[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:02] Good
[0:06] evening. This is the regular meeting of the town of Los Alto's Hills on Thursday, January 15, 2026. The time is now 6.05 pm. I'll call the meeting to order and City Clerk, please take a roll call.
[0:27] How's the member Mark?
[0:30] How's the member Swine?
[0:32] Here.
[0:33] How's the member Tanka?
[0:34] Yeah.
[0:35] Vice Mayor Tyson.
[0:36] Mayor Vatasia.
[0:38] Here.
[0:38] Thank you, Mayor.
[0:39] We have a quorum.
[0:40] Thank you.
[0:42] Please join me in the pledge of allegiance.
[1:05] I'd like to review the agenda, Council is very changes to the agenda that you would like to make.
[1:15] Not for me.
[1:17] I think we wanted to move the report from the community development director to after item
[1:23] three presentations from the floor.
[1:25] Is that right?
[1:28] And before that, can we get a comment from the City Attorney on item 5L from the previous meeting?
[1:38] Yes, Mayor, and I'll do a short report from the special meeting.
[1:43] During the 430 PM special meeting that was held just before the regular meeting the city council conducted a closed session regarding anticipated litigation pursuant to government code section 54956.9 subdivision d2 and there were no report or actions from that closed session.
[2:04] The C Council also considered an item during the open session portion of that meeting to consider the issuance of a Brown Act.
[2:14] Unconditional commitment pursuant to government code section 5496 0.2.
[2:20] The unconditional commitment allows the council to respond to allegages of Brown Act violations asserted in a demand letter from Safford Law,
[2:29] that's data December 16, 2025, and the council is also considering item on 5L on consent
[2:39] in this regular meeting for the same response and bylaw the issuance of a commitment and
[2:49] also the action that the council is taking under 5L, do not constitute an admission or evidence
[2:55] of any violation of the town's part, and during the special meeting at 430 to Council by a vote
[3:02] of 50 approved, providing the unconditional commitment in response to the demand letter as included
[3:08] in that staff report. All of the town disagrees with the allegations raised in the demand letter
[3:14] as no-brow and act violations have occurred. The city council elected to utilize the unconditional
[3:19] could mimic an option under statelots for clothes, a necessary litigation, and is also in line
[3:25] with as continued commitment to transparency and public participation, and that concludes my report.
[3:33] Thank you, Ms. Sly. Next item in the agenda is the presentations and appointment.
[3:41] And we have one item which is consideration of a appointment to the Los Altersville's Planning Commission.
[3:51] And we have a staff report.
[3:53] Before you do that, ma'am, I have to request myself on this item because I have a contractual professional relationship of the applicants.
[4:00] Thank you, councilmember.
[4:04] Okay.
[4:06] I'll wait till she's up to dies.
[4:11] All right, Council. Tonight, I have eight qualified applicants who all seek one seat on the planning commission.
[4:19] The planning commission currently has one vacancy to fill with a term beginning today, January 15, 2026,
[4:26] and it will expire on June 30, 2028, created by a resignation of a planning commissioner.
[4:32] A notice of vacancy was advertised in the weekly newsletter in the daily post and through the
[4:39] town social media accounts. As of Monday, January 12th and actually now is Tuesday, January 13th.
[4:47] The only applications we received are attached. Several of the applicants are here tonight
[4:52] and have prepared a 3 to 5 minute presentation for you and I'll check in with most of them.
[5:00] So, yes.
[5:02] Okay.
[5:02] Thank you.
[5:04] It should be go ahead with listening here and from the applicants.
[5:09] Mr. Swan, are you okay with that?
[5:12] Yes.
[5:13] Okay.
[5:14] I think we'd like to limit the presentation from the applicants to three minutes each.
[5:20] There's eight of them.
[5:22] So, if we can go ahead and call the first one.
[5:25] And I do, I do want to say I'm really heartened by the number of applicants.
[5:31] It's a real pleasure to have that kind of participation from the community.
[5:35] So thank you for applying.
[5:37] And I'm going to call them in alphabetical order.
[5:40] Sabrina, are you? Yes, I definitely see.
[5:49] So the way this will work is we'll have three minutes per applicant,
[5:53] and then I can still have some questions for you. Easy questions.
[5:58] All right, sounds good.
[5:59] Good evening, my name is Sabrina Co. Bowers and I'm applying a serve on the planning commission
[6:05] because of my appreciation for Los Alters Hills and it's a desire to improve the resident experience.
[6:13] My husband and I bought our property here in 2018. We are drawn by the town's unique rural character and natural beauty.
[6:23] We've spent over the last seven years including the last three years actively building our home.
[6:28] I gained an intimate first-hand understanding of our planning and permitting systems and
[6:33] process.
[6:35] This experience highlighted the critical importance of our protective regulations.
[6:39] However, it also revealed significant opportunities to make the process more transparent,
[6:44] consistent, and efficient.
[6:47] I want to ensure that other families do not face the unnecessary delays or unclear requirements
[6:51] that I experienced.
[6:53] My goal is to create a system where homeowners view the town as a partner rather than an obstacle.
[7:00] Professionally, I bring over 20 years of experience as a tech PM, a product manager, and
[7:05] holding an MBA from UC Berkeley's hospital business.
[7:09] My career is built on understanding user needs, identifying systemic bottlenecks and designing
[7:14] solutions that balance multiple stakeholder interests.
[7:17] I apply for principles thinking to complex problems.
[7:21] This means I look for the fundamental intent behind regulation to ensure its implementation
[7:26] actually serves our communities objectives. My valence.
[7:30] Your work for managing a school community closet to working with the Ravenswood Education Foundation has reinforced my commitment to creating accessible, well-organized systems that serve everyone fairly.
[7:42] If appointed, I will focus on four specific objectives. One is improving process clarity, ensuring homeowners receive clear consistent documentation, regarding requirements and timelines from the very start.
[7:54] To strengthening consistency, standardizing how codes are interpreted so that outcomes are predictable and fair for all residents.
[8:04] Three, thoughtful preservation, supporting standards that genuinely protect our rural environment while questioning requirements that add cost without a clear community benefit.
[8:15] For fostering partnership, shifting the culture from adversarial, gay keeping to collaborative problem-solving.
[8:23] I believe our planning process should be a model of excellence, protecting what makes Los
[8:29] Autos Hills special, while treating residents with respect, I look forward to contributing
[8:33] my skills to help make that vision a reality.
[8:39] Thank you, any questions from the Council, Linda,
[8:45] then, Stan?
[8:50] I had a question, you actually went through the process of building the house here.
[8:55] What was the most difficult part of that for you?
[9:00] I think the most difficult part was kind of not really knowing how to do it, or the best way to do it, or to meet other regulations, and to make sure our architect and our GC, we're following that,
[9:19] seems like some of the roles we're changing and we're unclear and that added a lot of
[9:28] costs to it and there were a lot of kind of negotiations around the roles which also just added
[9:36] time and expense. Thank you. Thank you.
[9:46] Next up we have Katherine Frey.
[9:56] Good evening.
[9:58] My name is Katherine Fry. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you this morning.
[10:03] I've lived in Los Alto's Hills for more than 20 years and I've worked as a real estate broker in this community on the surrounding area for over 40 years.
[10:12] During this time, I've witnessed many changes, economic cycles, evolving regulations and shifting shifts in how communities approach growth and preservation.
[10:23] through it all, I've developed a deep respect for the thoughtful land use planning and environmental
[10:29] stewardship that have helped us out those hills, maintain its rural character and its high
[10:35] flow, it's quite a quality of life. My professional career has given me a practical understanding
[10:42] of how to planning decisions, effect homeowners, neighborhoods, and communities as a whole.
[10:48] I see firsthand how zoning, setbacks, environmental regulations, and design standards intersect
[10:55] with real people's lives.
[10:57] The experience has reinforced my belief that planning decisions must be grounded in adopted
[11:03] policies while also being fair, transparent, and mindful of long-term implications.
[11:10] In addition to my local experience, I've served for more than seven years as a director
[11:14] of the California Association of Realtors.
[11:17] And in that role, I served on
[11:19] environmental sustainability committee,
[11:21] formerly the Land Use Committee,
[11:23] as well as taxation and global business committees.
[11:27] The work exposed me to complex planning,
[11:29] environmental and regulatory issues at the state and national level,
[11:33] and underscored the importance of balance
[11:35] and well-informed decision-making.
[11:38] I've also spent time in Sacramento participating
[11:40] in legislative days with the Realtors.
[11:42] During those visits, I listened to discussions regarding regarding the housing elements,
[11:47] Mercedes across California, and spoke with legislators, and their aids about property rights,
[11:54] home ownership, and importance of diversity, transparency, public input, and public
[12:00] and public input in land use decisions.
[12:03] As a realtor, I've learned to negotiate problem solving and understand financial implications.
[12:09] But above all, I've learned the importance of listening carefully to all parties involved.
[12:15] That ability to listen is essential when perspectives differ or when emotions run high.
[12:21] And I believe it's valuable skill for planning commission service.
[12:25] While I have not yet attended a planning commission meeting,
[12:28] I'm committed to fully prepare for this role.
[12:32] I've reviewed and agreed with the required code of ethics and understand the importance of impartiality,
[12:37] transparency and respect for the public process, my interest in serving on the planning
[12:42] commission comes from a desire to give back to the community that's been my home
[12:46] for more than two decades. I value collaboration, fairness, and long-term stewardship,
[12:53] and I committed to working constructively with fellow commissioners, pound staff, residents,
[12:59] and the city council. I would be honored to bring my experience for today.
[13:02] we're out of time. And thank you for your presentation. Any questions from the Council for
[13:08] Ms. Free? Linda?
[13:14] Yeah.
[13:17] Sorry to have a question.
[13:19] Well, Ms. Free, if you would like to, there's a question for you.
[13:23] Hey, sorry to make you get back up again. But so the planning commission is a very important
[13:31] committee in our town and there's a significant amount of participation that you have to
[13:39] have in that committee, it's hours and hours from being sometimes up until one-third in the
[13:46] morning or you may be later. So what we're looking for is some way that can commit for the time
[13:54] and put in the effort for that committee. I definitely can do that. My husband has passed away.
[14:00] I am not fully involved in selling real estate now.
[14:04] I'm partially retired.
[14:06] I do tell people that are younger and more enthusiastic
[14:15] about selling, you know, and refer people.
[14:19] But I have the time and the patience and the ability to
[14:25] serve on that committee.
[14:28] Thank you.
[14:30] Thank you.
[14:34] Next up in.
[14:41] Hi.
[14:42] My name is Ann Shao.
[14:44] And I've been a resident of Los Alzos Hills since I was six.
[14:49] Just a little bit about me.
[14:52] I am a lawyer.
[14:54] And I, for my job, I have to read statutes and regulations.
[14:58] I have some part of the EDPs.
[15:00] D. So, I'm familiar with the town, the town people and sort of the regulations and everything that people at the deal with.
[15:07] I also did an owner build of that have gone through the planning stages and built an ADU and hope to build a house in the future, but that is to be seen.
[15:21] And then the reason why I want to join the planning commission is because I understand the importance of
[15:30] maintaining the real community, but I do think we also need to look towards the future and see what kind of community we want to build.
[15:38] And I do see fewer people like me who are here, like people who grew up here, people who want to come back but are unable to.
[15:46] So I think my perspective is a little different. That's about it. Do you have any questions?
[15:56] Yes, thanks for participating and for applying.
[16:00] I noticed in your application,
[16:01] you had a concern about preserving vegetation in town.
[16:05] And as a member of the Fire Commission,
[16:07] I'm often thinking, how do I get rid of vegetation in the town?
[16:10] How would you balance those things?
[16:13] I, it's a good question where you just had an ADPC meeting
[16:16] on Tuesday about this.
[16:18] I think you can do it carefully,
[16:21] so when it's like the radiant heat
[16:23] the members and the direct contact that are the issues.
[16:27] So when it comes to trees,
[16:29] limb up, and try to plant them away from your homes.
[16:33] But at the same time, I do think it's important to have
[16:36] a beautiful home, and just not concrete structures,
[16:40] or something that is the most fire safe.
[16:43] I think it's a balance.
[16:45] So I think we could do it thoughtfully.
[16:48] Like the zero, the zero foot to five foot's an I agree.
[16:52] Probably shouldn't plant anything there, but I don't think we should be living, saying, like, oh, we're going to definitely have a fire.
[17:01] So we should just completely raise everything to the ground.
[17:04] I think the rule community, or the beauty that everyone's been talking about, it's important to maintain plants, especially the bigger trees, redwoods, folks.
[17:15] So I think it's a balance. I do think there's also more science that we can look at someone on ADPCO saying maybe planting has actually been official because the soil can be cooler, but maybe we don't want to plant under trees exactly because that can ladder up.
[17:32] So I think it's a balance. I think there's a place we can get to. It's an interesting design challenge that I think landscape architects can work around.
[17:40] Right, thank you. Anybody else, Linda, Stan?
[17:48] Sure.
[17:50] I haven't issue with trees growing really tall over a long period of time.
[17:56] And the possibility of ensuring upon somebody else's view.
[18:02] Yep, we're done that too.
[18:04] Yes, okay. Now, do you have any opinions on that?
[18:08] What would you do?
[18:10] If a person ever had the treat that was like overgrown.
[18:15] Can you define a lot?
[18:17] A lot.
[18:17] Like obstructing, there used to be this thing called the million dollar view in Los
[18:22] Alto sales.
[18:24] And when you have no trees in front of you, you can see the view.
[18:28] And then after a while, the trees start growing.
[18:30] And then, pretty soon, you've lost a good portion of your view.
[18:36] So what are your opinions on topping?
[18:38] and on thinning and on eradication.
[18:43] I would rather top and thin and not eradicate.
[18:45] I think both the perspectives of the person with the view,
[18:49] which my parents have, and obviously they would love to go all the trees.
[18:54] But I do think the tree person's perspective is also important
[18:57] because it provides some screening.
[19:01] I really like plants.
[19:04] So I think it also provides the beauty that people here want to maintain.
[19:07] And so, I think you have to talk to your neighbor, work through it, but
[19:11] topping, thinning, you can still maintain the view.
[19:14] But I do think the other person's perspective with the tree is also really important.
[19:21] Any questions, Linda?
[19:24] Okay. I have a question.
[19:26] You've been through the process of getting an ADU built on your property.
[19:30] And you're also looking at building a home.
[19:33] Yep. In the experience you've had so far, is there anything you would have like to see changed in the way that
[19:42] town dealt with your application? Any rule or or issue that you ran into that was particularly burdensome?
[19:52] Nothing particularly burdensome. I think currently my biggest issue is with PG&E. One thing I will say is doing
[20:00] as an owner builds, I had to go talk to the town a lot, and the people in the town are very
[20:07] understanding and will work with you to get through most issues. I also had a great architect,
[20:13] so he got me through the planning process, pretty smoothly, and then I had to get through the building
[20:20] process. And overall, it went as soon as it could, I think, even with some hiccups.
[20:26] Okay, are you quite familiar with the building code that we have in town and those issues like
[20:34] Loth and you know MDA and MFA?
[20:38] A little bit.
[20:39] I was building out of the 2022 building code, so I don't know the 2025 one.
[20:45] All right.
[20:45] Thank you very much.
[20:46] Appreciate your application.
[20:47] Go Bears.
[20:48] Double Bear.
[21:01] I'm sorry.
[21:02] Come on.
[21:16] Dear Mayor and members of the Town Council, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you this evening.
[21:23] It's an honor to be considered for service on the Los Alto Sales Planning Commission.
[21:30] I came to this country 35 years ago with $100 in my pocket.
[21:36] What America gave me was opportunity, responsibility, and gratitude.
[21:42] Living in Los Alto Sales represents all three
[21:45] and serving the town would indeed be a great privilege.
[21:50] I provided my background and applicable experience in my application.
[21:54] I'll not repeat that here in the interest of time.
[21:58] And I look forward to leveraging my analytical skills and my experience in running
[22:03] two design build firms that operate in many cities and many counties in the Bay Area.
[22:09] And of course, I have experienced building in Los Alto-Sills, subdivisions, entire homes,
[22:17] ADUs, and now SB9 projects as well.
[22:23] I'll bring all that experience and knowledge of best practices from other cities and other counties.
[22:30] Low cell to sales. But most importantly, I'm applying because I care deeply about how we grow, how we protect, and how we decide.
[22:40] After reviewing recent agendas, minutes and staff materials, it's clear that the commission's work is converging around three major implementation priorities.
[22:50] First, the housing element and compliance with our H&A regional housing needs assessment, not
[22:57] just as policy, but as real deliverables with deadlines, documentation, and a
[23:04] distraining of legal risk.
[23:07] I'll contribute by bringing a disciplined practical lens to questions of feasibility, consistency,
[23:15] and mitigation of risk.
[23:16] So the town space is compliant while remaining true to its values.
[23:21] Secondly, multi-family zoning in site-specific rezoning strategy.
[23:26] This is where plans become maps and maps become projects.
[23:30] Because I operate across multiple jurisdictions,
[23:34] and I've seen multiple priorities in different areas,
[23:37] I've seen how unclear zoning standards create confusion, delay, and mistrust.
[23:43] The goal is to get away from that and to help ensure that our zoning frameworks are
[23:48] understandable, internally consistent and predictable for both town residents, staff and
[23:53] applicants, simply an implementation is orderly and not reactive.
[23:58] And of course, if appointed, I commit to the following four things, do the homework through
[24:03] careful preparation, close reading of staff reports and thoughtful questions.
[24:07] Number two, be fair in persistence, consistent apply the general plan and municipal court
[24:13] transparently and lawfully support staff and carry out the vision and set forth by town council
[24:19] and governing documents.
[24:21] Thank you so much for the opportunity.
[24:22] Thank you.
[24:24] Any questions?
[24:26] I originally had a question about this construction business, but I think you've already answered
[24:30] that in your prepared presentation.
[24:32] Thank you.
[24:38] I noticed you haven't attended a planning commission meeting, although you've seen
[24:41] you have a lot of background in planning and building and contracting and designing in general.
[24:47] I was curious how is it that you weren't able to attend any of those kind of a little odd.
[24:56] I'm sorry, I couldn't understand the question, would you?
[24:58] I was curious about how come you haven't been able to attend the Signal Planning Commission meeting.
[25:05] I've been interested in basically reading the agendas, reading the minutes.
[25:11] That's what I've been focused on, but now I see that it's much more important to be here in person and attend those meetings.
[25:18] Okay, but it sounds like he has some great experience and we'd certainly appreciate the cross-pollination from other other jurisdictions that would be interesting.
[25:28] Thank you.
[25:29] Thank you so much.
[25:32] Next up, Malika.
[25:40] Good evening council.
[25:41] Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to present.
[25:44] My name is Melka Jeanette.
[25:46] I'm a resident of Los Altos Hills for 10 years.
[25:49] I'm a licensed architect and designs architects.
[25:52] I do a lot of work in the town and have been lucky to be part of this town for so long.
[25:58] You already have my application and my letters, so I won't go in detail.
[26:02] But I would want to touch upon a few things from there just for everybody who's here.
[26:08] I have been living here for 10 years, I have been in front of the council,
[26:12] I've been on various planning commission and other commission meetings.
[26:15] Town of Los Altos Hills has a very unique setup. One of my favorites, we do work all over the
[26:22] bay, but town of Los Altos Hills has certain things which attracts people back to the town.
[26:30] The planning stuff is super helpful. To be very honest, it's one of the towns which has the
[26:35] clear, most guidelines, if you know how to read them. They are very helpful as long as you
[26:42] to defy those guidelines. And if you stick to them, it actually goes very smoothly and like other cities.
[26:50] I have had standing and kind of ongoing working relationship with the down planning stuff. I've been
[26:56] helping them on and off as an advisor, especially with the ADUNSB9 implementation when it happened.
[27:06] In addition to my professional background here in the town, I was for six years of planning
[27:10] Commissioner for City of Los Alters. Right before I moved here, I still helped them during the
[27:16] COVID era with all the issues with the downtown committee. The mayor asked me to step in and
[27:23] help out with the revitalization, which was very important for the City of Los Alters. And I was
[27:28] honored to help as a whole. I believe particularly the goal of planning commission is to bring
[27:35] some sort of a bridge between, you know, we as residents and people who are actually coming in,
[27:41] you know, with emotions presenting what they have. Yes, there are issues with views,
[27:48] there are issues with trees. There's a lot of issues right now with the fire department,
[27:52] with the new implementation. A lot of people actually cannot even develop their properties
[27:57] because of restrictions on what the fire is putting through. So we understand that and I know it's
[28:02] very sensitive topic, how we bridge it is a very difficult position for commission and council,
[28:09] but that's our job or whoever's on that commission to try and help the neighbors and the residents
[28:15] see that side of work which normally gets missed because emotions take over. So that is what
[28:23] excited me in my six years as a planning commissioner in Los Alto and my hope is I help a lot of
[28:29] residents here, a lot of our neighbors go through this process, explain them how to deal with
[28:35] it, and I'm hoping I can just bring back to the council.
[28:39] Thank you so much.
[28:41] Any questions, Linda?
[28:46] Stan?
[28:48] So I had a question.
[28:51] Obviously, you've done a lot of architecture work both in town and in the neighbouring areas.
[28:57] Is there something in our standards or building code that you, in our rules that we have some unique rules as you know that you would change?
[29:09] So first of all, I think the down website needs to be updated.
[29:13] The forms are out of date.
[29:14] Talk about the planning.
[29:15] Yeah, that's very important because a lot of people actually use those forms to implement and then they find out that the forms are not updated.
[29:24] it's 2021 or 2001. So those needs to be updated as a change to be very honest I think the
[29:32] council has to give more incentives so that professionals and residents have incentives to build
[29:40] outside the setbacks for the ADUs in SB 9s. I think they should be some incentives for the
[29:46] MDA calculation because there are a lot of technologies now out there where the water is actually
[29:52] 100% going through but the town does not recognize those materials so the people have big properties and
[30:00] As you know, in this day and age, when we have a lot of mental health issues, I encourage our clients to have outdoor spaces that kids can hang out and play, but because of the MDA sometimes we just can't.
[30:12] And there are, and that's something I would love to be part of to just show there are materials which are available. A lot of other counties are using it where we can give MDA back so that people can actually develop their properties and still take care of the sustainability of land.
[30:28] That is something which is very important and the other is fire.
[30:32] I think we need to have a committee which works with the fire department to come up with some solution to help the residents right now because there's a lot of properties.
[30:43] Further up in the hills which actually cannot develop because they need at least half a mile or quarter mile roadbiting which doesn't even.
[30:51] It's not even their properties.
[30:53] so it makes it financially a burden. We have a retired teacher who wanted to just put an
[30:59] aid in you and she cannot because means she'll have to pay a gun on that road. So it's a long
[31:03] answer but there's a lot of things like that that I think we can work as a commission to help them
[31:09] prove. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you.
[31:16] Next up we have John. John Biber. Okay.
[31:25] Hi, my name is John Fiverr, it's a pleasure to be here talking to all of you. I've been a resident
[31:32] of this town for for many, many years. I was here when the quarry was still a quarry and I played
[31:38] in it and the San Antonio still private. I love this town. I loved how it's evolved over the years.
[31:48] It's a very unique and special place to me.
[31:53] I also appreciate how the town has really worked
[31:57] to partner with the citizens and make this a better place
[32:02] in a great place to be.
[32:05] I built my house in 2003 and had an actual
[32:09] wonderful time with the city.
[32:11] It was a little bit of a surprise to me.
[32:13] But the people and the rules and the regulations were great.
[32:18] Someone else mentioned a problem with PG&E.
[32:21] That was my experience as well.
[32:23] But everybody else was really wonderful.
[32:27] You know, some of the things I can bring is my background.
[32:29] I'm retired right now.
[32:31] And I have a background in global real estate and facilities.
[32:35] And so I represented major corporations in the Bay Area with all the real estate.
[32:40] And in that real estate element, we did a lot of development and building worldwide, so I'm quite familiar with girls and regulations and how to work through those things and partnering up with local jurisdictions.
[32:52] I believe in finding win-win solutions that can can work to maintain the character of the community, plus the rights of a property owner.
[33:05] I wish I had more prepared comments for you, but that's kind of about it.
[33:10] Is there any questions?
[33:14] Any questions?
[33:18] Your mic is in on the ear.
[33:21] Okay, thank you.
[33:23] Thank you.
[33:26] Next up, Henry Richie.
[33:35] Henry Richie.
[33:41] And maybe I'll give him a minute.
[33:44] Can we move on to Danielle?
[33:46] What do we wait?
[33:49] Danielle is Sue.
[33:50] Yes.
[33:56] I don't I don't think either one of those people are here and I don't see them online
[34:01] And if you heard your name called please raise your hand on zoom
[34:05] I just do not see anyone under that name as an attendee and no one is raising their hand
[34:13] Okay, I think at this point we need to bring it to a vote right or I don't think there's any discussion right so
[34:27] Can we take public comment before we move to the world?
[34:30] Okay, good idea.
[34:31] Thank you.
[34:33] So any public comments on this item?
[34:41] Yes.
[34:41] I'll throw my support because I'm dead.
[34:44] You need to come to the mic and you have two minutes.
[34:47] I'll throw my support behind Monica because she was unbelievable at helping us navigate all the ins and outs of building a home here in Los Saltos Hills.
[34:55] I know she really understands the needs of all the various participants in the decisions being made.
[35:03] And does a fantastic job of navigating tough conversations, keeping tempers low and making sure that everyone is able to kind of find them on the ground.
[35:13] I really appreciate someone who has mad skills in project management.
[35:17] It's something that's very much needed.
[35:18] And I hate to say it, but I'm a little bit wary of someone who makes their money on building large contractor builds, having say over how our regulations are written.
[35:35] So, my personal thoughts. Thank you.
[35:41] Brigitte. Hi, Brigitte. I just want to say that I was really thrilled to see so many applicants here for the planning commission.
[35:50] And I want to urge all the applicants to please, please, please join our volunteer committees
[35:56] and become a part of the fabric that makes our towns so great.
[36:01] So whoever, because there's only one position that can get filled, but there's so many applicants.
[36:06] So in case you don't get the position, please join EDPC, pathways, open space, technology,
[36:15] EIC, FIC, EPRC, there's like 12 of them.
[36:19] Anyway, that we're a great community. I welcome you all to join in and become a part of that.
[36:25] So you understand how our our our town operates, because this will not be the first time we will need these positions filled with that I'll leave it to you.
[36:35] Thank you.
[36:37] May I say that I was saving up my comments and but Brigida said it all just better than I could have.
[36:44] And I do want to say, first of all, I'd like to give a round of applause to all the applicants.
[36:50] So thank you.
[36:57] We do have a number of openings in various committees and I'll just read out a few of them.
[37:02] Emergency preparedness response has two vacancies.
[37:06] Environmental design and protection committee has one.
[37:08] the Environmental Initiatives as three vacancies,
[37:15] the History Committee as three,
[37:17] the Library Commission as one,
[37:21] pathways has four,
[37:24] so they really need people.
[37:26] Of course, we have planning commission today.
[37:30] And then public art has a lot of vacancies as well. So if you want to help purify the town, public art is a great place to be as well. So with that, I think we'll have to bring it to a vote. And we have to take a ballot. Is that right?
[37:44] Yes. And we have one person with a hair raised on Zoom. Okay. Let's do that.
[37:49] George.
[37:55] Oh, yes. I'm sorry. My hand was up for general comment. I'm sorry to interrupt.
[38:00] Okay, we'll come back to you.
[38:04] All right.
[38:05] So I guess we have some balance we got to fill out.
[38:09] And I think you're going to do yours online.
[38:12] Yeah.
[38:13] Suggested so that everyone in the audience knows that we're passing out a paper ballad.
[38:17] All the council will submit one vote.
[38:20] And after that vote is cast.
[38:22] We will collect the ballads.
[38:24] Linda, who is participating remotely.
[38:27] will verbally state who she voted for, then we'll get all the little tally up all the votes.
[38:32] At person needs to have received three votes in order to be appointed. So if there isn't one
[38:40] candidate that has received three, the council will then deliberate and another ballot will be cast.
[38:46] And I do want to say we really appreciate the commitment and the talents that we saw here today.
[38:51] And, you know, thank you very much for this is a really important activity, a really important role in the town, the planning commission,
[39:01] actually the meetings on the planning commission go far longer than they do for the council, we have the easy job, they have the harder job.
[39:11] So.
[39:12] Mayor Mayer, mayer, of course.
[39:15] I'm so disappointed at this point in time.
[39:18] I have only been given one vote. There are seven people that I would like to vote for.
[39:24] With gratitude, I'd like to thank all of you for applying for the position.
[39:30] I think that you're initiative to apply is very important.
[39:35] Because what you want to do is you want to give back to your community.
[39:40] You've enjoyed this community. You've benefited from this community.
[39:43] You really love this community. You want to give back and I really appreciate that. So thank you very much for that as well.
[39:51] All of you presented very well. And I think that for the most part, I'll say everybody in this case.
[40:00] You were very knowledgeable as well. So thank you for being here today.
[40:07] Okay. I've collected all of the bad ones.
[40:10] We get lindos. She didn't want to speak.
[40:14] Yeah, go ahead.
[40:15] I just wanted to say all green.
[40:17] Think your volume is very low.
[40:19] Thank you so much.
[40:20] Thank you so much.
[40:21] On her end.
[40:23] Mark and you.
[40:26] I ended.
[40:26] Do you happen to have another microphone setting?
[40:29] I think you may be going off of your air pods,
[40:31] which are muffled on our end.
[40:33] So see if you can go off of your.
[40:34] You're going to take a lot.
[40:36] Yeah.
[40:37] Is that better?
[40:37] Yeah, that sounds better.
[40:38] Yes.
[40:39] Okay.
[40:42] Oh.
[40:44] And then we, oh, sorry.
[40:47] Oh, love this town.
[40:48] And we appreciate everybody's equipment.
[40:51] It's making it better.
[40:54] And I agree that if you do not get this planning commission position,
[41:00] we have a lot of openings that would benefit from your breath,
[41:06] expertise and knowledge and love a town that you've expressed.
[41:10] I love it. I love it for another committee.
[41:16] Do you know that sound runs on volunteers?
[41:20] That is just one of express appreciation for your commitment to the team.
[41:26] Linda, if you happen to have your air pods in your hand, it sometimes activates the microphone.
[41:32] Just put them in the case and then it will be off.
[41:37] All right. So put them in the case or something.
[41:39] They'll have to go get it, but we'll just leave it at that for right now.
[41:44] It's not bad.
[41:45] And I will say a little birdie told me it is possible we might have another position open
[41:52] at the end of this year.
[41:55] So, if at first you don't make it come back.
[42:01] Linda, can you tell me who you would like to see on the planning commission this time?
[42:07] Yes, I would like am, but I can't say a last name, I can't remember how you say it.
[42:14] Can you help with that?
[42:16] Shout out.
[42:17] Yes.
[42:18] And shout out for you.
[42:21] Mayor, I do not have three votes for one candidate.
[42:24] I have a split two and two.
[42:27] So we're going to redo the vote.
[42:29] I have two for Anne and two for Malica.
[42:33] So we're going to redo the vote and I'm going to remove some names.
[42:36] And we're
[42:42] going to pass out the ballot again and it is up to the counts of discretion if you should want to start a limiting names to
[42:49] Make the selection process easier as the suggestion from staff
[43:00] I think we pretty much have one somebody has to change the vote because we're still doing too
[43:12] This is like choosing a new pope
[43:16] There's less smoke though
[43:17] Yes, that's why it's not your head.
[43:21] Who are you, Anne?
[43:37] Okay, I've collected the ballots, Linda.
[43:39] Who would you want to appoint to plan a commission?
[43:44] I'll also go with Anne.
[43:46] Okay, guys.
[43:47] We are at a two-two boat again.
[43:50] So we're going to do it again.
[43:57] And we're going to do it again.
[43:58] And we're going to do it again.
[43:59] How's she going to approach?
[44:00] How's she going to do it again?
[44:01] How's she going to do it again?
[44:03] Yes.
[44:03] Yes.
[44:06] There can be Council, though.
[44:09] I think we should have the discussion.
[44:12] Yeah.
[44:14] You already voted.
[44:17] Is it okay to have a discussion?
[44:19] Yes, by all means.
[44:20] You can have a discussion.
[44:21] Okay.
[44:23] Well, let's open it up for discussion.
[44:26] Who would like to speak first?
[44:30] Well, I can I say that I voted for Anne because she has been on a committee in town
[44:40] before and I think it's important to get used to how the town operates and how committee
[44:46] committees operate and the planning commission is second only to the council in the amount
[44:52] of time and effort that you're going to have to put in and so having some volunteer experience
[44:59] I think.
[45:00] It is important.
[45:08] I too believe that the experience is very important. However, I am to warn quite frankly, because the choices are such good choices. I don't. I'd like to have them both. However, I think that the fact that Anne has served on another committee for a long time and the fact that she has built her own ADU.
[45:34] It's like she does have some significant experience in those areas that we're looking at for the town I think that she would do a good job
[45:45] I think she probably has the time to do it as I've talked about time and I'm not sure Malika is it's a huge time sink
[45:55] huge
[45:59] But I could flip the coin, however, when I did it, it was Anne and I did it because of some
[46:06] experience that she's had in the past.
[46:12] You know, I want to address that time issue because you were very clear on that initially with your comments.
[46:18] Okay. In fact, I was worried you were going to scare. There was going to be a rush for the exits after you spoke before.
[46:23] But you know what? I trust people to manage their schedule just like when people say how do you do all these things?
[46:29] It's just I find out a way because it's important to me. And so what struck me here, yes, past volunteer, but but also
[46:38] Working in a committee and having a I feel like the planning commission experience that money could bring here and then let's face it when it came to and this is a kind of thing
[46:47] You can't really practice
[46:48] response to questions, I thought she gave, she knocked it out of the park in terms of thoughtful, really relevant issues of what she would work on and I thought those were good things to work on.
[46:58] So that's what prompted me to vote that way. Not a dig at anybody else. I saw many people I would vote here as I think we've already expressed, but I think that that tip me over.
[47:11] Yeah, for me also, it was a choice between Anne and Malika, and for the reasons that I've already been explained.
[47:20] Mike, Mike, thinking on this is, who is the best person who will be able to add the most value in this position?
[47:30] And somebody who has served an applying commission before, who has had a lot of experience with architecture,
[47:36] with building not only lost autosales, but other towns.
[47:44] The insights that she shared,
[47:46] that Monica shared about what she would change,
[47:51] a very specific, the fact that she's interacted with staff
[47:54] as familiar with the inner workings of the town.
[47:57] The Plan Commission requires a lot of heavy lifting
[48:00] and to be fair when I ask and those some questions.
[48:05] She was a little less, she was a little more tentative.
[48:10] I think it was a heart and a right place, and I think with a little bit more of a familiarity
[48:14] with what's involved with planning and could be a tremendous asset on the planning commission.
[48:20] And I would hope that out of both of you, whichever one doesn't get at this time, I hope
[48:28] you'll consider applying it the end of the year, because like I said, some little birdy told
[48:32] me there being another opening, but I think by far and away what we need right now with the
[48:40] many challenges in town with building, with producing housing, with all of the nuances
[48:47] that come up and the issues that Malika talked about with MDA and the details, you know, the
[48:53] detail insights that she has, I think she'd be a tremendous asset to the tell.
[48:58] public
[49:03] comment is any opportunity to comment?
[49:07] Public comment?
[49:08] We already did public comment, so it's up to Council if you want to.
[49:13] Sir, Sir, I did an impasse.
[49:15] Let's go ahead and take public comment.
[49:17] You have two minutes.
[49:21] First of all, I know Malika and I know I am.
[49:26] So this is a very difficult thing to make public comment on,
[49:30] but it's a question and a question really for Malika.
[49:36] If you're operating as an architect in Los Alters Hills, you're going to have clients in Los Alters Hills,
[49:46] and it may well be that those clients' projects for which you're the architect come to the planning commission.
[49:55] I believe that means you would have to recuse yourself.
[49:59] So, that would put the planning commission to be in four people, as opposed to being five.
[50:07] And I've been quite a few planning commission meetings.
[50:11] And I would say that they don't all necessarily call a less around one opinion.
[50:18] So that would be my, I think both are great candidates.
[50:25] I think Anne represents one thing which I hope you've heard me talk about it before, but I
[50:34] don't know if people called on to it. I think she represents an issue with this town, and
[50:42] hopefully she would contribute to helping fix it, which is we need to create opportunities
[50:47] is for legacy people that have grown up in the town, come back to the town to be able to continue
[50:56] to contribute and bring up their families in town.
[51:01] But my main question is to Malika, which is how she would deal with the conflict of interest
[51:11] and having to re-cus yourself.
[51:13] Thank you.
[51:14] Thank you, John.
[51:17] Anyone else?
[51:22] Oh, would you? Yeah, you could respond.
[51:28] I John, thank you so much. In 25 plus years that I've been working in the down-of-loss
[51:34] altos hills, I think we have come in front of planning commission with my projects maybe six times.
[51:40] Recently, one with John is aware of, we all know that we know most of the people in the down,
[51:47] Sometimes we have to recuse either with because we are either very close friendships or we are in business and one way or the other
[51:54] So I know that's when it happened
[51:56] but my focus is going to be on what we as planning commissioners can deliver for the town
[52:02] Which is the problem that you're already facing so it's not just that one meeting for that town or that neighbor or that project
[52:10] It is how do we make it so that
[52:13] less people are actually coming to planning commission.
[52:16] Because I think the beauty of Los Altos Hills
[52:18] versus other cities is that the way we have things set up
[52:22] as long as you follow them,
[52:24] you don't have to be in front of planning commission,
[52:26] you don't have to be in front of the council.
[52:28] But how do we...
[52:30] Exit in back or behind the scenes is what I'm more interested in. But yes, of course, I will have to
[52:36] recuse myself. And I think we've had council or planning commissioners who've been in business with other residents and they
[52:44] had to recuse themselves. I think that's just part of doing that. Thank you. And I think to be fair,
[52:51] I think commissioners do have to recuse, for example, if they are living close to a property or they're impacted with a
[52:57] by visually, by a property that they have to adjudicate.
[53:02] So it's not only a matter of being an architect,
[53:06] but it's also a matter of where you are,
[53:10] and how the geography impacts your ability to participate.
[53:16] So we are an impasse, oh, sorry, we have one more public slide.
[53:20] I'd just like to say listening to the presentations,
[53:24] looking at, you know, comparing volunteering on one of our committees to six years of actually
[53:30] being on a planning commission, I think, you know, clearly offsets the fact that she hasn't
[53:36] been on committee in our town. And I really appreciate all the issues that you raised that are
[53:42] really critical, dealing with the fire department, providing incentives. Those are all really
[53:49] things that we need to look at, and that our challenges we're facing, and so the fact that
[53:55] Malikas had experienced with that, I think, puts my vote in her camp.
[54:01] Thank you.
[54:02] Brigitte.
[54:03] Okay.
[54:04] So there are pros and cons here in both sides to make it even more easier.
[54:09] I think Anne has, you know, had great exposure being on EDPC because they've been dealing
[54:14] with issues with housing element, you know, between having to help us with the objective design
[54:18] standards. We've continually gone back to EDPC to kind of vet out how we were going to do the
[54:24] multifamily objective design standards. And that's something that did not exist when Malika was
[54:30] on the planning commission for Los Alzos, which is dealing with commercials that was pre-pandemic,
[54:35] pre-housing elements, just to be aware that the housing element is part of the biggest task we have
[54:41] currently before planning commission right now. And having knowing our municipal codes and how we're
[54:48] objective design standards and implementing these other programs we've got that we have to
[54:53] hit by the mandates, something you need to really consider. We are not a board that we're going
[54:58] to decide on how to do certain things like we don't set permit fees. We don't look at the bigger picture
[55:06] housing on it. Thank you.
[55:20] If you want.
[55:24] And if you would like to say anything further, we're wanting
[55:27] here for you, but that's up to you.
[55:40] I think building a little bit on the housing element, if that's what's the focus, is I did
[55:46] work with EDPC on the objective design standards and I think I do understand how difficult
[55:52] it is to both go forward and change it so that applies to the multi-housing units, but also
[55:59] at some point they also interacted with residential codes.
[56:04] And to be fair, I don't know if I spent enough time
[56:07] piecing those two pieces together, but I know Jay
[56:10] and the teams did a really great job trying to make sure
[56:15] that it was consistent across the different code sections.
[56:19] So I think if I were on this planning commission,
[56:23] I would spend a little bit more time
[56:24] delving into the codes and regulations, which I do for my job
[56:28] and making sure that both what we do in the future still keeps what we want to do.
[56:36] I'm not as good at speaking as Malika, 100%, but also maintains what we want, but also
[56:43] looks forward to make sure that we are building community for the housing element and making sure
[56:48] that we are also embracing them and not just trying to shut them in a corner.
[56:55] Do you have any questions?
[56:58] Not for me. Anyone else? Okay. Thank you.
[57:01] Please, Stanley.
[57:08] Can we make it easier for Stan that's getting very difficult here?
[57:13] Well,
[57:19] I think music does.
[57:23] It's hard.
[57:32] Linda, any other thoughts?
[57:36] I still think that Anne is the best choice for right now.
[57:40] if someone another one comes up in the end of the year and I would definitely think
[57:46] Monika has a possibility so.
[57:52] I need conversation that council's having does need to be on the market.
[57:58] We will have another opening later this year.
[58:01] Can we have a right of a free zone, first right if you use all two.
[58:06] I think that's what we have to do.
[58:08] So maybe the city attorney can advise us,
[58:11] I think we just need to choose a candidate right now.
[58:13] Yeah, correct.
[58:15] I would say correct, and it sounds getting consensus
[58:18] that you're going towards two applicants,
[58:21] essentially what we need is emotion.
[58:22] And the ballot was just a tool to get to emotion.
[58:24] So you could cast, you could put a motion on the floor,
[58:28] and you saw someone could second it,
[58:29] and they could call a roll call vote.
[58:32] That's an option.
[58:32] Okay, I moved it, we get a point, and.
[58:35] I seconded that.
[58:42] Yes, yes, we got to take a vote. Let's take the vote. That's fine.
[58:47] Councilmember Mark. Yes. Councilmember Swan. Yes. Vice Mayor Tyson. No. Mayor Battasia. No.
[58:59] I would like to make a motion.
[59:01] I would like to move that we appoint Malika Jenae to the Planning Commission.
[59:06] Second.
[59:09] Let's take a vote. Councilmember Mark. No.
[59:14] Councilmember Swan. No.
[59:19] Vice Mayor Tyson? Yes. Mayor Beteja? Yes. This is where we would have really benefited from having
[59:27] Kavita, but she has had to refuse, so I'm going to blame her for this, but City Attorney, we need
[59:35] to move, we need to move on from this issue, looks like we're deadlocked. What is the process? Should
[59:42] we just come back to it at another meeting? Yeah, I mean, ultimately the council does need to reach
[59:47] three votes to appoint somebody. You can continue the item and come back to it. If you like,
[59:54] you mean later today or another meeting.
[1:00:07] You can do it either way. I'm hearing that you, the ideas to come back to another day. There's a suggestion that candidates can pour, you can, you know, give direction, candidates can provide additional information. If you like that.
[1:00:18] Let me, let me ask, the conflict that Kavita had was it with Malika and Anna was it somebody who's now been eliminated, which, which means Kavita could now vote.
[1:00:32] David is conflicted is with one of the current of the two applicants.
[1:00:40] This kind of points out the problem is somebody has to
[1:00:44] recuse at the planning commission.
[1:00:47] And you may end up with the two to all.
[1:00:49] Okay.
[1:00:50] I move that we move this item to the end of today's meeting.
[1:00:55] And if we can't decide, then we'll move it to a future meeting.
[1:00:58] But I apologize for how long it's taken, it's kind of a difficult decision between two really outstanding candidates.
[1:01:07] So thank you for your patience with that.
[1:01:09] If that was a question, I second it.
[1:01:12] Second, can we take a vote on that?
[1:01:15] Consider it at the end of this meeting, or if we can't decide to move it to a future meeting.
[1:01:21] Okay, Council Member Mark?
[1:01:22] Yes.
[1:01:23] Council Member Swan?
[1:01:24] Yes.
[1:01:25] Vice Mayor Tyson?
[1:01:26] Yes.
[1:01:27] Mayor Battasia. Finally yes. Thank you.
[1:01:36] Sorry that took so long.
[1:01:37] Not at all.
[1:01:40] All right.
[1:01:41] Next Sunday.
[1:01:46] Thank you.
[1:01:47] Next on the agenda is public comment.
[1:01:51] Worse than wishing to address the council and any subject not on the agenda may do so now.
[1:01:57] Please complete a speaker card located on the back table of the council chambers
[1:02:00] and submitted to the City Clerk over here.
[1:02:04] Comments are limited to two minutes per speaker.
[1:02:06] California law prohibits the Council from acting on items that do not appear on the agenda.
[1:02:12] Under a resolution previously adopted by the Council,
[1:02:15] such items can be referred to staff for a property action,
[1:02:19] which may include placement on the next available agenda.
[1:02:23] Are there any members of the public president in the chambers,
[1:02:26] which to make a public comment?
[1:02:27] If so, please come forward to the podium, state your name for the record and your address, and you will have two minutes to speak.
[1:02:34] Mayor, I have a nice amount of residents. Is it okay if I cannot call them up three out of time?
[1:02:40] Yeah. Can we go with Erin, Vittas, Hyrie, and Ron, Hayway?
[1:02:48] And then we'll go to the next three.
[1:02:57] Good evening, everyone. I just wanted to give my personal experience with the O'Keef Preserve.
[1:03:03] preserve and open space preserve there because we are adjacent to it. Our property is so
[1:03:10] it's it's been it's been an absolute privilege to live there because we we've been there for about five years now and
[1:03:17] it really was actually one of the reasons why we chose that property because we were just big nature
[1:03:23] lovers but so we go walking and we see I mean we probably will go over the time but I would love to talk
[1:03:30] about, I've seen like, you've seen hot families,
[1:03:33] we've seen raccoon families, we hear the coyotes at night,
[1:03:36] we hear owls, we see, I even seen a bobcat, actually,
[1:03:41] and it's just beautiful, beautiful creature.
[1:03:44] And I think they might be passing in that creek corridor
[1:03:48] under the freeway from foothill,
[1:03:51] because there's the beautiful creek right in that area
[1:03:55] that there's little duck families and everything.
[1:03:58] So I could, like, if I had the talent, I could have done like a David Attenborough documentary
[1:04:03] about how beautiful this preserve is.
[1:04:06] But maybe if you drive by it, you don't think there are animals there, but there are tons
[1:04:11] of animals there.
[1:04:12] And I just fear that, I mean, if we, if we converted a building from like a single family
[1:04:17] to a duplex, it's not a huge impact on the environment.
[1:04:21] But if we pave over an open space preserve, that's a giant impact that is really difficult
[1:04:27] to reverse. So yeah I just want everyone to know how valuable that place is and I think we should
[1:04:35] consider that it's not just ours. Thank you. Thank you.
[1:04:48] I am here. I also live there and I just
[1:04:51] wanted to say how wonderful it is we can walk our dog there and how nice it is to have the
[1:04:57] field and all the animals there and that it's just a wonderful thing to have and it adds a lot to
[1:05:02] Saltoes. Thank you. Yeah. And I would just ask the audience. So please refrain from responding.
[1:05:10] We want to be respectful of all views no matter what they are. And so just be respectful and
[1:05:15] listen to everybody without any, you know, applause or response. Thank you very much.
[1:05:24] We also
[1:05:25] want to say we did our family Christmas photo there. It was really nice to have and we put it on
[1:05:32] Christmas card, it's over here. So yeah. Thank you. If you want to see it, I can
[1:05:38] break it up there.
[1:05:44] Thank
[1:05:47] you.
[1:05:51] On Hayley's next.
[1:05:55] Hello, I'm Ron Hayley. I've been, I'm on Lorraine, it's part of the
[1:05:58] O'Keefe thing. It's been there for 37 years. It's been great. I'm a little worried
[1:06:04] about what you're trying to do to us. I understand you've been working this
[1:06:09] issue for around about the three years, but two of the three options that you actually have
[1:06:15] in front of Sacramento right now, I really could put, you know, foot hill has already
[1:06:21] met the housing element by purchasing for the staff, and has put the student,
[1:06:35] they've
[1:06:40] And in fact, the demographic they're putting there with low-income housing next to a private Catholic school has zero chance of happening.
[1:06:49] So telling us that O.Keefe is just a backup or an emergency just doesn't ring true.
[1:06:56] Second, pushing this as a citizens initiative is very deceptive.
[1:07:02] Remember the film, just don't look up, well that's what we're looking at here.
[1:07:08] Those that have looked up see clearly that this is very much a council-driven initiative.
[1:07:16] Now the other thing is this is a state mandate, but the state isn't telling us how to do this.
[1:07:22] this is up to you guys,
[1:07:27] and the town has,
[1:07:30] Tools that it's disposal to make this work, imminent to Maine and zoning. There's 28 vacant
[1:07:37] loads in the town of Los Elders Hills. 10 units per lotch 280 units, and there's nothing stopping
[1:07:44] the town using imminent to Maine to take those lots and to build on them, and with 280 units
[1:07:54] and 30% of that at low cost meets our objective.
[1:07:59] Thank you.
[1:08:01] The next three I have with Susan Stark,
[1:08:04] Jennifer Capiris and ERA.
[1:08:19] Hello, I'm Susan Stark and I live on Contataway,
[1:08:22] which is adjacent to the O'Keefe Open Space Preserve.
[1:08:27] Open Space isn't a perk for living in Los Houthos Hills.
[1:08:30] It's foundational to our community.
[1:08:32] It's part of our fabric.
[1:08:34] it's the reason people choose to live here and it's also why the voters chose to permanently
[1:08:41] protect it in perpetuity. Not just the O'Keefe Preserve but open spaces across our town and
[1:08:51] you don't have a mandate to undo that. In fact you have the opposite. You have a mandate to honor it.
[1:08:58] Yet, here we are, the Council, each of you, drafted a ballot measure to rezone protected
[1:09:04] open space for high-density housing.
[1:09:08] And records that have been obtained through the California Public Records Act show coordination
[1:09:13] between Council members, staff, and hand-picked Rev. residents to manufacture the appearance
[1:09:20] of grassroots support for a town council-driven initiative.
[1:09:24] That process raises serious legal concerns.
[1:09:29] The demand letter that you've received from attorney Saffron, that was sent to the city
[1:09:34] attorney and to each of you, identify specific brown act and seek evaluations.
[1:09:40] Back-channel communications, off-agenda deliberations, and apparent circumventions of environmental
[1:09:47] review.
[1:09:48] These are statutes enacted to protect the public from exactly this kind of maneuvering.
[1:09:56] Every available legal avenue will be pursued.
[1:10:00] Litigation is not inevitable. This council can withdraw the initiative.
[1:10:04] You can direct staff to identify housing sites that don't require bulldozing nature preserves that voters have already chosen to protect.
[1:10:12] I ask the mayor and each council member once an open space is resowned in developed, it's gone forever.
[1:10:20] Is this the legacy you want?
[1:10:22] Build housing thoughtfully build it.
[1:10:24] Thank you.
[1:10:25] Not on open spaces.
[1:10:27] Thank you.
[1:10:38] It's Jennifer.
[1:10:39] Yes.
[1:10:39] I'm sorry.
[1:10:40] And then followed by ERA.
[1:10:42] Hi there.
[1:10:44] Again, Jennifer comparison.
[1:10:45] Some local environmentalists.
[1:10:47] I've been involved with land use issues in Silicon Valley for 24 years.
[1:10:51] I've been involved with several initiatives in the Bay Area and I watched my late mom create the 2002 open space initiative that protects so key.
[1:11:05] I just had two quick points. Number one, I totally opposed any development on the preserve.
[1:11:12] I believe been in a town with almost 6,000 acres that you can find a few places that are not designated as open space,
[1:11:18] that are not sensitive wildlife habitat and that do not have a creek running through them.
[1:11:24] My other comment was that in the town prior, I believe Mayor Patasia stated something to
[1:11:31] the effect that he believes that the council has not violated seek what.
[1:11:36] Perhaps the town hasn't violated seek what because perhaps the town is trying to avoid
[1:11:42] dealing with seek what. So if you don't want to have an environmental impact report done on
[1:11:48] possible development, that should be an indication to you that the open space preserve is not an appropriate
[1:11:54] location for housing. Thank you.
[1:12:08] I'm Eronangia and I live on Okiflaine. Thanks for giving me the
[1:12:12] chance to voice my opinions. So I had heard rumors of the possibility of Okiflaza being converted into
[1:12:19] housing. Driven by this, I attended the City Council meeting on November 17, and then subsequently
[1:12:26] When we went back and listened to the recordings of the October 29 meeting, I was genuinely surprised
[1:12:32] by the Council's detailed discussion on the next steps.
[1:12:36] They dove into the Mechanics of the Citizens Initiative, discussing the steps to target
[1:12:41] a mid-year or November ballot.
[1:12:43] The Council members even discussed the number of signatures required.
[1:12:47] There was also talk of the advantage of pursuing a Citizens Initiative which would bypass
[1:12:53] in contrast to a council initiative that must adhere to
[1:12:56] the secret. To me, it was evident that this council was eager to
[1:13:00] follow this path and was willing to guide the initiative forward
[1:13:04] as a citizen initiative to facilitate its passage.
[1:13:08] Statements such as, we need to get working an O.Keef right away.
[1:13:13] Do the citizen initiative regarding O.Keef and see if you can get it done
[1:13:17] quickly. Start working on it right away. We can make it happen.
[1:13:22] After listening to their recordings, I find it very hard to believe that the Council did not have a strong hand in this plan.
[1:13:30] This is misleading and unfair to the community.
[1:13:33] If the Council does truly believe removing Oki preserves open space designation, which I strongly believe is a wrong move and shouldn't happen.
[1:13:41] But if they do believe that and subsequently building a housing there, if they think that's a correct policy,
[1:13:48] Then they should follow the correct processes required by the Council's
[1:13:51] sponsor Initiative and go through the whole environmental review.
[1:13:55] Thank you.
[1:13:58] The next three minutes.
[1:13:58] Thank you.
[1:14:00] The next three minutes is Ayam Mathiche and Varsheed.
[1:14:05] Varsheed?
[1:14:13] Hi.
[1:14:14] Good evening.
[1:14:15] My name is Ayam and I am a youth in Los Altos Hills.
[1:14:20] I really love our open spaces.
[1:14:22] They're a part of my everyday life.
[1:14:24] I go running every day on the O.K.'s preserve, and it just really helps me just clear my head, and just really supports my mental well-being.
[1:14:35] So, I've done some research and saw some things about this housing topic.
[1:14:44] I know it's very complex, so I really appreciate everything that you're doing to address this topic.
[1:14:50] One of my main hopes is that there can be a way to have both this-
[1:15:00] Housing and also appreciate the citizens and was just appreciated the open spaces. One thing I know
[1:15:08] is that four open spaces when they are used or they get developed, it's very hard to bring
[1:15:14] back. And I owe key if and other open spaces are, I think, 2% of Los Alto's acreage. There
[1:15:23] a whole other 98% that could be used to help address this issue. So I really appreciate you taking
[1:15:32] the time and helping with this issue. Thank you so much. Thank you, appreciate that.
[1:15:40] Matesh is next.
[1:15:48] Thank you. Hello. Regarding O'Keef, I'm Fashit Jamshirihan and I've lived in
[1:15:56] And I would like to support all the people here who express concern about this proposal
[1:16:11] about my multifamily housing in the open reserve, especially the environmental issues,
[1:16:22] the procedure that he was about going about this proposal and a question of density, especially
[1:16:37] fear about danger that it represents to both drivers and pedestrians, the congestion that it
[1:16:47] process will present this data, not to mention just inconvenience and time delays.
[1:16:55] Thank you.
[1:17:00] Thank you, Council.
[1:17:01] I think we need to be very clear here.
[1:17:03] People should not have to choose between adding housing or preserving an open spaces.
[1:17:11] I think we can and must do both.
[1:17:14] framing by the council that either we build here or there's build as remedy this whole
[1:17:20] scare tactics, and we don't mean housing goals is just a false choice, absolutely false choice.
[1:17:26] You've got several residents like John O'Connell who have proposed a very elegant solution
[1:17:31] with distributed housing, and he's been proposing this for a long time, so I don't know why,
[1:17:36] no one's paying heed here to his sensible housing, and instead of listening to him, here we are
[1:17:44] with the shady unlawful ballot by all of you framing it as a citizen's initiative versus you've
[1:17:50] just totally developed this and we've got like hard evidence. I mean let's not divide us,
[1:17:56] let's not divide and conquer here, we can find a solution together, we are all part of the same town
[1:18:01] and this forcing the straight off divides us our community and undermines trust and I sincerely hope
[1:18:09] We don't do that, it does not get any closer.
[1:18:12] This is going to be a prolonged fight,
[1:18:14] absolute litigation.
[1:18:16] And I think we don't want to choose between either or.
[1:18:19] I think we can find a sensible solution.
[1:18:21] Thank you.
[1:18:24] Next up, I have Christina and Regina.
[1:18:29] So I think that concludes the in person comment cards.
[1:18:34] Hi, my name is Regina Vargas.
[1:18:35] I live at 2.5383 Law of Rental Lane.
[1:18:39] And I came here today with my daughter, Christina, because we are rather concerned about what's happening with our open space over there, not just because it's an open space, which is something that we've made an investment in it as a town for the future of our community that we want to exist in perpetuity and is impossible to get back once it's given up.
[1:19:01] But also, I have to say I've been offended by the way that people went about making this happen.
[1:19:07] This was not a citizen's initiative.
[1:19:09] We don't even have a standing committee to look at housing, which is important.
[1:19:13] I think to everybody in this town, we all know that we have to deal with the housing elements.
[1:19:18] But if we're not taking in the needs and the ones, the community, I'm not sure we're going about it in a right way.
[1:19:25] And it's not just a one-time thing like this is going to continue, housing is going to continue to be an issue for a long, long time of this community.
[1:19:33] The last thing I wanted to say, why is this so personally important to me?
[1:19:38] This is dangerous.
[1:19:39] I don't know how much time you guys have spent over on Lorraine Elaine and over on O'Keefe.
[1:19:45] But it's a one road in one road out space.
[1:19:48] When we had the big fires a few years ago, and we were all waiting to see if we were going to have to evacuate that area.
[1:19:54] It's a lot of cars to get out through there, even with just the 40 homes that we have there now.
[1:20:00] Adding in another 100 homes, 400 people, 200 more cars would be incredibly dangerous.
[1:20:08] A couple of years ago, we had a down power line that started a very small fire across the little bridge by the creek there.
[1:20:14] And we were backed up, stuck in that community, unable to get in and out from most of the day.
[1:20:20] we're talking about from with 11 o'clock in the morning until 8 o'clock at night.
[1:20:24] Couldn't go in now to get food. I had a child that my daughter was babysitting over at our house.
[1:20:30] I couldn't get there and she had an emergency. She was handling a little toddler by herself.
[1:20:36] Again, one road in, one road out, nowhere else to put another egress. I don't think it's safe
[1:20:42] to more than quadruple the number of families that we have living on that one road in, one road out
[1:20:48] Thank you.
[1:20:49] Thank you.
[1:20:52] Hi.
[1:20:53] Thank you.
[1:20:53] Thank you so much for letting me speak.
[1:20:55] I'm Regina's daughter.
[1:20:56] I would just like to say my own personal reasons that I would like to keep helping
[1:21:00] us faces.
[1:21:01] I grew up here on Lava and Elaine.
[1:21:03] I grew up around the wildlife.
[1:21:05] Around the creek.
[1:21:06] I went on walks around the creek with my mom just as a baby with her goats.
[1:21:13] And one of my personal dreams that is that one day I will be able to come back here with my own family and I will be able to show them the open spaces that I grew up with and the beauty that I grew up with.
[1:21:25] I just personally think it's very important that we keep that beauty on.
[1:21:30] Yeah, I just must very important.
[1:21:36] Thank you.
[1:21:38] John,
[1:21:42] I'm not going to speak about O.K.
[1:21:47] We have approximately 16 days and 2 business weeks before January 31st when we have to have completed
[1:21:57] rezoning of our unmet arena.
[1:22:01] We will know by February 10th whether or not HCD is going to
[1:22:06] approve the housing element amendment. We may not know before January 31st.
[1:22:14] I want to just
[1:22:15] your attention to some language from the letter we received on October the 10th.
[1:22:21] The second paragraph says, as of this writing, the town continues to comply with the
[1:22:27] state housing element, law.
[1:22:30] However, this draft amendment may impact HCD's findings, prior findings of substantial compliance.
[1:22:39] The fundamental decision that HCDF to make a determination on is suitability of the site inventory to meet unmet rena.
[1:22:49] I'm not going to comment on that.
[1:22:54] The existing adopted housing element, this is HCD's comment.
[1:22:59] Largely relies on interest from developers or property owners on identified sites to demonstrate
[1:23:05] potential for redevelopment of non-vehkan sites.
[1:23:08] The draft amendment appears to continue this assumption that developers or property owners
[1:23:14] are interested in developing non-vehkan sites.
[1:23:19] We all hope that HCD approves housing element amendment.
[1:23:26] There are consequences, which I hope you understand from those words, if they don't.
[1:23:33] I am concerned, and I have expressed that concern in writing to the town attorney, that we do not have a backup plan, what happens if they do not approve the housing element amendment.
[1:23:46] and does that put us in jeopardy of desertification? I encourage you to both ask the city
[1:23:54] attorney's office for a backup plan and I'm requesting you to adjourn this meeting tonight
[1:24:04] so that you have the opportunity on the Government Code 65583 paragraph F to conclude
[1:24:13] to follow the public talk about this later, John. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure it is
[1:24:19] here. Thank you. Thank you.
[1:24:27] I think we're done with in person. Is it okay if we go to Zoom now?
[1:24:30] Next, first up we have George.
[1:24:34] Last name, Lance. Sorry.
[1:24:37] Yes. Hello. Can you hear me?
[1:24:42] Yes. Okay. Okay. How much time do I have? And this is unrelated issues, correct?
[1:24:48] These are for items not on the agenda you have two minutes.
[1:24:52] Okay, that's great.
[1:24:54] It's a free speech comment and the ADL is trying to silence free speech while they commit genocide.
[1:25:01] This meeting's public comment period is a limited public forum.
[1:25:04] Restricting full virtual public comments because they are not favorable to Israel and the Jews is a viewpoint discrimination.
[1:25:12] is unconstitutional. Supreme Court held in Rosenberger versus University of Virginia, a viewpoint
[1:25:18] discrimination is per se unconstitutional, and the Calvars' Tanne court stated plainly
[1:25:24] that speech that offense is protected. So when people say fuck Israel right now, that is protected
[1:25:28] speech. Government officials may not silence speech simply because it is a uncomfortable heart,
[1:25:35] or unpopular. Someone who said that they weren't so mad at the Holocaust. That actually is
[1:25:41] protective speech if someone said that public comment exists for political criticism.
[1:25:46] It's at the right to put it aside. We're going to stop, right? Are you interrupting me?
[1:25:54] The, he is, he is an executive and I would like to just pause the meeting.
[1:25:59] You can call it our break. You can call it our break. You can call it our break.
[1:26:01] You can call it recess if you like. Let's call it recess. Thank you, okay.
[1:26:10] Mr. Lance, we're going to give you permission to talk and we're going to resume the counter.
[1:26:16] Yeah, I'm here and that's unfortunate you shut down my speech in the middle of a speech.
[1:26:20] This is exactly what this speech is for.
[1:26:23] Will you reset my time?
[1:26:28] Up to the council's discretion.
[1:26:30] No.
[1:26:30] Yeah.
[1:26:31] Okay, well, that's great.
[1:26:32] This is a proving why we need people doing speeches like these.
[1:26:36] The city may regulate conduct, not content.
[1:26:39] Under Brandenburg versus Ohio speech may be restricted.
[1:26:41] Only if it is intended.
[1:26:43] And likely to cause imminent lawless action.
[1:26:45] mere offense anger or controversy is not a disruption.
[1:26:49] When I say fuck the chair for breaking up my free speech, that is my right to do that during this comment.
[1:26:54] Please don't feel your authoritarian urge to mute me like you did again.
[1:26:58] You don't know the constitution and that is what I'm bringing to light here.
[1:27:02] And when you have a demand letter coming in a claim against your city,
[1:27:08] you will find out that free speech is something that people take very seriously.
[1:27:12] Courts have made it clear that manner of expression does not remove constitutional protection, political free speech, does not lose protection because it's profane.
[1:27:20] So when I say fuck Jews for them.
[1:27:27] It may or I just wanted to clarify for the record that each person has two minutes.
[1:27:31] This individual has been given two minutes at a time or cuts out the common at two minutes.
[1:27:35] Thank you, appreciate it.
[1:27:38] Next up, I have X, S, Disake.
[1:27:44] Disake, I'm sorry.
[1:27:45] You are of been promoted to speak.
[1:27:48] Thank you, can you hear me? Yes. Very well. My name is Shervari Dixit and I'm a resident
[1:27:56] of Los Altos Hills, I live on O'Keef Lane. I'm a retired educator and for all the years
[1:28:02] that I taught at the local university, I happened to pass by a family of deer or during the
[1:28:09] daytime, a family of quail and several times, rabbits and raccoons and sometimes even
[1:28:14] about that. And so I love the area that I live in. We have a small creek that is across from
[1:28:23] the water tank on Okiflaine and that's where a lot of the deer are drinking water. So for everything
[1:28:30] that everyone has said here I totally agree we need to preserve our open spaces all over. But what I
[1:28:38] do you want to raise my objection? Will is the process in which the Oki-Fling Preserve was handled
[1:28:45] by the Commission? It was stated that there was a citizen's initiative that was begun
[1:28:51] and that proposal did not come from an open and collaborative planning effort. It was
[1:28:56] being pushed through as a citizen's initiative, written behind closed doors. And for that initiative
[1:29:03] If it would pay over a national preserve, that would be exempting it from the environment review.
[1:29:10] I consider that very outrageous.
[1:29:13] That's all I want to say for this point.
[1:29:15] But thank you for letting me voice my opinion.
[1:29:19] Thank you.
[1:29:21] Next up, Desciel.
[1:29:25] Hello.
[1:29:26] My name is Desciel Leeds.
[1:29:27] I'm the Conservation Coordinator for the Syracloblomer Predator chapter.
[1:29:31] Last week I had the pleasure of visiting the O'Keef Open Space Preserve.
[1:29:34] and it is absolutely beautiful. It has less ecology with the piercimate creek and trees with
[1:29:40] critical habitat. This is the kind of habitat that is rapidly vanishing from the Bay Area.
[1:29:45] Many species rely on wildlife corridors between the Santa Cruz Mountains and the Diablo
[1:29:49] range for sustenance and mobility that allows them to find food and mate with others of their
[1:29:54] species to maintain genetic diversity and we're currently experiencing a wildlife mobility crisis.
[1:30:00] This here in the Bay Area. The Okeef Open Space Reserve is located in close proximity to the Santa Cruz Mountains, making it absolutely essential to preserve for wildlife mobility.
[1:30:10] It's speaking with residents, I heard some wonderful stories of the wildlife they've seen, and you've heard some of these experiences tonight already.
[1:30:16] Local species need wildlife corridors and habitat, like the Okeef Open Space Reserve to survive and thrive, and habitat loss, it's permanent, with far reaching effects impacting wildlife generations into the future.
[1:30:28] O'Keefe is essential for wildlife and its precious to residents.
[1:30:32] The city should continue to protect this and open spaces in Los Alters Hills and find affordable housing solutions in other areas that don't sacrifice the cherished natural areas that were meant to be untouched and perpetuity.
[1:30:44] The city should adhere to CEQA and commit itself to a transparent and collaborative public process that takes into account the input of residents and the value of local ecology.
[1:30:53] Thank you for your time and consideration.
[1:30:56] Thank you.
[1:30:58] Yeah, I think I'm seeing your name right if I'm missing yet, I'm sorry.
[1:31:06] I'm good evening council members. I'm your team mentor and I've been a resident of Los
[1:31:10] Alto zones for over 25 years. A lot of the other residents have talked about the benefits
[1:31:17] of the OQF preserve. I would like to focus on the unlawful activities that certain council members
[1:31:24] I engaged in. And let's be very clear that the plan to reason or key is not a genuine citizen
[1:31:32] initiative. It's a city council member driven plan and it's been attempted to become a
[1:31:41] ballot measure to avoid the responsibility and scrutiny that seek or might bring. It's
[1:31:47] misleading to the voters and it's unfair to the entire community. If the council believes
[1:31:54] that developing the water protected open space, which incidentally is less than 3% of the
[1:32:00] towns' acreage. If you believe you need to develop that without going through the lawfully
[1:32:06] mandated C-pop process, well, can say so openly, the period and stand behind it. Please don't
[1:32:14] hide behind the process that pretends that this came from residents.
[1:32:19] All the voters can tell
[1:32:20] the difference between a grassroots effort and a talk on manure, and that is exactly why
[1:32:25] this measure is not succeeding.
[1:32:31] Finally, I also want to know that despite the demand that
[1:32:34] her can be sent to the city on the 16th of December, certain members of the council continue
[1:32:42] to act and take unlawful steps after the letter was sent.
[1:32:48] And that process just really brings
[1:32:51] the amount of respect and confidence one can have in the council. Thank you.
[1:33:00] anybody else? One other I have Mr. Martin Luther.
[1:33:12] Yeah you'd seem to cut the gentleman off earlier
[1:33:14] because he was speaking about something that you didn't like and I wanted to call and tell you that
[1:33:21] as a resident of this area for a long time I would say that that's beneath our local government for
[1:33:30] a gentleman from another place that doesn't really know the rules to be cutting off our citizens
[1:33:36] And that's a problem with some of the local sort of people that founded and, you know, 90% of the fighters in World War II that happened to be of, you know, the similar European stock.
[1:33:51] And we see our country being run by different people for different places and ethnicities and a lot of times aren't smart enough or educated enough to know how to uphold the most basic
[1:34:05] fundamental God-given rights that aren't given to us by any woman with Afro-puffs or any
[1:34:12] boomer with the bow tie. It's important that you restrain yourselves and allow your
[1:34:18] public to speak and when people call in and you cut them off, you set yourself up for claims against
[1:34:26] your city and that's happened over and over again. People value the first amendment and even though
[1:34:34] I want to shut down free speech so that they can commit financial fraud, pedophilia and genocide in front of the world's eyes and get away with it.
[1:34:43] And they fund all the politics with the APAC and they intimidate free speech with the anti-deformation league.
[1:34:50] And they've convinced your board that you should shut down free speech for your virtue points when someone says a word you don't like.
[1:34:58] I applaud you for hearing this speech out.
[1:35:00] I think you guys are learning and it's important to allow alternative viewpoints.
[1:35:06] This is not a Marxist boomer, Kijk, group think.
[1:35:12] Thank you.
[1:35:18] No further comments, Mayor.
[1:35:20] Thank goodness.
[1:35:23] We will now close public comment.
[1:35:25] And my I regret some of the language, I mean we all have free speech but I think it's important to be respectful and open-minded about people from all backgrounds.
[1:35:42] So with that let's move on. Next item on the agenda is community development director's report.
[1:35:52] we decided earlier in the meeting to move this up because it's probably an item of white interest.
[1:36:00] So with that, I'd like to turn it over to our community development director, Jay Bradford.
[1:36:07] Thank you, Mayor.
[1:36:08] May I interrupt just to clarify, because we have so many people here that have spoken up about the
[1:36:12] O'Keefe issue.
[1:36:13] Well, I'm sorry, yeah.
[1:36:14] I was going to ask if the city attorney would like to offer her perspective on what
[1:36:22] some of the concerns that we've heard from residents about the O'Keefe property.
[1:36:26] Get mayor earlier in the meeting. I did a reporting from the special meeting that the council had earlier
[1:36:32] and you consider an item related to the Manlutter and the item staff report it gives an account
[1:36:40] of the council's process and the procedures that I went through and and discussing the O'Keefe
[1:36:48] property and the related initiative measure information and the Demia letter makes some similar
[1:36:55] allegations of some of the comments race night there is a brown act violation we disagree
[1:36:59] the facts in the report show that there is not actually any violation and so just for the
[1:37:06] benefit of the public who wasn't here for that report there was a special meeting the council
[1:37:10] did consider the issues that was raised.
[1:37:17] May I also add that the item that's moved forward for
[1:37:20] the community development director is of interest. I would think of the people that are here to
[1:37:25] who had a comment about O'Keefe. So in case you were thinking of getting up and leaving,
[1:37:29] just wanted to.
[1:37:30] Let you know the general nature of the presentation.
[1:37:34] Madam materney, could you also speak to the issue of a citizens initiative versus a council initiative?
[1:37:41] I think many people who raised that issue as well.
[1:37:44] Yeah, so the generally under state law of the ballot measure can be initiated by the government
[1:37:51] body of a city or can be initiated by the voters. It is the law that if the council initiates
[1:37:59] the initiative, it's on the ballot that requires a secret bit of assistance initiative. It does not.
[1:38:06] But the law is also very clear. It draws a distinction between informational activities.
[1:38:13] That's for any activity. In fact, that's carried on before the measure is actually certified in place on
[1:38:19] ballot by city council. And if the residents or the citizens wanted to do the same thing
[1:38:26] in place, the measure on the ballot, they have to go through a process for it to make it
[1:38:31] onto the ballot. And as I noted earlier, the staff report in the other items, no, so there
[1:38:37] is no action by the council to certify measures. So there is nothing, there is no measure
[1:38:42] on the ballot by the council. I believe when I spoke to the city attorney
[1:38:48] matters earlier that, and correct me, if this is not in line with the way you understand it,
[1:38:56] the activity that we engaged in in terms of reviewing potential ballot language and discussing
[1:39:04] that with staff or with residents, that does not constitute a council, ballot measure or a council
[1:39:13] initiated measure. That's just informational discussions that we are having that are, of course,
[1:39:20] known to the public. Is that correct? That is correct. The law and also case false court decisions
[1:39:26] are also very clear that the certification of the ballot or the measure to be on the ballot is
[1:39:32] when it becomes a ballot. So the activities are before that the council, it is appropriate of the council
[1:39:37] to engage in them. Could you refer to the Southern California ruling on this topic?
[1:39:42] Yes, so this is the case out of Santa Barbara with respect to the County Transportation Commission.
[1:39:50] Thank you. I think sorry for keeping you waiting.
[1:39:54] Director Bradford please go ahead with your presentation.
[1:39:57] Thank you, Mayor.
[1:39:58] The topic for the Director's report was two items.
[1:40:01] One related to a refunds which I'll come to and the latter half of the update and the first half was
[1:40:08] really to give the public large as we're moving through the housing element and
[1:40:14] an implementation, some understanding of where some of the submittals that we've put
[1:40:17] through and the later part of last year in December in submittals to HDD.
[1:40:24] And some of the things that we've heard back from HDD and from other advocates within
[1:40:29] the community and in particular one of the property owners specifically and some
[1:40:35] applications that they've submitted to the town, but also to HCD.
[1:40:40] This is going to be the first of a series of SB 330 applications that we'll be looking
[1:40:45] at tonight.
[1:40:46] We've collected these from the property owner over the course of last year, and this is really
[1:40:54] the first point in time, where because of the nature of the housing element amendment and
[1:40:59] we're at in timing that we wanted to share that with the public and then ultimately bring the
[1:41:05] housing limit back for a discussion at our February 10th meeting if not before. So with that,
[1:41:11] I'm going to share a presentation that gives a little bit of background on what HCD received
[1:41:18] from the property owner as well as town staff.
[1:41:25] Today we've received six applications. The first
[1:41:28] application was withdrawn, so this slide is focusing on the five active applications that we have.
[1:41:35] We received two applications roughly around the same time in August and September of last year
[1:41:42] that we're looking at development on the piece of our current housing element multifamily
[1:41:49] site of Twin Oaks. That proposal showed 304 units being developed over the entirety of the six
[1:41:59] parcels that are part of that. And we'll give some images associated with this so people can
[1:42:04] really understand kind of what the the owner is thinking as far as unit density units facing
[1:42:10] unit size and some of those other things to give a better characteristic of what these proposals look
[1:42:16] The September application increased the number of dwelling units to 348, but it did spread it across both the twin-of-site and the neighbor to the, I believe it's the south in a property known as sea landing or the former Finland property.
[1:42:36] The most recent applications we've received have come from the end of this year, all three
[1:42:43] received on December 31st.
[1:42:46] The first application received was specific to Twin Oaks and Twin Oaks solely, and it showed
[1:42:54] for the six parcels that are currently in existence a unit per parcel, so six units in total.
[1:43:00] So, the remaining two focused either between the twin oak site in some way reserving portions
[1:43:12] of lot four and five, but then focusing mainly on development for the Finwick site.
[1:43:17] And we had a 98 unit proposal which included single family with multi family and a 12 unit
[1:43:23] proposal of just single family homes.
[1:43:26] So, this is the first, may I just make one clarification, if you go back to the previous slide.
[1:43:34] Some of these are alternatives and some of these can be done together, right?
[1:43:42] So, maybe we just want to be really clear about which ones are either or and which ones are sort of potentially individual or additive, right?
[1:43:52] Thank you.
[1:43:53] Yeah, and so when we look at and into to the mayor's point when we look at these sites
[1:43:59] there's we've done reviews for all of the applications at this point.
[1:44:03] We have preliminary out preliminary applications, we've responded to the first two in this list
[1:44:09] with a notice of not non conformity or non-completeness with comments that we still have not received comments back from the applicant on.
[1:44:21] We're in the process of providing comments as it relates to completeness for the last three in this list.
[1:44:32] And so when we look at the actual makeup of the sites, what you'll see is that this really, in this picture,
[1:44:42] the site is the six units that are six parcels that are the twin oak site with the units
[1:44:49] distributed really across the board.
[1:44:54] And I would note that our housing element suggests that the
[1:44:57] The Twin Oak site holds 92 units, so...
[1:45:00] And that proposal, even with density bonuses, the threshold associated with that particular plan,
[1:45:09] would exceed what our housing element would suggest.
[1:45:13] One other thing that might be helpful to some of the residents, which may be not all of them are
[1:45:18] aware of what an SB 330 does. Perhaps you could just spend a minute going over that.
[1:45:24] Yeah, thank you for that, Mayor. So an SB 330 application is an opportunity for a property
[1:45:29] on or to vest in regulations at a point in time, as well as fees and other programs that may
[1:45:38] be in existence. So if a property, much as the twin oaks property is, which is currently
[1:45:46] residential construction or was previously residential construction in an RAA zoning,
[1:45:52] it would allow a primary dwelling and then JADU's ADU. So you could have up to four units on those sites
[1:46:00] As we move through the rezoning process, which we've recently done for the Twin Oak site,
[1:46:06] we move to a different land use, we move to multi-family.
[1:46:10] And we erode the underlying RA zoning, meaning only the multi-family zoning exists.
[1:46:17] While the SB 330 application, if it was applied for during the time where the property was zoned RA,
[1:46:24] It would preserve the right to continue to develop, even after the rezoning has happened under the RA.
[1:46:32] If they applied after, it would apply then the multifamily standards.
[1:46:38] And it would vest fees and other things associated with multifamily.
[1:46:44] So with that, these applications are really trying to preserve what our regulations are at a point in time for the benefit of a property owner.
[1:46:51] And they can be used as tools in negotiations as we go through what the actual development
[1:47:00] of a project looks like, assuming that the application becomes complete and that the application
[1:47:07] then is compliant and that we would look at that through the lens of the regulations that
[1:47:14] applied to that particular application at the time it was received.
[1:47:18] So back to the five applications that we've currently got, this is the second one that came from September and it shows a utilization of both the twin oak site and then wraps into the Fenwick site.
[1:47:35] Right now the twin oak site is the only site that is within the housing element.
[1:47:39] So any additional development within the Finwick would need the similar level of regulatory approvals that we had just gone through for the Twin Oaks site to convert it from the residential to multi-family.
[1:47:54] So, you'd need a general plan amendment for the housing element, you'd need a land use
[1:47:59] element amendment, and then depending on the topography and the make-up, could need additional
[1:48:07] zoning requirement specific to that site as well as objective design standards.
[1:48:15] Now we're getting into the most current applications.
[1:48:20] It's very difficult to see within this application where parcel lines are, but you can kind
[1:48:25] make out where these boxes are with the little squares in the corners. Each one of these is a unit
[1:48:30] basically tied to an existing parcel. So you'll see that there are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 units.
[1:48:40] So this would represent an opportunity where the property owners looking to invest that R-ray zoning.
[1:48:49] It's just for information one at a random set.
[1:48:55] We don't quite know that they say if you zoom in that there are some agricultural pad I believe.
[1:49:03] I can't do that. I'll look it up.
[1:49:05] Yeah.
[1:49:09] The next application, what you see is the preservation of a future site, which are lots four and five,
[1:49:18] preserving lots six and potentially having some level of development on lock six for the Twin Oak site.
[1:49:26] But the majority of this is focused on a 98 units, six of which are single family and then the
[1:49:34] remainder would be multi-family. And again, you know, we see potential issues here from a compliance
[1:49:41] perspective because things have set back things of that nature aren't really demonstrated here
[1:49:46] specifically.
[1:49:49] And then maybe I add just a comment here because I think it gets very complicated
[1:49:54] if you're just seeing this for the first time. The mayor earlier said that some of these
[1:49:58] you could do more than one, but this one has a very key potential premise to it and that is
[1:50:04] it exchanges on the left Williamson Act line for that on the right. So it means in effect
[1:50:10] you could not do this and one of those with the, you know, it's development that we saw earlier.
[1:50:15] Yeah, that's correct. The Williamson Act does constrain the property to some degree.
[1:50:22] If a property owner was looking to remove the Williamson Act,
[1:50:25] there's really two ways that they can do that.
[1:50:28] They can submit a notice of non-renewal followed by a notice of termination.
[1:50:36] If that is the case, then the property would go through an assessment
[1:50:39] and then be put into an escalating path within the tax assessment that the property on it would be responsible for.
[1:50:49] The alternative would be that they would request from the City Council and it would be at the Council's discretion,
[1:50:56] whether or not to allow for a potential swap of lands that are currently in the Williams and Act for lands outside of the Williams and Act.
[1:51:08] And for me, currently all of the Fenwick property, as it's referred to, this is kind of this U-shaped land, which right now has homes and multi-family housing on the left, goes around, I think, a property on the top.
[1:51:29] So that whole area with all the contours, that is protected by the Williamson Act currently.
[1:51:37] And under this proposal, the intent is to take 9.6 acres from out of that Williamson Act and exchange it for 9.6 acres on the Twinox parcel.
[1:51:51] Is that correct?
[1:51:53] Yeah, you'll see here at the bottom there's some notes that may suggest that, maybe in the application it's not as specific.
[1:52:05] And then the last development that we see includes 12 units, very clearly there's 11 on the left side of the screen somewhere in the remainder here.
[1:52:18] We assume there's another unit to be able to bring the total of 12.
[1:52:23] This is, while the Williamson Act does apply to this parcel, it could be...
[1:52:30] Essentially, the contract be terminated and could be subject for development under RA standards. Right now, it is zoned RA. We would then apply our existing zoning standards, though, for residential, which would make us look to see if our left standards are MDA and MFA requirements are being met.
[1:52:54] When we've seen prior applications for subdivision of this particular property,
[1:52:59] we've noted that there's much larger plots that are needed and a checker boarding of the property to be able to maintain the minimum
[1:53:10] lot's sizes that we require in town.
[1:53:13] But this could be a potential application that could move forward under the right circumstances.
[1:53:19] And if I'm not mistaken, the large area on the right side is labeled locked 12, and it's hard to read, but it says Reconfigured Williamson Act Farm locked, so it looks like that is the 12th parcel.
[1:53:37] Though the unit is not necessarily particularly highlighted correctly.
[1:53:40] Yeah.
[1:53:44] And so that concludes what we've seen of materials from HCD related to the particular
[1:53:54] applications. Obviously town staff will be looking at these applications and responding to
[1:54:02] HCD to make sure that we address any concerns that we see as it relates to our request for the
[1:54:10] housing element amendment.
[1:54:15] On another topic. One more. So we have to keep this.
[1:54:18] Yes. City manager. If somebody would like more information about these SB 330 applications,
[1:54:28] would they submit a PRA with the contact city clerk? How would they go about that?
[1:54:32] Yes. These are public records. So they are available to be viewed in town hall,
[1:54:36] or if you would like copies of them, you could go through a PRA process and we'll be able to distribute them to you.
[1:54:41] Thank you.
[1:54:47] The last update that I had. We've had a series of discussions in close session
[1:54:53] that we've been reported out as it relates to a refund process. The town staff is happy to
[1:55:00] announce that we've processed the requests and that we'll be sitting out the first mailing this week.
[1:55:17] Should we move to public comment?
[1:55:22] Well, that was the end of the director's report. So we're going
[1:55:25] back to item number four, then on the agenda.
[1:55:28] Is there a comments, Mary?
[1:55:29] Yeah, we should take public comments.
[1:55:31] Oh, public comment on that.
[1:55:32] I'll talk back here
[1:55:41] to the best of my knowledge.
[1:55:43] We decoupled the issue of the C landing property and twin outs.
[1:55:48] I think sometime in 2020, kind of.
[1:55:51] So I'm very confused as to what's going on here.
[1:55:56] To also to the best of my knowledge that we have already
[1:56:00] resumed lots 4, 5 and 6 to be multifamily and that doesn't include any R.A. And as such,
[1:56:10] none of that land can be done through a lot of line adjustment under the Williams an act.
[1:56:16] So again, I'm kind of confused.
[1:56:20] My understanding also is that whilst HCD may question whether
[1:56:25] not the land that we've resumed in their viewpoint is compliant with state law in terms
[1:56:32] of meeting on Metreena. The question over whether or not the council has the police power to
[1:56:40] resound it, I don't think is in any question. So I'm really having difficulty. I seal the pictures
[1:56:50] But I'm kind of confused as to what is going on.
[1:56:55] If there's a request for a Williamson Act adjustment, I believe the first step is that a
[1:57:02] notice has to be filed of a non-intention to renew and that starts a ten-year clock of adjusting
[1:57:10] from the current rates to what the county assessor determines to be the final rates.
[1:57:15] That is necessary before the Williamson Act contract could be either cancelled or changed
[1:57:20] into a new Williamson Act contract.
[1:57:23] So I don't know, I don't know, I don't know how you're going to respond to HDD on this,
[1:57:28] but it seems to be coming from a very confused perspective.
[1:57:34] If I've missed anything in this game,
[1:57:39] but it just doesn't seem to make any sense.
[1:57:42] Thank you.
[1:57:47] Anybody else online?
[1:57:50] All right.
[1:57:51] We close public comment.
[1:57:54] And the next item on the agenda is item four informational reports, this is just purely for information, the council, if there's any questions, staff can answer them, but we can move on to the next item of the consent calendar.
[1:58:13] Okay. Are there any public comments on the information reports?
[1:58:20] Okay. Seeing none. Let's move on to the consent calendar.
[1:58:24] Would anybody like to remove any items from the consent calendar?
[1:58:29] But I can move to approve the consent calendar if they're not objections.
[1:58:34] I would second that. Can we get public comments? Okay. Can we get any public comments on the consent calendar?
[1:58:53] Congrats on the audit, I noticed some errors, I noticed you uploaded a new audit report after the one that you uploaded on Friday or whenever.
[1:59:04] But it was hard to tell what change between the first one and the second one, I would appreciate some sort of red line on the act for.
[1:59:13] And that's also mentioned that three of your retiring in 2029 determines in 2029, which would be wrong so you should fix that.
[1:59:20] There's probably other areas as well, but who else? Thank you.
[1:59:31] Any others?
[1:59:35] No comment on Zoom here.
[1:59:37] Okay, well then let's close public comment.
[1:59:41] I did pass along some corrections to the city manager earlier.
[1:59:46] I think you may have made that as well.
[1:59:49] Okay, let's take it to a vote.
[1:59:55] That's a number mark.
[1:59:57] Yes.
[1:59:57] Tell us a number swine.
[2:00:01] Yes, visual, yes.
[2:00:04] I also remember Tonka? Yes. Vice Mayor Tyson? Yes. Mayor Patasia? Yes. Thank you, Mayor.
[2:00:11] I did want to say that on item 5I, there was an opportunity for us to write for certain grants to get more revenue for some of the pavement rehabilitation.
[2:00:28] Unfortunately, we didn't do that. I would ask the public works director to pay particular attention
[2:00:35] to that next time. I don't like leaving money on the table. So I understand it's a little bit
[2:00:41] of work, but at least if you don't plan to do that, appreciate a heads up as to why before finding
[2:00:49] all of the back end. So thank you. Thank you.
[2:00:56] Okay. Next item on the agenda is item 6A,
[2:01:02] discussion and possible direction on terminating the agreement with flock safety for the
[2:01:06] towns automatic places plate reader system. Is there a staff report? Yes, thank you, Mayor.
[2:01:14] So this evening, this item was agenda is a belief back in either October or November to come after
[2:01:22] the new year. And so this is why we are discussing this item this evening.
[2:01:28] So a little bit more
[2:01:29] as to why the council had directed staff to bring this forward for those who have been paying
[2:01:35] attention to some of the allegations in the news. Fox, the protocol and how they protect their
[2:01:41] the data has been questioned. There have been allegations into their potential sharing of data
[2:01:50] with the federal government through the ALPR system,
[2:01:55] possible involvement with ICE,
[2:01:58] multiple jurisdictions across the nation have
[2:02:02] either positive re-evaluated their agreements with flock
[2:02:05] for the use of ALPR systems in their municipalities.
[2:02:09] For instance, I have not done a thorough job
[2:02:12] in finding every city out there,
[2:02:14] but I've seen that Austin Eugene Denver Flagstaff
[2:02:17] and most recently just this past Wednesday
[2:02:19] Santa Cruz all terminated their agreements with flock, and so that's why we're having the discussion this evening.
[2:02:30] So this is just a little overview about the history of the flock contract with the town began in March 18,
[2:02:37] back in 2021 when the town put together an ALPR policy, moving forward through time.
[2:02:44] The council approved 40 ALPR cameras. At the beginning it was a pilot period where we wanted to see
[2:02:51] just how the system worked. It was a 60 day no cost contract, but after that pilot period,
[2:02:58] the council continued the use. We concluded our first contract with Flock and had a larger review in
[2:03:11] in 2025 for a three-year contract, excuse me, five-year contract, reducing the cameras from
[2:03:17] 40 down to 31 at an annual cost of $93,000. The current contract will end, it's aligned with
[2:03:24] the fiscal year, so it's at the end, June 30th of 2026, and each term of that five years is the
[2:03:31] fiscal year.
[2:03:34] Here is a map of the 31 cameras in town, the difference of the prior map to this map
[2:03:41] as we removed nine of the interior cameras and kept the entrances to town or all of those locations
[2:03:50] of the cameras were.
[2:03:55] Here are some screenshots from the the sheriff's monthly report.
[2:04:00] I have only taken out the burglary data and I have the month and year and totals going back to
[2:04:07] 2014. So if you just look at the bold numbers on the right, the last column and just go down,
[2:04:12] You could kind of see the EBS and flows of when we were increasing a decreasing, but if we
[2:04:18] look more recently at the very bottom of the 2025, we ended the month of December with
[2:04:23] three for a year and total at 16.
[2:04:26] It was down from the 2024 and at 20, and then it will are large year and 2023 at 60.
[2:04:36] I just wanted to give a little bit of background into the usage of the LPR system in town.
[2:04:42] that you have seen this graph this table before,
[2:04:45] they will update is the last row showing 20, 25 data.
[2:04:51] These are just different categories of what
[2:04:53] where the sheriff has actually used the LPR system
[2:04:57] to either locate stolen vehicles,
[2:04:59] recovered stolen license plates, given a rest,
[2:05:05] or more insurved, this is not an all-inclusive list.
[2:05:09] the LPR system has also been used in finding a male theft and just, or even I think maybe one missing person's event.
[2:05:19] So, it's not only just residential burglary and then specifically though for solving residential burglary the last two points.
[2:05:28] In 2023, it was used in partnership with the Aurenda Police Department to actually give a direct connection to solving that case, and in 2025, one other residential burglary case, specifically at a construction site, the LPR system in town was crucial in helping solve that case.
[2:05:54] So that now we're bringing it to the discussion of our neighboring cities.
[2:05:59] So whatever neighboring cities done recently around us with their discussions of the
[2:06:03] flock camera.
[2:06:03] So in East Palau to an Oakland, both in just recently in December at the end of the year,
[2:06:09] both of those city councils had a discussion about what they wanted to do with their agreement
[2:06:14] with flock.
[2:06:15] And it all stemmed around data privacy concerns, the allegations of connections with flock,
[2:06:22] everything that we're going to be discussing this evening.
[2:06:23] East Palo Alto decided to renew their agreement with Flock and use the standard contract terms
[2:06:31] Oakland. They also decided to renew their agreement with Flock, but they gave new additions to the contract
[2:06:40] that put parameters around data privacy, how the data could be used in a national look-up
[2:06:48] feature within the flock portal. So there were a lot of specific points that that city council wanted to put in.
[2:06:57] I mentioned earlier the city of Santa Cruz just this week had similar discussion. I think it was
[2:07:02] over a three hour discussion they had for their their town or their city. But they ended up
[2:07:08] citing to terminate or excuse me not renew I should specify because they were coming up to the
[2:07:12] end of their contract term and so the council decided not to renew and so they terminated their
[2:07:18] involved in a flock.
[2:07:22] Just last night, the technology committee met to discuss their
[2:07:27] opinion on the flock contract, and it was a...
[2:07:30] Very in-depth conversation about data privacy concerns about how to encrypt data in the electronic keys and servers and just show the great wealth of knowledge that we have on the technology committee, but they ultimately decided that they wanted more time to talk specifically with flock if the council should so allow to be able to help them enhance their data privacy structure of their service so that they could protect the data more.
[2:08:00] So that was the motion that was passed
[2:08:01] at the technology committee meeting.
[2:08:06] We look at it as a fiscal impact.
[2:08:08] So the town has 31 cameras at an annual cost of $31,
[2:08:12] excuse me, $91,000.
[2:08:14] $93, $93, that's a type on 93.
[2:08:17] Our five-year contract is comprised of five
[2:08:20] one-year terms each aligned with the fiscal year,
[2:08:23] the contract ends in 20, 20, it's excuse me, 2030.
[2:08:28] And I just say that aligns with the fiscal year.
[2:08:30] We pay up front.
[2:08:31] So we have already paid for the current fiscal year, and to exit the contract, we need a 30 day
[2:08:37] written notice for the end of the current terms, or well before that, I would be 30 days before June 30th.
[2:08:47] Sequetia had a question, this cost of $90,000 is very misleading, because we also pay
[2:08:54] hundreds of thousands dollars to the sheriff's department to interpret the data on the LPR.
[2:08:59] So it's not just 90,000. It's also the 200,300,000, 300,000. I'm not sure it is, but it's a big number.
[2:09:06] We spend that because the shares department has to go in and, you know, every time it's a hit, they have to look at it.
[2:09:13] You do bring up a good point. Yes, there is some involvement with the sheriff whenever there is an investigation going on. They will charge their hours for that specific case against their contracting payments for them.
[2:09:25] What I was speaking about on the past slide was specifically for
[2:09:28] proponents to flock, but you do bring up a good point that that is connected.
[2:09:32] But the bigger question is, what is, what are the ALPR's costing us?
[2:09:37] And what are we getting back at return?
[2:09:38] That's the analysis that needs to be done.
[2:09:41] That level.
[2:09:41] That one may be spent elsewhere.
[2:09:43] What's the return on investment?
[2:09:44] Yes, I understand the question.
[2:09:46] You're asking that level of specificity into the specific
[2:09:49] hours of the usage of the flux system in the category of investigative services in the share of
[2:09:54] supportment has not been provided to us, but it's something that we could ask about what how many
[2:09:59] hours it's specifically are they using when they're logging onto the system. I think they're
[2:10:03] in the 200,000 range.
[2:10:09] Any other question on that topic or moving on? I come forward with six options
[2:10:15] that you could consider. We could have no change in continue the service. We can reduce the number of
[2:10:21] in town from the current 31 to any number so the council chooses, we could decide not to renew the
[2:10:27] cameras into the fiscal years. So we'll have the service through the period that we have already
[2:10:33] paid for, which would be June 30th. We could cancel the contract immediately and extract them
[2:10:38] to turn off the cameras and just eat that song cost for what we paid. We could do something similar
[2:10:43] to what the city of Saratobid doesn't they actually allow the residents themselves fund for the
[2:10:49] And so if there are some residents in town that do want to have cameras,
[2:10:55] we could look to our neighboring city as a benchmark and come up with a program to be able to fund them.
[2:10:59] That's an option we could explore further.
[2:11:02] Or number six and this came just from last night.
[2:11:05] We could allow the technology community to work further with flock to try to improve their data security.
[2:11:11] That's the end of my presentation.
[2:11:12] I will actually actually do have some a couple of cameras on private property in town.
[2:11:18] Yes, we do.
[2:11:19] I was right now.
[2:11:20] We could expand that program, advertise it, to engage those residents that's so wish
[2:11:25] to you do that.
[2:11:26] Thank you.
[2:11:27] One more question.
[2:11:29] So I think whatever decision we make, while they're the social justice component to it
[2:11:35] in terms of the data breaches, there's also the impact in terms of town safety, I feel the decision
[2:11:42] to continue and not continue needs to be taken holistically in the context of public
[2:11:48] safety. So the sheriff has already indicated to us that our costs of enforcement is going to
[2:11:55] go up by like a million dollars, maybe it's going to go up substantially. The question is, where will
[2:12:01] that tax dollars best be makes sense? So how much should be said? How much should be sending on
[2:12:07] private control? How much should we send on the sheriff's contract? How much on flat? Where should
[2:12:13] spent. I think to make a decision just on this may not make sense, I think it needs to be
[2:12:19] more holistic decision. And you do bring up a good point. I would also echo what you're saying.
[2:12:25] It advised the council to think of it as the full public safety approach. All those aspects
[2:12:30] I would even add are another tier of that the neighborhood watch program, all of that even
[2:12:35] that's a minimal expense. It's part of our strategy in addressing crime in town. I think I think
[2:12:41] that altogether.
[2:12:44] I fall back on this is brought up because of the allegations against them,
[2:12:50] but I agree with what you're saying.
[2:12:55] Linda, go ahead.
[2:12:56] I think one more option to consider is to, if we want to cancel the try to get our money back,
[2:13:06] because flock over and over again has said that our data is secure, it's not shared with anyone else,
[2:13:16] it's private. And that was one of the big selling points for going ahead with this in the first place.
[2:13:25] I know I assured our residents that it would not violate their privacy, the data would stay with the sheriff,
[2:13:35] But now we find out that that's not really true, and so I feel that they have been
[2:13:42] deceptive in that.
[2:13:46] I think that that is a valid reason for invalidating the contract if
[2:13:53] that's what we want to do. I think that's something we really should consider.
[2:14:00] And I think we refer to this as a data breach. I don't think it's a data breach to the data
[2:14:06] sharing with ICE. There's a big difference. So they can fortify their systems so that there's
[2:14:16] no more data breach, but what happens with the essential sharing? That's the difference.
[2:14:21] And that's what is happening here. But generally, when companies have data breaches, they end up
[2:14:28] for it. You know, you get some money from Google or from different companies to punish them for
[2:14:38] allowing a data breach. So if if luck has allowed it, then maybe we should get our money back
[2:14:45] as a penalty for them not being careful with their data like they should have been.
[2:14:53] Mayor, I'm eager to offer my comments, but I do believe that we should focus. If we focus on questions
[2:14:58] Now I would like to hear from...
[2:15:00] The public and then I would like to give my hearts and do it in that order. I haven't spoken yet.
[2:15:05] Oh, wait. All right. Let's take public comment.
[2:15:15] I just have my two cents. It just seems like flock is a little archaic. Even for our residential now since the last 12 months we moved forward with cameras where AI is doing half of the work.
[2:15:29] So if the cost is not just of the cameras but also the sheriff's department's best, spending hours trying to look at that.
[2:15:36] I think maybe the technology committee should be given some leverage to look at what other options are available
[2:15:44] because AI is solving a lot of that work in the back.
[2:15:49] And I do believe as residents it was better for us to have the cameras.
[2:15:53] I know that we have Lidicoat Circle, which
[2:15:56] has teps all the time, and they were super happy
[2:15:59] to have the cameras.
[2:16:01] Friends on that street, we have planes on it,
[2:16:03] and they were really happy.
[2:16:04] But I think this is not a data breach,
[2:16:07] and I don't know how we can solve
[2:16:11] when some big committee asks for that data
[2:16:14] where nobody can refuse.
[2:16:16] So that's the problem we are having.
[2:16:18] We need a data which nobody can get out of that system.
[2:16:22] I
[2:16:25] have a lot in the outcomes.
[2:16:38] I have a presentation if you give me the time to present it.
[2:16:42] I would highly appreciate that.
[2:16:44] Would the council like to extend time for Mr. Ranganathan for five minutes?
[2:16:51] We have five minutes, sir.
[2:16:53] Okay.
[2:16:54] Rush.
[2:17:00] Yes.
[2:17:01] Wrong word.
[2:17:06] Okay. Let's go to the next slide.
[2:17:09] Thank you, council member Tanka for saying, not data breach, but active data sharing.
[2:17:16] So what we have is, Flock has been sharing our data.
[2:17:19] It's been reported extensively with an entire alphabet soup of federal agencies.
[2:17:25] Next slide please.
[2:17:29] And it's not just federal agencies.
[2:17:31] The state of Texas used it to track someone who went across state lines for an abortion.
[2:17:39] We here obviously believe women have the right of abortion and we don't want people being tracked.
[2:17:43] They were doing that. People going to knocking protests have been tracked. People going to a
[2:17:49] rainy good protest tracked.
[2:17:52] Ex-girlfriend was in a different place tracked. Next slide, please.
[2:18:00] The current administration
[2:18:01] has been punishing people for having the wrong opinion about current events.
[2:18:06] Flock has a feature that will let you search by bumper sticker.
[2:18:12] So it will literally track who has the wrong opinion on Israel,
[2:18:17] whether wrong opinion on Charlie Kirk and this can be recognized.
[2:18:21] So we're not just talking about the other anymore.
[2:18:26] We're talking about look around here.
[2:18:28] You have natural license and yesterday or a couple days ago the president or someone said they would
[2:18:34] naturalized people who have the wrong political opinion.
[2:18:41] Next slide please. So maybe it's
[2:18:43] just happening in Kansas, Texas, all the red seats, what it happened here, right? This is
[2:18:47] California, area, we are all very, very, very advanced here in these things. Guess what? Next
[2:18:56] slide please. We're not just talking about legal access where flock gave them the data. We're talking
[2:19:05] But cases where parcels were stolen from cops in the new, new, new, new, new, new, new, new.
[2:19:11] But cases where parcels were taken off the dark web, where cops had somehow had malware and got phished or whatever.
[2:19:19] Next slide, please.
[2:19:22] Or the last year, I've been trying to find out how secure is our installation of lock.
[2:19:27] Because finally, that's what matters to us here.
[2:19:30] I've made lots of CPR requests to the, to the sheriff's department.
[2:19:36] So, we said we only want to share data within our county.
[2:19:41] It's clearly it appears that searches have been made out of out of the county.
[2:19:45] Next slide, our agreement with the sheriff and California law are very clear.
[2:19:49] Every time a search is made, you should have a good valid reason, which means a case number or a suspect's name.
[2:19:58] A majority, the plurality of the search is just a investigation.
[2:20:02] California AG, Bonta has been very clear, you can't say that.
[2:20:05] have to have a reason, but these are the kinds of reasons you find. I ask them who are the people
[2:20:11] who are access to our flux system. Why does the deputy director of county communications need to know
[2:20:18] who's traveling where? It's unclear. I ask them what training are you giving the people who use this?
[2:20:26] I did not get a response. I noticed an hour ago that there was some response in my email,
[2:20:31] not had a chance to look at it. But it's clear that oversight is lacking. Next slide please.
[2:20:39] We had told them that we won't audits done every year. California law requires audits done every
[2:20:44] year. I asked for the audits. We should have four of five audits by now. I was sent an audit trail.
[2:20:50] I was sent every search that was done. This was not an audit. It's like you guys asked for a financial
[2:20:54] audit and they just give you every financial transaction that's been done over the last year.
[2:20:59] That's not an art, that's just a bookkeeping. Next slide please. The thing is there is no way we can have oversight or what the sheriff is doing.
[2:21:11] Flock is not credible at all, so let's work with Flock and let's find a way to make this more reliable, more secure.
[2:21:19] doesn't work. Flock has changed answer multiple times just over the last year. It started out with
[2:21:25] we are not cooperating with anyone, we are not cooperating with every federal department that is.
[2:21:35] And finally, the feds have subpoena power, right? So, at any time they can get what they want. Next slide please.
[2:21:44] And then it comes to consumer-matankos question. Is it worth it? You spent at least a half million dollars over the last five years.
[2:21:50] Apparently, you had two, a rest based on it, like we could have paid those people that money and they would have been happy.
[2:21:59] I mean, what are we spending our money on? Think about not just financial costs, but the cost to all the people around us.
[2:22:07] You know, grandmas going to protest, trying to get driving to school with the wrong bumper sticker.
[2:22:13] This is what we are being weaponized against us, just shut down the numbers.
[2:22:17] I really appreciate the detailed presentation.
[2:22:22] Thank you.
[2:22:22] Thank you very much.
[2:22:28] Anybody else?
[2:22:30] In, yeah, go ahead.
[2:22:34] Eric, and I just want to thank the gentleman for his presentation. It really brought into focus how our civil rights can and are being violated by this type of surveillance system.
[2:22:43] I would say, cancel the flock contract and let's come up with a local solution where there's more privacy and security with our data and information. Thank you.
[2:22:55] Thank you.
[2:22:57] Anybody online?
[2:22:59] I have one person, Ryan.
[2:23:04] Thank you, council members.
[2:23:05] I appreciate the detail that fellow community member went into about
[2:23:10] lock cameras.
[2:23:11] I want to point out some things very specific to low-falter sales.
[2:23:17] Specifically, you guys have an ALPR opt-out list,
[2:23:20] and I want to point out the kind of issues that exist in this.
[2:23:24] It's specifically noted.
[2:23:25] And please note that the opt-out applies to license plate, not vehicles.
[2:23:30] As the fellow community member noted, this is because flock cameras fundamentally are not
[2:23:36] license plate reader cameras, they are AI detection cameras, they can identify vehicle
[2:23:40] markings, bumper stickers, and other factors related to a vehicle.
[2:23:46] They're tracking significantly more data than the general public would assume they do, which
[2:23:52] is a serious privacy concern, I believe, for all citizens.
[2:23:58] Within the technology committee last
[2:24:01] night, as mentioned here, also, two burglars have been attested to being solved or helped
[2:24:08] by-float cameras versus the addition of funds in public or private security being able
[2:24:15] to significantly show causal relationships
[2:24:18] in the reduction of burglarys.
[2:24:22] And it should just be wildly concerning to people.
[2:24:27] To council member Linda's point,
[2:24:30] I think the ideas of data privacy with flock are misleading.
[2:24:35] When we talk about security,
[2:24:38] we need to remember that these are cameras
[2:24:40] that are running on Android 8.1 to not be too technical,
[2:24:44] It's an operating system for a mobile device that came out in 2017, and the vast majority of our cameras that are deployed are running that, they haven't had security updates in a very long time.
[2:24:55] So aside from many cameras being accessed over the web with default credentials, being able to walk up and turn on Bluetooth on your phone and get into the cameras is a big privacy concern.
[2:25:07] No matter where the data stored in the cloud, it still has to exist on the device first.
[2:25:11] Thank you.
[2:25:14] Thank you anybody else online. No mayor.
[2:25:23] Okay, see we have capital Valzuela and our
[2:25:28] As from the sheriff's office here, would you care to give us your thoughts on flock capital Alza?
[2:25:40] Good evening Mayor council.
[2:25:42] Flocks been a tool for us like we express when the town wanted to get into the flock contract.
[2:25:48] It's always it's a tool for us. It's not going to solve every crime
[2:25:52] But it is a tool that already detectives in our deputies can use.
[2:25:57] I will add just a couple of things.
[2:26:00] We will be changing our standardized policy on license plate readers.
[2:26:06] If any talent or any city wants to go to a different vendor,
[2:26:10] we would still have that policy available.
[2:26:12] That's if the talent wanted to do a different vendor
[2:26:14] or continuing with the same technology as different vendor.
[2:26:18] And then I will add that we are a closed system.
[2:26:21] we don't share with anyone currently and we do conduct weekly audits and we do have a yearly report
[2:26:30] to the Board of Supervisors on the usage of our flood cameras and that's what I will say about that.
[2:26:38] Thank you. I had a question for you sir. I thought a while back there was an initiative to do some
[2:26:44] data sharing. Can you speak to what exactly that was because I just heard you say that you don't share?
[2:26:50] Correct. There was an initiative to start data sharing with local agencies within the county. However, our county council reviewed the
[2:26:59] MOU with lock and decided that we should have an individual MOU with each city
[2:27:04] If we're going to do data sharing as far as right now. We don't have any MOU with any city to data share
[2:27:09] But you may in the future once you have those MOUs if there has been yet. We just haven't had any
[2:27:15] Interesting in that in that regard
[2:27:17] Okay, can you give us some idea of how many hours your detective's been looking at this because I'm kind of skeptical that a lot of burglaries and down get investigated because you know I from my very very cursory awareness of the sheriff's department.
[2:27:38] The sheriffs, your detectives have a lot of very high priority cases, you know, homicides
[2:27:44] and violent crime and all of that, maybe you know, armed robberies.
[2:27:50] The amount of time that they're willing to spend on a homeboat degree, my impression is
[2:27:57] as very limited if there's any at all.
[2:28:00] The detective's will spend some time on flock on any property crime or any crime that occurred.
[2:28:07] I think the key is if we have a specific time frame, because if we have a broad weekend
[2:28:15] or a week, it's fully not going to be available for us.
[2:28:18] It doesn't tell us this is the scar that's still on here.
[2:28:21] If we have a narrow window that we can look at,
[2:28:25] I did advise the city manager earlier today that we did have, I talked to our detectives
[2:28:31] and we did have a lead on a male theft slash person with steel and checks and cashing
[2:28:38] them and we do have a lead on that based upon flock that the text was following up on day
[2:28:43] by identified the suspect.
[2:28:45] There's still waiting on some other data with search words before they can enact and
[2:28:49] arrest warrant on that.
[2:28:50] So there is one right now.
[2:28:52] All right.
[2:28:52] Thank you.
[2:28:53] We'll prop.
[2:28:54] Okay, with that, I guess we can bring it back to council.
[2:28:58] Do you like to stand?
[2:29:02] Several months ago, I actually did some reading.
[2:29:06] It was from next door.
[2:29:08] I don't know how many of you actually read next door posts.
[2:29:13] However, this one was very interesting because it had to deal with flock.
[2:29:18] I went to it.
[2:29:19] It was an extremely long article and it was adverse against flock.
[2:29:23] It was about the data sharing that occurred and how there were breaches in the data sharing
[2:29:31] as was shared by Anon earlier.
[2:29:34] I'm not comfortable with the data breaches in the first place.
[2:29:38] Secondly, if there were data breaches as was described, I think that the town is, and it should
[2:29:46] get some legal remedies for the damages that we have.
[2:29:53] Thirdly, I think that the situation with natural national politics.
[2:30:00] Is very dire today. And the personal privacy of all of us in this room may be attacked. I don't want it to be attacked.
[2:30:11] Not with our own equipment, maybe national government could bring out their own equipment and try to get our faces red and so forth.
[2:30:22] But the types of vehicles that we have in town, the license plate numbers, you can see the
[2:30:28] followers of the vehicles, the makes of the vehicles, you can even see some of the faces, I believe.
[2:30:36] If you don't believe that, I think that I could see that.
[2:30:40] So, I think that there are two things.
[2:30:44] The first of which is we have a current contract.
[2:30:47] Maybe we should just let it run with paid for the contract already.
[2:30:51] Secondly, we should help our technology team review the situation, give us some time, and make sure that our data is safe, and talk with the flock about it.
[2:31:04] Because this is not just a problem that we help with Los Alto's skills.
[2:31:08] It's the problem that flock has nationally.
[2:31:12] We were one of the first in our area to enlist the services of flock.
[2:31:16] The entire nation now has armies of flocks all over the place, and if we bring this
[2:31:25] to light, I think that our technology committee has the ability to maybe restrain some
[2:31:31] of that type of intrusion on our security systems. Those are my recommendations, and there are
[2:31:47] I
[2:31:56] feel bad about having paid for the service and being deceived and not getting our money back.
[2:32:04] So I think the decision is, is it worth it just to cut it off and lose the money or continue till the contract ends?
[2:32:15] But if that's the case, if we're going to continue, I'd like to vote right now to give them notice that we're opting out as of the end of this fiscal year.
[2:32:25] So that we don't, you know, miss the deadline or have any hiccup and get stuck for another year.
[2:32:35] Thank you.
[2:32:39] So I don't think the Flock cameras prevent any crime.
[2:32:45] They might be a deterrent, but when the car is still in, and the number plate is still in, they're not even a deterrent.
[2:32:53] buglers these days are not using their own cars and real number plates to embark on these buglers.
[2:33:01] So I don't think that it helps us. I think what's happening is that we're spending
[2:33:10] far too many dollars on the LPR system combined with the amount we're paying the sheriff to monitor
[2:33:16] them and I think those dollars could be used was the additional officer that we need or having
[2:33:25] private security.
[2:33:26] I think what really is, if you look at the numbers, a buggeries did not go down once we started
[2:33:32] using ALPR, it took a good two years and then they only went down when we started using private
[2:33:38] security.
[2:33:38] I think that's what really helps.
[2:33:43] I think that most
[2:33:49] importantly, I think we're living in extraordinary times
[2:33:52] to expect flock to hold out and not give our information away
[2:34:00] is expecting too much when everybody else is rolling over.
[2:34:06] So I think we're expecting too much.
[2:34:08] I think any measure that is taking by us of flock will never save us or help us in the situation.
[2:34:17] And I think we're better off cutting it off.
[2:34:21] I don't want to wait till the end of the year. That's one entire year.
[2:34:25] Given that it's not really helping us, what is it done for us solved two small crimes?
[2:34:32] I'm not sure. We've had several years of the last five years. They've only gone down now.
[2:34:38] those boundaries were never prevented. I'm not sure I think at the time we adopted this as a
[2:34:44] council, we really thought that this would work and our residents felt this at work but now
[2:34:51] several years later the data is out. I don't think we've seen the return on our investment and I think
[2:34:57] it's better to cut our losses when we can, especially given the potential of harm that can cause
[2:35:02] to our residents, we're not just talking about a certain number of people, I think everybody
[2:35:08] is at risk today.
[2:35:10] So I think we should take this seriously.
[2:35:14] George, thank you.
[2:35:17] You know, when this first came up, I was receptive.
[2:35:21] There were arguments about privacy, and I believe in the notion that you don't when you're
[2:35:27] out on the road, you lose privacy.
[2:35:29] There's plenty of cameras out there, and all that I didn't strike me as being that serious
[2:35:34] concern. And I felt like the magnitude of the benefit was going to outweigh that. And as time is gone by we've learned more. We've learned more about effectiveness. And we've learned more about some of these data breaches here. And I've done a lot of reflecting actually in the last year. And I don't know how I come across. But I think I'm usually a calm business like person who makes rational decisions. That's at least myself for you. But I'm going to go out a little bit on a.
[2:36:03] a different direction, because, I mean, earlier today, we heard one of the speakers talk about
[2:36:08] coming to this country with a hundred dollars in his pocket, and I thought, this is the land
[2:36:14] of opportunity, and how did it become so? So that's a, compared to other places in this world,
[2:36:21] I feel like it comes down to the rule of law, and the opportunity comes from the rule of law,
[2:36:28] knowing about what you can expect.
[2:36:30] And I also, the ability to use your free speech.
[2:36:33] And so we had a little lesson about free speech
[2:36:37] earlier, didn't we?
[2:36:37] I feel remember that.
[2:36:39] But it's an important thing to us.
[2:36:41] It's a core value.
[2:36:42] And so I have to say, actually in this last year,
[2:36:46] I'm puzzling and I see things like deporting,
[2:36:49] legal immigrants, I do to free speech issues.
[2:36:53] More recently, threatening to devote
[2:36:56] a sitting senators and reduces pension because of something he said
[2:37:04] how about criminal charges
[2:37:08] against a fed chair, you know, as a blunt weapon, and so what originally became just an issue
[2:37:16] about ICE, I think it feels very much like it's everybody. And so I'm going to say, I heard what
[2:37:23] Council member Linda R. Swan said, and you know I call that rat hole money rat hole money is
[2:37:30] So money used spent, and then it's not, you don't need it. It's not good anymore. And then also I look and I think, yeah, we can kick the can down the road. We can always ask the technology committee, but my issues, the technology committee is not going to solve.
[2:37:45] So I'm going to say, I'm in favor of option for cancelled immediately and be done with it.
[2:37:51] And the evidence that it's a value to us is so weak and the risks and the amount of control
[2:37:57] I'm not convinced.
[2:37:58] And so that's where I end up.
[2:38:02] Thank you, George.
[2:38:04] Some of you may know I was probably the guy that pushed hardest to get the OPRs into town.
[2:38:14] And I was grateful to the council for trying that out and for deploying him to try and address
[2:38:20] skyrocketing burglaries at the time. The burglaries rates are down overall, not just in
[2:38:28] Los Alto's Hills where we have 31 cameras, but in pretty much all of the neighboring towns,
[2:38:34] with the exception of Cupertino don't ask.
[2:38:38] I think I'm not sure how much time the sheriff and the
[2:38:43] detectives in the sheriff's, the sheriff's deputies and the detectives actually look at these cameras.
[2:38:48] So we typically have one Sheriff's deputy patrolling town
[2:38:52] when they're here.
[2:38:54] And if there's a license plate that's flagged
[2:38:58] on a camera in town, by the time that deputy gets
[2:39:02] to that location or near that location,
[2:39:05] that vehicle is probably moved on
[2:39:07] and it's almost impossible to find.
[2:39:10] So this whole thing about getting a notification
[2:39:13] within 22 seconds and being able to respond
[2:39:16] doesn't really work in our town because of the lack of resources we have of personal
[2:39:21] resources.
[2:39:24] On this issue of privacy,
[2:39:28] you know, there are a lot of holes in privacy policy nowadays.
[2:39:33] If the federal government really wants to investigate somebody, they can get access to their
[2:39:37] emails, their phone calls, their, you know, lots and lots of stuff, credit card information.
[2:39:44] So, you know, taking the cameras out of Los Alto Cills,
[2:39:48] yeah, it kind of gives us a feeling that now we're not being tracked,
[2:39:52] but guess what, when you drive from here into Palo Alto or into Los Alto Cells,
[2:39:56] or into Cooperative, you're back to the cameras again.
[2:39:59] So it doesn't really change the whole privacy that much.
[2:40:03] But I will say, we should assume that the data that's recorded by flock,
[2:40:12] will be accessed. Whether it's by legal means by a court order or whether it's by somebody
[2:40:19] sharing a password or the federal government saying the flock we're going to shut you down
[2:40:24] in 24 hours unless you give us access what are they going to do. So just assume that that data
[2:40:30] is not going to be protected. That's the reality. The other thing is there are lots of work around
[2:40:39] If you don't want to be tracked by flock, you can go to your favorite shopping mall, rip off a license plate, put it on your car.
[2:40:51] It's not yet reported stolen, and so it doesn't trigger any ALPR and you're off to the races.
[2:41:01] I guess what, you don't even have to do that. Just take your license plate off completely.
[2:41:06] And you could just drive by the LPR, you know, you don't have bumper sticker, you don't have license plate, what's a gunner report, nothing, you know, blue Toyota drove by, well, okay.
[2:41:19] So I think there are a lot of limitations, and I really want to acknowledge what Council Member Tanka said,
[2:41:25] When we first deployed flock in town, we had no burglaries for two months, and then they took off.
[2:41:34] In fact, in 2020-23, we had a record of 60 burglaries.
[2:41:41] We were actually on track to hit about 90 that year.
[2:41:44] But because of the council at that time, I want to give council member Tunkau the credit for this.
[2:41:50] We brought in private security and that actually bent the arc and has continuously pushed
[2:42:00] the buggery rates down in my view.
[2:42:02] Correlation is not causation, but it might be.
[2:42:08] So overall, I don't think our burglary rates have really gone down because of flock.
[2:42:14] I don't think we can expect privacy whether we have flock or not.
[2:42:19] And I think there are plenty of ways to defeat Flock, and to Council Member Tanka's point,
[2:42:25] that $93,000 is a portion of what we spend.
[2:42:30] There's another portion of overhead from the sheriff in reviewing this and all of the
[2:42:36] supposed audits and everything they're supposed to be done, but we don't have any evidence of.
[2:42:43] So, I have to say, for me to set up here and tell you that this idea I had
[2:42:49] how to keep us safe or isn't working is humbling but it's reality and we need to embrace
[2:42:55] the reality. I was at the technology committee meeting yesterday and I can tell you it
[2:43:02] doesn't matter what we recommend to flock they're going to need that data to train their
[2:43:08] AI systems so they will have that data whether it's anonymized or not and if they have that data
[2:43:14] the data is going to be accessed, whether by them or others, it will be accessed. We cannot
[2:43:21] ensure that it will never be accessed. So I would come down to the side of acknowledging that we
[2:43:29] tried this experiment and it didn't work out the way we hoped. I would rather take that money
[2:43:36] and deploy to private security. And as George and I have had many discussions about the effectiveness
[2:43:43] of the private security and I can tell you my many conversations with the private security
[2:43:49] folks I'm very impressed with the way they keep their eyes and ears open and how they watch
[2:43:55] for unusual situations and so they also happen to cost one third of what we would be the sheriff for
[2:44:03] overtime and as we know the sheriff's contract is going to go up I think from 2.8 to 3.7 something like
[2:44:12] that big number. So we've got to find out money somewhere and this seems like a good place
[2:44:18] to find it. So that's where I come down.
[2:44:22] Now with that, I think I'd like to bring it back
[2:44:24] to council. We have a couple of different up. We could defer to the technology committee and say,
[2:44:32] come back with any findings or any recommendations or we could take action tonight,
[2:44:38] whether it's to terminate them today, oh I guess tomorrow, or, or, or whether to terminate them at the end of our, our contract on June 30th with, as, as Council Member Swan said, given the notice now that we're terminating on June 30th.
[2:44:55] So those are the three options I believe we would consider.
[2:45:02] I would like to make a motion. I moved that we terminate the contract effective immediately.
[2:45:09] I second that. And just to clarify the agenda is for the direction, so the motion would be to provide that direction to staff.
[2:45:17] Is that? Yes. Yes. What you said? So direct staff to terminate that immediately.
[2:45:24] Okay. And you're second of that. Okay. We have a motion in the second.
[2:45:29] Councilmember Mark? Yes. Councilmember Swine?
[2:45:35] Councilmember Tonka? Yes. Vice Mayor Tyson? Yes. Mayor Patasia? Yes. Thank you.
[2:45:41] May I also ask if as part of that we could ask staff to ask Councilmember Swine
[2:45:50] suggested see if we can get a pro-rated refund. At least make the effort.
[2:45:55] Yeah, is that okay understood? All right, thank you
[2:46:00] Would you like to check or folks if anyone's gonna have a 10 b because then we can move it up if they're
[2:46:06] Thanks for them all people for this. I don't
[2:46:12] Which is the formation of the ad hoc committee if there are enough people we should move it up instead of keeping them here all right
[2:46:19] So is that acceptable?
[2:46:24] All right, so we're going to move to item 10B and that is a council initiated item.
[2:46:31] Thank you, council member.
[2:46:34] To consider forming a housing ad hoc committee for residential input on the housing element.
[2:46:40] So we've heard from a number of residents that they would like to have a committee formed on the housing element.
[2:46:47] we have a number of people in town who have been very involved and very knowledgeable about housing
[2:46:55] and very interested in this issue and so the question has come up as to why don't we have a committee
[2:47:02] on this now we could have a standing committee or we could have an ad hoc committee and this item is
[2:47:09] really to open up that discussion so I would first throw it open to council to see if you have any
[2:47:16] comments before we go to public comment.
[2:47:21] I have a comment.
[2:47:24] So, you know, as the adage goes, if you want to get things done, walk alone.
[2:47:28] But if you want to take everybody along, just take everybody else with you.
[2:47:32] And I think we've tried it this way, but we've had ad hoc subcommittees of two council members,
[2:47:39] without having as much public input as we should have in the past several years.
[2:47:44] I think it's time that we formed a committee that included everybody, in a notice those meetings, happy people come along.
[2:47:54] We have people who become stakeholders in the solution.
[2:47:57] Otherwise, every time you decide to put the development in one location, the rest is there will get upset.
[2:48:05] I think the only thing is collectively as a community, we come up with the solution, I think that's the only solution.
[2:48:11] Because this is not going to help, we could keep having add-offs up committees of two council members.
[2:48:16] Come up with the idea, it's going to get shot down at the next meeting.
[2:48:19] How long can you carry on like this? I think we need a community-wide solution that everybody buys into.
[2:48:24] So I'm in favor of having a standing committee, which involves, and was the public who I wish to attend, keep it open.
[2:48:31] Notice them if you have to. It may take a little bit longer, but I think that's the only way to do it.
[2:48:38] The housing element is by large the most important thing on my calendar now.
[2:48:46] I'd like to have transparency and the way that we get transparency is to get as much in terms of inputs as humanly possible.
[2:48:54] A standing committee would be subject to the Brown Act.
[2:48:59] They would have monthly meetings if not more than monthly as either regular or periodic, whichever comes first.
[2:49:05] I think that with that, the city council can get good information about people in certain areas in town.
[2:49:17] We might be able to get more information than maybe two, maybe one council member has.
[2:49:25] We just have to have that expertise that our town has.
[2:49:29] We have a very involved citizen tree.
[2:49:36] I think that we must be able to all get together and put the input send.
[2:49:42] We all help our specialties here.
[2:49:44] And if we add them all together, there might be some way that we can have no builders remedy,
[2:49:53] a certified housing element with everybody being at least half way happy with all the
[2:50:00] compromises that we need to make and we are about compromise here. We'll be able to get
[2:50:06] something done. So I am in favor of having a standing committee, a full standing
[2:50:12] committee for the housing element.
[2:50:17] How's the lowest one?
[2:50:21] you can hear me. We have basically had the fact of standing committee on the housing element
[2:50:31] for the last couple of years, so I see formalizing this as the next step because we're already
[2:50:39] doing it with so many residents really getting very involved and volunteering their time with this
[2:50:45] object.
[2:50:50] George, I just want to clarify, is this a, can we talk about it? This has
[2:50:55] this forming a standing committee, because that's not the way the agenda is. Oh, this
[2:50:58] is council initiative. So, and I'm going to decide anything. Oh, we're not saying anything.
[2:51:01] Oh, we're not saying anything. If you're going to form, I would recommend you a agenda is
[2:51:05] at the next slide. Yes, all right. Okay. I'm hearing the points made and to have a stand
[2:51:12] just for the people in the audience. If when we have a standing committee, what that means
[2:51:15] is subject to the Brown Act, the City Council would appoint the members. It would not include
[2:51:21] any City Council members, and it would be purely citizens, and that would be agendized,
[2:51:27] and minutes would be taken. People would go through Brown Act training, and it would be a process,
[2:51:31] just like these other committees, such as planning, commission, or pathways, or other things,
[2:51:37] like that. As opposed to an ad hoc subcommittee, which we have a, we have a news, what we call it,
[2:51:44] new alternative site subcommittee, which consists of a not a
[2:51:48] quorum of the city council. So in that case, it's Mayor
[2:51:51] Battasia and me. And in that case, then it doesn't
[2:51:58] isn't subject to those things. However, we have the opportunity to
[2:52:02] call open meetings and bring in resident input and perhaps act in a
[2:52:08] bit more nimble fashion. The question is, what are we
[2:52:14] looking for in terms of transparency and control. As I look at a standing committee to deal with
[2:52:19] a housing issue, I'm not sure quite how to do that. We're not going to get away from the concerns
[2:52:26] I have about residents versus residents or how do we pick the right people in a-
[2:52:30] All of that. And so my own sense is that we could have been more open. We could have, we could share more with individuals.
[2:52:40] We've had many individual conversations with residents as part of this ad hoc subcommittee.
[2:52:46] We are just, frankly, getting rolling in that regard. And so I haven't given up on the opportunity that we have to call any number.
[2:52:54] And I'm willing to commit the time to that any number of public meetings on different topics
[2:52:59] to gather that input. So I'm this is a very long way of saying, I haven't given up on the
[2:53:05] ad hoc subcommittee. And I will say that the reason you're not hearing quite so much about it is
[2:53:11] because as you can guess, anytime you identify a solution, there are people who will come out and
[2:53:17] don't want it near them. Let's just face it. That's true. No matter where we do things. And so it becomes
[2:53:22] a very challenging thing to say when do we bring things out in public? Is it before the owner
[2:53:30] is on on board? I don't think so. At some point we have to get some sense of what is it we
[2:53:35] want to do before we present it to people? So I'm just a little worried about the messiness
[2:53:40] of the standing committee and I would myself prefer to give us some time let's say three months
[2:53:48] of the ad hoc subcommittee and see if we can impress you with what we can do. So George, I think
[2:53:52] Right now, the only thing is should we agendize it for discussion.
[2:53:55] I think it's worth having a discussion.
[2:53:57] That's the only conversation we need to have today.
[2:53:59] And what I think might be helpful to have that discussion.
[2:54:02] All right.
[2:54:03] I could add maybe the process of forming a standing committee
[2:54:06] just so you know what would go into it.
[2:54:07] So essentially what you're discussing is you're going to be
[2:54:10] amending the standing committee resolution.
[2:54:12] That's in a part of that.
[2:54:13] You're going to be having to be coming up with a charter
[2:54:15] for a potential standing committee.
[2:54:17] We'll need guidance of the number of numbers.
[2:54:19] Once that is actually the Stank Committee Resolution is adopted then we have to advertise the positions for at least 20 72 hours
[2:54:27] Then it takes another council meeting then to appoint those people to that committee. That's the process. So so now just to amplify
[2:54:36] Let's discuss it. Let's bring it before and bring it to an exegent and then the mayor and I in the meantime
[2:54:42] We'll continue with the things we're doing and seeing if we can keep the ball rolling on this topic. Let's agenda
[2:54:48] I just have a few comments though.
[2:54:53] I talked with the attorney matters about this,
[2:54:57] and he said if the subject matter is going to be the housing element,
[2:55:03] not alternative sites,
[2:55:05] then we would need a different ad hoc committee to do that,
[2:55:10] if we're going to make it an ad hoc committee.
[2:55:13] It could be the same two people, or it could be two other people,
[2:55:16] but it would have to be a differently named, at least,
[2:55:20] at Occamity, for going to make this an ad hoc committee.
[2:55:24] My thoughts are that the standing committees
[2:55:30] have, you know, they're kind of a heavier lift in some ways.
[2:55:36] You have more onerous requirements about who can communicate with whom,
[2:55:41] about what issues, of you have seven people on the committee.
[2:55:44] Only three of them can speak about something other than in the committee as an agenda is item.
[2:55:51] So there's more, it's sort of a slower, more deliberate process and not saying anything wrong with that, it's just something we need to understand.
[2:55:59] So an alternative to that is to say,
[2:56:02] We'll have an ad hoc committee to work on a housing element.
[2:56:06] We'll advertise, we'll get residents involved, maybe we'll have a meeting every week and do an update of what's going on, get input from residents and all that.
[2:56:15] I think that's a more nimble faster way to go.
[2:56:19] But, you know, that's something that the council has to come to an agreement on.
[2:56:24] So let's agenda this for the next meeting.
[2:56:30] We have a couple of comment cards as well.
[2:56:33] Okay.
[2:56:35] Are you ready?
[2:56:37] Mattish.
[2:56:40] Okay.
[2:56:41] Ron Haley.
[2:56:44] Thank you.
[2:56:44] Are you left?
[2:56:44] Maybe Cheryl Evans.
[2:56:50] And then John O'Connell.
[2:56:54] So are we limited to two minutes or three?
[2:56:57] Okay.
[2:56:57] Then you can add Erica's.
[2:56:59] I'll finish what I'm going to say because I have about a pair of three minutes.
[2:57:04] Give us three.
[2:57:08] It's my understanding that this is city council.
[2:57:10] Well, actually, I don't need to say this because you're agendizing it.
[2:57:13] Maribut Asia is aware that many residents pay
[2:57:16] for formation of a standing committee,
[2:57:18] given both the importance of the haveling element,
[2:57:21] and the fact that we will be dealing with it for at least four years.
[2:57:24] The normal role of an ad hoc committee
[2:57:26] is to address short-term projects,
[2:57:28] and this is hardly a short-term project.
[2:57:31] Assuming that the rules agreed to by the members
[2:57:33] of the council are being followed this evening,
[2:57:36] and it sounds like they are,
[2:57:37] I would like my remarks to be entered into the minutes,
[2:57:39] So that residents have a full understanding of the alternatives
[2:57:42] if and when the matter is scheduled for public hearing.
[2:57:47] We have standing committees for pathways,
[2:57:49] technology, environmental protection, design, open space, et cetera.
[2:57:52] But we have not formed a housing element committee.
[2:57:55] When compliance with the state's housing requirements,
[2:57:58] it's a single greatest challenge facing our town for now and for years to come.
[2:58:03] We've outsourced the design of our housing element to an outside consultant,
[2:58:07] focused more on achieving compliance but with limited understanding of the unique character of our
[2:58:12] town and little to no engagement with our community. We need a plan for implementation of our housing
[2:58:18] element with greater engagement with residents on how to ensure that it aligns with the rural character
[2:58:23] of our town. Los autos hills has many capable resources available to us and willing to contribute
[2:58:30] architects, builders, environmental experts, lawyers, and people knowledgeable about the state requirements.
[2:58:38] Los Altos Hills residents have real skin in the game to meet the housing element goals and do it in a way that is
[2:58:44] positive development of our town. They should have an opportunity to participate in that process.
[2:58:52] A standing committee would also improve both perception and reality of the transparency of the decision-making process.
[2:58:57] residents from every area of town want to be a part of such a community.
[2:59:03] The mayor has framed this as item as a single option.
[2:59:08] Appointing another ad hoc committee, he's fully aware of the resident perspectives
[2:59:12] based upon real world evidence of passing ad hoc committees with regards
[2:59:16] transparency and oversight.
[2:59:18] Thank you, Cheryl.
[2:59:20] Thank you.
[2:59:24] However, he has chosen to not even mention this option in his initiative.
[2:59:27] A standing committee being subject to the Brown Act as a feature, not a bug, improving both the perception and reality of transparency may avoid creating conflict between the town and residents.
[2:59:40] The date time and agenda for meetings must be posted so that residents can attend and participate.
[2:59:46] Minutes of their meetings will be recorded so all residents can access them and understand the issues if they wish to engage.
[2:59:52] A standing committee will give residents a more considered opportunity to express ideas and debate issues.
[3:00:00] Without a two-minute clock. The council will receive better inputs on important items for discussion.
[3:00:07] A standing committee will forge a path forward that is collaborative and inclusive and one that our entire
[3:00:13] community will understand and support. The initiative, the city council needs to decide upon tonight
[3:00:19] as weather to agenda. Let me say that sounds like we're going to do that, but those are our thoughts. Thank you.
[3:00:25] Thank you.
[3:00:35] I made some remarks about wanting to see the housing element amendment
[3:00:40] approved and getting on with the job. Add hoc committees in my viewpoint are good for
[3:00:48] dealing with very well-focused, short-term, almost urgent issues, but they're not intended to run
[3:00:57] very long. A standing committee and working on the housing element is going to be working on it
[3:01:04] for the next four years.
[3:01:29] We need to get on with the job of figuring out how to meet what we need to
[3:01:36] do and do it in a way that makes the future residents are going to come into this town be part of
[3:01:43] down. The people that have written to you and spoken about this are not. I'm from close to
[3:01:52] twin oaks, but they're from all over town. They're from the very south. They're from everywhere.
[3:02:02] They're not close to twin oaks. They want to get the housing element done in a way that fits into
[3:02:09] ourselves. I am absolutely 100% supportive that a standing committee is long overdue
[3:02:19] and needs to be set up. And I'm glad to know you're going to urgentirise it. If it's
[3:02:25] a debate, I would appreciate you letting the residents know, so that as many residents
[3:02:32] can come out as possible and convince you of the benefits of the decision. And I totally
[3:02:37] agree with what Eric just said. Being subject to the Brown Act is not a bug. It's a feature.
[3:02:45] Thank you,
[3:02:48] John.
[3:02:48] I said I have George. Sorry.
[3:02:51] Sorry, good. George, he's coming.
[3:02:57] Hi. I'm George Perlegas and we live on 28, 011.
[3:03:03] learn a lot. Defend with property. Defend with property. That was shown on the SB 330
[3:03:11] applications earlier. I think I'm against the Ed Hart committee because we don't want
[3:03:18] two members of the city council to go in agrochate. Lara items that we have a direct impact
[3:03:24] finance, and I like to bring up the many issues that need to be considered and resolved before
[3:03:32] the town can consider defending property as SB 330. We cannot have all the low income housing
[3:03:40] concentrated in one area between NOx, the Fenwick property, but the Fenwick property is in the
[3:03:46] Williamson Act. It cannot be considered until it is removed. The town cannot pay the taxes to remove it.
[3:03:53] The town cannot trade land or subdivide this land.
[3:03:58] The town cannot remove the fire easements that already existed and that's how we bought our property and every other resident around depends on.
[3:04:08] The town cannot remove the pedestrian pathways that were granted and given by the previous owners.
[3:04:15] The town cannot remove easements that already exist in the property.
[3:04:19] the town cannot agree to build on trails, because if you see the many properties that were
[3:04:29] parcels that were there, there were homes on the trails and what are runs in those
[3:04:35] trails. So do we need to come back and start fighting with you that you cannot build there?
[3:04:41] The best way to decide this is to take the owner of the property has the right to develop its property.
[3:04:49] I don't think anybody objects to that, but it has to be lit up and it has to have no help from the city council.
[3:04:57] I have the best place is to go to the Planning Commission and have it decided that.
[3:05:06] Thank you, George.
[3:05:08] I just wanted to call up Ron Haley one more time to make sure he's not in.
[3:05:12] Okay, and then is it okay if we go to Zoom now mayor?
[3:05:15] I have two people, Yatin,
[3:05:20] and then Darcio.
[3:05:24] Good evening again.
[3:05:25] I'll keep my remarks short.
[3:05:27] I am fully supportive of the comments by Shadowlevens,
[3:05:31] Eric Evans, and John O'Connor.
[3:05:34] Thank you.
[3:05:36] Thank you.
[3:05:42] Darcio?
[3:05:45] You need to be asked to unmute.
[3:05:47] Thank you.
[3:05:48] Darcio leads again with this year.
[3:05:49] I'll be brief as well, glad to hear that Council is considering a full-standing committee subject to the Brown Act.
[3:05:57] I just want to say that you'll have a really engaged base of residents here with a lot of knowledge and expertise
[3:06:03] who are committed not only to protecting open space, but to finding housing solutions, so I hope you collaborate with them
[3:06:09] and hope we all find the solution together. Thanks for your time.
[3:06:13] Thank you.
[3:06:13] No further comments. Thank you. I'm bringing you back to Council Attorney Ly. Do we need a motion for this?
[3:06:22] Or to put it on the agenda for next meeting?
[3:06:25] Staff will take that direction agenda. So now motion. Thank you.
[3:06:30] Okay, moving on. Let's see here.
[3:06:33] 6B. We are on 6B. The ongoing discussion with the County Sheriff and possible action on traffic enforcement in town.
[3:06:43] May or may I suggest that we just, at least for people's planning, we hear the sheriff's presentation,
[3:06:49] we have our needed break, and then we also agree that the meeting will go past 10 o'clock when you do it all at one time.
[3:06:56] Okay.
[3:06:57] So I move that we move the meeting past 10 o'clock.
[3:07:02] All in favor.
[3:07:05] Aye.
[3:07:06] All right.
[3:07:07] Okay.
[3:07:10] All right. Thank you, Mayor.
[3:07:11] Just as an introduction, yes, this is an ongoing discussion coming from our last city council meeting for the last month.
[3:07:19] The sheriff has was directed to have targeted enforcement.
[3:07:23] So safely to address speeding on town, in town and the sheriff's office is here to talk about.
[3:07:30] What has happened over the last month, they're going to talk about what they saw, potentially the citations issued, speeding that they observed, and then ending with a recommendation of what the stuff should be moving forward.
[3:07:45] Good evening Mayor Council.
[3:07:48] I'm going to pass the presentation to our traffic surgeons surgeon now on Slaw. He will go over some of the things that we've done in the last couple days.
[3:07:56] Thank
[3:08:00] you very much. Next slide.
[3:08:08] Okay, so we were asked to provide some targeted enforcement
[3:08:12] in areas identified by your speed sign data. Some of the locations that were listed
[3:08:18] as moderate to severe of having readings that kind of surpassed the limit by significant numbers
[3:08:26] and some of those locations are up there. So my traffic team was asked to spend several hours
[3:08:32] each day during our work week, and be proactive in targeted enforcement specifically speed.
[3:08:40] Next slide. Our mission, again, to be visible, that's our effort being out there with the
[3:08:47] lights and sirens on. There's a different response when you see a motorcycle everybody knows what our
[3:08:52] job is. The punitive aspect comes from the the court side of things, but ultimately,
[3:08:59] us being out there, being visible, giving tickets, hopefully sends a message and detours the
[3:09:08] actions of violations of speeds specifically.
[3:09:15] Since the 16th, so I don't know when
[3:09:17] your last meeting ends, or when the day was, that I got the direction, since the 16th
[3:09:23] of December, we've issued 41 citations, the very, very main section that we cited was speed,
[3:09:30] there are some varying things in there, stop signs, distracted drivers, cell phones, and one registration,
[3:09:40] expiration that ultimately was actually speed, but the, the deputy wasn't able to clock it on the,
[3:09:47] the radar in time, and so they got to fix it to get.
[3:09:54] Again, our objectives are to show by being proactive that there are, in fact,
[3:09:59] Unsafe driving habits out there the match what your data was that you guys collected
[3:10:04] the time frame
[3:10:06] In this I don't know that was the best month to do there was
[3:10:11] Time off for vacation during the holidays
[3:10:14] There were seven rainy days that affected our ability to be up here
[3:10:19] So not every day that we would normally be up here. We were up here
[3:10:23] Do the staffing for the holidays and the weather
[3:10:27] We do believe that the public is aware that we've been up here.
[3:10:31] A lot of our deputies like to screenshot the Ways app,
[3:10:35] and people are noting on those types of applications that we're up here.
[3:10:40] That in a way to turn people's responses.
[3:10:43] I believe someone on council noticed that we're up there and made an effort to
[3:10:47] think one of our deputies on one of the days that they were up there.
[3:10:51] Other residents stopped and thanked us, and which is great because
[3:10:55] but you can probably believe that our job is often
[3:10:58] thinkless or we're either showing up because someone
[3:11:01] has involved in a collision or we're giving you a ticket.
[3:11:04] So to receive the thanks from the community,
[3:11:07] I would hope that people recognize that that
[3:11:09] is a sign of our good efforts.
[3:11:13] In addition, our things that I think
[3:11:16] that are not being tracked for your data
[3:11:18] is that we are traffic unit, my motor unit,
[3:11:21] works on a very specific schedule.
[3:11:23] So we're not capturing the after commute hours or the weekend hours, but again, based on our efforts,
[3:11:31] what I tell my people to do out in a daily basis, they are recognizing the things are changing.
[3:11:36] They go to an area and they're acknowledging less speeders so they have to move on to a different area now.
[3:11:45] And now that schools back in session with the college and campus, they're finding it elsewhere,
[3:11:48] but some of the targeted areas that is getting harder for them to find.
[3:11:52] And I hope that that does match data. But next slide.
[3:11:56] I think the only way to find out if truly it is working is we've let this test so speak last longer.
[3:12:04] Thank
[3:12:10] you. Any questions? Someone's from console. I'm the guilty party. I'm a regular
[3:12:16] jogger on these pathways. And I can tell you I'm in no danger of getting a ticket.
[3:12:21] That was a joke about my running speed, okay?
[3:12:24] It drives a Porsche.
[3:12:26] This is a jogging, jogging, okay?
[3:12:28] I just want to say I had interactions with officers to two different times.
[3:12:32] One was a motorcycle cop and the other in a patrol car, and they were very polite, eager
[3:12:37] to help.
[3:12:38] One of them was a little disappointed that people were following the speed limit and asked me
[3:12:42] where I'll see could go.
[3:12:43] And so I offered him a suggestion.
[3:12:45] It was probably next to your house, but anyway, I...
[3:12:49] You know, I just, I thought it was an appropriate thing.
[3:12:53] We've heard last time about people on these particular streets on Alaina and Rublita that
[3:12:58] were concerned and that I think a little show of force is a helpful thing and it was
[3:13:03] done in a polite and very appropriate location and I'm pleased with it so far.
[3:13:09] I have questions.
[3:13:11] So what timeframe were you there for and for like how many days like was it Monday to Friday
[3:13:18] or from what time, what time, six to four the times varied. I would assign people by day Monday through Friday that is our traffic work week and
[3:13:30] whether they chose to do it in the AM or the PM was up to them. Oftentimes,
[3:13:37] their our traffic unit is around the school in the AM or the PM, so they would mix kind of
[3:13:42] school pickup drop off with their speed enforcement. So in between probably school drop off in school pick up anytime in between then on Monday to Friday and for how many okay, but you don't know how many hours.
[3:13:54] They were there for.
[3:13:55] We do actually I could read the email that you had set me so captain valence one of the shared that from December 16th to the 31st at total of 15 traffic hours were used and then from January 1st to January 14th
[3:14:11] 19, 19 traffic hours were used. So in comparison on average before the directed direction
[3:14:17] up target enforcement, they roughly used six to 13, but they together used almost a this time
[3:14:24] 30. So it doubled the presence that they had on the streets. So how many days was that? That was 30.
[3:14:32] 30 and how much did it cost us? Roughly speaking. So on average it's about 300 an hour if that's 30 hours
[3:14:40] times 300 is proper.
[3:14:44] But that's the direct cost.
[3:14:46] There's also a direct cost of if there's ever anyone who challenges a ticket and the
[3:14:52] officer has to go to court, my understanding is some of those hours may be billed against
[3:14:55] us.
[3:14:56] There's other follow-up supplemental cost but the direct cost of this up.
[3:15:00] The presence on the street was 9,000. So would you say, like, 12 to 15,000? Would that be accurate? Is it really variable by the court?
[3:15:09] It's variable. Yeah, I don't know on any court appearances, but that's a good average 12 to 15,000 for 30 days and how many hours every day?
[3:15:19] It varied from day-to-day. I'd have to pull out this specifically, definitely, but it was at six hours, three hours, four hours.
[3:15:27] Four hours. That's a good answer. Okay.
[3:15:36] It's sometimes more than just one day.
[3:15:37] So the money you collect, who does it go to?
[3:15:40] Oh, security is not sure.
[3:15:42] If you come to us, definitely.
[3:15:43] We don't collect the courts too, and it actually goes to several different state agencies.
[3:15:48] So it doesn't necessarily come back to the city or the towns, they go to the court system
[3:15:54] divides the fees and it goes into specific a bunch of different organizations to state.
[3:16:00] What kind of organizations?
[3:16:01] Like the National Highway Transportation and-
[3:16:03] So it goes to you guys.
[3:16:05] No, no, no, no, it doesn't.
[3:16:06] The county?
[3:16:07] No, no, it's different organizations within the state that provides some sort of service regarding
[3:16:13] traffic safety.
[3:16:15] I see. I mean, I think this was great for one time, but like to spend $9,000 a month or really going through a budget.
[3:16:23] So do we have any long-term solution to this?
[3:16:28] So that's the estimated cost. What happens is the town budgets for a certain amount of hours per year of traffic hours.
[3:16:39] So you've already paid for those traffic hours.
[3:16:41] essentially what we're doing is we're utilizing those traffic hours to specifically focus on traffic
[3:16:46] enforcement. I get that. We paid for it, but she would refund it if he didn't use it. So we're still
[3:16:52] spending between 12 to 15,000 a month on this. So I don't think that's a solution long term.
[3:16:59] So do you have what do you think is the solution for this? Is there any other solution?
[3:17:04] Which is for a formal environment? There's other options you guys can look with your public works,
[3:17:08] but for Mar, for Mar, for Mar stance,
[3:17:12] issues, citations, and present physical presence,
[3:17:15] what we're trying to do is cure the behavior
[3:17:17] from people driving that that they're aware.
[3:17:22] Okay.
[3:17:22] Linda,
[3:17:25] do you appear to be muted, Linda?
[3:17:31] Am I a missus, but how many citations were written
[3:17:34] over that time frame?
[3:17:37] 41?
[3:17:38] 41.
[3:17:39] 41, okay.
[3:17:43] Okay, step.
[3:17:44] I had an allegation previously, and that allegation was that every single time a person got a ticket
[3:17:51] that you guys would get a commission cut out of that.
[3:17:55] And I believe that I believe that I am wrong because I used artificial intelligence through
[3:18:02] chat GPT to see where all the proceeds went.
[3:18:07] And I'm happy to say that you do not have a vested interest.
[3:18:12] Absolutely.
[3:18:12] other than writing the tickets. I wanted to make that clear first of all. The question I would
[3:18:18] really have is whether or not we've had some effectiveness and changing the behavior of some
[3:18:25] of those people that have a griegespeeds on those streets. Number one, number two would be the
[3:18:31] average speed itself, whether or not you've been able to measure whether or not the average speed
[3:18:37] has decreased during the time of year and four spent.
[3:18:41] So just from speaking to my traffic team and the traffic sergeant,
[3:18:45] obviously, as time goes by, we issue less citations
[3:18:48] because people see that we're out there and they curb the behavior, obviously, right?
[3:18:54] And I'm sorry, your second question was the average speed in terms of decrease in speed,
[3:19:00] because I would assume that the average speed would decrease the real question is by how much
[3:19:07] I don't have the data from your cameras up, but some of the speeds were pretty excessive double
[3:19:13] in many cases of a 25 or 35 zone. So you're talking in 65, 70 miles an hour on a local road.
[3:19:23] And if that data is accurate, there's a problem. Our threshold, I won't say exactly where it was,
[3:19:30] but we don't like going to traffic court. So we are having a higher threshold than I would think
[3:19:36] that most people would think we are choosing,
[3:19:37] so it's not five miles over and I'll tell you that.
[3:19:41] But it is a threshold of significance.
[3:19:45] And I'll leave it at that.
[3:19:46] Okay.
[3:19:47] And then the last question, other than using law enforcement,
[3:19:52] what are some other remedies that you could possibly think
[3:19:55] of that would help us mitigate the speeds on our roads?
[3:20:00] Well, there's several varieties that you have.
[3:20:02] Your option, we could public work.
[3:20:03] So I mean, you have your talking about,
[3:20:05] you can do speed bumps.
[3:20:05] There's a gamut of different things that different talents and cities use in order to reduce
[3:20:10] feeds. Whether it's, you know, radar signs or speed bombs or stop signs or something to
[3:20:17] to kind of slow down traffic. I'm just trying to economize on the cost of law enforcement in
[3:20:24] our area. That's it. Thank you. You know, just to build on that for one, we had earlier under
[3:20:33] sent under five eye, the pavement rehabilitation, which included some selective signs and
[3:20:41] striping and all. So part of that is structurally in the road how we can make it more conducive
[3:20:47] to having people travel the lower speeds. But me, I'm going to we're never going to solve this.
[3:20:53] We're always going to have this and I would say periodic enforcement not every month.
[3:20:57] Let's not announce it here at a thing. Let's put it in for two weeks, every once in a while.
[3:21:02] and it won't cost as much and it'll periodically increase awareness.
[3:21:08] Which is really our goal. We just want people to go slower. We don't want to get the
[3:21:12] have people get tickets. We just want them to drive more properly.
[3:21:20] Okay. Well, thank you first of all for being out here. Road Safety is really important.
[3:21:28] And we appreciate the sensitivity that you've managed this.
[3:21:32] I do agree that from a cost standpoint, this isn't something we can endure on a regular daily
[3:21:41] or you know basis. I think some kind of randomized presence would be good. So maybe a different
[3:21:49] day of the week, slightly different times, different places, mixing it up a little bit and maybe
[3:21:56] instead of doing it every weekday, maybe we do it certain weekdays at random, that would
[3:22:03] help with the cost. In terms of the public works or other solutions, I mean speed breakers
[3:22:12] or speed tables is one, that of course is going to take time and I don't know Director Kim,
[3:22:21] what are your thoughts on how long it would take to implement something like that?
[3:22:28] Oh yes, I think
[3:22:30] Mayor, public work staff, we're evaluating some of the options as well. We talked about the
[3:22:37] speed table option and we can install those. It will require quite a bit of public outreach
[3:22:47] and discussions with the sheriff's office, emergency services, the fire department who normally
[3:22:54] are reluctant or would not favor such solution but ultimately that will be the physical solution
[3:23:04] for the town. Our roadways are already narrow enough. I don't think we can make it any
[3:23:10] narrower or to try to control speeds or some other methods such as trying to make the road
[3:23:15] more curvy. I think some agencies have tried that and that does take a toll on maybe the capital
[3:23:22] project budget on the paving budget. We might need wider right away. So speed,
[3:23:29] tables, speed bumps will be a solution, but it would require quite a bit of public outreach.
[3:23:35] We need to discuss with residents along that corridor. And even the wider area, because
[3:23:41] actually people are traveling on that road, would also want to comment about those. And again,
[3:23:46] speaking with emergency and public safety. And because it may slow down their services, and that's
[3:23:51] the car. I asked you how long would take and what number would you offer? So again, I think we got
[3:23:59] a focus on which specific area, which location? What? We talked a week, so we're talking two months,
[3:24:06] so we're talking two years, but give me some idea. If we have a location in mind,
[3:24:13] Lina, Lina has been the problem. Okay. If we have a location in mind, we can start doing some
[3:24:19] public outreach and looking at options so it could take 2-3 months and again I think we
[3:24:25] would come back to Council for it.
[3:24:28] Okay.
[3:24:29] Another solution might be to deploy more of the radar speed devices and have them operate in
[3:24:36] display mode.
[3:24:37] I mean we operate them sometimes in stealth mode where there's no display in order to get
[3:24:41] more accurate readings of what's really going on.
[3:24:45] But if we deploy these, they cost around, the mobile ones cost around 6,000, I believe.
[3:24:52] That's, I think what you paid for the last one.
[3:24:55] Yeah, to look that up, and they'll be also an annual subscription for the data collection.
[3:25:00] No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, we do have that.
[3:25:03] But I mean, if you deploy the fixed ones at certain locations,
[3:25:08] that usually has an impact as well. It's not the same as, you know,
[3:25:13] of serving somebody at ticket and it's not the same as a speed table but it does tend to
[3:25:18] slow people down and that's kind of a one-time installation and you know you don't have
[3:25:26] to kind of keep maintaining that you know extensively so that's another option we could consider.
[3:25:32] It's just that in the past the communities being really against speed bumps and these the you know
[3:25:38] perceptions change in the community so I think it's very important to reach out and see
[3:25:42] how the people on Elena feel about it.
[3:25:45] What do they think is the right solution for that?
[3:25:48] Because they're the ones with the most vocal about this.
[3:25:50] Yes.
[3:25:51] Biggest problem was on Elena.
[3:25:53] And for a summer, too.
[3:25:54] And for a summer.
[3:25:55] OK.
[3:25:57] So is there a motion or action that we need to take care?
[3:26:04] Or do we just say, continue this, but maybe,
[3:26:07] like I was saying.
[3:26:09] and five mazes also ask again if Elena is a location that council like staff to investigate
[3:26:19] any particular segment we could start doing that and so if you already found
[3:26:27] as it's leave it to staff to explore a certain area but there was a lot of
[3:26:37] complaint of yeah that is a location at the kind of the curved segment at intersection of
[3:26:44] Veneto so we are doing some striping and some signage improvements there so as part of the
[3:26:51] street maintenance project that's going to move forward by my right that you're proposing that we
[3:26:55] lose some outreach to residents and get some feedback understand what do they think is a holistic
[3:27:00] solution because in the past I know the community has been very against you know speed bumps
[3:27:06] and these flashing lights, and they went together or looking field. But you know, people change. So this was at least eight years ago.
[3:27:14] I think the perception nowadays is do something about the speeds. Right. A great number. I said, people change, you know. So let's
[3:27:20] Linda, you have your hand up. Good. Just a question. Do we want to have this share of focus on short periods of time or a maximum number of days a month or so that we don't spend an overly
[3:27:36] high amount of money on this because we don't just leave it up to them to decide when they
[3:27:42] should come out. They have stated on that. Their average was six to, I think it was six to
[3:27:48] maybe 12, but they do, they are out there. So if the election was to resume the normal traffic
[3:27:56] enforcement presence, that could be the direction or we would look forward, you want to increase it
[3:28:03] from that. Well, we spent like 15,000 that seem excessive this time. Yeah, so do we want to say
[3:28:12] no more than, you know, half that every month or do we want to limit it? Otherwise, we're going to keep spending 15,000 a month probably.
[3:28:21] Well, so I had a question. You should 41 tickets out of those. How many were really egregious?
[3:28:34] Well, I don't know but again, for what I believe our threshold was and everyone has their own individual threshold.
[3:28:46] If you were walking your dog out there and that vehicle went by you at that threshold, you would notice it and to me that would be a grigis.
[3:28:55] So, I'm not going to put a number on what I think is egregious.
[3:28:59] The speed limits are set, but reasons that city engineers create, that residents probably
[3:29:06] like, and when our threshold was over that to a significant amount.
[3:29:13] All right, stand, do you have something you want to add?
[3:29:16] I really want to make a request here, and that is that if you're going to try to trap
[3:29:23] computers, maybe what you should do is just have like a random setup. So you don't do it every
[3:29:30] single day, every single week, at the same time every single month, you just have a randomized.
[3:29:36] So a broach. We don't like let's be trips. That's not legal. But with the, when the city manager
[3:29:44] mentioned the 6 to 13 hour average, that's without targeted enforcement. Those are just your
[3:29:49] traffic calls for service like your accidents or parking violations. So our traffic team is handling that, and that's about the average in a month.
[3:29:56] When we do target enforcement, pretty much doubles the hours that...
[3:30:00] From normal traffic response calls for services, if that makes sense. And we can, I can work with the city manager to make it sporadic and and kind of move it around so that it doesn't become a consistent thing.
[3:30:17] So how about if we save make it sporadic and play sporadic.
[3:30:24] Let me finish.
[3:30:27] How about if we ask the city manager to make it sporadic and cap it at about 5,000, instead of the 9,000.
[3:30:35] 5,000.
[3:30:36] Yes.
[3:30:38] Every month?
[3:30:40] For now.
[3:30:42] I don't feel we need that.
[3:30:44] That would be my motion.
[3:30:46] I would second that motion, because that's exactly what I was thinking.
[3:30:50] All right. We have a motion in a second. Oh, sorry. We need public comment before that.
[3:31:04] When we talked about this at the last session, we said we didn't want to be catching people that
[3:31:10] were taking the kids to school and exceed in the speed limit by relatively small amounts and
[3:31:15] people who are going 60 or 70 along those roads, I'm glad they're getting tickets.
[3:31:22] But a lot of the speeders are not in the time scales of what we're hearing is the time operations of what traffic operates in.
[3:31:35] I'm still hearing, I mean, two nights last week, there was the same, very high performance
[3:31:44] sports car, downshifting, backfiring, that people are doing this outside of these kinds
[3:31:52] of hours. So I feel that just putting it in in certain hours is impacting a certain group
[3:32:02] and a certain group of people are going to get tickets. I think we have to be understanding that
[3:32:09] a lot of people do exceed the speed limit but not by huge amounts. If we put in place
[3:32:16] so it's kind of constant enforcement, a lot of people are going to get impacted who are not.
[3:32:24] In my opinion, really causing the problems that we talked about trying to solve, and we were
[3:32:33] driven by the fact we saw some extremely high speeders not doing like 15-20% over the average,
[3:32:42] which I think is probably the norm in most places. So I'm just a little concern that the
[3:32:48] of the hours and when we're doing this is impacting certain groups of residents but not really
[3:32:55] possibly catching the people who are driving extremely fast in the town. The second thing I'd
[3:33:02] just like to say is that and I don't know how this happened, I asked that the coffee with a sheriff
[3:33:07] to try and stop people going straight through a stop sign on a restaurant arrow and stirrup.
[3:33:17] And I don't
[3:33:18] lasted for a short period of time. It was very effective, but then it came back.
[3:33:24] All right, anybody else?
[3:33:28] We've missed you.
[3:33:29] On Epstein, I wouldn't tell you. You started this experiment. I think it was a great idea.
[3:33:36] You put speed cameras out there. You determined that people were speeding. You then brought the
[3:33:40] sheriff in to try and change public behavior. I think you need to put the speed cameras back out
[3:33:47] again to see whether or not public behavior was changed. If it was changed, then the test was
[3:33:53] a successful test. If it hasn't been changed, then the sheriff has to go out there again
[3:33:57] and do it over again. Sometimes people don't learn on the first case, but before you decide
[3:34:04] how much money you want to spend, I think you should determine whether the experiment is working
[3:34:08] or not working and then make a decision after that. Because the goal is, as you guys have all mentioned,
[3:34:14] This did make things safer. That's that's the ultimate goal. Thanks. Thank you.
[3:34:25] I I drive around as a real estate broker speech.
[3:34:30] I drive as a real estate agent around.
[3:34:34] Los Altoes has put in hundreds of speed bumps. The traffic has slowed.
[3:34:41] don't make the same mistake about putting him into tall, so the fire trucks can't drive over them and have to tear them all out again.
[3:34:50] But I think people are getting used to speed bumps and should be used and it's not expensive.
[3:35:05] First I'll try to synthesize because I agree very well with what both John and Alan said.
[3:35:13] I mean, we started out with two months of looking at data and then we suddenly said, let's
[3:35:17] not look at data. Let's go on vibes. No, don't do that. Go back to the data. Did it work
[3:35:21] or did not work before you went in more money to this? Second, and I shared this data with
[3:35:27] the mayor, and I wish I had it to share it with all of you. We talked a lot about eight
[3:35:31] five percent. I let's say driving back and did a lot more work on the data. Most of the
[3:35:43] And it's, you know, one or two cars at one end, like the egregious ones were not doing the times of enforcement.
[3:35:50] And at the times when, you know, people are going 10 or the speed limit.
[3:35:54] It is a hundred thousand road, sure.
[3:35:57] But they're not going that fast.
[3:36:00] So I'm not sure.
[3:36:02] I think you're all getting a little ahead of yourselves.
[3:36:06] Why don't you look at the data some more.
[3:36:08] You've done this for a month, look at the data some more, and then figure it out.
[3:36:14] And finally, as to echo a little bit about what Constubemba Tanka said,
[3:36:20] you put in speed bumps, and you'll think this Okiyf and Trinox issues were a party in comparison to what you'll see here.
[3:36:26] Thank you.
[3:36:31] Okay, any further comments online?
[3:36:34] Yeah, Mayor.
[3:36:35] Okay, well then let's bring it back to council.
[3:36:42] We heard that we have a full motion and a second and we were going call the vote and we've had discussion by the public
[3:36:49] We've also had discussion by the public the council already happily, so we can call the vote
[3:36:56] Okay, let's call the vote.
[3:36:58] That's the member mark.
[3:36:59] Yes.
[3:37:00] That's the number one.
[3:37:02] In your repeat the motion.
[3:37:05] What is it like 5,000?
[3:37:07] Yes.
[3:37:08] And what is the 5,000 proof in first, you know, the basic cost of the added cost?
[3:37:12] The basic, yeah, I'm intervening as 10,000, yes.
[3:37:17] No, it's, what I heard the sheriff say is that if our cost is 9,000, I think you offered the number of 12 to 15, but it's, as he mentioned, it depends on how many people challenge it and I will...
[3:37:30] Say, they're being very careful to give tickets only when there's a grigious speeding. So you could draw your own conclusions about what that means. But yeah, we're saying cut the 9,000 number to about 5,000.
[3:37:45] But are we the motion thing about when they go out?
[3:37:51] we we also talked about making it. Making it sporadic. But every month. Yeah. So they can decide what that means. As long as it's $5,000 a month.
[3:38:04] I think I think the city manager and the sheriff will work that out. Is that right? Yes.
[3:38:10] All right, then yes.
[3:38:14] Councilmember Tonka? No.
[3:38:16] Vice Mayor Tyson? Yes.
[3:38:18] Mayor Petasia? Yes.
[3:38:20] Thank you, Mayor.
[3:38:22] And I would suggest, Cody, if we can put the signs up.
[3:38:28] The speedlessly signs up again.
[3:38:30] Yeah. In both modes and the same locations in Monitor.
[3:38:33] If there's any difference, I think that would be a good exercise.
[3:38:35] And I agree, we don't have to start adding new locations.
[3:38:38] We could start over where we had put it before.
[3:38:40] Thank you. Just to see if there's change in behavior. Correct.
[3:38:47] Okay, we should do. Was this or a certain amount of time and then have the share of come back and report again?
[3:38:54] We could have always request the share of to come back, but the motion as I interpret is.
[3:39:00] I got 16 hours, so the $5,000 by the 300 average per hour that's like 16 hours per month.
[3:39:08] So I could come and report back at the next month.
[3:39:12] Council meeting of, you know, where we stand, what we see,
[3:39:15] and then should the council request the sheriff to come and ask questions,
[3:39:19] we could always invite them.
[3:39:21] We're committing the 70, 80,000 a year.
[3:39:24] So yeah, so we need to come back in a month and see where we stand again.
[3:39:29] Yes, there will be a I'll check in with you every month is what I'm trying to spread. What's that mean?
[3:39:35] Yes, let's do that. Let's see. So
[3:39:38] We're going to take a short break, but I thought we'd give a one final shot at
[3:39:44] Shandar figure out a planning commissioner
[3:39:47] So
[3:39:48] both say we don't want to do it. This is too long. Right. So we're gonna we're gonna do one one small timer on the dance floor and
[3:39:57] Well, hopefully we can converge, but otherwise we'll have to take it to the next meeting.
[3:40:01] So can you hand out the ballots again?
[3:40:04] Or how do you want to do that?
[3:40:05] Well, since we only have two, it seems like it's only two candidates.
[3:40:10] Can we just have a motion in a second?
[3:40:12] Because I'm actually at a ballot.
[3:40:13] I will move to a point.
[3:40:15] Monica tonight to the planning commission.
[3:40:18] I will second that.
[3:40:22] I'm just getting a motion.
[3:40:23] I'll just want to take advantage.
[3:40:28] Okay.
[3:40:29] And then you're ready for a roll call?
[3:40:30] Yes.
[3:40:31] Councilmember Mark?
[3:40:35] Yes.
[3:40:37] Councilmember Swan?
[3:40:39] No.
[3:40:41] Vice Mayor Tyson?
[3:40:43] Yes.
[3:40:43] Mayor Battasia?
[3:40:44] Yes.
[3:40:45] Congratulations.
[3:40:46] Congratulations.
[3:40:49] And Michelle, I really hope you'll...
[3:40:52] Michelle, I hope you'll stick around for an appointment in November.
[3:40:57] Thank you.
[3:40:59] Thank you.
[3:40:59] Thanks.
[3:41:00] All right.
[3:41:01] Good timing.
[3:41:02] Good timing.
[3:41:02] That's it.
[3:41:03] Okay.
[3:41:03] We're going to take about a 10 minute break and come back.
[3:41:05] Thank you.
[3:41:10] We're coming back from recess.
[3:41:16] Next item on the agenda is 6C.
[3:41:19] Consider project school block options for Parks and Rec Center renovation and provide
[3:41:25] staff with direction.
[3:41:26] Yes.
[3:41:27] Thank you, Mayor.
[3:41:28] I'd just like to introduce Melissa Elion, the associate engineer on the project.
[3:41:32] Thank you.
[3:41:33] Melissa.
[3:41:34] Good evening Mayor and council.
[3:41:38] I'm here to present parks and recreation center renovation projects scope options.
[3:41:48] So I'd like to discuss a little bit of the background of the project in February 15, 2024.
[3:41:55] For the Civic Center Improvement CIP Council approved the option to renovate the parks and recreation building
[3:42:02] and also make necessary modifications to town hall with a cost estimate of about 1.5 million,
[3:42:09] which was added to the budget. And then in 20, excuse me, in 25, 26 fiscal year operating
[3:42:17] in capital budget, Parks and Recreation Center, Renovation CIP replaced the Civic Center
[3:42:24] improvements CIP.
[3:42:28] So a little bit about the scope of what's in the existing CIP, it's to create
[3:42:34] a more functional space for town employees to include ADA upgrades to modify the building
[3:42:40] configuration, to create additional work spaces, to create improvements to the HVAC system,
[3:42:47] to optimize storage, potentially expand the building footprint, and also to make improvements
[3:42:54] town hall to accommodate relocation of staffing and programs.
[3:43:01] A little bit about the existing
[3:43:03] condition aka what we have now. It was built in the 1950s. It's about 880 square feet. We currently
[3:43:11] use the Parks and Recreation Building for office space, the Parks and Recreation Program and
[3:43:17] Youth Committee meetings. Existing we have two workstations and one office, the current
[3:43:24] Configuration doesn't maximize the space and is not optimal for staff.
[3:43:29] The work stations could increase with a better layout.
[3:43:32] There's privacy concerns with the restroom.
[3:43:35] The walls are very thin.
[3:43:38] Storage organization could be better.
[3:43:41] The gas electric H-FAC system requires upgrades.
[3:43:44] It's not heating and cooling properly currently.
[3:43:48] So we would like to improve that.
[3:43:50] and then electrical and plumbing systems require upgrades.
[3:43:56] The proposed options, we have option one,
[3:44:00] the Parks and Recreation Building Renovation and Town Hall
[3:44:04] Modification, which was approved by Council in February of 2024.
[3:44:11] Option two, which is a new prefabricated building.
[3:44:14] We had heard discussion that there was some interest in this
[3:44:17] by the community members, so we're bringing option two.
[3:44:21] And then option 3, which staff came up with, which is to address the immediate needs of the Parks and Recreation Building.
[3:44:31] So option number 1, which was approved by Council in February of 2024, as this preliminary layout, is to reconfigure the space for a more efficient layout, including moving of walls.
[3:44:46] Renovation for one office and four work stations in comparison to the existing one office in two work stations
[3:44:54] HVAC, electrical, plumbing and security upgrades, installing a new fire spring.
[3:45:00] There's the system for safety, ADA and other compliance improvements, new work stations and storage furnishings and modifications to town hall as necessary if there's any relocation that's required.
[3:45:14] for construction completion, we're looking at May 2028, that's like two and a half years and the estimated cost of that, which will be further designed after we receive our concept design is a million 344,000.
[3:45:33] So kind of going in more in detail about the cost, so we did an estimate, a rough estimate
[3:45:42] for design services, building permits, there would be no demo in site improvements since
[3:45:48] it would just be an interior renovation for this option, and then construction building
[3:45:54] cost, construction administration from the design consultant, which gives us the total
[3:46:00] of a million 344,000, and then we also have a timeline, which is to my right, which discusses
[3:46:08] kind of the design timeline, the intent to get the concept design approved by Council by
[3:46:15] August of 2026, building permanent approval, Council authorizing the bid for the renovation project
[3:46:22] and then kind of trickling down to our construction completion of May 2028.
[3:46:29] So option number two is a new pre-fabricated building. I know in a lot of residential projects, we have these in town, so
[3:46:40] there was talk from the community about considering this for our parks and rack buildings, so we included it.
[3:46:47] So the scope for this project is a little distinct because it would require us to acquire a conditional use permit and also go to planning commission
[3:46:58] whereas for renovation, it would just be a building permit.
[3:47:03] So the process for this is a little different.
[3:47:05] And if I'm not mistaken, would you
[3:47:06] we would have to go to the state architect
[3:47:09] for permit approval?
[3:47:13] So that process also kind of makes it a little more lengthy.
[3:47:17] But talking about this scope,
[3:47:19] so it would be demolition of the existing building,
[3:47:22] site grading and improvements,
[3:47:24] potential removal of trees, the redwood trees that are kind of near the
[3:47:29] city manager's office or potentially other trees that are in the way. We're
[3:47:34] looking at having a new prefab building of approximately a thousand square feet.
[3:47:40] So that would increase the square footage by about 120 square feet. We would be
[3:47:45] looking at six workstations and one office, which is estimated in further defined
[3:47:51] after the concept plan, compared to our one office and existing two work stations, a heat pump
[3:47:59] HFAC system and fire suppression system or fire sprinkler system. We're looking at completion
[3:48:06] to be in March, 2021, over three years due to the planning process. In the estimated cost is
[3:48:14] 1,164,000 to 1,404,000, and that's depending on the quality and the great of the pre-fat building.
[3:48:24] We included some pictures to the right.
[3:48:27] As you can see, the top picture is a different quality than the middle picture.
[3:48:33] So it's just kind of to show the range of quality that we can get into from a pre-fat building
[3:48:39] and how that affects the price of it.
[3:48:45] So, going more into detail with the cost and the timeline.
[3:48:50] So, we looked at design services.
[3:48:53] Again, planning applications, building permits.
[3:48:57] The cost for demo and site improvements is higher here,
[3:49:01] because we will need to prepare the site.
[3:49:03] We'll need to bring utilities to it.
[3:49:07] All of that prep work, remove trees,
[3:49:09] construction and building costs, construction administration,
[3:49:12] all of that leading to the range that I discussed before of a million, 164,000 to a million,
[3:49:20] 404,000. And then looking at the timeline, you kind of see the timeline of awarding the RFP,
[3:49:27] preparing the concept design, which would be in September of 2026.
[3:49:34] And then building permit approval
[3:49:36] in August of 2028. So all of that time to kind of go to planning permission, get the conditional
[3:49:42] use permit, go to the state architect for it as well, and also select our company contractor
[3:49:53] to assist us with this job to have the construction completion in March of 2029.
[3:50:02] And option number three would be just to address the immediate needs of the building.
[3:50:10] Town staff kind of got together and identified three major needs that the building needs currently.
[3:50:17] The first one is to upgrade the Unisex restroom to enhance privacy and usability per building code.
[3:50:24] Another is to install three town standard work stations and storage shelving, which would help the storage
[3:50:31] and also kind of better functionality with putting in town standard work stations that are kind of uniform with our town hall currently.
[3:50:43] And to upgrade gas electric HVAC with heat pump system and electrical upgrades, we may need to upgrade the electrical panel if we do do the heat pump system.
[3:50:54] that's also something that will be defined in the concept design. The duration for that
[3:50:59] we're looking at 18 to 20 months and the estimated costs for that would be $400,000.
[3:51:09] And just going more into detail, we're looking at design services and then we kind of delineated
[3:51:16] each item as to what would be a cost estimate for that, bringing us to a total of $400,000.
[3:51:25] And in terms of our timeline, it's pretty straightforward of, you know, soliciting the proposal,
[3:51:33] getting to final design, bidding an awarding construction, and then construction, bringing us to 18 to 20 months.
[3:51:43] And the staff recommendation is to consider the scope options for option 1, 2, and 3, and to please provide us with
[3:51:52] action.
[3:51:59] Yes. So it would be an interior renovation. So it would not be a demo and a rebuild.
[3:52:06] It would just be an interior renovation and a space reconfiguration alongside the other scope items listed.
[3:52:14] Help someone attack. Talk, can you turn on your microphone? Sorry, can I ask questions?
[3:52:19] When was this building constructed? In the 1950s.
[3:52:28] And we're only getting two new workstation. That's it.
[3:52:30] Um, for option 1, that would be correct. And to really think with the pressing need for two more
[3:52:37] workstation at this point to spend 1.4, do we really need that at this point? I can weigh in on that. So
[3:52:45] part of that, but it's not only workstations, it also has a break room and a quiet room if, yeah,
[3:52:50] so there's more than just workstations, but to answer your direct question, is there immediate need?
[3:52:55] No, I had all of the directors kind of, we came together and talked about it. There's not as
[3:53:00] as big as the immediate need as we get per suit or a thought there would be when we first put this
[3:53:06] on to our CIP list. We thought we were going to be expanding staff to catch puts all the regulations
[3:53:12] coming down from the state, all of those conversations. That isn't what we believe is the need any
[3:53:18] more. We truly really need the space only during the summer when our interns come in. We onboard
[3:53:23] about six to five to six interns for about four months, but then they leave and we found space
[3:53:30] them in the conference lobby, the conference room in the lobby, so no, there is not an immediate
[3:53:37] need to have two more work stations. And the reason the embarked on it was that we felt there
[3:53:41] was the imminent need for more work stations. We were expecting a delusion of SB 9 applications.
[3:53:47] We would have high new staff. So that's not really what you're seeing. Correct. We were thinking
[3:53:52] we were going to expand our engineering staff, possibly our planning staff.
[3:53:57] Oh, and as a part of the pound hall, we did actually add more workstations for those who have
[3:54:04] come by, we converted our mail room into two workstations and spot the mail room, we digitized
[3:54:10] all our records and now that's our new mail room. So we added the workstation in town hall.
[3:54:16] So to answer the question, is there a meeting need to add more workstations in the
[3:54:24] building is 1950s, should we put in 1.3 million just to do the interiors? Is that makes sense?
[3:54:32] What's your profession?
[3:54:34] The thoughts that are going through my head is I've heard that there's it used to be the old
[3:54:39] person who holds water district building. There's a little bit of a sentimental hold on to that.
[3:54:43] So there's that argument, but I would say, if you want my opinion, it's as someone who's
[3:54:49] actually worked in the building for like five years, the immediate needs are the HVAC and
[3:54:54] bathroom privacy issue to get that to actually be, you know, optimal for the people that
[3:54:59] will work there throughout the day.
[3:55:02] Can we go to option 2, please?
[3:55:12] Hey, it appears to me that option 2 and option 1 are approximately the same price.
[3:55:18] However, in option 2, there is like, there's also a cost basis for option 2 as well, which
[3:55:25] not on this. By the way, the middle picture looks pretty good and I would like to have that
[3:55:32] as part of the Parks and Rec building. I think that's probably the 1.4 which is approximately
[3:55:38] the same price as the total remodel that you guys are looking at. At the time it appears to be about
[3:55:46] the same amount of time to do that as well. So what I'm thinking is that if I can have to
[3:55:54] especially on the cost on option two please that would be really helpful for me. Okay, thank you very much.
[3:56:01] Now, I'll continue to go, go, go, go, go, go. Where's the air conditioning here?
[3:56:09] Oh,
[3:56:12] can you just slide please?
[3:56:14] Oh, yeah.
[3:56:14] No, no, no, no, no, just leave it here please.
[3:56:17] I believe that these costs are far higher than what they should be.
[3:56:25] We could probably do it for under like $800,000.
[3:56:31] If you take away the contingency and the fact that these things are pre-built.
[3:56:38] So you should be able to take one of these items and slide it onto a foundation and just
[3:56:44] up the electrical and the plumbing in my opinion. Now you have to do this take down the old building
[3:56:51] and the two redwood trees that are adjacent to it. You will have an additional one or two
[3:56:58] work spaces on that 100 and plus square feet. I think that you could probably go maybe a little bit larger
[3:57:07] than a thousand square feet, maybe 1200 square feet for the same pricing as this and I think that you
[3:57:12] probably do it in about a year and a half.
[3:57:16] My other patio costs 800,000 just to close it
[3:57:20] back into a room. The doctor says it's a remodel
[3:57:24] that's the thing. If it's a pre-fab, pre-fab's are done
[3:57:28] someplace else, they're done in high quality
[3:57:32] and they're shipped over here and they're dropped in with the crane.
[3:57:36] So you just vault it down.
[3:57:38] last week. Where would you cut costs? Yeah, it's right there. The construction building cost
[3:57:43] between 600 and 800,000. I don't believe that that's going to be the case. I think that
[3:57:49] the demolition is going to be a little bit less expensive than 200,000. Or maybe I'm really
[3:57:55] way out of whack on that. But let me tell you, 1996, when I put a bit in my house, I wanted them
[3:58:04] pay $10,000 to demolish my entire house and here I'm looking at $200,000 for the same thing
[3:58:14] and my house was larger than a sponge. So if I may just add that within the cost it also includes the
[3:58:22] installation of a new fire sprinkler system which means we would need to route the fire sprinkler
[3:58:27] there and install the water line and it also includes the new heat pump system and a potential
[3:58:33] electrical panel upgrade. Thank you for that. That comes through it in these numbers. Correct.
[3:58:42] I've already talked. He can stop anyway. So that's my line of reasoning here. I think it's
[3:58:47] going to be more efficient. I think it's going to be faster. I think it's going to be less expensive.
[3:58:53] I think that the build quality will be far higher.
[3:58:59] George? Having been involved with the
[3:59:03] commercial construction and also with my students at Cal, I say never get rid of the contingency
[3:59:09] that is part of your project. And so my initial question was, you've got a 20% contingency
[3:59:16] for both one and two and I don't know what the right number would be, but I tell you what,
[3:59:21] I'm not going to try to redesign a reprise your project for you here. If we look at number three,
[3:59:26] my question is, is the contingency built into those elements there for $400,000. This is already
[3:59:32] included because I don't see it separately. I think that that would be further defined at the
[3:59:38] concept design, but I think currently it is. Yeah. That still would require a designer to design
[3:59:46] the HVAC and also the restroom. Great. Thank you. Okay. Can we go back to Option 1, please?
[4:00:00] Okay. Let's see. You have modifications to town hall as necessary. That seems like a bit of a black hole to me. What exactly does that mean?
[4:00:10] Um, so that would be like any basically changes that we need to the parks and
[4:00:17] rex building that kind of effect, um, kind of staffing needs or needs, um, yeah,
[4:00:25] needs that are affected by the parks and rex renovation, um, to renovate town hall
[4:00:31] to accommodate that. And it's my understanding that we've already done that. Correct.
[4:00:35] Yeah, so this option, one that was approved by council, this, uh, we were planning to move the
[4:00:40] staff that's currently in their in-to-town all, so Paxera services that might need public-facing
[4:00:49] workstations and finance would go into the renovated Paxera and REC building.
[4:00:55] So any modification related to that relocation of services?
[4:00:59] But I think with the workstations that we created currently, there might not be a huge need for more modifications
[4:01:06] we can probably step into the workstation that's currently existing and share the public facing
[4:01:13] counter that's currently happening. So should I just ignore that? That was the scope
[4:01:19] approved as option one. I'm asking you if I know the scope of the group does it does that
[4:01:24] item still it may not need to happen. Okay, thank you. And then on the prefab could you go to that
[4:01:32] option to.
[4:01:38] I heard some mention here of you have to go to a state
[4:01:41] architected. I hear that correctly. Yeah, I make clarifies. So these
[4:01:48] feedback buildings, the building permit is issued by the Department of State
[4:01:53] Architects. So the town may have some control over site improvements that's
[4:01:59] needed, but the building permit of the fabricated buildings are
[4:02:04] by the state architects.
[4:02:07] And if I could weigh in any time you had modified the prefabricated unit, you would have to go back to the state to be able to have it modified.
[4:02:17] The places where it ties to the site are where the local building department would have control.
[4:02:24] All right. Thank you.
[4:02:26] And then in this option, you have a new heat pump and HVAC system and fire suppression system.
[4:02:33] Is it possible for us to get any grants from the guy in my left, maybe he can cut a check for you guys?
[4:02:44] Yeah, definitely well investigate. Even for the renovation project, if we upgrade to heat pump electrification, there could be some rebates and some...
[4:02:52] There's some rebates provided by SVCE, but it's not a big issue, but we could further investigate as well.
[4:02:58] Okay. And then it looks to me like between option one and option two there's not a significant difference in cost.
[4:03:10] One of them is between one point let's say 1.2 and 1.4 and option one is about 1.3.
[4:03:18] So we're dealing with a building that's about 75 years old is that about right?
[4:03:24] Well, I would imagine that's kind of at the end of its useful life, so I will report $400,000 into that.
[4:03:31] If I may chime in, I think option three, it could be a good option.
[4:03:37] I think if we do those things, we could have a few many years of useful life,
[4:03:42] add many years of useful life to that building.
[4:03:44] The currently that building, those issues that we identify may be the only issues and if those
[4:03:51] are addressed, I think it's still be a good space that's usable for the next 10 years or so.
[4:03:56] Okay.
[4:03:57] Well, I would have some concerns about how that building designed back in that era would
[4:04:03] perform in a note quick.
[4:04:06] Again, it's built in 1950.
[4:04:08] That's so.
[4:04:09] No, I'm just from a design standpoint.
[4:04:11] The way buildings were designed back in 1950s very different than they were designed in the 80s, for example.
[4:04:20] I would not want to have that sort of weighing on us.
[4:04:28] I can't recall the exact year.
[4:04:32] But somewhere around five years ago in Carl was still here, we did do a structural assessment of the building.
[4:04:37] We have that on file. I forget the findings of the study, but we do have it that could be reviewed.
[4:04:45] Yeah, it did have a lot of problematic
[4:04:50] findings and my one comment of I just remember there were being a lot of public comment challenging those that people were attached to the building a lot of the history committee
[4:05:00] Yeah
[4:05:01] Yeah, so okay. Any other comments from the council? We take it to the comment.
[4:05:09] Okay. Well, I'd like to say something.
[4:05:12] Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Lou, I didn't see your hand up.
[4:05:15] That's okay. If you remember, Regeven, we went to look at that pre-fab apartment building in Los Altos.
[4:05:24] the permits for that one had to go to the state. And it didn't seem to be like a significant deal to the builders.
[4:05:33] Right.
[4:05:34] Anyway, just them.
[4:05:35] You're talking about the business.
[4:05:37] This is just a circle in less salt as we saw that.
[4:05:40] That wouldn't have been the same issue.
[4:05:41] It's lifting them up with the cranes and all of that.
[4:05:44] Right.
[4:05:46] But if we don't need the space, I'm not sure we really want to spend
[4:05:50] 1.4 million dollars to rebuild this. I don't know. I thought we needed a space and now we're
[4:05:59] hearing, well, maybe we really don't. So maybe the 400,000, if that building is structurally
[4:06:07] found,
[4:06:10] if we looked at it five years ago and it looked okay, it has been to a few earthquakes
[4:06:16] too.
[4:06:18] So, you know, a lot of buildings in the 50s are still standing and haven't had any issues
[4:06:24] and were built maybe not to the same codes but with enough margin that they're still fine.
[4:06:33] So, I'm just not sure spending an extra million dollars when the staff is saying we don't really
[4:06:38] need the space is worth it.
[4:06:43] Well, I think the question my mind is there are some modifications
[4:06:47] that are required, specifically the rest room and what were the other ones, Kolees, HVAC and so
[4:06:56] if we're going to spend $400,000 on that and then the building is already 75 years old and
[4:07:02] apparently not structurally sound from the reviews that we're done previously, it seems to me
[4:07:09] I realize it's a big number, it's spent an extra million dollars but at some point you do have to think
[4:07:15] about, you know, is the building past as useful life
[4:07:18] and more importantly, is it safe
[4:07:21] in some kind of situation like in its wake?
[4:07:24] Sure, but I thought, Cody said it was the value of it.
[4:07:30] For that. And though it may have had some issues, it wasn't like ready to fall down, or maybe it's just minor issues that could be repaired.
[4:07:39] I didn't get a feeling that they said it was at the end of its life and its unsafe. If that was the case, we shouldn't have been in there for the last five years.
[4:07:51] I don't know.
[4:07:51] All right. I see Director Bradford, you know, would like to add something.
[4:07:56] Yeah, when we talked about this project internally as staff, we looked at it from a projection
[4:08:01] of what our workload would look like. One thing that you may want to consider that we did not
[4:08:07] in our conversation was the opportunity to do this at a timely fashion now because it gives us the
[4:08:15] opportunity why we don't have a staffing demand, where we wouldn't have to relocate as many staff
[4:08:20] to be able to do the project where if we had, you know, and we're getting close to capacity again,
[4:08:27] it could cause us to have additional costs to be able to have other office space
[4:08:31] could convert it temporarily to then house those employees while the other space is being
[4:08:36] configured. So you could see that this is an an ideal time where you're kind of in between
[4:08:42] staffing demand for that particular facility.
[4:08:49] And that case, and I think option to sounds like a better bargain, because you get a little more square footage and everything is new.
[4:08:58] That's all right.
[4:08:59] I'm an office.
[4:09:01] Any public comment to hear in the room or online?
[4:09:05] I have Carol with the hand raised online, and I think I have Alan coming from the back.
[4:09:09] Thank you, first. Carol.
[4:09:12] I'll do Carol, call Carol.
[4:09:14] Well, start with Carol. Oh, I'm sorry.
[4:09:18] If I let's continue.
[4:09:23] I think we're going for Carol.
[4:09:28] Now on Epstein, I live in town.
[4:09:30] First comment I'd like to make is the council gave direction two years ago,
[4:09:35] and I was surprising that two years have gone by and
[4:09:40] staff didn't implement the recommendations that the council had made two years ago.
[4:09:45] And that's the first comment I'd like to make.
[4:09:48] Second, I agree that if you're going to spend the money,
[4:09:51] it certainly seems to make more sense
[4:09:52] to spend the money on a new structure
[4:09:56] than to spend the money refurbishing a 75-year-old structure.
[4:10:02] I'm just amazed at the time durations.
[4:10:06] I mean, the Hoover Dam was built in five years,
[4:10:08] and we're talking about over three years here
[4:10:10] to put in place a pre-fabricated unit and located on sites on just amazed by the durations that we're
[4:10:20] talking about here. I think the comments that were made by J. Mates Sense would probably
[4:10:25] will need additional staff at some point in time in the future and it's better to do it now
[4:10:30] into weight weight or when it's going to cost more and it's going to be more inconvenient. So
[4:10:34] if the council was interested in doing it, my recommendation would be to go with the new pre-fabricated
[4:10:40] to build it on a more expedited schedule. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody online?
[4:10:47] Carol, Godlip.
[4:10:58] Carol, you have the ability to unmute your microphone.
[4:11:06] Doesn't seem like she's responding.
[4:11:09] Okay, I guess we'll bring it back to council. And the request from council is to give the
[4:11:18] the staff direction, provide staff the direction.
[4:11:25] So any recommendations,
[4:11:30] option two, you want to make that motion?
[4:11:32] I had a comment, because you know, I generally am the one who, let's build it, let's
[4:11:38] not kick the can down the road.
[4:11:40] And I would say in terms of preparation, I kind of wish we had that we're speculating on
[4:11:46] structural aspect of this building here.
[4:11:49] And so I think my best instinct would be to say,
[4:11:52] let's go confirm how bad it is.
[4:11:56] But on the other hand, I'm actually a little flexible here,
[4:11:59] because I'm liking option 2.
[4:12:03] And I would say if it's $100,000 to make it look snazzy,
[4:12:08] if that's the right word, I would do that.
[4:12:11] So in terms of the finishing option.
[4:12:14] So, I think I'm ready as I puzzle over this to say,
[4:12:21] yeah, I think it's an old building and let's go with a new one and let's go for some nicer finishes.
[4:12:35] So, is there a motion?
[4:12:37] Oh, it standard you have something?
[4:12:39] How does it kind of move that we should go with option two?
[4:12:46] May I offer an amendment to that, which is to see if we can cut down on the timeline because it does seem fairly drawn out. It's a three-year project.
[4:12:59] This is estimated and I'm sure we could take a look and see what we can do.
[4:13:04] Okay, so with that, let's just say a Pro option 2 and ask staff to try and compress the timeline.
[4:13:12] and ask staff to reduce the cost to reduce both the timeline and the cost.
[4:13:20] Okay, so that's the motion, is that right?
[4:13:23] Okay.
[4:13:23] Mayor, if I can just clarify it's the direction to staff not actually approve the project.
[4:13:28] That's right.
[4:13:31] We are proving the project onto it.
[4:13:34] We are.
[4:13:35] We're actually choosing an option.
[4:13:37] We haven't got it.
[4:13:39] Yeah, we're just requesting that.
[4:13:42] So we're choosing option to, and asking staff to review the cost and the schedule and come back with improved cost and schedule numbers as possible.
[4:13:54] So Mayor, I think we were approaching we are coming to Council because we had a stage where we probably should issue an RFP to get a design team on board.
[4:14:04] And once we have a design team, we'll have a better idea on cost and even schedule.
[4:14:09] The reason why it's like three years plus is because of the planning process and we don't know
[4:14:14] a kind of community feedback and other kind of input that we may get.
[4:14:19] And so that's the reason we put a little more buffer in there, but we'll obviously spend time
[4:14:23] to make it shorter and more cost-effective.
[4:14:27] But we will have to, next step, we'll be to hire a consultant.
[4:14:32] We will have to issue an RFV and at that time I think it's going to be over 60, so we'll come back to council at that time to further discuss.
[4:14:41] All right, add that to the motion.
[4:14:45] You're just clarifying or do you just clarifying?
[4:14:48] Okay.
[4:14:48] All right, so we have a motion to approve option 2 and to review the schedule in the cost.
[4:14:56] We have a second.
[4:14:57] In a second.
[4:15:00] We should go ahead. Councilmember Mark? Yes. Councilmember Swan? Yes. Councilmember Tanka? Yes. Vice Mayor Tyson? Yes. Mayor Patasia? Yes. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor and council.
[4:15:16] Thank you. Okay, the next item on the agenda's public hearings. And I guess the first part that is X-party contacts policy disclosure.
[4:15:30] any exparty context?
[4:15:35] No.
[4:15:37] Okay.
[4:15:38] Seeing none.
[4:15:39] Item 70.
[4:15:41] Is there a staff report?
[4:15:47] Yes, Mayor.
[4:15:48] Starting here shortly.
[4:16:05] Good evening, Mayor.
[4:16:06] Vice Mayor.
[4:16:07] And council members.
[4:16:08] We'll be taking a look at the
[4:16:10] Conditional Use Permit request for St. Nicholas Catholic School.
[4:16:14] This follows the Planning Commission's recommendation for approval
[4:16:18] received on December 4th of last year.
[4:16:24] We just have a concise presentation for you this evening because we've received that recommendation of approval.
[4:16:31] So here's the scenario of the site. We have the St. Nicholas School.
[4:16:36] That road on the top of the screen. You can see my cursor hovering is El Monte Road.
[4:16:41] We have the driveway leading into the parking lots.
[4:16:44] We have the administration building and library, which will be the focus of this conditional use permit requests and also just for a context.
[4:16:53] We have classrooms here and the parish hall, which is to the north of the administration building.
[4:17:03] The scope of this conditional use permit is to construct a 1,088 square foot addition to the administration building.
[4:17:09] remodel the administration building which includes interior and exterior modifications and to
[4:17:16] restripe the parking lot resulting in one additional parking space.
[4:17:22] Here is the enlarged site plan
[4:17:23] so on the bottom of the page here we have the parking lot that's going to be restriped to add that
[4:17:28] additional parking space. We have the library we have the administration building which is shaded
[4:17:35] noting that is the area that's going to be remodeled and in dashred we have the area of the
[4:17:41] addition. You can see here that the area of the addition is internal to the site, it's in the
[4:17:47] quad, it would not be visible from offsite surrounded by classrooms in administration building.
[4:17:54] You also will look at the next slide but the page left is the parish hall for reference.
[4:18:02] here are the proposed elevations. So along with the addition that's in the
[4:18:07] quad that you cannot see in this front elevation, there's the exterior
[4:18:11] remodeling, particularly the front entry, which is going to have an increase in
[4:18:16] height as they change this roof form. So that entry is going to increase to
[4:18:22] 18 feet, which is well within the limits of the zoning and well below the
[4:18:28] some building height that is there today. So, for reference, the Paris Hall would continue to be 26 feet tall.
[4:18:39] I mentioned that this application received a recommendation or approval from the Planning Commission on December 4.
[4:18:45] The Planning Commission in its approval, recommendation for approval, modified one condition.
[4:18:51] So, as it's currently written in the CUP for St. Nicholas, every five years, the CUPs to be
[4:19:02] St. Nicholas requested that that be changed from five to 15 years.
[4:19:09] The planning commission found that 10 years would be more appropriate.
[4:19:12] And so that's what's shown here on screen.
[4:19:14] And that's what's reflected in the resolution.
[4:19:20] The public notice went out again for this public hearing this evening
[4:19:23] and no public comments were received.
[4:19:28] With that staff recommends that the city council adopted a resolution
[4:19:31] which is the attachment one to make a categorical exemption
[4:19:34] under SQL, pursuant to section 1, 5, 301, and approve the conditional use permits subject
[4:19:39] to conditions. That concludes the presentation. I'm here for questions, but also the reps of
[4:19:45] the school are here to give a short presentation.
[4:19:49] Okay, welcome. Good evening. Thank you for giving
[4:19:53] me a couple of minutes. I'm the architected record, John Miller.
[4:20:00] I just want to explain kind of the
[4:20:02] concept of what we're doing here.
[4:20:04] This is our third or fourth project that we've
[4:20:07] done in Los Altoos Hills over the years.
[4:20:10] And this project is to improve the facility in six aspects.
[4:20:16] One is accessibility.
[4:20:18] Two is energy, efficiency.
[4:20:20] Three is space layout for seismic and life safety.
[4:20:26] And then we have a review of systems that are near the end
[4:20:31] their life and of course the image of the school. It's a 55-year-old building. So our concept
[4:20:38] is the building is really constrained and attached to other other buildings. So what we're doing
[4:20:45] is basically stripping the building down to its wood frame, keeping the wood frame and the foundation,
[4:20:52] and then adding, increasing the height of the roof for more mechanical systems, updating the facade,
[4:21:01] We're adding to the footprint as staff set only in the courtyard.
[4:21:05] You won't see it, you cannot see it from the street.
[4:21:09] And then we're replacing the electrical HVAC windows, roofing,
[4:21:14] siding, system like that.
[4:21:17] And that's the concept of our program.
[4:21:22] And that's all I have to say.
[4:21:24] And I think I did less of six or six seconds.
[4:21:27] Any questions from my point?
[4:21:30] Got any questions from council?
[4:21:35] Linda?
[4:21:37] Okay.
[4:21:39] Do we have anybody else from the school here or online?
[4:21:48] No, I'm here.
[4:21:51] I do see the up yet.
[4:21:54] I'm going to promote Jan to a lot of speak.
[4:21:59] Jan is the principal?
[4:22:01] Yes.
[4:22:03] Good evening.
[4:22:06] Can you hear me okay?
[4:22:06] Yes. Okay, everyone's so awake. Okay.
[4:22:15] We have hopefully met all of the requirements for the public notifications.
[4:22:24] We've really done a lot of outreach to our neighbors.
[4:22:29] For them.
[4:22:30] To understand the projects and to welcome them and to walk the campus with us and to understand how to
[4:22:38] What this impact is going to be. They have been really gracious with their support and we are looking forward to hopefully just
[4:22:53] upgrading the accessibility of the bathrooms and having warm water for our faculty and a bathroom,
[4:23:02] so there's some just basic needs that we're looking forward to having. So we appreciate your
[4:23:09] support on this project.
[4:23:13] Thank you. I had a couple of questions about just the school in general
[4:23:16] if it's just a long line.
[4:23:19] Yeah, sure.
[4:23:20] Okay, so thank you for joining, I know it's late.
[4:23:24] How many students do you have at the school
[4:23:26] and how many faculty?
[4:23:30] We have about 36 faculty and staff
[4:23:36] and we have about 200 and 42, 45, you know students
[4:23:44] been in on the day.
[4:23:48] And at capacity we could be a 310 is our capacity for our single class
[4:23:57] per grade. But we have in the history have never been that high. Our highest is typically
[4:24:07] in the 275 range. So we intend to keep it in something like that.
[4:24:15] And what grades?
[4:24:18] TK through eighth.
[4:24:21] Okay.
[4:24:22] It looks like your buildings have passed applying commission.
[4:24:27] So congratulations on getting past them.
[4:24:29] And I think the 10 years is a good compromise for review.
[4:24:33] I would like to make sure that we actually do that.
[4:24:37] I think we dropped the ball on that a few times.
[4:24:42] Is what's our mechanism for making sure that we review the CPUP?
[4:24:50] We've created a condition on this permit tracking list.
[4:24:53] So when we digitized our storage room,
[4:24:58] we found all the old CPUPs,
[4:24:59] we put them on a tracking sheet,
[4:25:01] and we have the expiration dates for each.
[4:25:05] All right.
[4:25:06] any public comment?
[4:25:14] I have no objections to the proposed changes.
[4:25:19] I just would like to understand what the purpose of the CUP is and why it's appropriate
[4:25:25] to go from five years to some other determination.
[4:25:30] What's the purpose?
[4:25:32] What will we suppose to review?
[4:25:34] Why didn't we review it?
[4:25:35] And why is changing it?
[4:25:37] The right thing to do.
[4:25:38] Thank you.
[4:25:40] Oh, John.
[4:25:43] Yes.
[4:25:43] So there's an active CUP because it's zoned residential, residential agriculture, conditional
[4:25:51] uses for our private school.
[4:25:53] And so it's operating off of that existing CUP.
[4:25:57] And every time that the school is going to come back with an addition, that would trigger
[4:26:02] an amendment to the CUP because it's a change to what the city council has previously
[4:26:06] approved.
[4:26:07] Yeah, and I think the overall operation of the school is governed by the CUP, so there
[4:26:14] are limits to the number of students, and to be able to verify that the instances of the
[4:26:25] use are overly intense that would burden the neighbors, the town staff would go out to look
[4:26:32] review to be able to make sure. And one of the things that we would notice that the school has
[4:26:38] been a very good party when we've had instances with the neighbors to be able to rectify
[4:26:44] and I think one of the other things that through this project we've learned is that the facilities
[4:26:51] that we're talking about I think were originally designed for like maybe 10 people as opposed to the
[4:26:56] 30 people that they now currently have on staff. So as an aside to the previous comment.
[4:27:03] All right, any other comments on Zoom?
[4:27:07] No, no.
[4:27:07] All right, I'll bring it back to council.
[4:27:11] Any further questions or discussion?
[4:27:13] I get a motion.
[4:27:17] Yes, I'd be happy to make a motion.
[4:27:20] I'm a move that we approve a resolution for the conditional use permit as noted in section 7A.
[4:27:30] Salkan.
[4:27:31] And the 10 year revealing?
[4:27:33] thing. Yes, which is part of part of that's written there. Okay. Okay. Go ahead with the
[4:27:40] roll call. Councilmember Mark. Yes. Councilmember Swan.
[4:27:46] Yes. Councilmember Tonka. Yes.
[4:27:50] Vice Mayor Tyson. Yes. Mayor Patasia. Yes. Thank you, Mayor. So congratulations, sir.
[4:27:55] And congratulations, Ms. Popolizio. We're we're happy to support your project.
[4:28:01] I will ask that we had sent you a communication a while back to have a dialogue.
[4:28:10] We'd be happy to spring for coffee or lunch.
[4:28:13] Perhaps you could reach out and we'd be happy to meet with you just informally.
[4:28:18] Thank you.
[4:28:19] Well, did.
[4:28:23] Thank you.
[4:28:29] Moving on to item 7B resolution, well, first of all, thank you to the water folks for
[4:28:37] saying this late, 7B is resolution approving a conditional use permit for upgrades to an existing
[4:28:43] water storage in booster pump station and variants to the minimum 40 foot front and 30 foot
[4:28:49] side setbacks for the installation of new booster pumps and concrete foundations. This station
[4:28:55] is located assessors parcel number 17546004 adjacent to 1370 south Altalene lands of California water
[4:29:06] service. Mr. Fox. Thank you, Mayor and Council. Another concise presentation as we're again
[4:29:14] falling up on a planning commission recommendation for approval. This time for the CUP for the
[4:29:19] Cal Water Site on South Alta.
[4:29:23] Here is the GIS snippet of the neighborhood, so it's on South Alta,
[4:29:31] which forks off of Altia road and properties highlight and red and you can tell there that
[4:29:38] this site is substantially undersized compared to our usual one acre minimum. The exact acreage and
[4:29:46] square footage is listed on this staff report, but it's substantially undersized.
[4:29:52] Here's an aerial
[4:29:52] and if you follow my cursor here you can make out the cow water site by the circular water
[4:30:00] Tank there, other equipment surrounded by vegetation, and surrounded by the the neighbor to the south's driveway, and all sides, south ought to land
[4:30:10] front sit on the north side.
[4:30:13] The cow water site, um, services, a total of 12 properties that encompass
[4:30:18] Altierra, north Altia, and south Altia, and provides those properties with drinking water.
[4:30:26] For those that are unfamiliar with the site, a couple of photos, photo on the left is taken on south
[4:30:31] altar, looking south, west at an angle towards the site. So in this photo you can't make out
[4:30:37] the water tank because it's being hidden by vegetation, right? Well, but you can make out the pressure
[4:30:43] tank. Photo on the right is taking on south of, also looking directly south, straight onto the property.
[4:30:51] And now you cannot see the water tank, but you can't see the water tank, but you cannot see the
[4:30:57] the pressure tank is being screened by vegetation.
[4:31:03] The scope of this conditional use permit is to remove
[4:31:07] the pressure tank and pump house to install two booster pumps
[4:31:11] and close each within a five-foot-tall fucic shelter
[4:31:14] and a variance requests to the minimum 40-foot front
[4:31:17] and 30-foot side setbacks.
[4:31:20] So because the site is owned RA again,
[4:31:24] like most of the properties in town,
[4:31:26] cow waters operating off of a conditional use
[4:31:28] to operate this public utilities.
[4:31:32] Inverance is required because because the site is substantially
[4:31:35] undersized, all of the existing equipment
[4:31:38] is within the setback.
[4:31:40] So it's completely non-conforming.
[4:31:42] So the replacement of that equipment
[4:31:43] is going to trigger a variance.
[4:31:48] Here is the proposed site plan that is divided into three phases.
[4:31:52] So going from left to right, phase one
[4:31:54] is to demolish the pressure tank, which
[4:31:56] is that equipment that is close to the street,
[4:32:00] Phase two is to install the pumps and the acoustical shelter in the place of the pressure tank and the final phase is to remove the pump house which is closer to the water tank.
[4:32:15] All those structures and pavement again is in the sepac.
[4:32:21] The booster pumps would be housed within an acoustical shelter.
[4:32:24] that are shown here, five-foot tall, and in the discussion we had at the Planning Commission,
[4:32:33] CalWater asserted that based on the manufacturer's specifications for the pumps which do produce
[4:32:38] noise, based on those specifications and that expectation and based on the Coastal shelter,
[4:32:45] the noise that would be generated and the noise that would reach the property line would comply
[4:32:50] with the towns noise limitations
[4:32:54] mentioned that planning commission recommended approval at its
[4:32:58] December 17th meeting it added two conditions of approval one as we follow up that conversation
[4:33:05] on noise uh planning commission wanted to ensure that cow water measures the noise output when the
[4:33:10] work is done and prior to the project being signed off and if it is found to exceed the towns noise
[4:33:17] limitation that it would be cow water's responsibility for mitigation to bring it within
[4:33:21] compliance.
[4:33:23] The last condition is similar to St. Nicholas where the conditional use permit would be required
[4:33:29] to go to Plynic and Michigan City Council every 10 years for a review.
[4:33:36] This application was noticed all neighbors within 500 feet again for the tonight's City Council
[4:33:41] meeting and no public comment was received.
[4:33:46] With that staff recommends that the City Council adopt resolution, attachment one, to make
[4:33:51] categorical exemption under SQL,
[4:33:52] percent intersection one, five,
[4:33:54] three, one, subsection B,
[4:33:56] and approve the conditional use permit
[4:33:57] and variance subject to conditions.
[4:33:59] That concludes the presentation.
[4:34:01] CalWaters here as well.
[4:34:03] Okay, thank you.
[4:34:05] Any comments from CalWaters that you want to share with us?
[4:34:10] No, yes, though.
[4:34:12] Okay.
[4:34:15] Okay, there's any public comment or we...
[4:34:22] No? They put their hand. Oh, they're very good again. Yes.
[4:34:30] And it's staying down. They raised it and lowered it three times, but it is now staying down. Okay.
[4:34:36] Should we bring it back to council? Any questions or comments from council?
[4:34:42] I have a question. Can you when you say that this was published and you didn't get any
[4:34:51] were the neighbors notified with a postcard or something to alert them to this because not everybody
[4:34:57] looks at the notice on the down website. Each property with 500 feet gets a direct mailing.
[4:35:05] Okay. And nobody responded?
[4:35:08] No. Yeah, and we also post a yellow card on site. So that's that's very visible from
[4:35:13] And okay, all right, so any motion, anybody like to make a motion?
[4:35:24] Okay,
[4:35:26] I will move to approve 7B resolution, approving a conditional use permit for
[4:35:35] upgrades to an existing water storage and booster pump station and variants to the
[4:35:47] setbacks for the installation of new booster pumps and concrete foundations.
[4:35:54] This station is located at Google, whatever. So I'm all right. That's the motion and we add a second in advance.
[4:36:01] Okay, we have a motion a second. Go ahead.
[4:36:06] Councilmember Mark. Yes. Councilmember Swan. Yes.
[4:36:10] Councilmember Tonka. Yes.
[4:36:12] Vice Mayor Tyson. Yes. Vice Mayor Patija. Yes. Mayor Patija. Whatever.
[4:36:18] Okay. Congratulations.
[4:36:23] Thank you for being with us at this hour.
[4:36:27] On to number eight new business.
[4:36:31] City Council appoints appointments,
[4:36:33] the standing committees and outside agencies.
[4:36:35] So this is a big table.
[4:36:41] And this was distributed to the council to get their preferred
[4:36:45] appointments. So that's what the italicized text is. Some of these positions are designated by,
[4:36:52] you know, if you have, if you are the mayor of the vice mayor, so that's with non-italicized text,
[4:36:59] but we did our best to get everyone's request. And so that's what you see in the 2026 column. So this is
[4:37:06] what you're reviewing. If you have any questions, staff is here.
[4:37:14] Anybody want to propose any changes?
[4:37:22] I'd like to be on the Santa Clara County Fitties Association, board.
[4:37:30] May your talk was, took that last year because she was mayor and she said she wanted to do it.
[4:37:39] So I would request to do it this year if that's okay.
[4:37:44] Sure, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's, let's talk about that.
[4:37:54] Did you want to do it, Regent?
[4:37:58] I'll tell me this is the one that's at 7 p.m. on the second Thursday, right?
[4:38:04] Yeah, I was actually hoping to do that one, but I'm happy to trade one of the others with you if you'd like.
[4:38:13] Right.
[4:38:13] Water commission.
[4:38:16] Water.
[4:38:17] What's that?
[4:38:18] What's that?
[4:38:19] Is that person my hills?
[4:38:22] No, that's the Santa Clara Valley water district.
[4:38:26] Yeah.
[4:38:28] Okay.
[4:38:30] Not if you want that one, go ahead and do that one.
[4:38:35] What do you mean by that?
[4:38:35] Citizens Association.
[4:38:36] You want that one?
[4:38:39] Okay.
[4:38:40] I will take that one.
[4:38:43] Any other proposed changes?
[4:38:45] I noticed the senior commission is blank.
[4:38:49] And also VTA, but I don't know.
[4:38:53] How much we do in VTA?
[4:38:54] You know, both of those have been mine and I'm adding two things by Mayor, so for the first half of the year.
[4:39:05] And the way I put it was I'd be happy to let somebody else take either or both of those.
[4:39:15] Do we need somebody on those?
[4:39:17] So the plan and the the the senior commission is is an important thing in the sense that we have two residents and then five of our town and then five residents from Palo Alto from
[4:39:29] Los Alzos and then
[4:39:33] The council member from each city as part of this monthly meeting first funder and so that's that's a
[4:39:40] 30. And then it meets something like 8 or 10 times a year. I would say approximately.
[4:39:45] I just can't do that time. I have a standing board commitment.
[4:39:50] It's alright. Okay. Stan will do the senior commission. Thank you, Stan. I'd like to give
[4:39:55] up the water commission, because I think I've got enough other stuff. Is there somebody who'd
[4:40:02] like to take that? It's not. It's a fourth Wednesday of the month.
[4:40:10] I'm sorry.
[4:40:12] But she was just specified.
[4:40:13] I did that one quarter.
[4:40:15] Every quarter.
[4:40:15] So I could do that one.
[4:40:18] Great.
[4:40:21] And then the the other thing.
[4:40:22] There is a VT policy advisory group, which I've done for the last two years.
[4:40:27] It meets monthly and they often struggle to get quorum.
[4:40:32] So I've been actually quite good at attending.
[4:40:36] It's a.
[4:40:37] I always make it remote and I meet and I do it here. So I don't go to the San Jose because I remember I think I did it one time, too.
[4:40:47] Yeah.
[4:40:48] And when is that?
[4:40:50] It's on Thursday.
[4:40:51] Thursday the month once and one for PM.
[4:40:54] And then the other one is second.
[4:40:56] The advisory committee's second Wednesday.
[4:40:58] Oh, they're two of them.
[4:41:00] Yeah, second Thursday for you.
[4:41:02] You know what? That that bottom one.
[4:41:05] I don't think that. Nobody ever attends it, as far as I know. And I can do it.
[4:41:12] Okay, thank you. On Zoom, right? Okay.
[4:41:19] You can attend remotely and Erica does it for me.
[4:41:27] Okay? Okay. Are we good?
[4:41:30] Would you set it to us where we have it? Do we need a motion or a turning line?
[4:41:35] Yes. To approve the assignments. Okay.
[4:41:44] I'll move to approve the standing committees and outside agencies for 2026 as proposed.
[4:41:51] Second.
[4:41:54] Okay. We have motion in a second.
[4:41:56] Council member Mark. Yes. Council member Swan. Yes.
[4:42:01] Council member Tanka. Yes. Vice Mayor Tyson. Yes. Mayor Beteja. Yes. Thank you, Mayor.
[4:42:06] Thank you. Moving on to 8B. Resolution approving an eligible project option for the Silicon Valley Clean Energy Grant application and authorizing the city manager to execute the grant agreement.
[4:42:28] Good evening again, Mayor and Council. I'm here also to discuss that eligible project options for the Silicon Valley Clean Energy grant, otherwise known as SVCE grant.
[4:42:46] So who is SVCE? They are a nonprofit public agency and they provide communities with electricity
[4:42:55] from renewable and carbon-free sources at competitive rates. Their goals include addressing climate
[4:43:05] change at the local level, accelerating the transition to renewable energy statewide and
[4:43:11] reinvesting in the community through customer programs and services as well as grants, which
[4:43:17] we're going to talk about today, scholarships and sponsorships.
[4:43:24] So SVCE is currently holding
[4:43:26] a non-competitive grant program. There was 3.5 million of access revenues distributed
[4:43:32] among 13 member agencies. The deadline currently to apply is February 13th of 26. Sorry,
[4:43:42] That's a typo, sorry for Jay.
[4:43:46] And then the amount allocated to our town
[4:43:53] if we apply based off their qualifications
[4:43:58] is 155,738, 38, 36 dollars, sorry.
[4:44:06] My glasses need a better prescription.
[4:44:09] Okay, qualifications for the non-competitive grant
[4:44:12] fleet electrification, so something that the town really considers facility electrification,
[4:44:20] so like heat pumps, facility and fleet resilience, so battery storage, back up battery,
[4:44:28] things like that, decarb demonstrations, so any of the above examples with a community engagement
[4:44:34] aspect to it and then innovative community engagement, so community needs assessment,
[4:44:41] things of that nature.
[4:44:46] Okay, so the option one that we're in another thing just kind of in addition to this,
[4:44:52] SVCE would like to choose us to choose a project that already is going to get started soon and that we can.
[4:45:00] A point about it in a timeline too, because we will need to provide that information to them. So we selected projects that are already going to get started or need to get started or have been planned to get started. So here's option one, which is the purchase of two electric light duty trucks. So in fiscal year 2526.
[4:45:24] In the adopted operating and capital budget, the vehicle and equipment replacement, CIP was approved.
[4:45:31] The annual budget for that was 100k over the next five years.
[4:45:35] The goal of that was to replace aging vehicles and equipment and to kind of go with the town's climate action plan goals for green fleet.
[4:45:46] The total cost of option one would be $160,000 with each truck being at $80,000.
[4:45:53] We're looking to procure the first truck in Q2 of 2026 and the second truck in Q2 of 2027.
[4:46:03] Just as a side note, the town is also working separately with SVCE for new charging stations
[4:46:09] at the corp yard and the design is anticipated for that by spring of 2026 and then option number
[4:46:18] two, the town hall and council chambers, each fact electrification upgrade. So the adopted
[4:46:26] operating capital budget includes a new CIP for town facilities, energy efficiency, which evaluates
[4:46:34] the town buildings and recommends energy saving measures. The HVAC systems will also be
[4:46:40] for energy efficiency with Council Direction Town staff can begin Town Hall and Council Chambers,
[4:46:48] each VAC upgrade separate from the town facilities energy efficiency CIP staff could propose
[4:46:55] a new CIP as part of the FY2627 budget and if approved the timeline is in this table. So the total
[4:47:10] estimated and so the funds would help cover that cost and we're looking to complete construction
[4:47:17] of that by Q4 of 2027. We will need to reimburse the costs by December of 2028. I just wanted
[4:47:26] to mention that although it's not in the slide.
[4:47:32] And then the staff recommendation is to
[4:47:35] approve an eligible project option. One option too for the Silicon Valley Clean Energy Grant
[4:47:41] application and authorize the city manager to execute the grant agreement with Silicon Valley clean energy.
[4:47:50] Thank you, Ms. Lain.
[4:47:54] Anybody in here for public comments looks like we have somebody from the EIC.
[4:48:05] Hi, I was talking very slowly.
[4:48:12] I am from the ESE but I'll speak for myself. The ESE did look at this at our last meeting but at the time we thought we were approving a whole suite of potential things we could spend the money on we didn't know we had to pick one or two.
[4:48:29] So, anyway, speaking for myself, choose Town Hall electrification,
[4:48:39] not the electric trucks.
[4:48:43] Very first time I met Vujie five years ago, or whenever he started, my question was,
[4:48:47] how soon can we electrify Town Hall?
[4:48:50] This has been on our list for five years, six years, it keeps getting put off, put off.
[4:48:56] So if somebody's giving us money to do it, let's take it and do it.
[4:49:00] The moment we do that,
[4:49:05] the city municipal greenhouse gas emissions will go down as far as we can take it.
[4:49:14] Because after that it will all be up to employee commutes and police use of gas and things that are not really under our control.
[4:49:22] So we have a chance here to get it down to us and blow us, we can do it.
[4:49:29] So just do it. Our traps are diesel, we use renewable diesel already.
[4:49:35] So if we have to delay the electrification of the truck, that's okay in my opinion.
[4:49:41] But the HRAC has been pending for a long time. And also we require all our residents to do electrical HRAC if they touch it.
[4:49:51] And yet here we are burning gas in console chambers, just not a good look, so somebody's paying us to do it. Let's do it. Thank you.
[4:50:00] Thank you.
[4:50:02] No, they're coming. It's on Tim.
[4:50:06] Did you have anything further or just ready for questions?
[4:50:08] Ready for direction or questions?
[4:50:11] All right.
[4:50:12] I'll bring it back to council. Any questions or comments from council?
[4:50:16] Stan?
[4:50:17] Yes, Stan.
[4:50:18] what we're going to do some work on the furnace that we have in the other room
[4:50:25] we're going to repair it or we're talking about replacing it also oh yes so
[4:50:32] there were two systems that we talked about back in December 9th the heat pump system we got
[4:50:38] to replace we'll talk about that at the next step report I am but the gas furnace system that
[4:50:46] service the lobby area. We got a service for $2,000. So I know it's an old system,
[4:50:55] but generally the furnace system seems to be more open for servicing and repair.
[4:51:02] And so it's working now. So there's two gas furnace systems in town hall. And there's three
[4:51:08] furnaces for the the council chambers so those would be all up for electrification
[4:51:17] if needed to be or if directed by council hey did you mention town hall the chamber
[4:51:27] for the back so town hall there's two systems that's gas furnaces gas
[4:51:39] and in chambers, we have three furnace units that could be upgraded to electric.
[4:51:47] Any idea of how much that would cost?
[4:51:51] Approximately.
[4:51:53] So what we're saying in Option 2, I believe this is just,
[4:51:57] Wait, it's Town Hall and Council chambers.
[4:52:00] So we're saying that will be from 350.
[4:52:04] There will be some engineering service needed building permits and all that.
[4:52:06] and probably have to be a bit it out.
[4:52:08] That is for both.
[4:52:11] Both buildings, yes.
[4:52:13] Thank you.
[4:52:17] Any other questions?
[4:52:20] I had a question.
[4:52:22] So, you give us these two very different options.
[4:52:25] One is for the trucks and one is for the HVAC in both town hall.
[4:52:30] The council chambers. And it sounds like your option two numbers are not complete because you're alluded to some design and engineering costs and permitting. Right.
[4:52:42] We kind of factor that in kind of fact, but yeah again, an option to we don't really have a project yet on our work plan or in our CIP budget, but so it's something that we kind of.
[4:52:55] So does your estimate the total cost or is it some part of the total cost?
[4:53:05] Yeah, I kind of thinking about it again.
[4:53:08] The estimate might be on the low side.
[4:53:12] But knowing that one system, we have three HVAC system in town hall and to do one system to place
[4:53:22] was about $150,000. So we have two systems that we still got an update but I was looking for ways to
[4:53:30] see if we could combine some of those zones and systems like looking at options like how we did,
[4:53:37] I'll go over that in my update but we are able to put in many split systems for the electric heat pump
[4:53:43] zone one that we talked about last time so I think there may be some opportunities but yeah I do
[4:53:50] have to admit that this is probably on the low side, we'll have to factor in engineering costs
[4:53:55] for them to pair of plans and specs for us to get it out to bid. So definitely more
[4:54:01] 350k and outside.
[4:54:06] So I'm guessing it's going to be closer to four or more. That might
[4:54:12] you say for estimate, yes, all right. Any thoughts from the city manager on the two options
[4:54:23] before us? They've seen very different in terms of cost and also in terms of, you know,
[4:54:30] kind of options here. If you're talking about staff lift, I know that I heard that option one
[4:54:37] is the easier application, it is easier project to implement, there is merit that we do keep
[4:54:44] kicking option two down the road.
[4:54:50] It's really up to the council's discretion. I will say
[4:54:53] though that's I've heard from staff recommendation, option one is more favorable, it's easier,
[4:54:59] it's less thinking, it's more easier to implement, it's shorter, it's things to consider.
[4:55:04] What's the, what's the condition of the diesel trucks that we have right now or the serviceable
[4:55:12] option?
[4:55:14] Yeah, I mean, we've been reporting out since last year that it's not the diesel trucks.
[4:55:18] It's the light duty trucks that's gasoline trucks we have and those at least two of them
[4:55:23] have to be replaced at the next year or two.
[4:55:26] So we were going to replace one truck this year but we had a need for a new chipper and so with
[4:55:33] equipment replacement CIP that we have 400,000 a year. We may have to use that money for the
[4:55:39] Chipper, which means the truck will be delayed in a year. And it's corrected both of the vehicles
[4:55:45] are past their replacement due to it and compliance with their policy. Correct. Yeah, we have a vehicle
[4:55:50] and equipment replacement policy both of them are past the day. And so if we did that, then we would
[4:55:56] kick the can down on option to even further. Well, there is, again, as Melissa mentioned,
[4:56:02] there is an energy efficiency Ccip and that's actually in the books. And to that it will actually
[4:56:09] look at what might be the optimal optimal solution to electrified these two buildings. So there
[4:56:15] will be another opportunity that's on the CIP right now. So, but if option 2 is picked, then
[4:56:23] staff could just move forward with that study for these two buildings or look at electrifying it.
[4:56:29] And this needs to be completed by December 2028, right?
[4:56:34] The check needs to be dispersed by then, or the project needs to be completed by then.
[4:56:38] So basically the work that we're applying to be reimbursed needs to be fully paid out,
[4:56:44] so we can submit our reimbursement application by 2028.
[4:56:49] Correct, December of 2020.
[4:56:51] Yeah, I can't comment.
[4:56:54] So, frankly, I think we should do both of these things.
[4:56:58] and so if there's a question about kicking the can down the road, that's on us. Okay, if we
[4:57:04] think this is important then we should do that. I will say generally philosophically when you're
[4:57:08] applying for grants or other organizations, you want to make sure that grant is going to qualify
[4:57:13] that you're going to get the money and you're going to spend it, you're going to be done,
[4:57:17] you're going to close it out. So I actually appreciate what Anon said about number two is the
[4:57:25] strategic thing and I I would like to do that not kick that down the road but I kind of like
[4:57:30] option one for the purpose of our just meeting the grant and closing that out and then would do
[4:57:36] this number two on our dime. But don't we have two years to do this if you did option two?
[4:57:44] She says this feels a little fuzzier than I would like okay to say okay here's what the
[4:57:49] because who knows, I can tell you, one of my heat pumps is stopped working and the initial thing was 16 weeks to get the parts.
[4:57:58] Okay, so I'm just going to say things aren't always as simple as they look from where we're sitting.
[4:58:07] Can we separate the option to project into two portions?
[4:58:12] question A and question B. So it's like maybe 200 piece and then actually we can have both
[4:58:21] of those paid for if you have that CIP conditional funding plus the credit here.
[4:58:30] The energy efficiency CIP is just to run a study and audit of the facilities and it would
[4:58:37] to come up from town's funding, most of that regional fund, or facility replacement?
[4:58:46] Good, Linda. Which one is more urgent as far as getting it done? It sounds like the trucks
[4:58:53] are over past the standard replacement time, but that doesn't mean they are breaking down or getting
[4:59:01] near the end of their life. Whereas this HVAC system is at near the end of its life and we really
[4:59:09] something we should do immediately.
[4:59:13] My answer that our maintenance superintendent said, I believe
[4:59:17] it's the Dodge, the light duty truck. We don't drive that on the highway because it is
[4:59:24] a freight of the transmission. So there are trucks that probably need to be replaced quickly.
[4:59:29] Okay, okay, so it's not just it's past that's scheduled time. It has major problems. Okay.
[4:59:36] So I I'll move to approve the trucks option one. I guess it's really in direction or are we approving?
[4:59:48] Yeah, it's a motion to adopt the resolution and if just is just option one than the resolution would be modified to just include option one.
[4:59:57] And I'm sorry, it's also to authorize
[5:00:00] The city manager to enter into a grant agreement with SVC.
[5:00:04] Can we see the resolution it will, it has that.
[5:00:06] Okay.
[5:00:07] As well.
[5:00:07] So is right here.
[5:00:09] Yeah. I would move to approve the option one for the grant application and authorize the city manager to actually use the grant agreement with Silicon Valley clean energy.
[5:00:19] But let's not push on option two.
[5:00:23] Let's get moving on that this year.
[5:00:27] Welcome.
[5:00:32] Councilmember Malk?
[5:00:33] No.
[5:00:35] Councilmember Swan?
[5:00:38] Yes.
[5:00:39] Councilmember Tonka?
[5:00:40] Yes.
[5:00:41] Vice Mayor Tyson?
[5:00:42] Yes.
[5:00:42] Mayor Patasia?
[5:00:43] Yes.
[5:00:44] Thank you, Mayor.
[5:00:46] Thank you, Councilmember.
[5:00:48] Thank you.
[5:00:49] Good night.
[5:00:51] Okay.
[5:00:54] Next item is a...
[5:00:59] a townwide community survey, at our committee.
[5:01:03] You did that.
[5:01:04] Oh, sorry.
[5:01:06] I skipped, it's C.
[5:01:08] Review an update of the town's mayoral rotation policy, and I proposed that item.
[5:01:14] I think we have a fairly good rotation policy, but I think as we have seen in a couple
[5:01:22] of instances, there are some gray areas, and I'll just a little to one of them.
[5:01:27] In November of 2024, we didn't have a vice mayor who could take the role of the mayor because council or vice mayor Schmidt elected not to run.
[5:01:43] And so we had to pick a mayor and I think we were unanimous in picking the mayor and everything worked out wonderfully.
[5:01:50] But there wasn't a tradition around that that just happened to be how we all came together and thought this was kind of the right thing to do, which, you know, it was.
[5:02:01] But there are other situations like that that are likely to come up.
[5:02:05] What if a council member who's a vice mayor for example, resigns mid-year, what if, you know, there are all kinds of boundary conditions.
[5:02:15] And so, let's be clear, the council always has discretion on what to do in these situations.
[5:02:24] The buck stops with the council.
[5:02:27] But I thought it would be good to at least have a proposal on an opposed rotation and transition policy
[5:02:36] that we could come up with to kind of just plug a few of the holes in the current policy.
[5:02:40] So, that was my thinking on it, and if we were to do that, then I think, you know, we have two
[5:02:51] council members who are in their last year, and they don't have a sort of a dog in the fight.
[5:03:02] And so, if we were to maybe ask them to create such a policy, kind of the states states
[5:03:10] of the state's swimming on this because you guys have been here for seven years now, right?
[5:03:18] Maybe we could have you have an ad on committee where you could just look through this a little bit and give us some advice.
[5:03:27] And we may make some changes based on that.
[5:03:30] So that was my thinking.
[5:03:31] I'd be happy to take a crack at that.
[5:03:34] If you help me.
[5:03:36] Also.
[5:03:37] Okay.
[5:03:38] any comments? Anybody? I have a comment. Yes, Linda. One thing that came up when we went
[5:03:47] to the Seratoga Board, and this could happen to us too. The last three elections have been
[5:03:57] uncontested and normally the rotation depends on the vote count. Like Kavita, that more vote
[5:04:07] so she was mayor before George.
[5:04:11] And I had the most votes.
[5:04:13] So I was the first mayor out of the three,
[5:04:16] it came in when I came in.
[5:04:17] But if you don't have an election,
[5:04:20] how do you, what do you do at that point?
[5:04:22] Everybody got zero votes.
[5:04:25] And we really don't have any guidelines or,
[5:04:31] or folks who are, do we just win yet, then?
[5:04:34] Well, we'll include that in our thinking and then there's anybody but weigh in on that.
[5:04:41] Yeah, that's what I think is because it's a whole that is coming up more and more because we're having more uncontested elections that we used to have.
[5:04:53] All right.
[5:04:54] Okay, so I guess any any public comment on this in the room or on which it looks like we worn out everybody
[5:05:06] Okay, so bringing it in bringing it back to council for a vote
[5:05:12] I would move to a point an ad hoc committee of
[5:05:16] Vice Mayor Tyson and council member tanker
[5:05:19] So to come back with some proposals on a more complete rotation policy or a mirror rotation
[5:05:28] policy, which includes vice mayor, right?
[5:05:32] I can second that.
[5:05:34] We have a motion in a second.
[5:05:35] House member Mark?
[5:05:36] Yes.
[5:05:37] House member Swan?
[5:05:39] Yes.
[5:05:40] House member Tonka?
[5:05:42] Yes.
[5:05:42] Vice Mayor Tyson?
[5:05:43] Yes.
[5:05:44] Mayor Patasia?
[5:05:44] Yes.
[5:05:45] Thank you.
[5:05:46] Okay.
[5:05:46] And now we want move on to a D consideration of forming a townwide community survey at our committee.
[5:05:53] Yes, so.
[5:05:54] So.
[5:05:54] This is an item that was on one of our work plans and got pushed off when we were trying to prioritize and projects.
[5:06:02] But I know it's come up because we want to hear from the community with the.
[5:06:06] We want their buy in on priorities that are going to be upcoming for the town.
[5:06:10] And so the suggestion from staff is to form an ad hoc committee of the council to weigh in on how is the survey going to look what is the size of it.
[5:06:18] What's the methodologies that paper electronic will be go as big as going the Godby survey and external consultant will be handled ourselves.
[5:06:25] These are all questions we just want your feedback on.
[5:06:29] That was a very quick subnofsist but I'm looking just for an ad hoc committee of the council if you think this is something that should be explored further and have council input to help design the survey.
[5:06:40] to go to residents. I want to have a question. If we're going to do a survey, what are we trying to get
[5:06:47] the residents opinion on? Sometimes there's like, how and how remote over there's a lot of
[5:06:53] opinions going on, pro and con and the survey makes sense. But what is the pressing issue going on
[5:07:01] in town now that we want to, well, that's where we want to buy and if you think about it, what's coming
[5:07:11] up. We might not be able to mobilize as fast as getting it for the work plan, but you also
[5:07:16] have the budget that's coming up in about five months and we could start getting feedback on
[5:07:21] where you want public spending. Private public safety is going to be a big question that's
[5:07:27] becoming of the town with the increase in the share.
[5:07:30] It's contract. You might want to buy in on that. You might say, oh, or do does the community feel comfortable offsetting the cost of the sheriff with the private security? That's a valid question.
[5:07:41] It could be the topic we were discussing earlier with speeding. How does certain areas of the town feel about speed bumps?
[5:07:48] These are all things that are just coming off the top of my head, but there's a long list of questions in the staff report that were just areas that you could, you might be interested in learning more about.
[5:07:58] But these are the types of honing in questions that we're looking for feedback on.
[5:08:03] Well, so charter city, might be a good one.
[5:08:07] I think that would require standing committee, it's one of those.
[5:08:12] There's a million things.
[5:08:14] Yeah, so I think it's always good for us to hear from residents and get feedback and input.
[5:08:22] I think the question should we go ahead and do this and if so, looks like you're looking
[5:08:27] for an ad hoc committee to work with from council on this yes and then reporting back to the
[5:08:32] full council to get consensus and moving forward if it's something that will need the authorization
[5:08:38] so if it's a larger scale survey now then thinking about it I don't think it would break this
[5:08:43] 60 k-perish hold but larger scale surveys are upwards of 30 k which we might want to go to the
[5:08:48] Council to consider.
[5:08:53] So any discussion, any any public comment on this? No, no, he is raised
[5:09:01] out.
[5:09:05] Any proposals? I'm happy to serve on an ad hoc for this. Anybody else interested
[5:09:11] in it?
[5:09:16] Nobody?
[5:09:20] I'll do it. Okay, George. All right. So already on five committees with you,
[5:09:29] Okay, so I guess we have a potential motion to have an ad hoc committee to work on a
[5:09:39] townwide community survey with the ad hoc committee consisting of Vice Mayor Tyson and myself.
[5:09:48] Is there a second?
[5:09:51] Second.
[5:09:53] Um, Councilmember Monk?
[5:09:54] Yes.
[5:09:55] Councilmember Swine?
[5:09:58] No.
[5:10:00] Councilmember Tonka?
[5:10:01] Yes.
[5:10:02] Vice Mayor Tyson?
[5:10:03] Yes.
[5:10:04] Mayor Patasia?
[5:10:04] Yes.
[5:10:05] Thank you.
[5:10:08] Okay.
[5:10:08] Moving on.
[5:10:09] Reports from committees and council members.
[5:10:11] No side agencies.
[5:10:14] Any reports from anyone?
[5:10:18] Linda?
[5:10:21] Nothing right now.
[5:10:22] Stan?
[5:10:23] Not at this time.
[5:10:25] We just had a reorganization at Silicon Valley Clean Energy.
[5:10:30] Larry Klein will be the new board chair.
[5:10:33] And Sally Meadows from Los Angeles will be the new vice chair.
[5:10:37] And I am stepping down as chair, which I serve this last year.
[5:10:42] Thank you for your service George.
[5:10:44] That's a big job.
[5:10:45] Yes.
[5:10:45] Thanks for joining us.
[5:10:46] have been really committed to that. Thank you again. I've been attending the EPRC meetings,
[5:10:54] emergency preparation and response committee,
[5:11:00] and they have been making progress on trying to figure
[5:11:03] out what's called an L-Ride system, which is a load-speaker system to notify residents of emergency
[5:11:11] in the hills, Los Gatos is also doing something in that area.
[5:11:17] The EPRC would really like for us to hire an emergency manager.
[5:11:22] I'm not sure where we stand on that budget ways, but that's their ask.
[5:11:27] Los Gatos does have an emergency manager and I would say maybe try and work with that person
[5:11:33] to try and get some ideas or get some things going.
[5:11:37] There are a lot of things that we got to get done on the emergency preparation side, so there is merit to the request.
[5:11:45] But there's also the question of whether this is a short-term consultant type of role or an ongoing responsibility.
[5:11:55] Do we not have Victoria BB already in that role?
[5:11:58] Yeah, that's what I was going to ask.
[5:12:00] Yes, but she came to be prior to the bill, then the year and asked to start the process of off boarding her with the transition of Peter's departure. She didn't want the transition to hurt the town, so she is continued on, but it is her request to back off from her contract.
[5:12:21] I can do that.
[5:12:22] Victor, yeah.
[5:12:25] She has family issues that she needs to take care of.
[5:12:30] So anyway, that's the update.
[5:12:31] From that, there are also having meetings with the EDPC to talk about fire resilience
[5:12:40] and trees.
[5:12:43] So expect that there's going to be some debate about tree ordinances coming up in the future.
[5:12:49] That's my only update.
[5:12:51] Okay, moving on to council initiated.
[5:12:55] Item 10A.
[5:12:57] Vice Mayor Tyson.
[5:12:58] All right.
[5:12:59] Be respectful of the time.
[5:13:01] For many decades, council member compensation was limited to $300 per month.
[5:13:08] And I mean for many decades by state law.
[5:13:11] And approximately three years ago that law was changed.
[5:13:14] Be reflecting the fact that, well, things have changed and that had been fixed for so long.
[5:13:18] And it allowed cities to change the compensation to with different amounts based on the size of the cities and at the time I will tell you I was against it and one of the reasons was I thought well
[5:13:31] We were mostly volunteers anyway. We're not here for the money and also I kind of didn't want lost out those hills to be the the leader of as a smaller town
[5:13:41] but what I've concluded since then is that
[5:13:45] The workload has increased rapidly. Compared to even three years ago, I looked in my own calendar in October I had 16 town related meetings and I'm not counting a back to back like today we had a close no that only counted as one meeting and November I had 22 meetings in December I had 20 this includes things like Silicon Valley clean energy and senior commission and all these things.
[5:14:12] So I'm going to say, I'm here to say the workload has increased quite a bit.
[5:14:17] I'm suggesting that we bring it to the city council to consider making an adjustment to that.
[5:14:25] Reflecting also, the comment made by Mr. Epstein three, two and a half, three years ago, that some people are eligible for,
[5:14:33] where that people are eligible for healthcare, which is a substantial amount.
[5:14:37] And I appreciate that.
[5:14:38] Although I do, also know I had that when I was on the Cupertino school board and I declined it,
[5:14:44] I was a full-time employee. I already had health care. So those, those are the things.
[5:14:50] And part of it is I look around and I see some cities have some younger city council members
[5:14:55] and they're different stages in their career and I would say if we were to increase it it might.
[5:15:00] Make it more accessible to some of those younger people than we have sitting here with us today.
[5:15:07] So that's not price point.
[5:15:09] I wasn't looking at anybody in particular.
[5:15:14] I believe you also, my last point was, I'm unaffected by this. I'm doing us not for me.
[5:15:20] It would be take a place in the future and it would reflect new council members after an election.
[5:15:29] I know in the book, I've been going to brought this up three years ago, and I think it was 1984 that the $300
[5:15:40] stipend was initiated, and so I ran it on the computer and just with inflation that comes to a equivalent of $935, which is almost exactly what the
[5:15:56] nowadays. And then not everybody is on the health care. That's an option, but not everybody,
[5:16:05] especially since we have an older council, a lot of people around Medicare, so they're not affected
[5:16:12] by the medical insurance that the town provides. And I think, like George says, to get younger people
[5:16:22] in, you know, they may be in a different financial position and we've had, like I said,
[5:16:29] three uncontested elections in a row. So maybe we're not reaching the wrong younger people anymore.
[5:16:39] I believe staff has some data on this, was that right?
[5:16:43] Yeah, we just did a very preliminary look into just our neighboring cities and I'll just
[5:16:49] that ball really quick. So Hillsboro, zero stipend, but then you're going to show your
[5:16:54] by screen. Yeah. Oh, my, this computer isn't hooked up. I'm just going to say town in the
[5:16:59] number. Okay. So it's Hillsboro, no stipend, but provides benefits. This is just for city
[5:17:05] council. Authorities in is no benefits. No stipend. Wood side does go up to the max, the
[5:17:11] 950 monthly, no benefits. Saratoga benefits to 50. Those are the ones that we just found
[5:17:17] online. And we are 300 loss altos. I don't have their one, but we are 300
[5:17:27] monthly with benefits for council members. I think we're pretty much in the middle. I mean,
[5:17:34] because other people are not full of benefits. Okay. Should we get to public comment? Yeah.
[5:17:41] Now, when Epstein, I live in town since George called me out, I felt obligated to come up here.
[5:17:48] My only comment is, it's just do full disclosure.
[5:17:52] Whatever the council this side is, it's fine.
[5:17:56] But the healthcare cost is quite expensive, and the stipend payles and comparison to the healthcare cost.
[5:18:03] So all I'm saying is, why do you do the analysis?
[5:18:06] Be sure you include all the cost of the public is informed about what the total cost is.
[5:18:10] and I would suggest doing a little bit more extensive survey of cities that are more
[5:18:16] comparable to us. And I can give you a list of about 10 that are between 30,000 and 5,000
[5:18:24] population and more affluent communities. And you can do this on chat GDP. You don't need to do it,
[5:18:31] but that's my only suggestion. Do you have a number on how much it costs the town to provide health care
[5:18:36] benefits? I don't know if it probably
[5:18:39] know that number better at the time.
[5:18:40] 25, if I believe the numbers about $75,000 was the total
[5:18:46] cost of compensation for the for the council.
[5:18:50] So I don't know. And I don't know who who who who gets
[5:18:53] benefits and who doesn't get benefits. I'm just saying when I
[5:18:56] look at the account number, it was about 75. 75,000 per
[5:19:00] council number. No, no, no, no. Or all five, all five
[5:19:04] of counseling numbers, including this 300 type
[5:19:06] and what's the health care benefit?
[5:19:08] That's my recollection.
[5:19:09] That's on your retirement.
[5:19:11] Thomas, can you call it up?
[5:19:12] That's a correct number.
[5:19:14] The memo that Cody put together, sorry.
[5:19:16] I just spoke up, showed a split.
[5:19:19] I think it was employee paying, well,
[5:19:22] it depends on what your plan and the plan.
[5:19:24] But roughly the employee paying one third of the total.
[5:19:28] And so about the lower two thousand a month,
[5:19:30] which is around 24,000.
[5:19:32] So times five.
[5:19:33] So that means some people aren't taking it.
[5:19:40] So let's see,
[5:19:43] this would be something we should put it on the agenda.
[5:19:46] If we decide to do that.
[5:19:47] I think we should do some more work on it
[5:19:50] before we put it on the agenda.
[5:19:51] Well, we could do the work for the next meeting.
[5:19:54] If you want to put it on the agenda,
[5:19:56] or you can say you want to see that first before we put it on the agenda,
[5:20:00] it might be easier to put it on the agenda
[5:20:02] and get the additional data.
[5:20:03] That's what we're going to do with that right now.
[5:20:04] You're not, okay, so you vote for not putting on the agenda.
[5:20:07] How about you?
[5:20:10] You want to agenda, isn't it?
[5:20:12] And Linda, where are you at?
[5:20:14] I'd say agenda, I just get the data and decide.
[5:20:19] Another option to consider just throwing it out there.
[5:20:22] So we're just about to kick off our next round
[5:20:24] to stay interviews with staff.
[5:20:25] This is our third round of stay interviews
[5:20:27] since the pandemic when we started this.
[5:20:29] The first two rounds of the stay interviews
[5:20:32] came with modifications to our benefits
[5:20:35] It's an employee handbook, which is going to be brought to Council, but reviewing the ultimate
[5:20:38] we did get approved.
[5:20:40] This analysis could be wrapped up in that state interview process where we're already engaging.
[5:20:47] So if we're going to be interviewing all of our employees, if they come forward and say,
[5:20:51] they're interested in the healthcare, we could tie in the analysis to look into what
[5:20:56] it would cost to also bring increase it for the Council.
[5:20:59] That's an option.
[5:21:00] I think we're just talking about the stipend increase for the option of Council.
[5:21:05] I'm looking at the package altogether, but yes, if you're just looking for the stipend,
[5:21:10] that's right. You could specify that.
[5:21:13] OK.
[5:21:14] So I'm hearing that there is support to put it on the agenda.
[5:21:19] Do we need to take a vote or is that enough?
[5:21:21] No.
[5:21:21] No.
[5:21:22] I guess go ahead and generalize it.
[5:21:26] And I guess the feedback we got was to get more data from other cities.
[5:21:30] I think essentially a list of candidates cities.
[5:21:33] correct as a council in this year and this was like a few minutes look.
[5:21:39] Okay moving on to
[5:21:43] we already did 10 B so now it's time for staff reports
[5:21:50] attorney lie. No report, Mr. Mayor. Thank you.
[5:21:58] City clerk. I have two brief informational items for council this evening. First, regarding Senate Bill
[5:22:04] 707, which amended the Brown Act related to managing disruptors behavior at public meetings.
[5:22:11] Staff has confirmed in consultation with the City Attorney that the town's current meeting practices
[5:22:15] are currently in compliance and no changes are required.
[5:22:20] Secondly, I am providing a recommendation for the R-Town Newsletter.
[5:22:25] I met with the subcommittee and after reviewing all proposals.
[5:22:30] Including experience, institutional knowledge, design quality and overall ability to meet the town's expectation, the recommendation is to proceed with Alex Atkins Design.
[5:22:42] The subcommittee carefully considered all proposals and reach the consensus that Alex Atkins Design's ink is best positioned to deliver the newsletter with a high level of quality, consistency and familiarity with the town.
[5:22:59] Thank you, community development director.
[5:23:05] I have no further updates for my prior.
[5:23:07] Thank you.
[5:23:09] And the finance director.
[5:23:11] Good evening, Honorable Mayor and City Council.
[5:23:14] Staff is continuing to work with Edwin,
[5:23:15] formerly known as CIVITAS, which is a firm to help streamline our bank and cash recommendations using AI software.
[5:23:22] As currently these processes take staff many hours of time each month.
[5:23:25] and streamlining this process will also allow staff to produce monthly treasure supports earlier each month.
[5:23:33] I've discussed in the FY2425 Annual Comprehensive Financial Reporter Act for FY2425 General Fund revenues exceeded expenditures,
[5:23:42] due to an increase in property tax of approximately 414,000,
[5:23:46] as well as an increase in investment income of approximately 254,000 and also lower transfers to other funds compared to the prior year.
[5:23:54] This is also reflecting a 0.8 million dollar transfer from the upper fund back to the general fund,
[5:24:01] following the elimination of the upper fund. And on the expenditure side,
[5:24:04] expanding came in below budget, due to timing of projects and timing of, you know, filling
[5:24:09] a vacancies. As a result, total general fund fund balance increased by 1.5 million to 18.4 million
[5:24:16] total with 1.8 million in unassigned fund balance. And staff will also be analyzing
[5:24:22] budget to actuals for FY2425 to identify areas where we were under budget so that we can then
[5:24:29] kind of align our budgeting practices more and more with our actual spending as part of the
[5:24:33] midyear budget report that will go to the FYC in February and we'll also be kicking off a budget
[5:24:38] of a budget retreat on February 2nd. Thank you. We are expecting pretty significant increase in our
[5:24:47] public safety, sheriff's contract. What is your take on whether we will be able to absorb that
[5:24:54] I think the increase is close to a million, but I don't know the exact number is like 800,000.
[5:25:00] Yeah.
[5:25:01] On percentage of roughly 30 percentage increase.
[5:25:06] So, do you have any thoughts on whether we could absorb that?
[5:25:11] What would be, what would be the impact would we have to make cuts in other areas?
[5:25:14] So I think, you know, in the current fiscal year, we had about a $700,000 surplus of revenues
[5:25:21] of expenditures, excluding, you know, the transfers and other factors, so I think we can take
[5:25:26] that into consideration.
[5:25:27] I think we do continue to expect strong property growth, property tax growth in the next
[5:25:32] year, in terms of investment income, that's also been a big, you know, boom to the town for
[5:25:36] the last couple years, but as interest rates continue to start to decrease, you know, we
[5:25:42] can't necessarily rely on that. So we'll be building a five year budget forecast as part
[5:25:47] of a budget retreat and as part of a kind of upcoming budget cycle. So we'll be kind of
[5:25:53] incorporating that and then kind of determining whether we need to make any adjustments to
[5:25:57] account for these public safety costs.
[5:25:59] You're looking like a pretty good ship from having come up for long international flight.
[5:26:04] Yeah, they've been awake for about two days now.
[5:26:07] Okay, all right, public work structure.
[5:26:12] Yes, thank you, Mayor.
[5:26:14] First update on the town hall emergency HVAC project.
[5:26:19] So back on December 9th last year,
[5:26:21] with staff's recommendation,
[5:26:23] the City Council declared an emergency
[5:26:25] for the replacement of the town hall heap of HVAC system
[5:26:29] after two HVAC zones in town hall loss feeding.
[5:26:33] The existing gas electric furnace, serving the lobby area, we were able to prepare that by replacing the blower motor and cleaning the condensate line and that costed only about 2,000.
[5:26:47] So we have heat in the lobby which is good news for the replacing one of the heat pump system serving the town offices in the kitchen.
[5:26:55] area, staff worked with Mayor, Alan, Chair of FIC, an entrepreneur of EIC to evaluate options and select and appropriate contract or an solution.
[5:27:09] The existing rooftop heat pump and fan coil system have reached the end of its service life.
[5:27:15] After reviewing alternatives, the team selected a solution consisting of replacing the rooftop system with three mini split heat pump system.
[5:27:25] which, too, would serve the four offices, so individual kind of serving two offices, and
[5:27:32] one new, many serving the kitchen area, so a separate system, and this approach was determined
[5:27:39] to be most efficient and effective with placement option.
[5:27:45] The many split units will be installed within the planum space, in the town hall for each area,
[5:27:52] with the condenser units to relocate it outside at the rear of the building.
[5:27:59] This configuration lasts for each system to be maintained and may be replaced independently.
[5:28:07] So reducing future maintenance costs and avoiding the need for a full system of basement for the entire zone, which we're experiencing now.
[5:28:16] The mini split systems also provide improved energy efficiency compared to the existing rooftop system.
[5:28:24] The total estimate estimate estimated project causes approximately $160,000, which includes
[5:28:32] engineering services for building permit like energy calculation and earned plans, as well as including
[5:28:39] a 10% contingency for potential change orders.
[5:28:43] As authorized by Council, staff intends to execute a construction contract within the next
[5:28:49] couple of weeks, we have to get insurance and bonds and so forth from the contractor.
[5:28:56] And we may authorize a contractor to start ordering materials and begin installation.
[5:29:03] While they submit the documents needed for the building permit, and this will be a lot
[5:29:09] because this project has been declared an emergency.
[5:29:13] If no delays occur, the installation is anticipated to be complete by end of February,
[5:29:19] and that's being optimistic.
[5:29:22] Staff would like to thank the mayor and Alan and Anon for their collaboration and engagement
[5:29:28] throughout this decision making process to identify the solution for townally.
[5:29:33] It's very easy.
[5:29:35] My next update is on the El Monte Fire Station Utility Undergrounding Project.
[5:29:42] So now all overhead facilities have been undergrounded by PG&E, AT&T and Comcast, and the
[5:29:49] polls removed at the project site of the Route 28 project.
[5:29:54] With the completion of the project, we have a ribbon.
[5:30:00] Serimony plan for the project on Thursday, January 22, starting 11 a.m. at the corner of El Mantey and Elena Road near the fire station.
[5:30:13] Same location as the groundbreaking. The event will recognize the collective efforts of the city council project team contractor utilities and even town residents.
[5:30:26] collaboration made this project possible, so residents are welcome to attend and we look
[5:30:31] forward to seeing many people out there. In the next month or two staff will get all the project
[5:30:37] close-out data to present the council, including the final remaining balance for the rule 28
[5:30:43] credit. My last update is for the Heritage House Upgrade project. The project team successfully reconnected
[5:30:52] building power to the town hall electrical system last Saturday, George Lee of the technology
[5:30:59] committee and also VIC, generously assist staff by supporting participating in the temporary
[5:31:06] he actually assisted in shutting down the switch care for the new system, allowing the
[5:31:12] her to child's contractor to make that our connection. The project team is still working
[5:31:19] diligently towards completion. We encounter some additional delays with door
[5:31:24] hardwares and other things, but we're hoping to really get the project completed by
[5:31:29] end of February, which is we're really crossing our fingers to get that done.
[5:31:35] That concludes my update. Thank you. Thank you. Let's see city manager. Yes, I don't have that
[5:31:44] Just some events. As a reminder, we have technology with the seniors, with the youth commission coming up on January 25th.
[5:31:53] Next week, we have a city council meeting for all the committees to present their goals.
[5:31:59] That is from 6 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, January 21st. We touched on this briefly, but for the law enforcement services and all the negotiations going on with the sheriff.
[5:32:10] We did finally get the proposal from the sheriff on December 31st, and so we're working through all the numbers behind that as an update of what all the other cities have decided the contract cities have decided to do.
[5:32:24] There's going to be a ad hoc committee forming of one member of each of the council coming from
[5:32:30] scupertino, ceratogen, lost autosills to participate in providing feedback on where this contract needs to be pushed back on
[5:32:40] just providing direction.
[5:32:41] So we already had that hero here with our with lost autosills with a council member swan and mayor
[5:32:48] of that out of committee, it was designated that mayor of Atasia will be the representative for
[5:32:53] lost out those hills.
[5:32:56] As another update, another shout out to George Lee, George Lee was actually himself here
[5:33:01] installing the security cameras.
[5:33:04] One of the other projects you approved previously, a sum on a ladder actually putting a new camera
[5:33:09] up right outside town halls, another just huge thank you to him.
[5:33:12] So, town hall is already getting its new cameras and we're going to start up on the corp yard next, and then as one last update we are kicking off our finally our safe storage of our documents at the corp yard.
[5:33:27] So as another goal that the council had heard in the past years was the issue of all the files that we have at the corp yard,
[5:33:34] And so we have finally onboarded a consultant
[5:33:37] that's going to be looking at a retention policy
[5:33:39] thinking about how to scan the documents we need to scan
[5:33:42] and then also looking at proposals for a safe off-site storage
[5:33:46] of those documents with the ultimate goal of gaining back
[5:33:49] all that space at the core of the art.
[5:33:50] So that proposal will be coming back to the council soon.
[5:33:53] Nice work, thank you.
[5:33:56] I have no further items, but we are wanting to have another meeting
[5:34:03] on January 29th and that would be a continuation of this meeting. So we are complete with our
[5:34:12] agenda today. I'd like to adjourn to the meeting on January 29th at 6 p.m.
[5:34:20] Yes, it would be a calling a meeting and a journeying this meeting.
[5:34:23] Calling a meeting on January 29th, 6 p.m. and adjourning this meeting to that one.
[5:34:28] Correct. Okay. We need a vote on that. Yes, you need a motion.
[5:34:31] Okay, I'm so moved.
[5:34:34] Second.
[5:34:38] That's remember Mark.
[5:34:39] Yes.
[5:34:39] Councilmember Swan.
[5:34:41] Yes.
[5:34:42] Councilmember Tonka.
[5:34:44] Vice Mayor Tyson.
[5:34:45] Yes.
[5:34:45] Mayor Patija.
[5:34:47] Yes.
[5:34:47] Thank you, Mayor.
[5:34:48] Thank you.
[5:34:49] It's meeting is now recessed.