal coat and added new bike facility and striping improvements here as you can see with the green
Next, please.
Merrill Street is what we would call a digout location and pedestrian improvement. So here we actually closed a gap in our pedestrian network.
We added curb gutter and sidewalk, as well as doing what we call digouts where we actually repair the soil subgrade, add in a new layer of AC in a small area.
These are very much so like patch repairs. And the final product is a very uniform surface. Next, please.
Finally, running meat street. This is one where we included all both soaring drain and huge amounts of pedestrian improvements who closed a large gap here.
Put a brand new road surface in and then also added bike lanes and bike bike arrows to this location.
Moving on to the project coming up here this next summer that's here tonight for your approval and recommendation for bids.
You can see a map on the left that will show what are the dark gray ones will be the roads that will be completely giving new surfaces to the light gray will be the ones that will be giving a nice slurry seal treatment to and the greens dashed line will be new bike lanes that will be adding and this
total is about seven, nearly eight miles of bike lanes will be adding in this in the project this year.
The two lists here 2021 and 2022 on the right hand side are coming from our pavement management plan that we presented and it was approved by council.
This just list out what streets from what sections and what treatment type.
So I won't be going through all of those but we have a very expansive project this year.
So, additional work going into this year's project will be adding speed homes that were previously approved by the City Council at various locations in the city will be doing ball bouts as approved under the mobility study.
This will be an alternative bid we are seeking funds for this but we we have intention to to complete this.
There will be adding curb ramps at various locations that have been requested by residents who have new or have mobility issues will also be doing improved striping throughout the city.
bike lane and striping in accordance with the bike master plan. That's the seven miles, seven to eight miles of bike lanes will also be improving a few pedestrian crossings at various locations throughout the city.
Next please.
The project budget. This is the current breakdown. You can see here it has the source the cost and the use will primarily be using measure a measure m gas tax measure w and ASIC.
ASIC is a grant that we received through the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities
grant through HDD. That was a couple of years ago now. Gas taxes are annual revenue for roadway
improvements, and we'll be combining Measure A, Measure M, and Measure W to do additional
pedestrian and roadway improvements as well. Coming out to a project total of approximately
$3.8 million.
Thank you.
Happy to answer any questions from the council.
Yeah, so if you've concluded, thank you for the report. And yeah, let's see if questions, comments from council members at this point, and I'll just jump in on anything.
Thank you so much, Adrian, for the report. It's really great. You know, a lot of the community members always say, when is this, you're going to get fixed. And how about this? So it's great to see it all listed out.
I guess my first question would be how regular do these improvements have to be, you know, is it every five or seven, you know, it's obviously through the weather, inclement weather that affects it. But generally speaking, how often these improvements have to be made.
I also remember, Lopez, so the improvements, as long as we're keeping the PCI at a level,
and that means doing projects at a minimum of every two years.
You know, we don't want to miss out on a project.
When we design these projects, they take about six to eight months to design.
And then, you know, of course, you have to go through the implementation.
A lot of times it makes sense in order to get better bids to just combine as
much as we can into one large project because then you'll get better bits. And so that's
what we've done this year is we've combined the 2021 and 2022 project into one large project
and we're hoping to do a lot more with the money that we have. So, yes, at a minimum
you want to keep preserving the streets every two years at a minimum.
Hamza, if I may add just with the different treatment types, on most roads you want
also have habitual maintenance. So a slurry seal can last anywhere between five to seven years,
depending on how quickly it degrades. So we then reanalyze that using the PTAP
county program to have an inspection done. So then that's just revalidated how often those
need to be redone.
Thank you. Because one of the concerns, I guess, the concerns or questions
I had is, you know, and I saw the slide of the different measures, different funding
stores pulled together. But, you know, when you're dealing with products like these,
It comes easily in the millions. So I think, you know, I think the council, I would encourage the council and us find opportunity to see if we can have a systemic or sustainable source of funding for these projects.
That's something that the city sees you set 83 lanes a mile. So I know we're doing a ballot measure, but I think it's something that we should strongly consider in the near future to really boost up and improve the streets in our community.
Yeah. Thank you, Council Member Lupa. So, right now, the only sustainable funding source we have is to SB1, which has been coming in, you know, fortunately for the last few years, I'd say, three to five years, I think we've consistently had money coming in through the SB1 program.
And that has allowed us to sustain and continue this program, because before that, there was,
like, I think three or four years of no activity on our pavements, and that significantly impacted
the PCI.
So, yeah, we want to continue that, and we're fortunate and we're hopeful that the SB1 funding will continue.
Any other questions or comments?
I mean, look, measure A, measure W, and the gas tax are consistent, they come in every
single year.
Right?
You know, we're paying for A, we're paying for W, the gas tax we all pay for, even though
some folks would like to stick a holiday on it, which doesn't make any sense.
But where are you reflecting the SB1 money?
Is that what you're considering? Yeah, where's your SB1 money in this, in this, you know, sources and uses that you have on page 207, or we're not using SB1 right now for this project?
It is part of the gas tax. So SB1, in this case, the 1.1 million.
So it's augmented.
Is the gas tax. Yes.
Right.
Yeah, so the measure A, the measure M, the measure W.
these funds, not all of them can be used towards pavement rehabilitation. Some of them can and some of them can't. Some of them can be used only for pedestrian related activities as well as bike activities.
So what we have to do is we have to utilize gas tax and the, you know, Measure M, for example, can be used towards pavement but not for sidewalks.
So we have to, you know, we have to carefully, you know, when we do the bid schedules, carefully
see how we're funding each activity.
Okay.
Yeah.
Thanks.
So, but what, let me ask, what is our normal, without SB1 money, right?
What would our normal take of gas tax be per year?
I mean, it's somewhere in the $500,000 to $600,000, isn't it?
Yeah.
I believe it's $550,000.
Yeah.
So,
but, but this is this is a two year allocation that that correct. Yes, that's correct.
Yes, we've combined 2021 and 2022.
Just basically the funding from both, both projects, and we've combined it into one.
And then and then they're also you know of course, we have some ASIC money $775,000 of ASIC funds from the light project. Yeah.
Correct. And those can and those can only be used towards bike lane and sidewalk improvements.
Right.
Correct.
Thank you.
Okay. Any other, any other questions or comments?
Let me check if any members of the public
and then we can come back and James, anybody requesting to speak?
Yes, it looks like there's two speakers, Adrian and Gail Wilkerson.
Good
evening again and good evening to Hamza and Adrienne.
I spoke at your public works and transportation committee commission meetings specifically
about the restriping of streets that you have repaired.
And I'd like to know, I mean, I know you can't have a discussion with me right now,
but I would like to know how you're determining what streets you're going to be restriping.
I understand that probably some streets in the community have been downgraded from
avenues to streets but as I stated during those meetings I attended there's a problem with
double parking we have very narrow streets too and I think having some sort of striping would at
least let people
People know which side of the street they should remain on.
And for those people who consistently double park, which is a public safety hazard for people
trying to get out of their driveways or drive down the streets, right, especially if they're
on intersections, like right on the corner, perhaps a striping would serve as some sort
of deterrent, you know, when you park, double park and get out and you're standing on
that similar divide, you'll know, hmm, maybe I shouldn't take up a whole lane of traffic.
I know we're not enforcing traffic stuff, but perhaps this could be like a start of that
mobility thing we've been working on for the last three years.
Something simple, stripe the streets, and hopefully that will remind people to stay
on their side of that line.
That's all.
Thank you.
Next speaker, Gail Wilkerson.
Good evening again.
I have a comment and a question. You said that Addison is a problem. You got into the
root a while why it's like that. Do you understand why it's like that? I mean, you said you'd
have to dig down and some of the stuff you said. But Addison, it's 2190 Addison is the
place where Palo Alto Mutual is. They have water coming in. And that might be part of the problem.
And I'm also wondering if you did any research for the future, when some people say, oh, that's not
how I bothered with that. But the Francisco Creek used to go down Palo Verde. And if you go dark and dry,
You'll see this kind of up and down and around there waterways don't like to be, you know, that's a school with mother nature.
I was wondering if you looked into that because the water you said the water table, it might be, I mean, come in at this.
Most people in that area, they drink spring water.
lucky them, nice spring water. Some say it's brown and they complain a lot, but I
was just want to make that comment because that's probably why Addison is
the way it is, that mutual water company that may be leaking and the
Francisco Creek used to go down towards there to Palo Verde all the way to
I've been here a long time. So, a little bit of something, something. Thank you.
Have a good day.
Thank you. Those are last speaker.
Okay.
Thanks. So, yes, in this case, we do need to approve some kind of plan. There is a plan proposed.
We need to approve that by resolution to finish up the work and keep looking for additional funds. I guess the more we do that. But any other questions or comments from council members on any part of the report?
I guess I had one small question, Mary, and it's very quickly, but if folks wanted to
comment or provide insight on, particularly on the speed bumps issue, if they want particular
speed bumps that they want to flag, I know that there's some, a lot of racing going down on
certain streets in the community. And so if there's something, is there like a place or
or designated site or web page, the public can submit to the Public Works Department for their consideration.
Yes, we have a process for speedhumps installation, and they can reach out directly to our engineering email address engineering at cityofpa.org.
And yeah, for any speedhump request, there's a process and they have to follow the, there's a petition process.
They have to file a petition, get signatures, get it over to the city, then we schedule something with the Public Works and Transportation Commission for review and approval.
And if it is approved, then it goes to city council for final approval.
Okay, any other questions or comments.
I'll make a motion if you're ready.
Yes, go ahead.
I move that we adopt a resolution approving the plans, specifications and estimates for the annual street resurfacing project for 2022.
Okay.
Okay, be moved in.
Second, if we can have roll call, please.
Mara Brica.
Yes.
Council Member Wallace Jones.
Thank you.
Council Member Lopez.
us. Yes. Council member Romero. Yes, and I just just a clarification that also authorizes
the city. The motion would authorize city manager to advertising solicit this for the construction
Motion carries.
Okay.
The almost, well, second to the last item, we have tonight is number seven, developer payment
obligations connected to the RBD-specific plan, so it's an update on the current situation.
Yes.
Hello, Mr. Mayor.
My name is Amy Chan. I'm the Director of Community and Economic Development and I'll be presenting
on this item. Our goal for this evening is to affirm previous council direction that
the developer reimbursement equation that we've set up for the Ravenswood Business
District specific plan update is still what the city council wants us to move forward
with. Next slide. I'll give a quick overview of how we got here and then I'll go
right into the setup and the equation so that we can discuss it with council. Next slide.
So as you know, the city council, city staff and consultants have been working on the specific
plan updates since the beginning of the pandemic. There was a great deal of interest around the
Ravenswood business district area. And so as you can see on the calendar here, a series of
of requests for proposals and setting up with the City Council contracts to elect and hire
consultants, RAEMI and associates to help us with this specific plan update. Despite
the pandemic, City staff and the consultants have been in full swing, getting the specific
plan going. As I will describe here in a few slides, there are two parts to the update
and how we phased it. But overall, even during this significant time, while resources are
very important, we wanted to make sure that it was clear that we didn't want to wait until
the pandemic slowed down or that development interest further increased. We wanted to
prepare our city for the Ravenswood Business District specific plan update.
And so the team has been hard at work setting up City Council study sessions, hosting office
hours, community meetings, stakeholder roundtable discussions.
So you'll be hearing more from us more this spring and summer as we launch into further
engagement off this calendar.
Next slide.
So the two phases of the RBD update are really broken into an initial step that
the Remain Associates team started off with, which was scoping the specific plan update,
gathering data, and really launching into our public engagement in 2021. The city committed
to fronting all of those initial costs. And, of course, I'll talk about this here in a moment,
but our hope is to recover all the costs related to the specific plan update eventually.
But the second part of the specific plan update, the environmental analysis phase,
is really where we wanted to concentrate on the developer reimbursement equation this evening,
because there has been some concerns from some of the developers about how it's broken up.
But just again, to summarize here, that second phase is really focused around the development
of an environmental impact report, which would serve the specific plan update specifically.
And then the developers that have specific development project applications in could stem off of that EIR.
So essentially that's why we propose having the three developers evenly split the cost.
And then because the square footage of the specific plan update is yet to be determined,
that they would just evenly split that cost, as they all will evenly benefit from the EIR,
from the specific plan update.
Next slide.
And so, the initial Raymian Associates contract was set up according to those two phases,
the initial analysis, the community engagement and the data, and then the environmental
review.
We show here the responsible parties, so the city is fronting the initial cost, the 490,000.
And there was a addition to the city's portion on January 18th, 2022, just a couple months ago.
So City Council did approve an amendment to the Ramian Associates contract, so that 490,000
has been increased with an addition of about 500,000.
So we're close to the city being in at a fronted cost of about a million dollars.
And then the environmental review was divided up evenly, one-third, one-third, one-third
among three developers, the Emerson Collective, Harvest Properties and Sandhill.
So the way we've set this up as one-third each is really because the square footage
of their development applications are speculative.
They could change from now until the specific plan is updated and even after the specific
plan is approved.
So with the developers that are indicating their square footage on their development application
Now, it does not necessarily mean those are the project sizes that will be approved, as
well as the overall square footage increase of the specific plan update.
Next slide.
And so the city's initial reimbursement for that million dollars that I was referring
to earlier, the 490 plus the 500,000 amendment, this would be a reimbursement process that
would come in later. So we've already taken care of the environmental phase split up into
one-third each. When the specific plan is finally approved, we want to go back and try
to recoup some of that city's initial investment. So using this just as some round number sake
to show on an illustrative example, this was the same illustrative example that we showed
back in September 15, 2020. So, just for consistency, we are showing it here again.
But essentially, if additional capacity of the specific plan was added at 1.5 million square feet,
we take the size of a potential project and we essentially figure out what is that pro rata,
that portion that that development is benefiting from. We then, of course, take into account
There would be an administrative fee applied, and so overall that project obligation would
actually come out to about 124,000, which isn't the total coverage.
It would be including the other developers that also get approved.
So there could be more developers that come to the table during this time while the
specific plan update is getting looked at.
And so we also want to make sure that the three developers understand that with the approval of
the specific plan update, they are not guaranteed that their projects are going to be entitled with
it. They are going to need to go through their design review process and entitlement process
separately. And again, like I mentioned, can stem off of the specific plan EIR process to their
benefit. So that's why their initial investment of one-third each we think is a fair split.
And so the intent of the entire repayment process of both phases of the specific plan update
is really so that the city can recover all these costs. The city wouldn't be initiating this
unless there was development interest in the RBD area and thus we think it's really important
that the developers have some skin in the game with their initial one-third investment among the
three large developers. And then going back to the first days, the initial city investment
with this example equation on the screen would pay the city back on a pro-rata basis according
to their square footage. Next slide.
And so the recommendation is just to affirm previous
council direction of that equal share one-third among the three large developers in the RBD area.
And then to direct staff to only process projects or keep working with developers that have their
...
We have one developer that is not in full payment of their installment that is due. We have stopped processing that project until further notice. We would like to make sure that council is supportive of that direction. I will break here for any questions.
So, any questions from council members on any of those specific points, and then we can go to the public?
Through the chair, Amy Mayoli question is, what is driving the real need to reaffirm that this is the right direction?
Is there an underlying concern that we're missing that we need to know? I would just
love that clarity. Yes, of course. There is one developer that hasn't paid. We had two
installments that we've requested so far. One last fall, when we were at the height of all
of our study sessions, and one most recently to kick off the next phase of the Raymond
One developer has not paid that second installment, the other two have, and the one developer that
hasn't paid the installment feels that the one third share is not fair according to the size
and type of their project. So it's really a matter of going back to the original council
direction. Staff does recognise that our developer reimbursement agreements, especially at the
template that we worked off of may have not made that clear so we thought that we would take
this opportunity not only to clarify that in the public record but then can take that
back if we need to amend or clarify anything with the contract process as well.
Evoy
n mé'r pryddiwydau, rydyn ni'n rydyn ni'n adåaio i ddweud yn sgwlad gan trefn o bobl o'r sgwlad.
Maen nhw'n cwestiynau ychydig lawer o'r pryddiwydau gwyliaith o'r ystafell a'r pryddiwydau,
ac mae'n gweithio i'r pryddiwydau. Mae'n credu bod yma datblyg ac mae'n cydnabb ychydig ar gyfer.
Mae'n cydnabb ychydig yn hallod i mi ar yw gwylio adlechio'n llyfodol fel ddymogolau.
would propose eventually or something. Is that right because the rationale to then say, well, then everybody
sin there, so everybody pays the same. Right. The three development applications that we have,
you know, that not only did they vary in type, but the developers are still designing their
projects, considering mixed use, considering housing. And so the overall way that the
fwyfydd o'r trof yn mryddoedd, yn ni'n dweud bod y byddai yn dynomionadau ni'n dynomionadau,
yn dynomionadau yn oeddysgol o'r trof yn dynomionadau pan dippoedd ar hyn o adolyth Cymru.
Ond dylaiwn ni'n rai meddwl ifyffyr i'n sgwraeth, felly mae'r adroddau ystafell yn ddwell â'r
cyfeirialeb hyn, maen nhw'n tref ygwrth yw mwylo ar y botl yn cyfredigad o'r trof yn ddweud o'r
O'r cyfnod, ddodd yn ddweud. A'n gyfnod i'r cyfnod, ddweud y cyfnod yn ddiddordeb yn gwneud i'r gyfnod,
a ddiddordeb yn ddiddordeb. James, ddiddor y ddweud o'r cyfnod o'r cyfnod ar yr iddyn nhw?
Mae'n ddiddor, ddiddor, ddiddor, Gail Wilkerson a Adrian Byrn.
Yn gyfnod i'r cyfnod, ddiddor i'r cyfnod yma, ddiddor i'r cyfnod, ddiddor i'r cyfnod,
Does one entrepreneur he doesn't want to pay because now he's saying it's not fair that he just pays one-third.
Now, that doesn't make any sense.
The only thing I can do is reach back in my training and say, his, he's, he's not going to pay a full price,
That's all I have to say for you.OR
Thank you next speaker. Adrian?
Ydyn ni, un gweithio y bwynt eisiau llawer i siŵr y byddwch e � graduates Address Publicly.
Ydyn ni, un gweithio y bwyr o gwirio y lyw ymlaen.
Pen ddigwydd hynny.
Professor Peann teaches from the
future.
councillor. I'm not sure if people received it, but it does indicate that it's intended to be public
comments, so I think you need to at least mention that and acknowledge receipt of the document.
Mr Bricka, believe your...
All right. When I'm asking for public comment, thank you for adding that,
Rwy'n credu ddod yr unrhyw i.
Rydyn ni'n mynd i'n mynd i'n cydweddor i James.
Yn hyfrifio'r cyffredin, y cyfleu cyfleu, y Cymru, yr ydych chi'n yrhyw hwn, y cyfleu cyffredin,
If there is a comment and it came in the form of an email, then I just want to make sure that we make that comment. I mean, I'm not being legalistic. I'm just saying the same as somebody doing it right now. Obviously, they're not in the audience to make that comment, but they send it and writing.
More than a number by residents?
On just that's what I was going to value.
If it's okay to just include it as a reference that we did receive that comment,
I just don't want to—
It
wasn't clear to me if council members
had all seen the comment.
I have not seen it.
I've just been super busy the last few hours before the mid.
So, I did not see it.
I didn't know.
Thanks for telling me.
That's why I'm asking that either it be read into the record or at least by reference,
then say that there was an additional comment submitted.
If you hadn't mentioned it, I wouldn't have known.
I'm just being careful with the publication.
No, I understand that.
But I think the council needs to consider the comment.
If you haven't had a chance to read it,
You haven't had a chance to consider it, then, yes, someone should at least read the comments.
Because you need to know what was said.
Exactly. That's what I'm asking. Either you or James or somebody could do as a favour.
I can read it.
I want to hear it. So either way, James, do you want to go ahead and read it?
Yeah, yeah. I can read it.
Thank you. That way, that will know what the comment is. Thank you.
Ychydig i celfiadwyr Ymgei, waith i'r cofnidol yourtyfyrwyr yn cael rhoi gyda Llywodraeth i Gymru?
Mae'n dweud iaeth cyfleidwyr ac yn Gweinidol fel dweud sydd yn cyfledog sydd yn cyfledog cyfryddeidol sydd yn cyfledog cyfryddaeth ymgylchedd Cymru i gyd-aeth droswng llai sgadolol yma,
We appreciate council's input and direction on this matter.
It is not accurate to say that the City Council has clearly directed that three developers pay equal one-third shares for the environmental review process.
We have reviewed and re-reviewed council's past analyses and discussions and have also discussed the issue at length with staff.
staff have confirmed that we would pay our proportionate share and we have a signed agreement with you confirming the city's commitment that each developer paid a proportionate fair share C attached.
If you now decide to require an equal one-third share, we will follow that direction.
ond y ceisio bynnag에is ei ffordd mewn gweld yn gwaith o'r ffordd ar gwellyddur infol i'w partyn...
...lawn i'r Ysgrifennu RbD.
Felly mae'r ysgrifennu'r ffordd neu'r wneud y ffordd yn cael ei gwas i'r ffordd byw..
...ol atb innocenti gyda'r Ysgrifennu.
Rwy'n rhoi'n rhoi'n rhaid i'r proses ffyrlus cyfion...
...es y yng nghyffordd yma yn y rhai'r ffordd yn rhaid i'r perffordd mewn...
Yn y gall That is a part ifadau hyn sy'n cymiannol iddyntio i'r perio os y�orotio'r gyrfaenydd,究odd
hynny'n amlataeth ymarfer â 13% felly mae'r pieroedd plenerau yma. Yn g
светiaf, mae'r pethau a chynghwys i ddweud cymaenydd wedi amdant. Mae'n
gwaith i'r ddweud amgofio cyfryddiant, ac mae'n credu chynghwynt yma ar gweithio ddweud
cyfrifoedd cyflosadau a gwrs, wrth gwrs, yn yr ysgol yng Nghaerr.
Thank you for your consideration, Corey.
Okay. Well, thank you for reading that. All right. So, there were no more public comments
and back to the council for any questions. Otherwise,
you're just asking us to affirm previous direction. Would we need a motion on this
o ran hwn o'r syniadau o'r ddweud o'r drosiwn yn ddenigol?
Mae angen i gael aglais cyfnodd maen nhw'n dod aglawn.
Mae'n cyfrifetaghwad o'r etymol yn y ddweud amser.
Mae'n gweithio, onid, ond ydych yn ddweud y cael yr ymgynghwyng iawn.
Mae'n ddweud i'r gael y cyfrifethaf sy'n gyffredinol sy'n cael yr wych ar deilio dan
mae'n symud i'r cyfrifethaf a'i gael iawn i'r rhai ar gyfer Ierbaid.
ond y cyfnodd o'r cyfnod, a wefnodd y cyfnodd yn credu i'n mynd i'r cyfnodd i'r cwpacio unrhywf sydd wedi'i'n cyrfu'r yr Arvedigon.
A dame, ydych chi'n cyfnodd o'r cyfnodd i'r cyflwyg a'r projegu, y gallwn gweld yn ymgyrchafol,
Because they not only require planning commission city council approval on entitlements, they also require a change to a long range planning document.
And the speculative nature of that, and I agree with Amy, just doesn't make sense in this case to do a pro-Rata share.
I understand that, yes, this particular project, the biotech project has 13% of the total project proposed, but they may wind up with only 6%, because we may chop the thing down the 200,000 square feet.
Then what?
Then are they going to ask for their money back?
It's ridiculous.
Rwy'n cy ferf stove ni think that the approach that the city is taking or that staff is taking is the most logical one given the fact that we have these convergence of two processes.
One that entitlement process that really is quasi entitlement because they don't have the ability to actually do it.
Cos we haven't created a specific plan large enough and specific plan process is kind of running co challenge.
I think it makes a lot of sense to reaffirm this approach that staff has made, and if the developer doesn't want to play, the developer can just leave.
I would affirm the direction in a motion that the three developers seeking an amendment to the RBD specific plan, pay an equal share of one third of the associated costs related to the environmental review process, in addition to a pro-wrestling.
The last item is the COVID-19, a regular COVID-19 vaccination update.
ddechrau'r ddechrau'r ddechrau.
Thank you. James, would you mind popping it up?
Sorry, my computer's being...
No problem.
Being slow.
I can start, don't worry about it. James, you keep trying.
Yeah.
Yeah, so in the packet and on our agenda as well, we have the same structure we talked about the previous week and then what's upcoming. So last week was a pretty successful week.
You know, we had 43 individual doses given out at the county clinics and on the west side combination, and then another 46 at the Ravenswood Health Clinic, so a total of what is that, 89 single doses, which is good.
You know, I'm still seeing larger numbers than many of our neighboring cities.
As far as what's available this week, we're still on the same through April 30th.
I have pretty much a set schedule now, which is Tuesday, Thursday at the YMCA, and then
Saturday, the Westside Clinic, and then Saturday as well at the Ravenswood Family Health Clinic,
and we'll say Westside, I mean, at the 45 Newell Road at the Woodland Park Apartments.
That schedule is, like I said, it's going to be locked in there through April 30th,
with the exception of the Saturday before Easter, the Ravenswood Family Health Clinic will not
be having a clinic.
Once we get into May, the schedule will likely change again, but we'll keep folks updated
on that at the next meeting.
As far as testing, oh, there you are, Jim, thanks.
Do you mind shifting down to testing?
As far as testing, same schedule.
We are going to be doing an internal review to kind of see, you know, what are the
numbers of tests being given out? Do we still need to be providing as robust testing opportunities?
Maybe we do, so we're not saying now that we're ready to start cancelling any of those,
but we just definitely want to see what the numbers are at. Tests are readily available
at stores and whatnot now, and the school district is still providing a lot of tests
to their kiddos, which is great. So, again, just trying to see how to deploy our assets.
I did want to give folks heads up that at the next council meeting, we will have the
city manager's budget message and in that budget message, we will start to try to lay
out what we think the city's role in the COVID response will be next fiscal year.
So we're talking about the county and other partners to see what's going to be going.
A lot of folks are anticipating that by the end of June, most jurisdictions will
probably be out of the, you know, the direct COVID support.
We'll have to see how that, but we're going to start, we'll start looking at that from
a budget perspective.
So I just want to give the council a heads up about that.
I'm trying to see, I think that's it.
I don't really have anything else to, anyway, other than that, I'll turn it back over
to the mayor.
Thank you.
Yeah, any questions, comments, or any additional information anybody has when I share?
if not and okay going good keep chugging along okay well that concludes the first part is the
biggest part and now we can have council reports or announcements if anybody wants to jump in feel
free to report anything despite the chair I just wanted to wish all the Christians in attendance
and then the community happy coming upcoming Easter and as well to the Muslims and happy Ramadan and
hopefully maybe the council can consider proclamation at the next meeting and we have a small but
but emerging Muslim community in the in the city and so I want to definitely
see if we can really honor that and to everyone who's not you know celebrating hopefully it's
time of reflection and meditation and fellowship. So that's it. Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you. Anybody else? Any reports or announcements?
I have a brief on just saying that I haven't settled on a specific day, but I'm looking at
end of April or first week in May to do a mayoral report to the city. So I'll be
asking staff for a little bit of work, not too much, primarily just to set that up and
then I'll do the rest.
And I think we'll stand adjourned at this point, so everybody have a good evening and
we'll catch up.
Thank you.