Good afternoon. The Hillsboro City
Council meeting is now called to order.
City clerk, may we please have the roll
call.
>> Thank you, Mayor Cole Adams
>> present. Schwang present. Crow
>> present.
>> Ragdale present. Cole
>> present.
>> Thank you.
>> Um we will be adjoining to um close
session in a few minutes. However, do
any of my council members have a
conflict of interest they need to
disclose on any of the closed session
items?
Seeing none, I will announce the closed
session items. We have several. Item a
conference with litig with legal council
existing litigation town of Hillsboro
versus all persons interested in a
matter of the proceedings for resolution
number 22-83 adopting maximum rates for
water service charges San Mateo Superior
Court case number 23 CIV028.
Item B, conference with legal counsel,
anticipated litigation.
Town as defendant, one potential case.
John Lochins and David Marquette's March
5th, 2026 email suggesting that the town
will be sued on a new potential
two-tiered rate water structure.
Email available upon request to the city
clerk and the town's receipt of object
objection letters. Item C, conference
with legal council. Anticipated
litigation pursuant to government code.
One or more potential cases.
Item D, conference with legal council.
Existing litigation,
county of San Monteo, town of Hillsboro
at all versus State of California, San
Francisco Superior Court. Case number
CFP-25-519270.
Lawsuit regarding vehicle license fees.
Item E, public employee performance
evaluation
title city manager. Item F, Congress
with lab, I'm sorry, conference with
labor negotiators, unrepresented
employee, city manager. Item G, public
employee performance evaluation, city
attorney.
I believe those are all.
Do we have any public comment on the
close session items?
>> No public comment. Thank you.
>> Great. Seeing none, we will now adjourn
to close session in administrative
conference room
and the regular city council meeting
will resume at 6 pm. Thank you.
Good evening everyone and um welcome to
the Hillsboro City Council meeting which
is now called to order. Um city clerk,
may we please have the roll call.
>> Thank you. Mayor Cole Adams
>> present. Schwang
>> present. Crow
>> present. Braxdale present. Cole
>> present.
>> Thank you.
>> Um please join me and stand for pledge
of allegiance.
Um, we just returned from our close
session and I will ask our city attorney
Diaz, is there a report from close
session? Thank you, Mayor Cole. Just
wanted to announce for the public that
the council did convene a close session
a little earlier today uh to consider a
variety of items. At the conclusion of
that, direction was given to staff, but
otherwise there was no reportable action
under the Brown Act. Thank you.
>> Thank you.
We have several We're going to be
starting with several proclamations
today. Noteworthy ones. They're all
noteworthy, but these are some very
special ones for the month of June. We
will start with the um pride month for
June 2026.
And I would like to um invite we have
here I believe San Mateo LGBTQIA
and Commissioner David Crafts to the
podium to receive the proclamation.
And we will and I would like to invite
the council to share the reading of the
proclamation.
Starting with council member Chuang.
>> Thank you. Uh whereas the town of
Hillsboro honors the history of the
LGBTQ
IA plus liberation
movement and supports the rights of all
individuals to experience equality and
freedom from discrimination. And
>> whereas all human beings are born free
and equal in dignity and rights, LGBTQIA
plus individuals have had immeasurable
impact on and made noteworthy
contributions to the cultural, civic,
and economic successes of our country.
And
>> whereas the town of Hillsboro is
committed to supporting visibility,
dignity, and equality for LGBTQIA
plus people in our diverse community.
And
>> whereas while society at large
increasingly supports LGBTQIA plus
equality, it is essential to acknowledge
that the need for education and
awareness remains vital to end
discrimination and prejudice. And
>> whereas this nation was founded on the
principle that every individual has
infinite dignity and worth and the city
council calls upon the community to
embrace this principle and work to
eliminate prejudice everywhere it
exists. And
>> whereas celebrating Prime Month
influences awareness and provides
support and advocacy for the LGBTQIA+
community and is an opportunity to take
action and engage in dialogue to
strengthen alliances, build acceptance,
and advance equal rights. And whereas
the city council of the town of
Hillsboro recognizes all LGBTQIA+
individuals whose influential and
lasting contributions help make the town
of Hillsboro a vibrant community. Now
therefore be it resolved that the city
council of the town of Hillsboro hereby
proclaims the month of June 2026
as pride month in support of the LGBTQIA
plus community. signed by me, Sophie
Cole, Mayor June 8th, 2026. Thank you.
And um before I present this
proclamation, I would welcome you to
make any additional comments on um this
proclamation and the work you do in the
community.
>> Thank you, Mayor Cole. Thank you,
council members. I'll try to keep it
brief. I know you've had a long
afternoon and have a long evening ahead
of you. Uh on behalf of the San Monteo
County LGBTQI
plus commission and the communities that
we represent, thank you for this
proclamation recognizing June as Pride
Month in our city. While a proclamation
is just a piece of paper, its meaning
reaches far beyond these walls. It's a
public declaration that every resident,
employee, and guest deserves dignity,
respect, and the opportunity to live
authentically. It tells people,
especially those who may feel unseen or
unwelcome in Hillsboro, that they belong
here.
Pride Month has deep roots in our
region. Long before many Americans had
heard the word pride, transgender women,
drag queens, and other LGBTQI
plus people in San Francisco stood up
against harassment and discrimination
during the 1966
Compton's Cafeteria uprising in the
Tenderloin. This was one of the first
known acts of collective LGBTQ
resistance in the United States.
A little more than a decade later, San
Francisco artist Gilbert Baker created
the rainbow flag, a symbol that would
become recognized around the world as a
beacon of hope, visibility, and
belonging. The story of pride has always
been about courage and courage still
matters.
However, 60 years later, after this the
uprising in the tenderloin, the US
continues to see unprecedented numbers
of bills targeting LGBTQ people,
particularly transgender youth and
adults. At the same time, immigrants,
communities of color, religious
minorities, and other groups are pushed
to the margins and facing renewed
challenges.
That's why this proclamation matters.
It's a symbol which can shape culture.
It affirms that our community values
inclusion over exclusion, understanding
over fear, and unity over div division.
So, thank you for recognizing Pride
Month. Thank you for honoring the legacy
of those who fought for equality before
us. From the patrons of Compton's
Cafeteria to Harvey Milt to the
countless advocates, activists, and
allies who helped build a more inclusive
Bay Area. Thank you
>> and thanks for sharing that with us. And
I would like to u remind everyone that
um tomorrow we actually will be hosting
the third annual Pride event, a town
hall June 9th um at 4 p.m. hosted by the
Hillsboro Youth Commission. And please
feel free to join us for that event.
Thank you so much for being here and um
this means a lot to me personally. I'm
very blessed to have a son and
son-in-law and a same-sex marriage who
have blessed us with the most beautiful
grandchild. Um, and I'm really grateful
that my son grew up here in Hillsboro
with um, openly gay teacher at North and
another one at Crocker, Alec McKenzie,
who is this year's community care award
winner. And it's just a just a wonderful
inclusive community and I feel very
blessed that this is where my son grew
up. So, thank you very much for the work
that you do. Thank you.
» Thank you all.
So our next proclamation is um
Junth which is June 19th 2026 and again
the city council will read this
proclamation
starting with council member Adams.
Whereas President Abraham Lincoln signed
the Emancipation Proclamation on January
1st, 1863,
declaring slaves in Confederate
territory free, paving the way for
passing of the 13th Amendment, which
formally abolished slavery in the United
States of America. hand.
>> Whereas on June 19th, 1865, Union
soldiers led by Major General Gordon
Granger arrived at Galveastston, Texas
with news that the Civil War had ended.
And
>> whereas the first Junth celebration was
held in Texas in 1866
and continues to be celebrated each year
in communities across the United States,
providing an opportunity to mark the
emancipation of enslaved people. And
whereas on June 17th, 2021, Junth
officially became the 11th federal
holiday, the first new holiday to be
added to the list of federal holidays
since the recognition of Reverend Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday in
1983. And whereas on this day, people of
all races, nationalities, and religions
join together to acknowledge and
understand the stories of black American
history and the centuries of hope and
courage amidst struggles and
inequalities, to honor and reflect on
the significant role that black
Americans have played in the history of
the United States, and celebrate the
continuous
uh contribution black Americans make to
enrich our society.
>> Now therefore, be it resolved that the
city council of the town of Hillsboro
does hereby recognize June 19th, 2026
as Junth and encourages all citizens to
explore this important celebration of
African-American culture, history, and
pride. signed Mayor Sophie Cole a June
8th, 2026.
Thank you.
We have one more proclamation. We cover
all the bases. This one I will read is
National Mosquito Control Awareness
Week. Yes, mosquitoes. How we manage
mosquitoes are important. Um let's see.
Do we have any um Oh, yes. I would like
to invite San Monteo County Mosquito and
Vector Control District Board member Dr.
Scott is here with us. Uh Scott Smith
and District Manager Brian Weber to the
podium to receive the proclamation. Let
me um read the proclamation. Um whereas
mosquitoes spread diseases such as West
Nile virus reduce enjoyment of outdoor
recreation and hinder outdoor work. And
whereas the San Monteo County Mosquito
and Vector Control District works to
safeguard the health and comfort of
people in San Monteo County through a
science-based program of integrated
vector management.
And whereas surveillance and control of
mosquitoes is critical to reduce public
health risk of mosquito-born diseases.
And whereas National Mosquito Control
Awareness Week aims to increase public
awareness encourage the public to take
action in preventing mosquito
transmitted diseases and highlight the
activities of various mosquito and
vector research and control agencies
working to minimize mosquito related
health threats. And whereas public
awareness and cooperation are critical
to effective mosquito and vector control
in San Mato County and throughout
California. Now therefore be it resolved
that the city council of the town of
Hillsboro hereby proclaims the week of
June 21st to 27th, 2026 as National
Mosquito Control Awareness Week signed
by me, Mayor Cole on June 8th, 2026.
And thank you um uh Dr. Smith and your
district manager. Um we're so honored
for the work you do in the community and
we're thankful. I would encourage you to
make any comments um any updates you
have for us on this very important
issue.
>> Sure. Thank you, Dr. Mayor Sophie Cole
having us. Is there a a this is my
briefest slid set so don't worry it'll
be okay.
>> When public health works, you don't
really know it. And so I think we
haven't suffered too many mosquito bites
recently and that's because Brian Weber,
district manager here, is uh working
hard with a crew of people to ensure
that we're protected from a lot of
vectorbor diseases and uncomfortable
vectors. So I'm just going to kind of do
a really brief infomercial so that you
know what it is and how to access the
services that you actually pay for with
a parcel tax on all of your property.
Next slide.
Oh, I have it. Oh, I'm in control.
Really? So, our work, it starts with
mosquitoes. That's how we were founded
more than a hundred years ago, uh,
because of the discomfort caused by the
mosquitoes coming off of the bay. So,
now we manage with mosquito fish. We
also have expanded to other things like
ticks that can transmit Lyme disease.
Rodents, as you will see in a moment,
are an issue even in Hillsboro. I'll
have you know, where humans are, rats
live. Uh, our biggest call, however, is
yellow jackets recently, but we also do
a fair amount of community education and
disease surveillance, which is, as we
know in these times, important. So, this
in Hillsboro is a snapshot of what
you've called on us to do as the
district to respond to. Uh, there have
been 246 service requests and actually
1,400 site inspections which means going
by and making sure that there are no
mosquitoes for example in the drainage
basins and that sort of thing and then
uh you can see yellow jackets in yellow
there are fair number of requests here
in Hillsboro because of yellow jackets
and the good news in the bottom right
corner there zero west Nile cases and
that remember is a mosquito disease so
thank you Brian things are working. Um,
so related to mosquitoes is our birds
and uh therefore if you see a dead bird
we want you to report it and hopefully
you remember uh westnile.cal
uh.gov or uh WV Westnile virus bird uh
that's the number to call and I think we
had one request. I went running and saw
a dead bird called uh but that uh is
important so that we know if there's
transmission or risk going on. Other
things to prevent mosquitoes just
dumping water in your backyard, making
sure that uh there aren't uh um you know
water sources for mosquito breeding. And
we do do surveillance as well in our
town to ensure no disease is being
transmitted. This is my original chicken
house with two chickens called and
they're known as Samantha and Eloise
collectively Sam and Ella which could be
other diseases.
But I have upgraded about 10 years ago
to this giant Hillsboro mansion of a
chicken house. Thank you, Brian, for
helping construct this because of a West
Nile case uh in my neighborhood. The
case wasn't a human, it was a squirrel.
But that's concerning because it could
get into us and put us at risk. And so
they came and bled the chickens and
surveiled to see. And the good news is
that they didn't find any West Nile on
these happy chickens. And let's see if
the laser works. Oh no. Says on their
water they're drinking the Kool-Aid.
Let's do this. So they're getting bled.
Here's my happy wife collecting the eggs
every day. Um, last slide. There is an
open house June 27th. Please come and
see the hard work that Brian and his big
team do. Uh, and there'll be a lot of
learning and uh, you can see the giant
tools and hovercraft and things that
they use in order to keep us safe from
insects.
And uh, one last comment, this picture
of a lizard uh, two different lizards
actually that have ticks. You can see on
the side, those ticks are transmitting
much less Lyme disease because the
lizards clear it using a chemical in their blood that
eliminates lime. And that's why on the
West Coast compared to the East Coast,
we have a lot less lime. Isn't that
cool? So anyway, that will conclude my
remarks. And if there are any questions,
hard questions, Brian Weber
here.
Well, that's a great update. I I do have
questions, but I'll ask my colleagues to
go first if they have any questions for
Dr. Smith or um District Manager Weber.
>> I think that the work you do is great
and uh the only thing I quarrel with is
the uh illustration of a giant water
jug. Eggs can be laid in very small
saucers, which you do mention, but I
think everyone should go scouting in
their home to see any standing water.
It's their own self-prevention. So,
thank you.
Good point. Any additional questions?
Um, my question Oh, I'm sorry. Um, Vice
Mayor Rexdale,
>> not a question. Uh, just thank you so
much for representing Hillsboro on this
board. I I don't know, are we up to a
couple decades now and for a long time
and, uh, greatly appreciate this work
and everyone should go to the open house
because you will learn so much and you
will really enjoy it.
>> Yeah. Um, I have a quick question. Are
there any specific vegetation or plants
or trees or bushes that could mitigate
um, mosquitoes around that that do you
know of? Have you?
>> That's a good question. I'm not aware of
any. I mean, the areamein is the plant
that they grow in order to use as an
antimmalarial, but it doesn't make
mosquitoes go away. And cutting grass
used to be back in the day a 100 years
ago a thing to do in order to mitigate
mosquito transmitted diseases but we
don't do that anymore. So I would defer
to the expert.
Yeah, there isn't much scientific proof
that particular plants, you will see
advertisements of plant this, get rid of
mosquitoes when you're scrolling on
different social media platforms, but
there really isn't any scientific
evidence that there's success of uh
eliminating or reducing mosquitoes on
your property with vegetation.
» Yeah. Yeah. Well, well, thanks for that
clarification and um I and again I I
will present this uh proclamation, but
first let me also thank you for the work
you're doing in the community and
working to keep us healthy and much
appreciated. I will come down and
present this to you.
>> Thank you. I once had a resident ask me
why we allowed rats in Hillsboro.
» They don't read the signs.
Okay. Um so the next item on our agenda
is um a presentation from our partners
and colleagues here PG&E enhanced power
line safety settings EPSS and I would
like to invite Marjorie Ruiz Sidalgo
local government affairs at PG&E to the
podium and she's there. Hello Marjorie
>> Dr. Cole thank you for having us here
tonight. Good evening Dr. Cole, Vice
Mayor, members of city staff and the
public. Good evening. I we're so
thrilled to be here tonight. I am joined
actually by our daily operations
specialist, my colleague Jake Day. He
and I together serve all of San Monteo
County, affectionately referred to as
the Peninsula Division internally. And
so we're thrilled to be with you today
to talk about our number one priority
and topic, safety. Am I echoing?
No, I hear an echo. Okay.
So, every day at P Gen, we start each
meeting with a safety message. And in
that spirit, I have one prepared for you
tonight. Being prepared is critical
during an emergency, but it is not the
time to prepare. And so, we suggest a
disaster supply kit with food, water,
medications, and emergency contacts. All
of this can make a real difference when
it matters most. For more information
and ideas, you can learn more at
pgen.comsafetyaction
center.
Where we're going tonight, so we're
going to be identifying and reducing
wildfire risk as a topic. We're going to
take a deeper dive into enhanced power
line safety settings. We refer to them
as EPSS. And then we'll have time at the
end for a Q&A.
So, as you can see from this map, more
than 50% or more than half of our
service area or P gen service territory
is considered high fire risk. And for P
Gen, that means we need to be laser
focused on safety for customers and
communities. And we use this map to help
target our wild safety efforts in the
areas that need the most. Now,
fortunately, the town of Hillsboro is
not considered high fire risk. And so
with that context in mind, I'm going to
walk you through our layers of wildfire
protection, which are designed to reduce
wildfire risk and protect our customers.
Layers of wildfire protection. So you'll
recall that the last time I was here, I
introduced the P Genie reported app and
mentioned our safety toolkit. I
mentioned cameras, drones, and and
safety patrols. But today, I want to
expand on that topic. So at P Gen, we
evaluate wildfire risk each year and we
focus our safety efforts in the highest
risk areas, but we use this approach
enterprisewide and we use multiple
layers of protection to reduce wildfire
risk and protect communities. Now this
approach includes situational awareness
which allows us to predict, monitor and
respond in real time. An example of this
would be I mentioned cameras last time
so this time I want to mention our
in-house meteorology team. All of this,
all of their information, which comes
out twice a day, prepares me to keep San
Mateo County, including the town of
Hillsboro, prepared with notifications
during winter storms, and I know Mandy
and Doug have received those during the
winter. We also have operational
mitigations like EPSS to make the system
safer every day. And as part of our
long-term resiliency, we also include
stronger poles, covered lines, and
undergrounding. So half of Hillsboro has
been undergrounded thankfully. We also
manage vegetation and we increase
inspections and clearances in high fire
risk areas. And these three layers work
together because no single solution is
enough. They work together
to mitigate wildfire risk. You can learn
more at pg.comwfires
safety progress. I'm going to include
a map at the end of this presentation
that we can take a deeper dive into.
EPSS. So EPSS stands for enhanced power
line safety settings and these are
advanced protective settings that live
on the on the line that make the
electric system more sensitive to
potential hazards by automatically
shutting off power in fractions of a
second. I believe it's an eighth of a
second within an eighth of a second when
a threat is detected to help prevent
power line related wildfire ignitions.
So this is the process here. Safety
settings turn off power quickly when a
wildfire hazard like the tree branch
that you see in the graphic is detected
on the power line. After the power is
shut off, our crews are dispatched and
will patrol the power line to find and
fix the issue before we're allowed to
restore energy once it's safe to do so.
But we don't stop there. These patrols
also inform the system improvement work
we do to prevent similar hazards from
causing future outages. We constantly
monitor wildfire conditions to determine
when to turn on EPSS settings. So EPSS
settings have been enabled as of the
first week of May in San Monteo County.
To turn safety settings on, we examined
a few things. We examined wildfire risk
conditions such as low humidity,
dry fuel like dead leaves or grass, and
great wind speeds. We consider these three ingredients to be the
ingredients for wildfire. EPSS since its
installation has been a proven wildfire
prevention tool since 2021 and EPSS
safety settings have reduced ignitions
by about 70% in high fire risk areas. So
it works.
Simply put, these settings work at
stopping wildfires before they even have
a chance to start.
Now,
we absolutely recognize the
inconvenience of losing power and as a
result, it's our priority to keep
customers informed in the event of a
safety outage. Since the power turns off
quickly due to the potential safety
hazard, advanced notification is not
possible, right? The the line turns
itself off within an eighth of a second.
So, there's no time to notify, but there
is time to keep people safe, thankfully.
However, we are able to provide
customers with updates during and
following an outage through their
preferred contact method. This includes
texts, emails, and/or automated calls.
We also keep customers informed
throughout the event and include an
estimated time of restoration. Once
power is restored, we will also send a
notification to confirm power is back on
along with information on the co cause
of the outage if it is available. We
have not always been able to follow up
with cause in the past, but we do have a
dedicated team that is currently working
on developing and improving this
communication system.
It's important to note that PG is only
able to communicate with customers based
on communication preferences. So
customers can see a step-by-step guide
on how to update their preferred contact
method by scanning this QR code or by
visiting pen.compreferences
guide. So customers need to log on into
their personal P Genie account and they
need to decide if they'd like to be
notified via email, via text, phone
call, or all of the above.
Going to come back to that.
Now, this is the map that I referred to
a few minutes ago. So, for more
information on work taking place in your
area, we have an interactive map that's
available online that lets you see
exactly where reliability work is taking
place on power lines serving you. And
this progress map can be accessed by
visiting pen.com/progressmap.
And you can see your area. You can click
on it in real time. It's quite
interactive. My nephews love playing
with it.
This is a bit more of an in-depth data
slide. So on this slide you can see the
work that we completed in 2025 as well
as actions that we are taking in 2026.
Our goal is to provide you with power
that is both safe and reliable. And so
to do that we must keep these EPSS
safety settings enabled on your power
lines when wild risk when wildfire risk
is high to protect you from catastrophe.
However, we have other things in our
toolkit that we're also using. This
includes monitoring safety settings
daily. So, we monitor those EPSS
settings around the clock. We also
complete reliability improvement work in
communities like yours to prevent future
outages. And so, this year, we plan to
prevent more outages by doing work,
including completing 1500 animal
mitigations, which Jay can speak to in a
little bit. And we will also do work to
reduce the number of customers impacted
if an outage occurs, including replacing
or installing 104 sectionalization
devices that divide the area
to help reduce the number of people that
live that experience the outage on the
line. There are about nine circuits that
feed the town of Hillsboro and about
four of them are EPSS enabled. So not
all of them, but what is that math?
About 40% 40 to 50
And this has been a
an a high level examination of EPSS
settings. Um we'd love to take your
questions now if you have any. Thank
you.
>> Um thanks for the presentation. Um do
any of my colleagues have any clarifying
questions or comments. Um Council Member
Chang,
>> thank you so much for your presentation.
Really appreciate it. Always welcome. Uh
and my question is that you know when
you first rolled out the PSPS
uh you know that there was a lot of
confusions for the residents they're not
expecting any wind but somehow their
power got shut off in this EPSS
do you have sort of a automatic trigger
or is there something because you said
it's cut off 1/8 of a second obviously
there are criterias that you operate on
Could you walk us through a little bit
on that?
>> Sure. So, I'll start high level and then
I'll hand it off to Jake. So, PS, it's
important to remember that PSPS
is proactive. Our meteorology team
internally is looking at weather
conditions. They're looking at humidity,
fuel on the ground, which you know, dry
leaves, things like that. And we
proactively turn the power off in order
to prevent any wildfires. EPSS allows us
to keep the lines on and those EPSS
devices live on the line and what it did
and because they are enabled during fire
season. So EPSS was just enabled the
first week of May your four circuits
that have an EPSS devices on them are
enabled as soon as they detect something
on the line that is foreign to the line
it immediately shuts down. Do you want
to walk them through what happens?
>> So thank you again council for having us
here. So we have um the distinction. So
PSPS I know Pen is full of acronyms.
It's a it's a problem internally too but
PSPS is um power safe public safety
power shut off. So that's we actually
have an event going on right now. It
doesn't affect Sanonteo County but um
preparing for one. That's when we know
there's going to be something like the
Diablo winds coming through with high um
high heat, low humidity, similar to the
settings that enable us or kind of
trigger us to enable EPSS. But PSPS is
something that we basically staff an
emergency room to kind of prepare for
and let everyone know ahead of time.
We're going to turn this power off when
this high wind event happens. EPSS what
we're presenting on today is actually
the um settings that it's a technology
we developed about five years ago and
implemented in 2022 approximately and
those settings basically
are they're turned on actually daily. Um
we are in the season but people monitor
it daily on whether or not they need to
turn on or not um per circuit. So
there's teams overnight that do that.
But to answer um your question, I
understand the confusion between the two
for sure with the two acronyms. But EPSS
u is
there are ways to
it doesn't always mean there's going to
be an outage of course, but it means
there's more sensitivity towards one
happening because normally if a branch
falls on a line without EPSS settings on
there's a check. Basically, it we send a
signal three times to see if one device
can communicate with another and if it
can't happen after it three times, then
it turns off. EPSS turns that off. And
basically, the first time something's
detected, it's off. And the three checks
happen within a couple seconds. With
EPSS on, it's less than a second. So, it
just makes it more sensitive. And yeah,
that's I hope I answered your question.
If not, please repeat.
» One more question. Thank you. Um and
that is uh the E e uh the EPSS once it's
turned off uh does it come back on
automatically or it requires human to go
physically check the line and then be
able to turn it back on. So it does take
time.
>> That's correct. Human line human human
lines human eyes must check the line
before we are allowed to restore energy.
So, and those you just have to patrol
the line and depending on the length of
the line will dictate the length of the
patrol and the estimated time of
restoration.
>> Yeah. And I I'll elaborate as well. Um
for
when EPSS is not on, we can try and turn
it on remotely if we know that that high
that higher elevated fire risk is not
present. Um, but when it is on, it means
there's a higher chance that if
something's still on the line and we try
to turn it on, it sparks. Not good. So,
when we when we patrol during EPSS
season, we have to patrol the entirety
of the line. Sometimes they would maybe
try and restore sections at a time
before, but with EPSS, can't do that.
You got to patrol the whole line, make
sure it's safe, and then so sometimes
the outages can last a little longer.
But that actually goes back to uh this
slide, the sectionalizing devices, which
I wanted to speak on a little more. Um
for the sectionalizing devices, one
thing we're doing to mitigate the impact
of EPSS and granted this is a new
technology. We're the first to develop
it, we're implementing it all over the
place down in um Hawaii, over in Hawaii.
Well, we're consulting with those
utilities, but um who have asked. But
anyways, for the sectionalizing devices,
we've learned it's really difficult at
it was really difficult at first because
these devices have to talk to one
another. But as we're getting better
with it, we're trying to put more in so
that say a tree branch falls on this
section, only that section's taken out,
not the whole line. And that's something
that is just taking time. But we we are
implementing devices constantly. I know
we have a couple going in in health. So
it's a it's a it's a
>> the Sorry. Thank you. It's it's a
developing process.
>> So, yeah.
>> Thank you.
>> Um, Councilman Acrylic,
>> you thank you. Um, so I have a
three-part question. So, my street,
which is Bailey Road, a pole failed and
went down on Christmas Eve. You may
recall this incident.
>> Yeah. Um, so my question is, um, what is
the inspection protocol? If someone
notices a poll that seems to not be in
good shape, what is their reporting?
uh process and once a poll is reported,
how long does it take you to come out
and take a look at that poll?
>> Council member, thank you for that
question. So, depending on the condition
of the poll
will depend on how quickly we can get
out there. So, I will give you an
example. If an inspector is out there
and he sees, oh, this pole should
probably be changed. It's not quite an
emergency, but it's it's it can wait
about a month, then we will quickly file
that permit. we will work with the city
or whatever town we're in. In this case,
it would be the town of Holsboro, and
we'll say, "Hey, we're come, we're
sending in this application, and it
really comes down to the permitting
process. If it's not an urgent pull, if
it is a we have to go right now pull,
it's considered an A tag, then it it
happens immediately as emergency work
and then we file the after the-act
permit. But it depends on the condition
of the poll and what that permitting
process is within each jurisdiction." Do
you want to elaborate?
>> Yeah. So, we have a poll test that when
that's triggered, if someone reports
something, we'll send someone out within
usually about a week.
>> Can you get closer to the mic because
there's some people online that want to
hear it? Yeah,
>> thank you. Um, so we have a if
something's reported through the
reported app like Marjorie shared last
time. Um, depending on just initial
visual analysis, they'll send someone
out anytime within a couple days to a
week usually is when someone will go
out. Uh it's worth mentioning that our
inspection timeline for each overhead
asset is about they get in-depth
inspected once every five years, but
typically they're at least looked at
once a year. Um and that in-depth
inspection is a pole test where they'll plug like a little device in the
pole. They'll let smoke come through and
um it'll kind of show any signs of
dilapidation within the pole. So that's
typically how that works. Once the
inspector's there within that week, they
they'll either perform that test or if
and if they again like if they see it's
hey this says yeah this is at 50% we
need to go now. That's kind of how that
acts. But it's all basically determinant
on what that current condition is.
>> And if a resident is concerned about a
poll, what's the process for them to
report that?
>> They can either call it in to the main
line. They can use that reported app.
Um, if you go to PGE reported app, you
can either just report it online or
there's an app that they can physically
use. But yeah, if they call it in even
to the main line, a case is created for
someone in the local offices to review.
So, as long as they basically um notify
us,
>> I've got all county. So,
>> and that number is 18000.
If you don't want to use the app, you
can always call it in.
>> Thank you, J. Yeah. Thank you both. Um,
con I'm sorry, Vice Mayor Rexdale.
>> Thank you. Um, a couple things. One, uh,
the app is fantastic, the report it app,
and you can go on and see your
neighborhood and and see that other
things have been reported you you might
not have known about. So, um, and then
it shows the resolution.
>> Yep.
>> So, um, anyway, highly recommend. Um, I
had a clarification question on the, um,
EPSS. So you said in May it it's
activated but every day it may or may
not be activated.
>> So this year the EPSS devices were
enabled in May and depending on weather
conditions. So these are monitored
around the clock 247 and so depending on
the weather conditions we may or may not
turn them off but I don't think we've
turned any off.
>> Um it is no. So
essentially those devices are not
enabled.
were not enabled before May. It's
usually like the winter months that they
turn them off because otherwise when we
have, you know, more constant high
winds, it could trigger more outages
unnecessarily, but that just enables the
ability to turn them on if that's Sorry
if that was confusing. Um, they're still
monitored every day in terms of like do we need to turn those settings up
because they it's a it's a tuning thing
with the settings. They're not standards
set at the same thing. Um there's tiers
to each wildfire area risk area and the
higher tiers are basically at a higher
sensitivity. So that's what I meant.
Sorry for that confusion.
>> Okay. Thank you. Um and the last thing
is um a suggestion you were talking
about the communication. Um and I can't
remember if I mentioned this before, but
um when your power's out then unless you
have a backup battery, your internet's
probably out. And so you're competing
for sell service, which the coverage in
town is not that great. Um, so when you
go on the app because you want to check
on the progress for your property,
sometimes it remembers
the address that you just asked about
five minutes ago and sometimes it
doesn't and you have to go through the
process of entering it. And so anything
you can do that it can you know remember
this device is connected to this address
or just remember are you asking about
the last address you asked for because
all I'm asking for is my address ever.
Um that would be great because it just takes so long when um you're
just using cell coverage to um search
that.
>> Thank you. It took notes.
>> Thanks for that feedback. Um Council
Member Adams.
>> Yes. Thank you, Madame Mayor. Uh thank
you Marjgery. Welcome back and nice to
meet you, Jake. Two questions. One is I
wanted to make sure I got the criteria
correctly. Uh low humidity, a lot of
fuel and winds.
>> Okay. So when we are aware of those
conditions, we should be on high alert
that we may be experiencing this ESPS.
Okay.
>> Second thing is uh this slide
conveniently up here. I'd like to know
more about providing uh battery and
gener generator rebates for our citizens
and also uh portable batteries and
portable battery storage. So, if you
could provide us not now but with how we
apply and how our citizens can qualify
for that.
>> Sure, I'd be happy to follow up.
>> Yeah, thank thanks for those uh
comments. Uh just one quick followup.
Um, it sounds like you dial the
sensitivity up for when it's windy. We
have several thoroughway, especially
Crystal Springs, where the many of the
power lines are already crowded with
branches. And do you have a program to
remove those branches or they not
considered risk when it gets very windy
like today for example?
>> Crystal Springs Road.
is one example. The
other major thoroughways that have that
issue. Yes. Yes, we do. So, our
vegetation
um our vegetation crews and program
managers, we we do tens of thousands of
trims and removals just in Santo County
alone every year. Um Hillsboro, we do
them in kind of sections. It's a by
sorry it's a semianual
patrol and then the following half of
the year if they got patrolled in the
first quarter or second quarter the
latter half of the year they'll go and
do the trims unless there's something
immediate those also get kind of ranked
if they find a tree that's like inches
from the line they'll go cut it the next
day
>> so so parts of the town are on a
schedule but if there's a particular
area where residents are concerned can
they reach out and say
>> absolutely
>> because if you have a lot of rain those
branches grow faster and pen reported
app 1800 pen 5000.
>> I've also had um your staff reach out to
me and then we'll dispatch veg crews
immediately. There are there are many
layers of ways to contact us.
>> Okay.
>> And we encourage
>> Okay. Thank you for the presentation.
Much appreciated. We have the contact
information and we'll get some of this
um outreach information on our website
as well for residents. Thank you very
much.
>> Thank you so much.
Okay. Um the next item is actually a
mayor's applause since we're applauding
here, but this is very special to us and
I would like to invite um finance
director Jan Cook and assistant finance
director Rich Santiago to the podium to
um just honor and recognize you for um
government finance officers association
awards for June 30th, 2025 annual
comprehensive financial report and the
fiscal year 2025 2026 annual budget
document.
Just um FYI, we are so proud that our
team gets this award every year. We
they're superstars. What can we say? So,
we try to celebrate it and and
acknowledge them. And um I if any of my
colleagues want to make any comments to
this effect, but we can't thank you
enough for keeping this town in its very
strong sound fiscal uh stability over
the many many decades, but especially
over the many years that you've been
leading our finance department. And it's
quite an honor to see you keep getting
this award. It's a reflection of your
professionalism, diligence, and ex and
just excellence in what you do. Thank
you.
Okay, the next item on the agenda is the
town updates and this will be presented
by by our assistant city manager, Mandy
Brown.
Thank you, mayor, vice mayor, and
council. I must have not messed it up
too bad last month, so Doug's letting me
do it again. And it's very brief because
I know we have a very big agenda. Um,
big thank you to the Memorial Day
planning committee, everybody that came
out for the event, obviously our
wonderful public works uh department and
the Hillsboro Police Department. Um, and
just a lot of thought that went into the
day, the weather, the sun came out at
the right perfect time. Um, it's just a
beautiful day. It was featured on ABC7
News that evening. Um, and just just
want everyone to mark their calendars
for next year, May 31st.
Was already mentioned, but just wanted
to share the artwork that was prepared
by the Hillsboro Youth Commission that's
helping host this event tomorrow, 400 pm
at town hall for the pride celebration.
Turn trail. So, this information has
been um believe mailed out. It's also on
our website. Um the construction is
underway, already begun. Um and just to
communicate and we will continue to
overcommunicate the limitation in access
during the duration of the project and
it's expected to go through winter 2026.
So, lots of construction in town um
during this time period, but um Paul
Willis, Natalie Gribbon, and a whole
public works department is working very
quickly to get this issue resolved um in
a timely manner. So, we'll continue to message as updates are available.
A message from Rethink Waste. If you
can't get to the Shoreway Environmental
Center, they now have a virtual online
tour so you can click and learn things.
Um, so if you haven't been already, um,
you can visit from your, uh, privacy of
your own home.
CCFD had a goal setting session on May
15th, and so the fireboard as well as
representatives from Burling Game and
Hillsboro uh, attended to get updates on
operational statistics, major
initiatives, and upcoming projects. And
we imagine there will be more
information from CCFD um, coming to the
C town council later this year.
The local hazard mitigation plan public
comment period is open now through June
15th. Um so we encourage you to provide
your comments. You can view the draft
plan online. This is particularly
important because every jurisdiction has
to have an approved local hazard
mitigation plan in order to be eligible
for FEMA grant funding. So the brick
project relies on us having the local
hazard mitigation plan and being
compliant. So very important um as we
look to secure that funding in the near
future.
Speaking of construction, Crocker
construction is underway. So I'll we'll
continue to include this slide um just
with their website uh to make sure that
you everybody is getting the updates.
public works and PD is also working
closely with the school district um on
the minimizing the impacts during this
construction period.
This is um many residents have um asked
some questions about a mailed notice
that was sent by AT&T and this has to do
with um the carrier of last resort topic
we had spoken about a couple years ago.
it had first come up and it was in the
news quite a bit um where AT&T was
trying to pull out of being of having to
provide landline service. Um a couple of
residents have spoken about how this
really affects their alarm um settings
and so when it was applied for at the
state level by the CPU they denied it.
So AT&T is now going around the CPU and
going straight to the FCC to try to get
permission to no longer have to provide
landline service um for the state of
California. And so this comment period
is going on through June 22nd. So
comments can be filed electronically at
fcc.gov
um the ecfsilings.
Um I know this was a topic of interest
at that time period. I've provided the
docket number there. It's also in the
mailed notice that was sent out to
residents. Um, nothing's been decided
obviously. It's still um at this public
comment period, but we'll continue to
monitor this um and keep the council and
community apprised if there are any new
developments as this uh proceeds.
And lastly, um going off of Marjgery's
comments from Pen about being prepared
for emergencies and um here's our
regular slide with all the resources
that are available. Thank you.
Um, Mandy Brown, appreciate
that presentation. Um, yes. Um, Council Member Adams,
>> just a question about the AT&T. You
don't need to hire a lawyer or make this
very formal. You can just lodge a
complaint. And I just want people to
know they don't have to prepare a big
docket. They can just tell their story.
>> Correct. It should be very user
friendly. I did check it out. just be
able to provide comments and CPU had a
similar process um when it was at that
level the last time as well.
>> Thank you. Um next item is uh public
comments on items that are not on the
agenda. Do we have any public comments
uh city clerk either on Zoom or in
chambers on items that are not on the
agenda?
>> Thank you, Mayor Cole. I don't have any
speaker cards for items not on the
agenda. So, if there's anyone who would
like to speak on something that's not
already on the agenda, you can let me
know now. Um, and I don't have any
raised hands on Zoom.
Doesn't look like it, Marle. Thank you.
>> Okay, seeing none, we'll proceed with um
a conflict of interest um on items on
the agenda, including the consent
calendar. Um, let me ask my colleagues
any conflict of interest on any items
that are on the agenda or consent
calendar. Seeing none, um before we move
forward with a motion for the consent
calendar, I would like to clarify that
item three was re um I guess that's on
page
just looking to see what page four.
Yeah. Um there's been a minor revision
on the fourth whereas and I would read
it into the record. The town elects to
use the percentage increases in per
capita personal personal income and San
Mateo County's population growth to
calculate the appropriations limit for
fiscal year fiscal year 2026 to 2027.
And that's the u modifications on
revision. In which case, do we have a
motion to um
vote on
uh any I'm sorry, from the council um
any items that anyone wish to remove
from the consent calendar? Council
member Chong.
>> Yes. Could I remove um item 10 and item
16?
» Items 10 and 16.
Any any other items to be removed from
the consent calendar?
Any public um request to remove any
items from the consent calendar?
>> I don't have any speaker cards.
>> Okay. I will have us proceed and approve
um and and vote on items 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
9 11 12 13 14 and 15. Do I have a motion
to vote on those items?
>> I have a motion on those and number
three as amended.
>> Second.
>> Could you please take the roll call?
>> Thank you. Adams,
>> yes.
>> Schwang,
>> yes.
>> Kle,
>> yes.
>> Ragdale,
>> yes.
>> Cole,
>> yes.
>> Turning to item 10 on the consent
calendar, resolution approving the town
of Hillsboro City Council Handbook. Um,
Council Member Chwang, you may proceed.
Thank you, mayor. Um, item 10. I just
want to u thank uh assistant city
manager Manny Brown and also city clerk
Lisa Natush uh for working on this um
handbook and um on one of the and it is
very thorough. So, I really appreciate
the details. One of the comments that I
want to make is that um regarding the
rotation of the mayor and the vice mayor
and the uh council uh rotation, I wonder
if we can have uh the the the staff take
it back and then work on that uh uh sort
of provide some kind of guideline. The
reason is that recently we have seen in
other cities where they for one reason
or another uh have to change the
orientation of the rotation and I feel
that um at any time when there is some
guidelines at least you know the council
will come to the dis and be able to um
elect the mayor and the vice mayor
accordingly and when there are uh sort
of the difference then they will be able
to use the guideline as sort of a you
know um a discussion point uh for for
that. So I I just want to have that
because right now in our council
handbook there's no discussion on the
rotation.
>> Um I will ask my colleagues to comment
on um on the discussion of item 10 if
they have any questions or clarification
or comments.
Yes, Vice Mayor Ragdale.
>> Um, I had a couple of very minor things.
Um, because, you know, I can't look at
something without having a couple little
mini comments, but they were
administrative, like when it says the
number one, write it out as one. And
there was a headline that didn't quite
match the stuff that was beneath it, but
um but beyond that, nothing substantive.
Um, so I have passed those on to um
Mandy and Lisa. And um with regard to
council member Schwang's suggestion, I I
think guidance would be uh fantastic.
Thank you.
>> Any additional comments or questions on
that item 10? I I think I would suggest
with this new um item being brought up
that perhaps we defer this until next
month's
» uh defer approval because that's kind of
a big
>> right
>> kind of a big discussion. I'm basically
u making the comments and then you know
would hope that uh you know we will be
able to bring it back to the staff for
uh just kind of to do some research as
to what are the standard practices out
there and then perhaps bring it back in
full uh in the next month for for
review.
>> Um um council member um Adams I'm sorry.
>> Yes sir. Thank you mayor. Um, I also
have some uh little corrections. So,
maybe we can get all of those into a red
line and then have it uh redistributed.
There's a a place where the voice
changes from neutral to when you receive
a gift. Little things like that. So, I
think we ought to uh bring it back.
>> Okay. Um I just my comments is
uh specifically what clarifications are
we asking for the election or nomination
of a mayor and vice mayor? Are we asking
for to change the current procedure we
have or to design a new process? What is
the specific question we're asking?
Thank
>> thank you mayor. Um, so I'll use the
casing points and most recently Milbre
uh the mayor uh resigned for u a
conflict of interest and um and then
they went through the they went down the
procedure as to uh you know the vice
mayor being promoted to the to be the
mayor but because that they have two
appointments rather than election
through the elections that the appointed
council members could not be um
could not could not become the vice
mayor nominations and even though by
rotation that that should seem to be the
case and what I'm saying is that in
general there's no uh conflict but when
there are circumstances it's always very
helpful that we have some uh point of uh
we have some guideline as to how the
rotation works. Case in points, if you
have a elections where you have two new council members coming in, right?
And then um then in terms of the
nomination, who is going to be the next
vice mayor that sometimes some of the
cities will go by with the highest vote
getters to be the the second in place.
But that is again is a sort of an
agreements among the council members.
And so I I would think that something
like that would be helpful for us to
take a look at it. We may disagree on
it, but it it's always nice to have some
kind of guidelines so that we have a
reference point as to how to start.
>> Okay. Um, thanks for that clarification.
In which case, I will have us remove
item 10 completely from the consent
calendar and we will study it further
with the city attorney. Thank you. And
item
>> Do we need a vote on that or it's just
council?
>> Would you?
>> No, thank you for the question, Mayor
Cole. City Council. Um, if if your
direction is just to defer it, let staff
kind of work on I think the direction
you've given to us, I don't think you
need to take a motion.
>> If you want to formally continue it to a
date specified, like the next meeting,
and you really want it to be, I think
staff has that direction, but if you
want it on the record, you could make a
motion to continue it to the next
regular city council meeting.
>> If you think we can address this issue
in a month, um, sounds like they may
>> I'll defer to our management team that's
been working on it.
I I think we could come back with
options for discussion um rather than um
necessarily for an action item and then
once we have clarity on that item and if
there are others then we can return with
the the item to for for a for council
action
>> and just we're clear we're targeting
July not the June 22nd meeting
>> correct and and just for further
clarification um discussions on this
issue could potentially take several
months and we going into an election. I
would like the entire council to be
aware that this conversation will
continue into the fall as we have an
election and it in no ways implies any
bias of of any sort. Just timing.
>> Understood.
>> Okay. Thank you. So, we'll just remove
that. And the next item, remove item 10.
Sorry. Um the next item is item fif 16.
>> Um thank you. Um, I just want to bring
up the um item 16 because uh this is in
particular uh addressing to the uh
council responding this council's
directions as to addressing some of the
um
some of the uh construction by design
that the homeowners were uh tasked with
uh 2 in pipe. And um so the council has
long have discussions regarding that.
some of the property owners that even
with the two inches pipe that they are
not necessarily using the water in the way that it's been by design so to
reduce the cost. Um, so I I really
appreciate that the staff finally bring
back uh somehow a way to address that
and even though it's 60 out of the 252
in pipe u property owners um that
nonetheless is it address the sort of
the fairness as to how they they are
being charged. So I just want to
compliment the staff and then really
highlight that as something that our
residents will be aware of.
>> Great. Thank you. Any additional comment
on that item? Okay. Um, in which you're
not making any modification or
amendment. Okay. Just to compliment the
staff.
>> Thank you, Paul.
>> We appreciate that. And we were ready
for any questions. We do have samples of
a 1 in and 2 inch meter behind William.
If you'd like to see what they look like
later or during a break, u, the 2in
meters very large and heavy.
>> To summarize, that's to summarize. Some
homeowners were asked by the town to
install 2-in pipes mostly for fire
suppression systems, but they don't use
enough water to justify the 2-in pipe.
So, the upcharge for them was deemed not
fair. So, they can apply for a rebate
for that. To summarize, is that right?
>> Summarize. And some of those choices
were made by previous contractors or
developers long before we have our
current policies and our fixed meter
charges. And so, they inherited those
older systems. And uh as explained in
the staff report, the actual remedy and
the cost is really cost prohibitive to
have people redo their internal plumbing
just to save money for a 1-in meter when
they're only using less than what the
average person uses for a 1-in meter.
>> Um just um for clarification, the rebate
is based on usage
regardless of the whether you have a 2
in. I in other words, would you be
whether you're eligible to get the
rebate as outlined in the agenda
package? It's also going to be based on
whether you use a certain amount that
supersedes what a 1 in um meter would I a 1 in pipe would be using,
right? You have some I I just don't want
residents to expect that if just having
the 2 in automatically defaults you into
a rebate. There's specific criteria.
It's very specific. It's in the staff
report. The main thing is you have to
use less than what a typical or average
1-inch meter would use and then less
than the peak amount and it it is a
rebate. So the resident asks for it,
then we would apply it as a lump sum
credit to the account for the future
bills.
>> Okay.
>> And just
>> Yes, council member Adams.
>> In addition, it cannot be an absentee
owner. uh it cannot be a commercial
dwelling and it cannot have multiple
meters. So this is just for those
exceptions that really haven't been
fairly treated and I think it was a
great solution.
>> Yeah. Thank you.
>> In which case do we have a motion to
adopt a resolution adopting a res a
residential 2-in water meter rebates
policy?
>> So move.
>> You have a second.
>> Second.
Um, all those in favor say I.
>> I.
Motion carries 5-0. Okay. Next item.
On our agenda is um
item 17, resolution authorizing the
5-year
rate series for water rate charges for a
5-year period effective July 1st, 2026.
And this will be presented by um uh
Director of Finance Jan Cook.
Good evening, Mayor Cole and city
council members.
This item is to consider adopting water
rates. This is a five-year water rate
series effective July of 2026 for the
first rate series. It's the maximum
rates. If in any one year uh the results
are showing that not as much as needed,
the city council can uh adopt a lower
rate in that year. And the last rate
increase that the town had was in
January of 2025.
And these rates are needed to cover the costs of the system which are
increasing primarily for the San
Francisco uh PUC water purchased cost as
well as uh capital improvements and
other operational items. This was
studied o with by the town council over
two sess sessions and um so tonight
we'll be providing just a summary and
I'd like to introduce Rick Simon senior
vice president of H FNH and we also have
Gabe Sasser who is the project manager
from H FNH and then we have Ly Karu from
best and creger uh all of this team
along with staff has put together at
this this rate recommended for this
evening. So with that, I will turn it
over to Rick for the presentation.
>> Thank you, Jen. Good evening, Mayor
Cole, Vice Mayor Ragsdale, council
members. Again, I'm Rick Simson, senior
vice president with HF&H.
Our goal for today is uh for me to
present a summary of the water rate
study process and the rate
recommendations that were noticed in
late April to your uh water customers.
This is just an overview high-level
summary of what has been provided in a
more detailed report that is on the
town's website that included a link in
the notice to those that want additional
information or to dive a little bit
deeper into the numbers. And tonight is
a public hearing as noticed.
And tonight, the city council can vote
whether to adopt those maximum rates
that were included in the notice,
nothing higher. And that first rate
adjustment would go into effect this
coming July.
How did we get here? So the process uh
started in November of last year meeting
with staff uh to understand the
operations and maintenance expenses to
operate the water system as well as the
capital projects necessary over the next
5-year period. We came to the city
council in February for preliminary
results and to get feedback
about the recommended increases. With
that feedback, we came back to the
council with a draft report and we held
that in April.
And at that time, the council authorized
the issuing of notices to start the
Proposition 218 process, which notifies
rateayers of the contemplated increases
the next 5-year period. Those were
mailed out April 20th.
So for tonight, uh this is the public
hearing that was noticed. It gives a
chance for the public to make public
comments on the study itself and the
recommendations before the council. The
council can vote tonight whether to
adopt those maximum rates. Again, only
up to the amount that was included in
the 218 notice.
To give you an overview of kind of these
highlevel drivers that Jan has touched
on, first and foremost, the cost of
wholesale water purchasing the water
from the SFP, which makes up about 44%
of the overall water budget each year.
Uh the SFPC has given notice that they
will be increasing the wholesale cost of
water 7.4%
this July 1st. Another 7.4%
the following July 1st followed by more
inflationary type increases between 2
and a half to to 4% for the 3 years of
this 5-year rate study. So we have
included those projections in the
recommendations you have before you
tonight.
Another large component of the annual
spend for the water utility is the
capital infrastructure. So to continue
to provide safe clean water, uh there
are some improvements that are necessary
to the infrastructure. Uh just the
projects themselves, but we're also
seeing rising construction costs over
the last few years. some of the more um
detailed descriptions of the capital
types of improvements that we will be
making over the next five years is the
water manes that run throughout the
town. Uh there's a scheduled replacement
program as needed in specific areas.
That's an ongoing project that happens
each year of maintaining those water
manes so you don't have emergency
failures.
A couple pump stations in town at Marble
and Clark Concore pump stations are
needing to be uh upgraded and replaced
as well as the Daryl pumping line. So
moving the water around the town uh all
throughout the town up into the high
elevations. These are very critical part
of the water infrastructure and they
need attention over the next 5 years.
And lastly, part of this study was to
analyze the current rate structure. And
we're recommending moving from a tiered
to what we call a uniform rate
structure. So the commodity charge, how
much water you use, had historically uh
been a tiered rate structure. So more
water that you use on a per unit basis,
you'd pay more. We're recommending
moving that to a uniform rate structure.
So for each drop of waters, the same
cost regardless how much is used. And
this is due to some conflicting appellet
rulings throughout the state as well as
here in the town of proper rate making
be it tiered or uniform. And in front of
you tonight is changing that structure
from tiered to uniform.
Here's
a couple examples of the uh capital
improvement program over the next
five-year period. Scheduled to spend
about 14.6 million. These are actual
photos of completed projects, but very
similar to what you need to do over the
next 5year period. On the left hand side
there, you see the pump station
improvements. You can see quite the uh
involvement for your pump stations.
they're in a vault. Uh these will be
done at Marble and Clark Concore as well
as the emergency valve replacements
uh throughout the town. So these are
some examples of what have been done.
More of these replacements need to occur
over the next 5-year period.
Here's an example of a water tank for
storage uh an emergency basis or when uh
it's cheaper to move water around. The
town stores it in these tanks while PG&
name costs are lower and then our
gravity fed to your customers uh
throughout the day when it's would be
more expensive to actually pump. Uh this
is an example of a 2 milliongal tank at
Daryl W. It's the Daryl water tank and
this helped achieve and bring you within
regulations for having a minimum
requirement of 3 million gallons per day
of storage.
So that brings us to uh the rates that
we analyze in order to fund those
programs.
Currently water is charged with two
separate components. First a fixed
service charge as mentioned earlier it
is based on the size of connection. So
the larger connection the more capacity
in the system you need. Therefore it's
their higher charges as you increase
that connection or meter size. Most of
the customers in the town have a 1-in
meter and these are rates that are
charged on a bon
period. So this is two months worth of
fixed service charges. In addition to
that fixed service charge to cover uh a
portion of the fixed cost, there is a
volumetric charge. And as I mentioned
earlier, based on how much water is used
historically, there were four tiers. So
as you used more water, typically during
the summer months, uh you would pay a a
higher unit rate as you moved up those
tiers. We are recommending moving to the
uniform. So from drop one uh for each
unit of water denoted here is HCF which
is 100 cubic feet about 748 gallons of
water. It will be charged a uniform
rate. Uh for July 1, 2026 we're make
recommending $1142
rate.
Next slide.
and rates are all and good and they have
been noticed. Uh but I think the
question we often get is well how does
that impact my bill since I use water
differently throughout the year? What
does that mean to me as a customer? So
the town has put together a water bill
calculator. Have a couple examples here.
It's pretty easy to use. Uh there are
some customers in town that are build on
a monthly basis, mainly your
non-residential customers. Uh so first
uh look at your bill and see how often
you are being charged either monthly or
bimonthly. Look at the meter size
denoted on your bill. The most common
again is 1 in. So we've shown that here
and about average water use of 22 units.
So again that's 22 HCF of water which is
about 274 gallons per day. And you'll
see the individual components based on
the current rates, the service charge
and volume charge, as well as what is
proposed moving forward starting July
126. So you can at a glance look at the
different months of water use that you
have. It's typically lower during the
winter and higher during the summer. You
can see the impact.
There are some high water users in town
or again during the summer season you
might use more than that 22 HCF. So next
slide you'll see an example. It's easy
to input. If you use 50 during the
summer again that's about 623 gallons
per day. You'll see the resulting
changes in the bill from the current
rates to what's proposed July 1 26. So
this is a very handy tool that the town
has posted on its website. You'll see
the link there.
With that again, that was a high-level
overview. So I would like to open it up
for any questions that you may have.
>> Um thank you Mr. Simon for the
presentation. Um before we get to um the
public hearing aspect of this, I would
ask my colleagues on the council if they
have any clarifying questions. Just
questions at this point.
Mayor Coles council's thinking whether
they have questions. I just wanted to
note for you staff has created some
talking points um for you and then also
for me to read into the record uh prior
to taking any public comment on the
project.
>> Right.
And I'm not sure um um who is in
chambers regarding these specific
issues, but I would like to welcome you
um to this public hearing. And um I
would like to ask the staff to inform
the city council as to whether all valid
legal objections received thus far have
been responded to and presented to the
city council.
>> Yes, all valid legal objections have
been responded to and all objections and
responses have been presented to the
council. Thank you. And before I open to
public hearing, I would like to ask our
legal council to explain the
requirements of proposition 218
governing this public hearing and the
proposed rate adoption.
>> Thank you, Mayor Cole. Just wanted to
announce for the or note for the public
uh the public hearing tonight was set in
compliance with Proposition 218. The
town mailed a notice of this public
hearing to the record property owners
subject to the imposition of the
proposed water rates as well as tenants
directly liable for the payment of such
rates, i.e. customers of record who are
not property owners more than 45 days
prior to the date of this public
hearing. The purpose of this public
hearing is for the city council to hear
all oral testimony and consider all
written protest concerning the proposed
rate increases. It is also held to
determine whether there is a majority
protest to the proposed rates and
whether to proceed with the adoption of
the proposed rates. Members of the
public are invited to provide oral
testimony during tonight's public
hearing. In addition, property owners
and tenants may submit a written protest
by hand delivering it to the city clerk
prior to the close of the public
hearing. Property owners and tenants are
not required to provide oral testimony
at today's hearing in order for your
written protest to be counted towards
determining whether a majority protest
exists. However, oral testimony without
a written protest will not be counted
when determining whether a majority
protest exists. So, it's important to
submit that written protest if you want
it to count. The public hearing will be
closed after the city council has heard
and considered all oral testimony on
these items. In order to be counted,
protests must be in writing. State that
you are protesting the proposed water
rate increases. Include the name of the
property owner or tenant, the assessor
parcel number or service address, and
signature of the person submitting the
written protest. Any protest submitted
by email or other electronic means will
not be accepted as a form of written
protest.
Then finally, all valid protests
submitted to the town by mail or hand
delivered prior to today's public
hearing and received by the city clerk
since the notice of public hearing was
mailed will be counted. If written
protest against the m the proposed rate
increases are presented by the owners or
tenants of a majority of the identified
parcels upon which the proposed uh water
rates are to be imposed, the city
council may not adopt the rate
increases. If there is no majority
protests, the city council may decide to
adopt the rate increases. Finally,
pursuant to state law governing
Proposition 218 in determining whether a
majority protest exists, only one
written protest per parcel may be
counted. Thank you.
>> Um, thank you.
>> I'm sorry, Council Member Crowley. Did
you see
>> I have a couple questions
>> before we go to public hearing. Okay,
I'll come back to the council for
further questions. Yes, Council Member
Crowley.
>> Um, so this might either be for Rick or
for our city attorney. So, just to be
clear, so Proposition 218 mandates that
the fees for water and for sewer cannot
be more than the cost of service. Is
that right?
>> That is correct.
>> And Ludvy Kufu, our legal counsel um on
Proposition 218 issues is here as well
and can also respond to the question.
And so then uh we had the town had
tiered water levels and we commissioned
a more recent study that dug down that
and the purpose of that was to show that
the different tiers were um were
supported by the data. In other words,
our study showed to that we got from the
consultant that the the higher tier
actually cost the town more. Is that
right?
>> Um yes. So there were there was evidence
supporting that the tiers as they went
up they reflected the higher cost of
service.
>> But then when we went to court to ask
the court, the court said that that was
not valid.
>> So it was actually the court that said
that even with our study that the tiered
water rates were not supported according
to the court's interpretation of
proposition 218. Is that right?
>> Yeah. and I can give a little bit of
detail on that. So, Proposition 218 was
adopted in 1996 and um since then it's
been 30 years of litigation trying to
interpret what Proposition 218 requires
for setting water rates particularly
with respect to tiers. Um so since 2015
there have been I think four or five
conflicting court of appeal decisions
and the significance of that is each
court of appeal decision creates
precedent so it's binding upon public
agencies. they have to comply with the
ruling of that court.
So in our instance, the the trial court
relied on two more recent court of
appeal decisions that struck down tiered
water rates on facts similar to the
town's evidence. Uh there was a third
court of appeal decision out of Los
Angeles that upheld uh water rates based
on similar evidence as well. So right
now the law is very much in flux. Uh
there are just conflicting opinions out
there and um our trial court
specifically relied on two of the
opinions that took issue with tiered
race.
>> Um thank thank you. Um and I would just
like to follow up regarding this line of
questioning. um specifically this
conflicting legal ruling at at this time
which could change in the next year,
months, however long um both in the
courts in the appellet court as well as
potentially in the state legislature.
But specific to our town, we also just
discussed the other drivers for our
cost, which is replacing aging
infrastructure. as you saw the photos of
our water manes being replaced etc. and
um and also basically bringing the our
delivery system up to um standards and
in terms of preserving our water tanks
replacing them so we have a reserve in
the event of an emergency. So they are
the drivers to the cost of water
production and perhaps more
significantly um the purchase how much
we pay for our water has gone up
approximately I believe 24% or 28%. So
how much we're paying for the water from
SFPU um has gone up. maintaining our
infrastructure for the delivery system
has also gone up in terms of um
construction cost as well as the
conflicting legal rulings making it
difficult to clarify where the courts
will end on this issue and thereby we
are sort of from that legal standpoint
that wouldn't change cost of
construction potentially is going to
continue to rise we have no control over
that okay just want to clarify my
understanding on that thank you
>> yes
>> any additional comments Yes. Um, council
member Adams.
>> Thank you, Mayor. Um,
with respect uh to our validation
process, we got very clear direction
from that court that we could not
continue with the rates that we had and
that it was unconstitutional.
And though he did not really take into
account the Los Angeles case, he did say
Hillsboro is not Los Angeles. So he
actually did not give us much choice.
Second thing is is it not true and I may
have this wrong but that uh the the rate
laws do not allow municipalities to
structure their rates according to
conservation goals. So it's really clear
that that is not our our possibility. We
are not talking about conservation or
rewarding those who use less. It's
simply how do we structure the rate of
what we're selling and what we need to
repair. And in our community, we have
water lines, water manes that are 100red
years old. So, we are an established
community and we need to keep this uh
maintenance and replacement going. So, I
just want to make sure I had that clear
about conservation goals are not
allowed. So, um, and that's a great
question, council member. So, the two
there there's three cases, three
operative cases here that deal with this
issue. Uh, there's, uh, Kosar versus
Otai Water District and Pats versus City
of San Diego. Those cases, which are the
ones that our trial court relied upon,
both say that you cannot consider
conservation goals, efficiency, and so
forth. Uh, the third case, um, Dreer
versus City of Los Angeles Department of
Water and Power says you can. So, that's
just another example of the conflicts
that we're struggling through.
>> Um, and I think we can Thank you. Thank
you, um, Council Member Adams. Um, we're
now going to turn to those were
clarifying questions for the residents
and for everyone. Um, and we will have
the opportunity to have uh more comments
on this issue, but I would like to open
the public hearing at this point. Um,
and the public hearing will be conducted
in the following manner. the staff will
first provide a report um relating to
the proposed water rates. We already did
that after presentation. Um
I think basically I just need to ask if
we have
speakers if we clerk do we have any um
speakers on Zoom um or in chambers for
oral testimony?
Uh
>> yes we do. I have one speaker card at
this time.
>> Okay. Do we have anyone on Zoom?
>> Uh, not not at not yet.
>> Okay. So, we'll start with the one
speaker who is in chambers.
>> Uh, thank you. Um, Jeannie Beck.
» Oh,
>> my apologies. I'm sorry about that. Um,
yes, I do not have any speaker cards yet
on the on this on this.
>> So, we don't have anyone in chambers and
we don't have anyone on Zoom.
We can give them a moment. If there's
anybody who wants to speak on this
topic, please go ahead and Yeah, you can
go ahead and go to the podium and you
can give me a speaker card after. Yes.
>> Yeah. Welcome. If you could just
introduce your um name.
>> Introduce yourself.
>> Yes. I'm Mark Morates and I reside uh
ownership at 881 Caliba Road,
>> this park area. Um, I'm an architect
environmentalist and I'm a little bit
confused about leaving the tiered rate.
Uh, because I think that with the tiered
rate, it speaks of sustainability
uh that you kind of want to approach
your usage uh on the lower tier that you
possibly can. So you take care of your
property uh your irrigation primarily
and being very conscious of the use of
water and you actually watch water
source and I see we have a new program
but I'm very much in favor of the tiered
rate because that just basically besp
speaks well I want it lower and I have
an opportunity to do that to reach these
levels rather than if it's just one
level. It's like, and I know this is
kind of a nuance. I mean, you know, you pay as you go and you know, if you
lose use less, you pay less. But if it's
tiered, it just kind of seems that
there's a nuanced
um opportunity to individuals do their
own thing with conservation. So I I know
we said that we're not into conservation
in this exercise, but I just think that
keeping the tiered rate for Hillsboro
would be a a good good idea for the
community.
>> Thank you for those comments. Um do we
have any additional um cards? Um,
» hello. Welcome. Could you just introduce
your name? Yes.
>> Yes. Uh, good evening, mayor and city
council members. My name is Dwayne
Musfeld and I reside at 75 Orange Court
in Hillsboro. And uh certainly this was
educational for me and I'm sure the
audience members about reasoning behind
getting away from the tier which the
main focus appeared to me to be because
of conflicting appellet decisions.
I am a retired lawyer but in that
practice I know that when you have
conflicting appellet decisions
ordinarily the Supreme Court will
eventually step in and resolve those
conflicts. I also appreciate that at
this point it's uncertain what they will
do when they finally get to that point.
But my question is if within the next
year or two or whenever the Supreme
Court of California does resolve this
issue and they find for whatever reason
consistent with what happened in Los
Angeles in that decision,
is there a mechanism that at that point
because that would be the final
resolution subject to whatever the
legislature might do of course is it
envisioned that we would then at that
point when hands would be untied
go back to the tiered system or is there
some other reason beyond the conflicting
appellet decisions that is driving this
away from the tiered system which seems
to be preferable.
>> Um I I think I would um welcome a
comment from our attorney. I mean
clearly we had been studying this for
the past many years to try to explain to
the courts regarding our tiered system
the drivers behind what's driving the co uh the cost for us I mean you're
right there are other costs that have
been discussed as well infrastructure
costs the cost of purchasing water etc
but not getting a clear directive from
the courts at this time makes it
difficult for us to um pursue the
current system we had which was a tiered
system. And um as you stated we we
really must obviously we're abided by
whatever the courts decide at this point
and we'll follow that until we have some
other flexibility.
Now when that will happen it's hard to
know because it would be to potentially
a different council, different
circumstances, different environment but
um I I would invite attorney to add any
comments to that in terms of the courts
and when we would expect the Supreme
Court to weigh in. Do we have any idea
when that will be? The state supreme
court that is.
>> Yeah. Um no thank you very much and
thank you for that question. So the
Supreme Court has taken up the Los
Angeles case. Um that case is fully
briefed except for the amikas brief
which is a brief that's submitted from
friends of the court. Um and we'll be
submitting that one on July one. So
after that it will be fully brief but
there is a bit of a backlog right now
with the Supreme Court. So we are
expecting an opinion within about a year
and a half. Um, there's also legislation
there's a legislative effort which the
town has submitted a letter in support
of that seeks to get clarity by
codifying the Los Angeles decision into
statute. Uh, so when those things are
clarified, it's it leaves an opportunity
for whomever's on the the city council
to make a decision at that time as to
the appropriate race structure.
>> Thank you and thanks for your comments.
Appreciate that. any additional um
comments or questions on this issue?
>> Thank you, Marco. I don't have any
speaker cards or raised hands on Zoom,
but if there's anyone else in the
audience who would like to speak, I
would invite you to do so now.
» Yeah, I'm sorry. If you could come to
the podium, please. I just need to state
your name. We'll get a speaker card from
you. Thank you.
>> Um, Linda Lewis, I was just wondering if
you could tell us again about when we
have to send in the letters about our
how we feel about this new system
>> underwater.
>> Yeah, thank you for the question. They
do need to be submitted uh before the
close of the public hearing. Council may
decide something this evening about
continuing the public hearing and so
there might be more time than this
evening but let council confirm that
they are going to continue the public
hearing and if so then we would continue
it to a date certain and by that date
you would want to get it in in writing
to the clerk.
>> Okay. Thank you.
>> Um thanks for the question and thanks
for the response. Um I think I was just
waiting to see if we have any additional
public comments on this issue before um
I will ask my um colleagues um any
additional clarifying question in which
case seeing none um I would like to
continue the public hearing until m
until Monday June 22nd 2026 at 6 p.m.
and council chambers at town hall. The
hearing is being continued in order to
extend the deadline for legal objections
to June 16, 2026 at 4 p.m. Notice of the
extended deadline has been mailed to to
all property owners and customers of
record. The comments of those
individuals who spoke this evening have
been included in the record and we ask
that only those who did not speak this
evening speak at the continued public
hearing. As a reminder, legal objections
could include the name of the property
owner or customer of record, address of
the property, and a description of the
legal objection with sufficient detail
to allow the town to determine whether
any changes to the proposed rates are
required. The new deadline will be June
16, 2026 at 4 pm, meaning any additional
legal objections must be received by the
city clerk by that time in order to be
valid.
May I have a motion to continue the
public hearing to June 22nd, 2026 at 6
p.m.
>> So move.
>> Does the motion have a second?
>> Second.
>> Thank you. May I have the roll call,
please?
>> Thank you, Mayor Cole. Adams,
>> yes. Schwang,
>> yes.
>> Crow,
>> yes.
>> Ragdale,
>> yes. Cole,
>> yes. Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> And then, Mayor Cole, just so we're
abundantly clear for the public that is
here, you do have until June 22nd to
submit that written protest in writing
to our city clerk.
>> June, is it June 16th or June 22nd?
>> June.
16th.
>> 16th.
>> Yeah, maybe L clarify. There's June 16th
for the objections and there's the
additional date.
>> Um, I'm sorry. So, there's there's two
separate types of documents that can be
filed. One is a legal objection, which
is if you have a legal concern with the
rates. Uh those must be filed by June
16, 2026 by 4 4 PM. Uh however, if you
just want to submit a protest to say
that you're opposed to the rate
increase, you can submit that up until
the close of the public hearing on June
22nd.
>> Okay.
Thank you. Thanks for that
clarification. Um just next a question.
Because the public comment period has
been extended, then there's no further
discussion on this item among council.
Is that correct? In
>> in terms of public future public comment
or council discussion
>> in terms of the legal
>> this evening? Yes. I think council's uh
done with this item and you could
proceed to your next item. Yes.
>> Correct. Okay.
Um item 18, resolution adopting the
proposed fiscal year 2026 to 2027
operating and capital budget and that
will be presented by our assistant
finance director, Rich Santiago.
>> Good evening, Mayor Coleman and Council.
Yes. Uh tonight is the public hearing
adopting a resolution to approve the
fisc year 2627 proposed operating and
capital budget. Um the process began in
February during the city council goal
setting meeting. Uh from there staff uh
collaborated with departments developing
the budget book and we presented it to
the financial advisory committee on
April 28th. Uh then they recommended to
move forward with the budget and then we
had a budget study session at the May
11th city council meeting uh which we
presented to city council and they also
uh we received feedback from them and
move forward uh with the budget which
brings us to tonight the formal budget
public hearing adoption.
We also presented this last time, so I
won't go into the initiatives in detail,
but you can see the different categories
listed. Uh, improve community safety,
emergency preparedness and resilience
efforts, resiliency efforts, implement
housing element, and maintain compliance
with state requirements, enhance quality
of life, ensure long-term financial
security, and improve transparency,
efficiency, and customer service. Those
are the 2627 city council priorities.
This is the budget at a glance for
fiscal year 2627. Total budget is 82.3
million. It is a 8% decrease um compared
to the prior year due to uh timing of
capital improvements um and budget
amendments that were made to um support
those projects. And the general fund
ending reserve is at 26.5
million. The budget does fund the town's
uh townwide goals and operations along
with funding capital spending of about
11.6 million. There is no new headcount
uh increase um and no pre-unding for the
115 trust. Uh this budget does include
two cost of service studies that you've
heard uh one tonight and then one that
was adopted in May for sewer. So yeah,
both enterprise funds have new cost of
service studies and this budget does
comply with uh budget and financial
policies and meets our debt covenants.
Um this shows the budgets um separated
by fund uh totaling the 83 or 82.3
million. uh the general fund the
increase for that is primarily driven to
uh from labor and contractual increases
as well as uh the contribution to
central county fire department that's a
14% increase um the the capital and
asset replacement those tend to
fluctuate based on timing of capital uh
water there is an increase um as
mentioned in the last uh topic there is
an increase in SFP PUC rates. That's
where we purchase our water. That's
going up 7.4%.
Uh sewers going down. Um uh sewers going
down. Uh again, timing of capital as
well. And then all others primarily the
0.9 million it comes from police grant
funding. Uh it's funding uh radio
consoles, cameras, and then their annual
drone drone program.
And then this is the general fund
summary. It totals 42.8 million for
revenue. Uh the primary increases of
that are 5% increase about 1.3 million
for projected property tax increase and
then 1.8 million from building and
planning fees. If you recall uh building
and planning did a cost of service study
which was put as part of the 2627 budget
increasing the revenue there. um
expenditures as I mentioned primarily
labor contractual increases as well as
central county fire department
contribution uh leaves a net operating
excess of 1.8 8 million. And then we do
capital transfers uh to fund projects
like storm drain
um
sorry storm drain uh facilities
improvements phases of the general plan
as well as the uh town hall complex
planning.
Uh Mayor Cole mentioned this earlier. We
got our um GFO distinguished budget
award for the last fiscal year 2025 26.
Um, I tried to look back how many years
in a row we we got it. I couldn't go
that far. It was it was quite a bit. Uh,
and we anticipate to get it again. So,
with that, we'll take any questions, but
our recommendation is to open the public
hearing, receive comments, close the
public hearing, and then adopt the
resolution approving the 2627 budget uh
for Auburnian capital.
>> Thank you, Rich Santiago, for the
presentation. And any clarifying
questions from the council?
Seeing none, any public comment on this
um item.
>> Thank you, Mayor Cole. I don't have any
speaker cards uh in the room, but I'll
give it a moment on Zoom.
Not seeing any raised hands. Thank you.
>> Okay. Um bring it back to council for
comments. Yes. Um Vice Mayor Ragdale,
>> uh we're so excited to have some members
of the public here. Uh just wanted to
let you know those of you watching that
um we don't take this lightly. It is it
is a lot of money but um as uh Mr. Sant
Santiago presented this is I don't know
the third fourth fifth time we've we've
gone over the budget. We get a beautiful
big budget book that we review all
weekend in midMay. Then we have a formal
presentation uh and we have separate
presentations on the fees. So, um, just
wanted to let you know we do carefully
consider this, um, important budget.
>> Yes, Council Member Adams.
>> And just to add on to that, we also get
advice from the financial advisory
committee that reviews it before we even
get it. So, uh, it's thoroughly vetted.
Okay. Um, do we see no additional
comments? Do we have a motion to adopt a
resolution approving fiscal year 2026
2027 proposed operating capital budget?
So moved. You have a second.
>> Um could we take a roll call, please?
>> Adams,
>> yes.
>> Kurlic,
>> yes.
>> Ragdale,
>> yes.
>> Call,
>> yes.
>> Thank you.
Motion carries 5. Um item 19
um resolution approving the category 3
grade grading permit application for the
construction of private improvement at
101 Robin Road under SQA guidelines
15303
and that will be present. There you are
Mr. Belch. Thank you so much.
>> Uh good evening mayor, vice mayor,
council members. My name is Doug
Belchek. I'm the associate civil
engineer for the town of Hillsboro and I
will be presenting tonight's public
hearing item on the category 3 grading
permit application for 101 Robin Road.
Uh staff and property owner
representatives are available after the
presentation to answer any questions.
Uh getting started. 101 Robin Road is
located in central Hillsboro right near
the intersection with Robin Road and uh
Rston A as shown here.
As is consistent with all uh private
property development in town, the
homeowners of 101 Robin Road applied for
and received a grading permit for the
construction of an ADU and some addition
to the main residence on the property.
Um afterwards, they decided to revise
their current active grading permit to
include some additional site
improvements which now include a sports
court, a new driveway, some new
landscaping, a spa, and some patios.
All of that was approved by ADRB back in
June 20, 2024 and were deemed
categorically exempt from SQA.
Per the municipal code 1224, projects
that have an excess of 1,500 cubic yards
of onhaul or offhaul are required to be
approved at a city council meeting at a
public hearing. The quantities
associated with this specific project
are 2,125
cubic yards of export or offhaul.
Since the project has an active grading
permit, the contractor is already
mobilized. So if the permit gets
approved tonight, uh the contractor is
ready to get started as soon as
possible.
and and this slide is just to show uh
the two options of dedicated hall routes
that the trucks offhauling the soil can
take. So the first one is going down
Rston towards El Camino Royale and the
second one is going up Chateau to
Skyline.
The grading and hauling will be limited
to Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to
5:00 pm and 9:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. when
school is in session.
To help mitigate the impacts of the
heavy trucks traveling on Hillsboro
roads, the applicant will be charged
vehicle impact fees which will later uh
be used towards future street
resurfacing projects in town.
And as required by the municipal code,
Hillsboro residents located within 500
feet of the property were noticed for
this public hearing. Uh, and as of
today, staff hasn't received any
complaints regarding the specific hall
routes that the trucks have been taking
for the active grading permit.
And with that, I can take any questions.
>> Thank you for the presentation. Any
questions from the council? Yes, council
member Cwley. Thanks, Tag. Appreciate
it. Um, how long is this project
expected to go on? I mean, I think
there's been construction on this site
already for over 18 months.
>> Uh, correct. If I remember correctly, I
believe the first grading permit was
approved in 2023 and that was for the
ADU and the home or the additions to the
home and then afterwards now they um
they're proposing some additional
improvements. So, it um it may be a
little longer. Yes.
>> So, when when are they going to wrap
this up?
That is a great question. Unfortunately,
I don't know.
>> No, I was on a property adjacent to it
on Rston and it's noisy. Um, how can
they mitigate the impact on the
neighbors?
I would have to defer to the contractor,
but I would say that um once the once
the construction project is done, um I
know that the resident, not excuse me,
not the resident, the um
the architect had mentioned that uh they
wanted to in to put in some landscaping.
Um but that's of course after
construction's done.
Well, and then my last question, maybe
Nataline's gonna, is is are we
collecting fees for any potential damage
to the roads?
>> Yes, that would be the the impact fees,
the vehicle impact fees.
>> Thank you.
>> Um, and to answer your previous
question, sorry I butchered it. Um, I
believe the uh architect is on Zoom,
Eric Nas.
>> Oh, it's Eric. Hello, Eric.
Um, do you have anything to add about
how they can mitigate this ongoing
noise?
>> Hello.
>> Yes, members of the council. Hello. Uh,
good evening. I'm sorry I couldn't be
there in person this evening. Um, on a on a trip for my daughter's
graduation that couldn't be uh couldn't
be altered, unfortunately. So, um, thank
you for for your focus on this matter
and and your questions. Um, yes, it's
been sort of a a progressive project in
that they uh like Doug said, we had an
open grading permit for the ADU and this
new driveway that was actually uh
improved for firet truck access because
the original driveway was very very much
uh uh a bunch of hair pins and uh turns
that were very difficult for a truck to
make. So, we've improved the driveway in
the first uh grading permit and then the
second one came up as a result of uh a
desire to create a small accessory
structures um with an with a sport
court. Um and so it is it is a bit of a
longer project, but it's um but it's a
large project. And I think the good
thing is that the large majority of of
the big earth moving has largely been
done. And so I think there'll be less
heavy equipment out there and more focus
on on constructions, you know, hammering
nails, things like that, uh versus heavy
equipment. Now, there's still need to
offhaul the dirt. Um but a way to uh to make that more efficient is to finish
off the driveway that we have uh because
it's not completely done. Uh but Doug
and Paul and and the teams at the
engineering and public works have been
great in working with us too to allow us
to finish off the first grading permit
before we activate this revision and
amended uh grading permit for the larger
scope of work. So they are um you know
trying to plow ahead as as quickly as
possible and as Doug mentioned if this
is approved they're ready to go tomorrow
to continue this so we can keep this as um as expedited as possible.
Thank you.
>> Thank you. Um, Council Member Adams has
questions. Yes.
>> Yes. Uh, thank you very much, Doug. Uh,
this your report, uh, talked about 213
round trips, and maybe if Eric stays on,
I tried to figure out how many a day
that might be. uh even if if it's four
days this will be 50 days for four uh
trucks truckloads a day would be 50 more
days and I so I wanted to know about how
long there would be these large trucks
but in addition
uh we are we do have construction at
Crocker school at the same time and
there could be congestion with these
large trucks because there'll be
construction trucks also uh either
dealing with rston or trying to head to
El Camino. So, those are my two
questions.
>> Uh I can take the second one, Eric, if
you want to take the first one. Um but
for the hauling routes, absolutely. We
can we can require the contractor to to
go up Chateau to Skyline instead.
Well, at least if that it could be
coordinated with u the work that's
happening at Crocker.
>> I think I think that's a great idea and
I think to the extent that we can we
certainly should and I think it's
probably most feasible to go north or
excuse me west u to to um to 280 in the direction of 280. And then as far
as the number of trucks, I don't know
exactly what the contractors uh my guess
is it'll be more front-loaded. They'll
take a bunch of those. So, it'll be more
than four trucks a day for for a period
of time. Um, and hopefully get it off
sooner rather than later. You know, uh
um 213 I think that includes what's
already been graded. So, um a portion of
that's already been done. So, that
number will should come down.
» Um council member,
>> thank you. Um, so Doug, could you go
back to the route that the picture of
the route that you shown?
So
this route is that for all the trucks
that are going by, this is the route
that they're taking to the skyline
>> specifically for this project. Yes.
>> Okay. So in the past we do have in other
neighborhoods where they they have the
grading and then they were very
sensitive to the neighbors noise and to
council member Krlic's um comments
regarding the noise it is in that area
sort of in the valley where the noise
even called
exacerbated I would say so um to the
extent that um
will the contractor be able to mitigate
it either a shorter times for more
frequencies or is there any way where
they can so it's not a prolonged
um whole day hauling but rather that
they can trying to condense it in a way
that makes more sense and least um
intrusive to the neighbors and to the um
you know uh to the cars on the street or
the you know bicycle cyclists on the
Yeah, it'll uh ultimately be up to the
contractor to determine schedule of of
when to offhaul, but for the town
specifically, we can require, for
example, the second set of hours where
it's 9:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. where
instead of being too early or too noisy,
too early or too late. Um, we could we
could require that.
>> Yeah, I I think that would be much
appreciated by all uh just in in terms
of everyone understand that construction
is happening especially in the
summertime. um you know so that is
always a fine line as to how to go about
getting it done um but at the same time
without dragging it on to try to reduce
the noise and the dust will be just
awesome. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Um Vice Mayor Rexdale.
>> Uh thank you. Just a super quick point
about the school. Um it school here in
town is going later than usual this year
because um they started later because of
construction. So it's still in session.
So, just want to make sure they know
that because it is later than normal. It
doesn't get out till June 17th. And
also, uh, if if things are still the
same, they have early release on
Thursday, so the hours should be
adjusted for Thursdays. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Um, we'll now turn for public
comments. Do we have any public comments
on this issue either in chambers or via
Zoom?
>> Thank you, Mayor Cole. I don't have any
speaker cards but we have a couple of
raised hands on Zoom. I'll start with um
Shala.
>> Hello Shala.
>> Hello. I'm Shala Sadi and I live at 1190
Barrier and uh this project I'm a
neighbor of theirs and uh I was really
uh more concerned about all the changes
in grading as to how it impacts the
creek because my property the creek ends
on my property and if there's too much
water like there was in 2022 with the
atmospheric river there was flooding.
So I just wanted to understand
um with the changes if uh um you know
they have adequate protection
um for
mitigating any kind of flooding into my
property.
>> Doug, I'm happy to comment on this too,
Doug.
>> Um yes. Um Eric, if you could weigh in
on this in terms of drainage um
>> Sure. I think what's I think what's
actually advantageous with this project
and most projects that are new in this
town is that the rules require us to to
try and and and and adapt the site to
retain more water than it normally would
have in in in the historic past. So, um
the advantage here is that we've been
able to engineer uh large retention
tanks under the ground. I mean 5t in
diameter and I don't know they're 25 ft
long or something. And they're really
designed to collect a lot of this water
that that
prior to this project would have run
right to that creek uh and down Miss
Sadi's uh property. And so this project
in in particular hasn't affected the
creek uh in any way. Uh we've had a
biologist on site establish the top of
bank and make sure that we're clear of
it. We have letters. So we're we're at
the end of the day, we're actually
probably making this better um from a water drainage perspective. And I
think the town has plans ultimately to
put a a slle gate in the middle of the
road that is on the edge of this
property's um uh the creek at the end of
the creek next to the roadway there
which will also help sort of control the
flows of the waters. So all that's been
you know new in the last two or three
years which wouldn't have existed prior.
So a lot of advancements have been made.
Uh
>> thanks for that uh feedback and any
additional public comments? Uh yes. Uh
Jazella.
» Hello Jazella.
>> Yes. Hello.
>> Um
let me just start. And I am Jazella
Shiano. This is my daughter Natalia.
>> Shiano.
>> Hi. Uh I'm Natalia. We reside at 1186
Burial Drive and our house is situated
just downhill of the property at 101
Robin Road. Since the very beginning of
this lengthy construction job at 101
Robin Road, myself and a few neighbors
included have been dealing with the
recurring issue of excessive water
draining into neighboring yards. While
the drainage was partially addressed, it
proved insufficient during the last few
large storms. We observed very large
amounts of water passing through our
property onto the road and beginning
towards the opposite side of the street
on some occasions. This lack of control
is very concerning to us. Our primary
concern in regards to the grading
proposition is whether or not new
drainage will be implemented to
adequately contain the water. We have
little faith in the existing drainage
based on experience and I'm concerned
the grading will cause more strain than
the current drainage can handle.
Considering the lack of planning
regarding the grading to begin with,
what plans are in place to ensure the
grading project will not cause further
issues with drainage? And finally, a
quick side note for the city. A
discussion about raising drainage
standards may be worthwhile, especially
considering the incoming El Nino storms.
Um, we're wondering, are the current
25-year storm standards sufficient or do
we need to consider a more robust
drainage standard to deal with changing
climates?
Um, thanks for those for that question
and comments. Um, m Mr. uh Ni House, you
you've commented already on the existing
drainage. Um, is it subsequent to um
what the resident commented on?
>> Sure, I'm I'm happy to answer that. uh
you know there is no grading currently
being uh proposed other than what's been
done along that property line that
borders all the Blay um uh properties
and I know that uh the house prior to
the new owner um working on it the the
water system the water drainage system
that was adjacent to the house between
the properties was clogged up a lot of
silt in there was not functioning
properly and there was a new drain pipe
run along that whole property to
redirect it and the collection well, if
you will, that was next to the house uh
was cleared up and made to function a
lot better. So, um this is the first
I've heard of the drainage issues on the neighbors. So, I'm happy to to
discuss this further with a civil
engineer and see see what other remedies
there might be. Um but again, it's the
first I've heard of it. So, I'll I can
certainly ask the uh the professionals
involved in the project.
>> Yeah. and and our director of public
works, one of the very top civil
engineers perhaps in the state is here
to comment on that.
>> Thank you for the the compliment, madame
mayor, and it's something we talk about
often in the county level. The um the
property I visited there long before the
project and the property literally has a
river that runs through it, a a big
waterway that's been carved through
thousands of years. Uh it is
unreasonable for us for us to ask any
resident to mitigate all the water that
comes from the hillside because it
originates up near 280. Uh but to the
credit of Mr. Nyas and his team and
their civil engineers, they do have and
they've con designed really really large
detention systems. Uh the reality is
yes, as our resident who called in from
Burial said, uh the standards are 25
years and that's the maximum we can ask
for. Uh we would love to have a
hundred-year detention system, but that
is way above and beyond uh what we can
ask for and in most cases would be not
affordable for a resident to do. Uh the
issue that we have with most drainage
systems throughout town and on the p
public and private side is when you have
an atmospheric river and you have
multiple days of massive storms, the
detention systems don't have a way to
flush out what's there. So they're
detaining and then if you have a storm
that occurs two days later, they've
filled up and then they've lost that
capacity. So when we have these big
atmospheric rivers where two days later
you have a hundred-year storm then you
have another large storm happening none
of the systems can accommodate that and
that's where really we end up going back
into the local waterways. Um we can ask
for the maximum that's practical. We can
ask the resident to go above and beyond
and in many cases they do that. I know
in the case here on Robin Road uh my
understanding is the work is not yet
completed. Uh what we can do to make
sure that the resident does a good job
on a yearly basis is there is a storm
water treatment measures maintenance
agreement that is recorded against the
property. Not just this owner, but it's
on the property. And on an annual basis,
our staff or other professionals
actually check these systems to make
sure they're clear, they have maximum
capacity, and they're maintained. So
that's the one guarantee we can do once
the project is completed.
that is um very helpful information
about the monitoring of the drainage
system ongoing subsequently. I think
that that's um very helpful. Um I would really like to finish this item
um before we take a break.
>> Yes. Go ahead. Yeah.
Uh uh can can we since this is uh before
council and they need council approval
for the creating could we attach a
condition that it's a larger drainage
system is required.
>> So they've already done a proposed one
to the maximum um extent possible uh
other than going through a redesign and
again what we do is we look at the
precondition and the post. to as Mr. Ny
said we actually make them uh construct
and detain well beyond what was there
pre-existing and before this project
there was nothing you was just a creek
that ran through it and and local
vegetation. So now there is at least a
backdrop and a way to slow down the
water and that initial storm. Um,
>> is there anything in this extra grading
that leads to more water runoff than
>> There's nothing that leads to increased
water runoff because the impervious
areas are calculated and designed for
and detained above and beyond what's
added. So, it is definitely improved.
It does and it does not increase uh
>> so allowing this extra grading with the
drainage system that's being installed
it will improve the runoff from the way
it is now.
>> It will improve the runoff from what it
is presently. Absolutely.
>> Thank you.
Um I see that we have two um comments or
two hands up on Zoom but it's the same
individuals and they've already um
spoken to this issue. Do we have any new
um resident comments from the public?
>> Uh no, Mayor Cole, we do not.
>> Um we we really um need to move the
agenda along. And um we can also have um
Shala and Jazilla could you submit
additional comments and to the city
clerk and we could certainly add that to
uh the comments but I I don't city
attorney I don't believe we um need to
go into more discussion with regards to
public comments at this point.
>> No Mayor Cole I think if the council's
ready to take action you are free to do
so. If you feel like you need more
information, we could take that
direction tonight and bring this back if
you want to continue the item. But the
item is ready for you to take action on
tonight.
>> Um, do we have any additional question
or comments from the council? Um, I
would like to Yeah,
>> Vice Mayor Ragdale,
>> just a quick comment. Um, to the
residents, you should always feel free
to come down to town hall and uh someone
can meet with you and uh further discuss
any issues that you have. Thank you.
to the mayor. I was just going to
volunteer. Our residents, they are
always welcome to come up to
engineering. Um Mr. Belchick is a good
great host and he can go through the
plans in detail. We do that with
residents. The other thing that we can
do and I know Mr. Nyas has has always
been receptive as a good neighbor is
when the project gets closer to
completion, maybe even a sitewalk just
so we can show the neighbors how the
improvements should uh improve the
neighborhood.
>> Right. So, um, Shalo and Jizelle, um,
both the director of public works and,
um, the contractor on this case, Mr.
Nhouse, is available if you want to
reach out to them. They would be happy
to go into further discussion to clarify
and address some of your concerns is
what I'm hearing. In which case, can we
um, do we have a motion to adopt the
resolution?
>> Excuse me.
>> You have additional comment.
>> I didn't comment yet. I questioned, but
I didn't comment yet.
>> Okay. please comment.
>> All right, they may proceed.
>> Um, so first of all, Eric,
congratulations on your daughter's
graduation. Um, so I would just urge the um the applicant to expedite the
project and wrap it up as soon as
possible. And I think just as a town, we
maybe need to learn, we maybe need to
look at this issue of these serial
permits. So every permit that's issued,
someone is given 24 months to wrap up
the project. But this was issued a
permit two years ago and now there's
another permit and another permit. So I
think we really need to look at
considering a time limit for an overall
project and maybe with that expanding I
think right now when you get a permit
you have 12 months to start
construction. maybe expanding that time
so that people get a chance to put their
ducks in a row and once they start get
finished because it's it's you know um I know our applicants try to be
respectful of neighbors. I at least I
think they do. But residents deserve to
have some peace in their own homes and
when you have a construction project
like this next door it's it's not
peaceful. So, that is my um I I'm
inclined to uh vote to approve, but with
the request that that this applicant
stop asking for more permits and get
this thing wrapped up.
Okay. Um do we have a motion to adopt a
resolution approving any additional
comments? I assume there's no additional
comments. will move forward with a
motion to adopt the resolution approving
the grading permit application for the
construction of private improvement at
101 Robin Road under SQA guidelines
15303.
>> So move.
>> Do we have a second?
>> Second.
>> Could you please take the roll call?
Thank you.
>> Adams,
>> yes.
>> Cru,
>> yes.
>> Ragdale,
>> yes.
>> Cole,
>> yes. And I will ask um the staff to
please indulge us for a quick bio break.
Um five minutes and we will wrap this
up. Thank you.
We'll now resume uh the city
council meeting and the final item on
our agenda is an old item. However,
needed a follow-up. Um item 20, Tobin
Clark housing site updates and
authorization for implementation of
phase two of the projects. And that will
be introduced by our assistant city
manager, Mandy Brown, and presented by
Wendy Baker, principal of Harmony Park
Development. She will provide the
presentation.
>> Yes. Thank you, Mayor Cole. Um just
going to give some brief opening
comments. The last time we were here was
to approve the contract with Harmony
Park in October. Um and that was an
approval of the contract but with the uh
promise to return to the council before
proceeding to phase two. So we are at
the completion of phase one. Um and so
in a moment Wendy and Don will give a
robust update in the staff report. Um
there's a bit of a very high level but I
encourage everyone to read all of the
attachments uh with a lot more uh
details on the site evaluation as well
as financial feasibility. Uh by way of
background, the Tobin Clark housing site
was one of the sites identified in the
certified housing element for the town.
Uh it's part of the commitment to
fulfill the multifamily housing
requirements for the town. So this
project represents the execution of that
component of the housing element. Um and
if there are any specific questions on
the housing element itself, we do have
Liz Reese on the line. Um, but we're uh
here today to focus on really a project
update on where we are uh with regards
to phase one and 1A and 1B before
proceeding to phase two. So with that,
I'll turn it over to principal of
Harmony Park Development, Wendy Baker
and Don Kapres.
>> Welcome, Miss Baker.
>> Thank you. Thank you, Mandy. Uh thank
you for having us. um council um and
honorable mayor, vice mayor, staff, and
members of the public. It's really great
to be here to provide an update on what
we've been doing for the last about six
months or so since we were last in front
of the council. Uh I'm Wendy Baker. I'm
a principal at Harmony Park Development.
My business partner, Don Capobrace, is
here as well. He's sort of the financial
chops. I kind of do a lot of the
consulting um reports and and
understanding of running the consultant
team like architects, civils and so
forth.
So starting at the 10,000 foot level
just an overall executive summary of
what our findings were over the last six
months. We really treated like this this
like a due diligence exercise for any
project. Very preliminary. We walked
into this site never we'd only walked it
once with staff during the RFP process.
So really were learning about this along
the way. And so as a part of our
executive summary, you know, we tested a
number of different options with the
housing element and the community goals
at the top of mind.
We did an initial multifamily only
concept which we ultimately determined
was infeasible. So then we revise the
framework um with a mixed housing
approach that actually does achieve
feasibility and that also balances the
housing goals, the cost and the open
space.
So a little bit of background and some
context. It's a 21.5 acre property. It's
part of the over 50 plus acre townowned
Tobin Clark property.
Your housing element targets are 100
multifamily units. They include mixed
income uh units. So there's 44 lowincome
units, six moderate rate, and 50 market
rate homes identified in the h housing
element. And the town also provided us
some goals that they'd like to retain
the majority ownership of this land.
They also would like to have an
opportunity for on-site community
benefits for community for Hillsboro
residents as a whole, not just the Tobin
Clark residents.
So, our phase one included like kind of
two subphases so that we had talked
about this last time we were here. If we
encountered a challenge, we could always
offramp so we weren't just spending
money on something infeasible. So we
spent a lot of time with the
subcommittee over the last six months
discussing options and feasibility and
financials but the first phase was due
diligence. We had to get the consultant
team together to do topographic mapping
all the contours of the property also do
a lot of utility due diligence
understand where the tie-ins are and
also really understand like preliminary
grading so that we could identify where
the most feasible areas of development
were. Once we were able to establish
those things, we went into prelim just
preliminary master planning. So we did a
lot of iterative testing and refinement
and then we ran financial physical
feasibility um analysis throughout the
process.
So everyone knows this I think but the
key site constraints which were also
identified in the housing element and
the related SQA document are steep
slopes, a limited building area
buildable areas, biological and
environmental constraints and then a
lack of existing on-site infrastructure
although new roadways and utilities that
would be required are very high cost.
And then there's access challenges. So
these were all identified previously and
we continued to recognize this as we
went through the due diligence process.
We initially tested um two multifamily
buildings. One was a market rate
building. It was either 50 to 58 units
for sale or rental. So that building
ranged in size depending on whether it
was for sale or rental, but it was all
market rate. And the second building is
an affordable housing building of 51
units. They both were about four and a
half to five stories over two levels of
tiered parking that went into the slope.
And this created the most minimal
development footprint. And we studied
that because of the objectives of
minimizing development footprint, town
ownership of the land, and trying to
achieve 100 units.
But our findings were that there's a
very high construction cost for these
buildings and the podium parking that
went with them. And then there's very
high infrastructure costs irrespective
of really what you develop out here
because you have a looped water system.
You have c certain areas where the
utilities tie in and the related
roadways that serve them. And then
there's on the podium building there's
market limitations. So you have rental
competition and stacked condominium
competition that sort of limits the um
maximum out sale or rent value. So our
conclusion ultimately was that the
podium market rate program wasn't
financially feasible but we did get some
really good input regarding the
affordable building and so that had the
potential to attract a variety of
capital sources. So that made it worth
pursuit because that's really the
primary goal here is to get the
affordable building or affordable units.
But we also knew that we in order for it
to be viable, we needed a market rate
program that could cover the
infrastructure costs. That's how you get
an affordable program that's viable.
So we shifted uh we moved away from
podium market rate buildings, multif
family podium market rate buildings and
we introduced town homes and custom lots
with ADUs. We maintain the 51 unit
affordable housing building. Um and this
created a mixed income and mixed housing
community which actually aligns better
with the Hillsboro context. Uh there's a
variety of heights. It's not all two
just larger building forms. It's sort of
there's variation fits in a little bit
better with the surrounding
neighborhoods.
So, this is a very highlevel master
plan. There's no architecture. It just
identifies generally where buildings or
building paths could occur.
In this revised master plan, there's
about 92 to 94 homes of mixed income
housing. There's in the brown there,
that's a 51 unit affordable building. It
includes 50 affordable and then one
market rate unit. That's a manager's
unit that's typically in these buildings
and that they charge market rate for
that. There's 24 market rate town homes.
That's in the light blue, sorry, light
brown.
Then there's 10 market rate custom lots
with the opportunity for ADUs. Those are
in the yellow dots. And then uh the
purple dot identifies a lot which could
change where the location is for a
community space. Um you can see the
white generally identifying circulation
or where utilities and or where
utilities could go. And overall this
site plan includes 9.5 acres of
developed space but 12 acres of open
space remain. That 9 and a half acres
includes those halfacre custom lots. So
five acres of the 9.5 are those custom
lots and then there's another actual
couple acres of infrastructure as far as
roadways or where utilities go.
So the financial strategy for this
revised plan was that town homes
ultimately have a lower per square foot
building cost but you can get a higher
per square foot out sale price. So that
makes the difference and what you can
gain from that more substantial. And
then the custom lots and the addition of
the custom lots was creating additional
revenue without a lot of additional
costs because we already had to run the
utilities in these places. So then we
could create tie-ins which created extra
value and that made it so that the
market rate portion of the project can
support the high infrastructure costs
that are here. And then once you unlock
the infrastructure costs then the
affordable housing component becomes
viable with a variety of capital sources
and the market rate again subsidizing
those infrastructure costs.
So again, we still have these key
challenges which are the topography and
environment, the high infrastructure
costs, access coordination,
um the affordable housing complexity,
the funding complexity, and really this
is a smaller project. So this is going
to be a unique specialized developer. It
will not be us that comes in and does a
project like this.
But there's a lot of opportunities here.
This type of revised plan or some
version of it has the ability to deliver
affordable housing and therefore support
the housing element. It fits better with
the surrounding community with the
variety of heights and massing and it
still does for this portion of the Tobin
Clark property allow the town to
maintain the majority of ownership. It
also allows the opportunity for new
community benefits and the ability to
attract a development partner with a
because it's a financially viable
solution. So suddenly you have interest
in actually implementing it.
So we're here because it's this check-in
and we're moving towards the next steps
which is really continuing the CSM
outreach. We had some during this
process. Um, we also would be commencing
phase two, which is master plan
refinement. Um, something diff, you
know, with more information than what I
just showed you.
Defining what the community benefit is
on this site. um really beginning
community outreach like exiting the
subcommittee and entering the community
and getting feedback be being able to
define the secret strategy and
entitlement strategy for the project and
then ultimately divine defining if
successful an RFP process for the
development partner
and this identifies 2 A and 2 B. We
revised our scope slightly, but we're
still under budget. Um, based off of
this revised site plan and and visioning
that happened.
And then if phase two is successful,
then we would move towards an RFP
process for a future developer for the
project.
So, I tried to keep it brief because I
bet there's a lot of questions and so
I'm happy to take any questions from
councelor or the public and I'm happy to
also put up that site plan again if
that's helpful.
>> Thank you, M.
appreciate that. Um, I will turn to the
council for questions, clarification
questions, starting with Council Member
Crowley.
>> Thank you, Wendy, for the presentation
and for the creative thought. Could you
talk a little bit about access to the
sites? We're continuing to explore a
variety of access options um through CSM
as well as the utility tie-ins are going
to be because it's a loop's water
system, it would have to be just utility
tie-ins at Tobin Clark and then
potential access through Brook Court,
but we're continuing to explore all the
options because we've only had these
beginning conversations with CSM.
Any additional question from the
council? Yes. Uh council member. Yes.
>> Thank you Wendy for your presentation.
Um it's exciting. Um you know because
it's long time in the making. Um so the
exploration is interesting. My question
is that we know that that open space
area has no utility whatsoever. That
itself is just a challenge and that on
top of the egress ingress that we're
seeking in terms of whether it was
through CSM or through our own Tobin
Clark neighborhood. So in your
discovery, what is what is your take on
the utilities? Um could you elaborate a
little bit?
>> Yeah, that's probably one of the biggest
constraints honestly. um because it
isn't it's not a surf site. And so the
first thing that we discovered was that
it's was going to cost a lot of money to
put them in. And so we had an engineer
run a variety of options, but we want to
tie into town of Hillsboro utilities. We
can't really annex into, you know,
Sanonteo County utilities easily. So we
would keep, you know, tie-ins to your
town utilities. And in order to really
get a better understanding about how
extensive of of an operation this would
be, we had the engineer run a
preliminary engineers estimate so we
could really understand the quantities,
the length of the runs, you know, just
all the costs and timing and so forth
that would be associated with it. So
that is a big constraint, but we do
think that it's viable um based off of
this revised planning effort.
>> Okay. So when when you're talking about
uh the connectivities with the town's
utility and not because it is closer to
Sanel
>> um what is the sort of the logic as to
why you would rather
you tap into the town's what is the
advantage?
>> So I don't I don't actually think it's a
what we would rather do. I think it's
actually what we're permitted to do. And
in order to um to connect to utilities
that aren't within the service area, you
have to annex into that. And that's a whole process which the county
or you know the other utility districts
may or may not be interested in. And CSM
may or may not be interested in us
digging all the way through their
property to connect to their utilities.
They may be, but that is a whole other
process. And so given the fact that this
is a town of Hillsboro site, it just
made a lot of sense to utilize the
existing water system because there is
availability to it and it wouldn't
significantly decrease be the utility
needs on this property. So that's why we
pursued it because ultimately we don't
have as much control in saying that they
would actually annex us into another
AY's utilities.
Uh yes, go ahead. Um so one other thing
that um you know one of the thing that
in your presentation you talk about and
I'm somewhat familiar with that area.
You said that the drastic uh difference
in terms of topography
>> and so you know um I suspect that
there's always concern about the
wildfire and the wildlife you know urban
interface
uh connections.
How do you is is your design by having
the densities of the low uh the
affordable income uh families and then
in in sort of in a in a block and then
you have all the single family homes
sort of in in interburse uh in in
between. Is that is that the design to
trying to make it more attractive or is
that does that have any advantageous uh point approach on the you know the
electricity it namely?
>> Yeah. So, I mean, this site would be
serviced by water, which would help with
some of those concerns because it
currently doesn't have that ability to
tap into water if there was a situation
out there with fire. As part of our
phase 2, actually, we would be talking
with the fire department to understand
access to all of these buildings.
Obviously, they will have requirements.
We're not going to be designing these
buildings. were providing like a
framework for think you know the
footprint the overall development
footprint but ultimately a developer
would come in and propose you know what
these buildings would actually look
like. Um, so we're kind of master
planning this, but with respect to, you
know, working with the fire, uh, making
sure that it's in the fire safe area. We
have all of that as a part of our phase
two as we're getting more detailed in
this master planning effort. But again,
the utilities would serve this site. The
buildings would per building permit,
some would have to be sprinklered and so
forth. So there would be all of those
things that would have to be considered
as we move forward in with any type of
real design on the site.
>> Thank you. Of course.
>> Any additional questions or comments?
Yes, Vice Mayor Rexdale.
» Thank you. Um super exciting to see
this. Um as you know, when when we have
the subcommittees with the Brown Act, uh
we don't get to know what's going on.
So, this has been a great mystery and uh
you guys have worked super hard and this
is very um intriguing and exciting. Um I
had a couple questions. What is the
looped water system?
>> I'm going to pull I could answer it, but
he can answer it better. So,
>> because of the water treatment of water
chloromine, we have to have a loop
system. We can't have it end in a dead
end. Otherwise, it needs to have
flushing and there's a water quality
issue. So all of our systems now are
looped.
>> Okay. So literally a loop
>> has a loop. So that's why if we connect
from Tobin Clark down to Brook, then we
connect the loop. Otherwise, if we
don't, then we have to actually have two
parallel mains in the same roadway with
a a U-turn somewhere in the middle to
create that loop. So one way or another,
there'll always be water flowing.
>> Okay. Excellent. Thank you. Um, yeah, I had the same questions about access
and um and the all the infrastructure,
but it sounds like uh we're we're still
working on that. Um, and uh I know it's
tricky to um talk with CSM and and see
what what we can what we can work out
with them. Um, uh, the other question I
had, and I know you guys aren't
designing them right now, but the town
homes,
those are
built into the into the cliff or Yeah,
they would step. So, they there's a step
down or up depending if it's an ups
slope or a down slope. So that from one
side it would look to be two levels and
from the down slope it would be three
levels or vice versa depending on its up
or down slope. We did have to look at
although we they're not designed we had
to make sure that they would be feasible
and and assess cost um for that type of
design because that step is more
expensive than just a flat pad. So we do
expect some steps there and that would
be something that in the next phase we'd
actually show you some sections or
building footprints or just more
information and that's something that
again a future developer or an RFP
proposal would include so that then that
developer would actually come and and
propose something that was within
reason.
>> And then at what stage um do we get
engineering analysis
um with regard to how to do that safely?
Oh yeah. So the as far as structural
analysis and all the rest of it, well so
we have just the we have an architect on
board that has quite a bit of experience
in hillside development, Dan Group. And
so they um they actually utilized some
of their experience with other hillside
sites in implementing both the
multifamily building concept as well as
the town home uh pod structures um to
make sure that they would work. Yeah,
obviously in the design phase you'd have
to get a structural to understand
exactly how that would be built.
>> Okay, great. Thank you so much.
>> Any additional question? Um, yes,
Council Member Adams. Uh what I what I
see I know is very preliminary, but it
has more of a neighborhood feel than the
previous iteration where it was just a
giant box or two. And uh I particularly
like the fact that the
main focus will be these uh town homes
that will have What do you envision? A
garages and a couple of levels,
something like that.
>> That's right. These right now these look
like they could be about 2,00 to 2500
square ft. Um twocar garages, three
maybe four bedrooms. So really kind of
that family buyer. Um so that would that
was what those footprints are based on.
Obviously that could change a little bit
as we further refine the plan and the
architects really digging in.
Thank you. And and the other thing that
I really like is having set aside a
community space that could be uh a
satellite fire and police. It could be a
playground. It could be a meeting
center. It could be a nature center. Um,
so I think it's great that none of that
has been defined yet, but the fact that
there is a set aside, I I really like
that. Um, the other thing is I believe
that the open space I somebody said it's
there's nothing going on there. There's
a lot going on there and it is really
benefiting all of us. There's a lot of
animal life, of plant life, and so
preserving as much of that as we can
will benefit uh neighbors all around
this, but also this new little community
uh that can be more integrated into the
existing community. if there is a common
space that everyone in town is
interested in
at least seeing particularly if it has
this benefit. So I I appreciate what
you've come up with.
>> Thank you. Yeah, the open space that
remains on this parcel actually
generally abuts the other Tobin Clark
property. So it actually will feel much
larger as well. It's contiguous. It's
not chopped up. So, that's also a nice
way of how this ultimately laid out.
Um, before I give my comments, I would
like to I'm sorry, Council Member Adams,
are you done with your com Okay, with
your questions. Um, I would like to hear
from the public. Is anyone here in
chambers um interested in making a
public comment or anyone on Zoom if we
can start teeing that up?
Oh,
>> I'm not sure if there's a um Oh, there's
point.
>> It's
>> Can I do a pointer here?
>> Drive is the first
>> Oh,
I'm not sure if this is me toggling it
or
>> Sorry,
there's no like laser
>> there. I think you can.
It's right above the um
>> we go. It's like
>> right above the parking lot. P the
drive. The is you talking about
perimeter drive or CSM? Oh, I'm sorry.
CSM drive is what you're asking?
» CSM is different from Perimeter Road.
>> Yes. Different from perimeter road.
>> Perimeter road is around the perimeter
and CSM drive is quite away from the
site.
>> It's quite away from the site. I don't
see it at all on this.
>> Further down.
>> It's farther down. is off the map. Yeah.
>> And just as just a reminder to the the
public here, we're in in comment period
at this point. So, if you would like to
address the council, you can come up and
make comments. And just a reminder, it's
not a it's not a Q&A at this point or a
study session. And then myself and uh
Harmony uh here with Wendy uh would be
happy to stay after to answer any
questions you have about any further
details. But right now it's just about
getting the information into the public
record to the council and allowing him
to hear your statements. Say
>> yeah. I'm sorry. Could you just
introduce yourself please?
>> Yes. My name is Neville Butliwala and I
live on Tobin Clark Drive. 70 Tobin
Clark Drive.
>> Welcome.
>> Thank you.
>> So I don't have a clue. I live on Tobin
Clark Drive. I don't have a clue where
you're talking about this development.
Where is Tobin Clark Drive over here?
Where is Tournament? Where is CSM? Where
is 92? Nothing. There's nothing marked
on this. How do I figure this out?
Um,
>> the round part is the CSM Planetarium,
right?
» Or is that?
>> No, the the the parking lot is right
next to the arrow. I I think we we can
get um a more detailed map. You you can
barely see Tobin I think that's
tournament on the background there.
>> You're pointing like this. There's
>> I I understand. We we will um we we will
try to get a more detailed map that
outlines your neighborhood is not
featured in this site that's being
built, but you were looking to see in
relations to did you say Tobin Clark
Drive or Fement?
>> I'm on Tobin Clark Drive.
>> This is all CS.
Um Paul, could you help us um locate
which direction to Clark Drive would be
» to Okay,
>> pointer is right there and that is the
top of Tobin Clark Drive. Just that edge
right there is the very top of Tobin.
» Right there. The white arrow.
» Sir, if I could have you step to the
mic, need to people need to hear you on
Zoom as well. And just a reminder again,
this is just the time for public comment
to make whatever comments you would like
to the council within your allotted
time. And it's not a question and answer
or a study session. I'm asking a very
simple question.
>> Sir, you're free to make your question.
>> Where is Tobin Drive? Where is
Tournament Drive?
>> There it is right there. If you can see
where the cursor is, the the director is
showing you there.
>> Okay.
>> And the campus itself is that large body
in the center of the picture. And those
are the buildings plus the parking lots.
>> Okay.
>> All right. Thank you, sir.
>> Do you have additional comments or
questions?
I I can't imagine it over there, but you
know, I'll wait for another map which
has more information on where the
streets are, where 92 is,
you know, it's all very big in that
diagram over there.
>> Um, also I'm just to reassure you, we we
will be having transitioning to a
subcommittee where you will have the
opportunity to listen in or attend one
of those meetings within the next
several months. and we will try to make
sure we have more detailed maps um at
those meetings available.
>> Also, the access in and out is going to
be very important
>> and that's still in discussion as we
pointed out
>> and with that one little house which we
discussed previously there was a big
issue with noise.
Is there going to be are the residents
on Tobin Clark Drive and Tournament and
that whole area going to be affected by
noise and trucks coming in and out
because of all this development.
We may have more than one access um for
construction and emergency vehicles
going forward. We may have two or three.
We're still working out the details of
that particular um issue.
>> Okay. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Any um additional questions
from the public? Yes.
>> The next speaker is Jeannie Back.
>> Oh, yes.
>> Hello. Hello there. I'm Jeanie Back from
>> 45 Bair Court. Uh good evening, Mayor
Cole and council members. Um, I
appreciate the amount of time uh and
work that has clearly gone into
evaluating the Toba Clark site and I
actually do not envy the difficult
position the council faces in balancing
state housing obligations,
legal realities, financial constraints,
and community impacts. I'm not speaking
here tonight from the perspective that
housing should simply go away. nor do I
underestimate the complexity of the
challenges before the town. My concern
tonight is more specific.
This appears to be an extraordinarily
constrained and sensitive site, and I
hope that those realities remain central
as the project moves forward. The staff
report itself references steep terrain,
unresolved emergency access questions,
infrastructure complexity,
wildfire and WUI considerations,
grading challenges, utility extensions,
and biological constraints.
Those are not small details. They are
defining characteristics of the site.
What also stood out to me is that the
project appears to be evolving
significantly from the original housing
element concept. The report openly
acknowledges that the original
multifamily approach was not financially
viable and that additional town homes,
estate lots, and expanded development
areas are now being introduced to make
the project feasible. I think that
evolution deserves continued
public transparency and careful
scrutiny, especially given the
irreversible nature of hillside grading,
infrastructure installation, and the
transformation of what is currently
visible open space terrain. I also note
that the town's earlier environmental
review acknowledged sensitive wild
wildlife species and ecological
constraints within the planning area.
Given the site's apparent role with a
broader ridge line and habitat corridor
system and evolving regional wildlife
and habitat considerations,
I hope future environmental review
carefully evaluates habitat
fragmentation,
wildlife movement, wildfire evacuation
realities and the cumulative effects of
grading infrastructure lighting and
increased human activity on the site.
I appreciate the town's efforts to
proceed thoughtfully and I hope the next
phase continues with a high level of
rigor, transparency, and realism about
the site's unique constraints and the
long-term consequences. Thanks.
>> Um, thank you for your comments. Any
additional um, public comments? Yes,
>> Lee Ginsburg. Miss
>> Ginsburg.
Hi, Lee Ginsburg, 1250 Tournament Drive.
And Wendy, in your marketing plan, you
said the price ranges would not work for
some of the homes. What price ranges
have you set to make these goals for
town homes and the individual lots?
» I'm sorry, it's not clear. Your question
is not clear. What do you say?
>> She said um all multi-unit properties
would not financially work out. So
that's why they added town homes. They
had to be competitive with Berlin game
and Sanonteo. So I'm asking what how you
being competitive with them? What price
range have you worked out to make this
feasible?
>> Um you you it's based on the below
market rate.
>> No, not not those the town homes and the
individual homes.
I don't think
>> you have to have some number to say that
this is going to pencil out.
>> Yes, please do.
>> Yeah.
M speaker, you may comment.
» So, we did we did preliminary market
analysis just to better understand what
could be feasible or not. And really
like the two things that we've
determined were not feasible were
related to the apartment rents and the
stacked condo rents. And you're exactly
right where you have competition in the
surrounding area that would uh limit
like you can't have a $10 per square
foot rent. You know, there's just
limitations. And so be because of the
blending of where that rent cap today is
or the stacked condo per square foot
combined with the high construction
costs of that particular market rate
product type. That's what made it
infeasible. So, so about for the stacked
condos, we assumed about a thousand
$1,000 per square foot and for the um
the market rate apartments
on here. Done.
A total
Oh, okay. So, an average uh per square
foot uh market rate rent of $5.13 per
square foot.
So, for a th00and square foot uh
apartment, that would be about a $5,100
uh dollar rent. So that's what we
assumed and those uh were not
financially feasible.
>> What is the feasible
homes?
>> That's right. So the the custom lots
would be priced um competitively with
custom lots in the area that are also
utility served. Um and the town homes
about two over $2 million per custom
lot. And then the town homes were about
$1,400 to $1,600 per square foot, which
is comparable to the um for example
other high-end markets in the Bay Area.
And those because of the lower
construction costs for the town homes
and because of the fact you're just
selling a lot, you're not actually
constructing the the custom lot, it made
it a more financially viable uh program.
>> Did I get you? Yes. Okay, great.
>> Okay. Sorry. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
>> Thank you. So, um the building cost on
this the terrain, we all recognize the
terrain here. Just earlier, we heard
about for one single home, they got 200
trucks to empty out the terrain. How
many trucks is it going to take for this
going through that neighborhood? That's
inconceivable for me. As well as CSM is
building, I think 350 homes on one of
their uh parking lots as well. So,
there's going to be a lot of
construction in that area in the coming
years. They just started construction
like this month. So, I'm not sure if
you're aware of that going on. Um,
and then there's no no public
transportation in the area. So, has that
been considered to make this feasible
for people to be living or is all going
to be traffic?
Okay, there's I guess our answer. We
don't know. Um
>> um just Sam Trans does run on perimeter
road.
>> On where?
>> On perimeter road around the perimeter
of the campus.
>> Okay. But I don't think these homes are
that close to the campus.
>> They are.
>> They're close enough.
They're within
1,000 ft.
>> Okay. Um
and then we were talking earlier about P
Gen. I live right in the area. Just in
the last month or two, my power went off
two or three times. So, I don't know if
P Genie is even ready to for another
hundred homes to handle this. So,
there's just a lot to consider before we
move forward. So,
>> well, thanks for your comments.
>> Yeah.
>> Any any additional um comments? Um yes,
we have Do we have a card or Oh, okay.
You could um complete the card later,
but perhaps just introduce yourself,
please.
>> 430 Remlard.
>> What are you guys doing to Hillsboro? I
understand there's a housing element.
That's the state's fault. You could have
caught it perhaps a little bit more
aggressively. What's
>> Yeah, we can't
>> What's What's the definition of
affordable? The median ho housing value
in Hillsboro was five million and you
know there's $60 million homes. Is a
$2.5 million home affordable? I mean for
whom? I just think you guys have really
gone in the wrong direction. I
understand the state is probably forcing
you, but I wish there could have been
other avenues because I've been a
resident for 60 years and I'm really
disappointed in what's become of
Hillsboro. Thank you.
>> Um yeah. Um I'm I'm actually going to
make a comment on a few things because
we've had this conversation for the past
three years. Um as we address the
housing element, the um income is based
on the county's average which is about
90 to $150,000
for below market rate and over $150,000
a year for above market rate. So
individuals making over $150,000
is considered market rate and above. individuals making less than
150,000 a year is considered below
market rate. Um the you're right it is a
state mandate and we had this com we had
this community outreach. We're going to
have more community outreach in that
especially in that area over the next
many months to the next year or two. So
there will be more opportunities for
discussions and more information
provided. Um and again as pointed out
our consulting team understands the
community of Hillsboro. They've had a
chance to you know spend some time here
and they will continue to work with the
residents and the city council to
address some of the concerns you may
have at this time.
>> I understand that there was an ADU built
right next door to me and that was a
year in construction. nothing but mud
and uh trucks moving up and down parking
on my sidewalk that I have to pay to
fix. Understand what these people are
saying about the infrastructure. We're
not ready for it. To try to bend over
backwards to build these homes on
unbuildable sites just seems to be
completely ludicrous and crazy to me.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
>> Any additional public comments?
I have no additional cards and I have no
raised hands on Zoom. Thank you.
On the affordable homes, is it possible
that you
um have it for city employees, teachers,
firemen, city people? Could we specify
that?
>> The preference can be expressed but
legally we cannot designate the homes.
So we in other words even as we
discussed with CSM it's going to be
perhaps potentially along those lines
but even preferences for our nurses our
teachers our firefighters
um that those those are potential issues
that would be discussed but we're not we
cannot legally put aside um units just
for those individuals.
>> Okay. Thank you.
Um, any additional questions before we
authorize to proceed? Yes. Um, council
member Chuang,
» is the town home outell pricing we had
at $1325,
but so I gave you a range and I just
wanted to clarify the record that it was
1325.
That's correct. Yep. Per square foot.
So, um I I do have a questions for
Wendy. Um thank thank you so much for
the presentation and um I do appreciate
the conceptual sort of this is where you
envision after six months of work in
terms of
you know connecting with um potential
partners and then see what is viable. My
question is that at at some point in
your presentation, you talk about master
plans. You're the phase two being the
master plans and I'm I'm just looking at
that we're spending half a million
dollars over half a million dollars on
this potential. So what does that mean
when you said that the master plans and
you're not even hiring developers
um there yet to to do the design? So
you're not designing the town homes,
you're not designing this the structures
of these buildings.
So what does that mean when you said
that there's a master plan and that's
what you're working on?
So, uh, while we're not going to be bu
doing facades or any detailed
architecture, that would come in at a
later phase, as would all the
environmental review related to the
project, and that would be paid for by a
developer that the town actually got
into contract with, right, that an RFP
went out for, so the town doesn't have
the burden of those costs. But some of
the things that we are doing is defining
the space that those could go in because
we're trying to derisk this enough or
establish enough credibility for
development to understand what the
limits on the site could be, the unit
types, the count so that we could put
out an RFP process for a developer to
feel comfortable enough to proceed.
Right now, there's, as everyone's
identified, a number of risks that would
make taking this out to an RF with an
RFP to a developer. You probably
wouldn't have a big developer pool of
anybody comfortable enough to come in
because they wouldn't feel like that it
was viable. So what we're trying to do
is establish if it's viable so that then
an RFP could occur, a developer could be
selected, they could move forward with
like detailed architecture and
environmental review etc. But what this
will be doing is defining the space like
effectively the development footprint.
So for each of the custom lots, we'll be
going through and identifying the space
that you could actually build within
those custom lots. based off town
standards and the town doesn't really
have multifamily standards at this
point. So it would be identifying things
like setbacks and where what the heights
of those buildings might be just so that
a developer when they came in understood
how much they could develop on this
site. They can run a performer. So,
we're whittling it down without, you
know, a developer would want to come in
and have the opportunity to develop the
facade of the town homes that they feel
would be appropriate and they would run
it through the entitlement process
accordingly. So, we don't want to get so
in the weeds that we're dictating, but
we want to give folks enough information
that they feel comfortable that this is
viable, if that makes sense. We're we're
threading a needle. So, we are doing
quite a bit of work as you can see on
here. Um but it's not the detailed
architectural plans yet.
>> Thank you.
>> You're welcome.
>> Um just to follow up on that um again
just the clarification these so-called
development agreements will be if they
show an architectural design to the
subcommittee and the city council. We
could give feedback and say that it's
just not very consistent with the style
and architecture of the town. Can we
modify this? Can we make changes? So the
development agreement does give us the
opportunity to have input as far as what
these structures will look like.
Correct.
>> Yes, of course. And you'd have any
developer would have to go through your
typical entitlement process,
architecture and site review, your
grading review per pro process again,
environmental review. So all of that
would have to happen later as well. And
your RFP process can identify certain
things that you're looking for as far as
style and so forth. And for now, your
projection is three stories to four
stories um with the parking underneath,
but you estimating mid mid height, three
to four stories, plus or minus,
something along those lines?
>> Yeah. For the town homes, uh they're the
two to three stories. For the
multifamily affordable building, it's
four to four and a half sto four to five
stories. It was about four and a half
stories with the tuck under parking.
Yeah.
>> Okay.
Um, any additional question from the
council? Yes, Vice Mayor Ragdale.
>> Um, just a question. Um, I had asked
this in a different context and I don't
think she's online anymore. Uh, Liz
Reese, but um, I don't know if you know
or maybe city council. Um with regard to
um employee or teacher preference, my
understanding is that all things being
equal, you you can have a you can
express a preference for employees or
teachers.
>> Well, it's I think for the affordable
component, if there's county funding
that's being used, there can be some
discretion for the affordable housing as
far as preference. for the market rate.
It's it's market driven.
>> Thank you.
>> Yes. Um council member,
>> so uh again, um I'm intrigued by the
master plans on phase two. Um you work
very hard on the on phase one trying to
figure out where's the connectivities on
the utility and the electricities and I
think that is a huge hung up in addition
to the topography challenge. So are you
suggesting that in phase one you are now
able to identify the connectivities with
the town utility
and there are viable ways that you can
make that happen or is it something that
it you know as you weaving this master
plan that it's very likely that those
are going to happen. And so the way we
approach this is how we would typically
move uh move forward as a developer
where you have a due diligence phase
before you enter into like a contract
with a property owner and you try to far
it out as much as you can during that
due diligence phase but you also
identify risks to your financial
committee that's willing to fund this
effort. And so that's what we tried to
do these first three months is establish
is there enough viability to continue to
move forward because we don't want to
move forward if this if there's no
viabilities. Utilities were a really big
part of that and at this point our civil
engineer in coordination actually with
the town Paul's been extremely helpful
like we really have located where all
the utilities are to tie into for the
town and we feel pretty comfortable that
they're viable. Could there be a a
surprise as we continue to dig deeper
into this? No pun intended. Yes,
potentially. Um, but right now we
actually feel pretty comfortable,
especially because our civil engineer
has dug into things like engineering
costs, the amount of length of pipe that
would be needed. So, for this
preliminary phase, we we got pretty far
with with respect to the utilities.
Yeah.
>> Thank you.
>> You're welcome.
Um any additional um comments from the
com Oh. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. I'm sorry.
Council member Crowley,
>> we don't have comments. How long do you
know me?
>> How long have we been working together?
>> Please say Council Member Crowley. Yes.
>> Um All right. It's late or getting
punchy. Okay. Um a couple of things just
to back up where we've been over the
past couple years because that is a
valid question and I think we have to be
uh prepared to answer it over and over.
Why didn't Hillsboro fight more
aggressively against this state? Um, so,
uh, Southern California was given this
set of of rules basically a year before
Northern California. Of all the
municipalities in Southern California, a
number of them sued the state and pushed
back. None of them won. They all lost.
So, um, and the, um, they all lost their
lawsuits. And if we, every dollar that
we spend here in Hillsboro comes right
out of our residents pockets. We don't
have any commercial. So if we spend a
million dollars on a lawsuit, that's
divided up around among 3,900
households. So we're careful about that
and we don't want to waste your money.
Um the uh the penalty for not being in
compliance with your housing element in
the state of California is something
called the builder's remedy, which means
that a builder, you no longer as a
municipality have zoning control. So if
we are not in compliance with the state
then the uh default zoning is 20 units
per acre and that's anywhere in town. So
we as a council and with the um we did
have a an advisory group of of residents
and many many community meetings on this
um we thought it felt very strongly that
is in the best interest of the town to
comply but I can understand why it seems
crazy. Um, so as this plan, um, as far
as this plan goes, I I I want to thank
the subcommittee. I think you've done
great work. And also, um, Wendy, thank
you to you and Don. It's I think it's creative. I really like because
recognizing that there are residents
that live nearby and that they are going
to, you know, nobody likes change.
Nobody likes construction. We talked
about that with the last issue. But I do
like the emphasis on some community
benefits there. A community room. You're
talking about trails and enhanced in
somehow enhance the site for the
surrounding neighbors. I think is a
great um goal. Um the the nice thing and
somebody brought up about our employees
about these town homes that will be for
sale. That's kind of the missing middle
in Sanonteo County. And I think those
ownership opportunities will be open to
our employees and I would absolutely
love to see our employees have equity in
the town of Hillsboro. Um phase two is
going to have a lot of community
engagement. So this is just the very
beginning. Um and again I think we want
to mitigate the effects on the neighbors
as much as possible. I still do have one
question. Um uh we already did SQA on
this site, didn't we?
>> We did. Yeah.
>> Yeah. Do do we need additional SQA? Is
that the because I saw that you were
leaving SQA out at this phase, but we
did SQA, I thought.
>> So, a specific development proposal will
end up needing to run through the
filters of the mitigation plan. And so
there may be additional um environmental
uh review that's needed for biological
constraints in particular based off the
development footprint, but that's all in
your MMRP. So there was an initial
programmatic EI done and but the
mitigations did require more once more
specific specificity happened that those
that was studied. Since we already have
the preliminary, will it be less
expensive and a little faster or are we
sort of starting from scratch?
>> Um, it it it depends, I think, is is the
answer. Um, because if if there's no
additional um medications that are
necessary or it's it falls within what
was already studied, then an addendum
could happen. And I would welcome staff
to answer this as my own SQA experience.
But if it's something new, then you
would either do a supplemental EIR or
some it could be a more expanded
addendum uh to to address any additional
environmental constraints, but that
would be they did there was no specific
kind of general footprints outlined in
the original plan, but it was much more
programmatic. So, but yeah, I think the short answer is some things have
already been studied and those things
can be reused.
>> Okay. Yeah.
>> Thank you. Thank you. So, um I
appreciate how quickly, you know, as far
as these things go, that for three
months that you really did a lot of of
work and and that you brought it in
under the budget, which is wonderful. I do envision and hope um that we get
this kind of villagy feel, you know,
that that's what I hope. And that it
does enhance the town if we have to do
it. Um and that it does help our
employees and our educational community,
our teachers. Um, so my last question is
I'm not quite sure from um how much
we're voting on. It's a little vague in
the um I know it's budgeted already, but
I'm just not quite sure what what
allocation are we voting on.
>> We're just authorizing the
implementation of phase two to proceed.
>> You mean time, you know, cost is what
you're asking.
>> Whatever is spent add up to be.
>> Okay. So, we've already allocated the
539
>> and so we're not going over that. No,
we're just voting on phase two and it
will not go over that. Thank you.
>> That's right. It's already included
phase two and three. One, two, and Yeah,
that that Yeah, we're not asking for
additional funding. It's already
budgeted. Correct.
» Um,
so we do we have a consensus to move
forward with implementation of phase two
of the project? I move that we authorize
phase two. All those in favor say I.
>> Second. Please second.
>> All those in favor say I.
>> Second. But I thought I heard another
second.
>> Oh, I'm sorry. What did Council Member
Chang?
>> You should do that.
>> Okay. The motion
um we have a second. We have a second
from Council Member Adams. And all those
in favor say I.
>> I.
And we look forward to seeing you in the
community. We look forward to seeing all
of you in the community engagement
process because we do want
>> Wait a minute. Was there was there an
objection or no, we're all in favor of
proceeding to phase two. Okay. Correct.
>> But the mayor, I do have questions. Um I
think over the this uh item there's
several mentioned about this becoming a
standing committees and then no you know
and then all these meetings will be
agendaized and publicized. So the
publics are invited to join us at those
meetings to hear about the presentation.
So that would one way to keep you
informed as to what happened
>> as well as the neighborhood outreach
which we'll be doing which is very
targeted and specific. But there will be
opportunities in the subcommittee to
participate in those meetings as well.
So thanks for all your comments and your
input. It's u much appreciated and we'll
continue to work with the community as
we move forward. Thank you and thanks to
our consultants
>> through the mayor. Just want to add um
if you haven't already given um clerk
Natush your um email address, she will
make sure to put you on a list to get
further um notice of any time this topic
comes up.
>> Okay. Um that's the final agendaized
item and we'll now move to um city
council items. Thank you so much um
Wendy and Dunn. Appreciate it. City
Council items starting with council
member Adams.
» Uh thank you, Mayor Cole. So, uh May May
really
>> the lovely month of May. These are all
uh bumblebees bombas.
>> Oops. Next. So, uh year end for
Hillsboro Beautification Foundation. Uh
there is the beginning of a new design
and maintenance uh crew at Hayne Road
circle and also they held their donor
thanks you I don't think I meant to say
that at uh Carolyn's so they are all set
ready for the summer and they will start
up again in the fall next
uh we had our ad hoc meeting on Tobin
Clark you've just seen what we've been
up to and we're So delighted to be able
to share it with you. Uh draft ordinance
uh work for business licenses is also in
process. Next slide.
Uh working on an ad hoc committee as
well to redesign the outdoor learning
center at uh Shoreway Education Area.
And I just thought I'd throw in uh an
inspiring art piece uh that I saw in
Paris with uh these are uh like third
graders just really learning about uh
art, but we plan to have along the back
wall that you see on the left an art
piece that will either be
who knows what it'll be. Next, next
slide.
Uh, I graduated on uh, Friday uh, from
my leadership council San Mateo. Uh,
dignitaries from all over the Bay Area
showed up, but particularly Eddie Flores
from uh, South San Francisco and our
wonderful uh, council member and former
mayor uh, Marie Schwang. Uh it was
really great. There were two meetings
actually in May. There was one on uh
safety and security. Uh but I it was
held at the really beautiful South San
Francisco library and community center
and it has this wonderful uh playground
that I wanted you all to be inspired by.
Next,
uh, Tartan Trail work, uh, is beginning,
but also, as you noted, Parkside Bridge
and Macadamia.
And I just wanted you to see
really what Tartan Trail is all about.
This has been a long process going
through trying to get uh, funding for
this. And I'm delighted that it has
started. Uh, as you know, public works
week was in May, and I want to thank
Council Member Crow, who came to that
meeting uh, as I was out of the country,
and uh, not only said wonderful things
about public works, but uh, shared her
wonderful baking, which we all
appreciate. Next.
And uh just uh after I got back from
Paris, I went to Austin, Texas uh where
I was also this was uh I was honored for
25 years on the board of a nonprofit
that works with major corporations to
get them to do environmental things on
their campuses. But I included a little
picture in one of the presentations uh
on the left that was uh one of the
posters that my organization put
together about the importance of
pollinators at a Navajo Nation Earth
Day. So that really excited me. But I am
no longer in that business, but it was
nice to cap it off with 25 years. And I
think that's it.
>> Thank you. Um Council Member Schwang.
>> Uh sure. uh May it's very busy. Um so
start off with u menrin instructions for
it's very uh it was really well done and
um we uh graduated another sets of uh
Chinese u instructors. I think coming in
August we will be doing a train the
trainers in men Chinese. So that's also
very exciting. Um really appreciate the
CCFD fireboard. um uh goal setting
sessions. It was very helpful. Um and
then uh Samr moved to the new
headquarter in Milbury. So you're
welcome to come to visit in the uh new
headquarters. Um and I'm certainly happy
to give you a tour. Um, one of the
highlight in May is that I attended the
Crocker career day and I actually had
opportunity to meet some sixth graders
and speak on the local governments and
um, and why civic engagement
um, matters. Um, but I think that more
attractive is the ride along that I do
with police and fire that they got their
interest. Um and then um really want to
thank the Memorial Day uh event
committees. Um fabulous jobs, fabulous
um events. I think what is it last last
time I heard it was like over 2,000 in
attendance.
Why quite a um community events in the
in our um area. Um and then congratulate
um congratulation to our um council
member Adams for graduating from the
legal uh leadership council of Satell
County. Um it's quite a intense 10 month
um but you certainly represent as well.
I think that um Vicki um
Ramen
thank you. Um Vicki is also in the
emerging leadership uh program and so
that's really exciting to see um
Hillsboro represented. So that's it.
>> Thank you. Um
Council Member Crowley.
>> All right. Great. Memorial Day thank
yous. Um HPD public works finance. Thank
you for all your support. Um also
appreciate the city manager and uh his
office and the council support. Um,
thank you to Marie and Leslie for being
on the committee. Um, thank you for
everyone who came out. It really it was
a a great day. We just had perfect
weather, not too hot and not too cold.
And um, all the cars worked and um, it
went very very smoothly. John Mullen
came back and helped us stage cars. We
didn't have the cadetses, but um but we
filled in um and it it it just worked
very very smoothly. Um please mark your
calendar. Come out to the concour on
June 28th. It's going to be a beautiful
show. Um the road rally is the day
before on the 27th and um the lunch is
going to be at the the Johnson's former
home right across the street from North.
But come out to the concour. Don't miss
this show and tell everybody to come.
People come from all over the western
United States to come to the show and
people in Hillsboro don't go up the
hill. And it really is like Brigadeun. I
mean, you come across the hill and
there's 250 absolutely beautiful cars.
The food is great. It's just a great day
and something we should really be proud
of and thank you to the community for
supporting it. Um air San Francisco out
airport round table was last week. The
vertaports again are the the the big um
issue with these vertical
um electric vehicles that are going to
be trans transporting people. I don't
think people in Hillsboro will be using
them much because we live so close to
the airport, but people from Marin
certainly will and they're going to be
looking for places to land. So the
roundt is trying to come up with
something that all municipalities can
use as kind of a temp template, but from
what I understand, South San Francisco
has already signed a contract for one
vertart over by uh Oyster Point. Um I
also went to the Carolinas for the HBF
event. It was great. Pride is tomorrow
and I'm so h the youth commission is
just run with this and William is
working with them. Um and probably Mandy
and Leslie too, but I know William is
ordering all their swag and refreshments
and they they are just running with it
and I'm so pleased and so proud of them.
So that's four o'clock tomorrow. And
just lastly I had a nice talk with Joe
Lamarana from um Rethink Waste. He's my
buddy at Rotary and he could not say
enough nice things about Mandy Brown and
Lorie Davis Adams. So, and he's
specifically said to me, "They represent
your town so well." So, thank you to
both of you.
>> Thank you. Um, Vice Mayor Rexdale.
>> Yes.
Who knows what I I put this together a
couple days ago because I was away and
so sorry to miss both the HBF event and
your graduation. I was away. um for a
couple days. Um all right, what have I
got? Ebikes. Uh continuing to follow.
I'm in uh continual conversation with um
a doctor who's spoken all over the
country about this issue and uh he's
keeping me a breast and the bills are
moving into the or have moved into the
Senate and uh we'll be having um
hearings probably later this month, one
of them definitely later this month. Uh
Memorial Day parade uh just thank you to
everyone just fantastic event. Um, and
uh, I would have to say that it's like
the mom taking the smallest piece of
meat. Council member Krollic was not in
a car after she found cars for
everybody. She could she could she's an
Excel spreadsheet in her head. She could
tell you every car, every person in it,
the year of the car, the color of the
car, the owner, and she walked.
>> So,
>> I was going to put myself on the vintage
firet truck with rotary, but I'd never
seen the vehicle before. when it came,
it really wasn't going to work. So, um,
Rotary got on it and Jeff and I had a
nice walk. It was pleasant.
>> Very sweet. Um, and oh, and I can't take
any credit for the Pride Festival or
Pride event tomorrow, but I'm very
excited and I love our youth commission,
but I I have not helped on this, so I'm
super excited to attend. Uh, next slide.
Oh. Um, I listened to I know this isn't
that flattering of a picture, but I was
trying to take a picture of um I
listened in on the vehicle license fee
um uh webinar hosted by the county and
um I think you guys all are up to date
on that situation. Uh next slide.
Uh Peninsula Clean Energy. Oh, I went to
the um Cal CCA Community Choice
Aggregators Conference in Sacramento.
Learned a lot. Uh we unveiled Westlate
Energy to that community um and
everyone's very excited for us. It will
be officially unveiled um July 1, but
the Secretary of State has approved the
new name and they are moving forward.
They're going to unveil it to the
vendors and P Gen to because your PCE
soon to be West Light Energy. Um that is
on your P Gen bill. So we need to work
with them to get it uh the new name on
the bill. Uh as uh Council Member Adams
mentioned, we are still moving forward
with our um ad hoc ordinance committee
uh town hall subcommittee. We have we
have public meetings now. I attended one
by Zoom which was a which was a it was
an interesting experience but um and
Christine was there and um yes well we
are moving forward and we will be
updating you all soon and uh next slide
Bosa at a board meeting apparently.
Next slide.
Oh, Town of Hillsboro was awarded
commute.org or which I don't talk about
a lot. Um but we were awarded the silver
le level of certification for um
encouraging our employees to take
transportation and um William head of HR
among all the other things that he does.
>> Uh he gets the word out about their programs and their um commuter
star app is always in our uh in the
e-news and I think that is it.
Yep.
Uh, thank you. Um, I attended many of
the meetings you've already reported on,
so I do not have anything else to add. I
don't have anything to report, but
thanks especially to all of those
involved in the Memorial Day parade. I
thought that was an outstanding event.
And um, with that said, I believe this
meeting is adjourned. Thank you.
We we
know
remembered. I was like,
» "Okay,
hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Where is it?"
Yellow.
» Oh,
yeah. have a yellow for it. Okay, we do
have um the Hillsboro Public Improvement
Corporation annual board meeting. Um
that meeting is now called to order
and on the consent consent calendar. Um
oh, first of all, roll call. Sorry.
>> Adams
>> present.
>> Schwang Kurlic
>> present.
>> Ragdale present. Cole
>> present.
>> Thank you.
Um, we have on the consent, we have on
the consent calendar, approve item one,
approve Hillsboro Public Improvement
Corporation meeting minutes of June 9th,
2025.
So moved. Oh, hold on.
Item two, confirm appointment of
Hillsboro Public Improvement Corporation
Board of Directors.
Um, any public comments on items on the
agenda?
Seeing none in chambers, none in zoom.
>> Do we have a second?
>> Second. All those in favor say I.
>> I.
This meeting is now. Thank you.