Parks, Recreation and Historical Commission - Regular Meeting

I call the PHRC to order. And the first is a call to order Pledge of Allegiance. I'd like to do the land acknowledgement the alameda county parks rec and historical Commission recognizes and appreciates the indigenous people who've lived in this area for thousands of years in relative harmony. All to the role.

Commissioner Colbruno. Commissioner Felix. Absent, not yet present. Commissioner Mendoza.

Here.

Commissioner Menard. Here. Commissioner Thomas.

Present.

Commissioner Welchmeyer. Here. And Commissioner Willis, not yet present. We have a quorum. I'm sorry. Chair Farley.

Here.

We have a quorum.

All right. I would like to introduce our new board member and give them a chance to tell a little bit about himself and his background.

Thank you. I'm Michael Colbruno. I'm honored to join everybody up here on the dais. I'm a longtime local commissioner. I was seven years on the Oakland Planning Commission, two terms as chair, and 12 years on the Oakland Port Commission, two terms as president. And so I'm joining something which I'm very passionate about. So parks rec and historic preservation I actually had to historic blogs that I have a one called lives of the dead, and I have another sub stack one where I read a lot about local history sometimes slightly different angles attached so please.

Have any other open forum.

or no speakers.

so we're going on to item f approval of the minutes from previous meeting august 6th action item five minutes i saw no corrections so barring anyone else with corrections i approve the minutes motion approve the minutes as presented taken go ahead and take a roll call vote then

Commissioner Colbruno? Commissioner Felix? Not yet present. Commissioner Mendoza?

Yes.

Commissioner Menard?

Yes.

Commissioner Thomas?

Aye.

Commissioner Walshmeyer?

Wasn't present.

Commissioner Willis? And Chair Farley? Aye. Motion passes.

All right. Chair and staff reports, I don't have anything to report. Does staff have anything to report?

Staff has none. The staff has none okay.

We are on the new business and. Consideration and proposed demolition of single family dwelling and detached garage at twelve fifty nine grove way cherry land. Staff report?

This is Amy Claros with the Alameda County Planning Department with PLN 2026-136, which is the historical assessment for proposed demolition of a single family residence and detached garage. The property owners and applicants are KSB integrated developers, and it is at 1259 Grove Way in Cherryland, and it is two APNs, 428168 and 428169. And this is the aerial. The single family residence is on 428168 and the detached garage is on both parcels, but mostly on 428169. Zoning for both properties for both parcels is R1. It is within the Eden Area General Plan, low-medium density residential. The primary residence is American four-square style. The assessor's records say it was constructed in 1900, but the survey attached says 1890. And the construction date of the garage is unknown. And both structures are to be demolished. The single-family dwelling is vacant and uninhabitable. And both parcels are 8,625 square feet, which is 0.4 acres total. And the future proposal may include development of the two parcels, pursuant to SB 9 and SB 1123 for a total of eight units. And here's some images of the front of the house from the street. I also wanted to mention both trees on the property. The redwood trees are, one is within the right of way and the other one is on the property to the rear. Then this is the south side of the house, the north side, and you can see the detached garage here. And this is the rear of the house. And we're looking at the California Register of Historical Resources criteria. It must be associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of local or regional history or the cultural heritage of California or the United States. It is associated with the lives of persons important to local, California, or national history. It embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, region, or method of construction, or represents the work of a master or possesses high artistic values. It has yielded or has the potential to yield information important to the prehistory or history of the local area, California, or the nation. The primary residence was identified on the preliminary cultural resources survey Ashland and Cherryland districts conducted in 1998. The chain of title did not yield any results of any previous owners of historical significance and the detached garage has not been identified on any historical surveys and within that survey, the single family dwelling was ranked as possibly under if it appears significant or not. This project staff recommends that your Commission make a determination that the single family residence and detached garage are not historical resources and recommend demolition of the structure to the planning director and the applicants and staff are here for questions as well.

That concludes the presentation um. It would like the homeowner to present, so we can hear their input um.

Sure. name is Steve Soderlund. I'm one of three who own the property were the kids. We've we bought the property initially to develop it and move forward and initially looked at putting as much housing as we could on there to help the All the housing development here in hayward and that it was an alameda county so we had to come to alameda county and gone through the process i'm a licensed gc be licensed gc a or other partner is. Environmentalist. We we all kind of cooperated to kind of come through and try to help. The housing in hayward I actually live up the street up on grove way a little bit more towards caster valley. So i've driven by this property, a million times and saw that it. need to help. When we initially bought it and walk through it I. list that says. going over. understand how anybody was even. Owner I guess had done something with the property and rented it or whatever and men and it's not a habitable structure. All foundation. created a video with I don't know if I mean if you. created a walkthrough video with it's basically like two and a half inches out of square and. Originally came in and put a couple support beams in to hold it up so it wouldn't fall over. And knowing that we were going to take it all out, we hadn't really done anything to it. And we submitted to get a demolition permit, and then we've kind of come to this place where we're like, well, it isn't. We're kind of here. This is the first time we've ever had to do anything with a historical review or anything like that. And we're kind of here to get your input a little bit and see. I want to see if staff has the video. Does staff have the video?

Do not have the video.

I can share it off my phone.

I sent it. I don't know why it didn't work.

How long is the video?

Like two minutes.

Okay. Is there any way you guys can present that?

I emailed it to you, but I don't.

I don't think I got it.

A week ago.

Did it like an exterior kind of quick walk around and I did an interior. So it's. I call it a split level, but it's one of those six foot high. Is the staff able to do it or not?

staff is still looking into accessing the video at this moment we're searching our emails to me go to board member questions then and then if we can access the video that one more one quick thing and that was in our station of going home, it also became been all for time. And those alterations, the whole rear of the house. And I don't know if that has any effect or bearing on Burkle designation. There was also obviously a fire in the house that had been covered over. So we unmasked that as well.

All right. Does any of the board members have questions for our homeowners?

Good afternoon. Thank you for presenting or speaking. Hopefully we will see the video. In the interest of time, is the video showing the property in the last 30 days? Is it a recent video? It is. OK. Brilliant.

It's within the last 30 days. You know, and the only other thing that I brought and I brought multiple copies was just kind of what we were thinking of doing going forward. And I don't know if that has any. This meeting or not, but our concept.

You can present that to staff and then we'll get it at that. Yeah. Any other board members have questions for the homeowners?

One. I'm looking at a picture. I think this is the back of the house, right? It is. I can see the addition on the left side. Exactly. Is that an addition that you feel that could be removed without destroying the house? Or would that destroy much of the house, is it?

I think that it is going to severely actually impair the house.

OK.

I mean, I haven't had much there. I've been licensed since 2002. By looking at it, it's it's not habitable and I wouldn't stick my family in there. So I have a question.

When was the alterations made?

It doesn't show it doesn't show anywhere on a permit history or anything like that. What it looks like to me. So they're in the back corner of the rear of the house. there was like probably a porch and somebody enclosed the porch. And so we've done some abatement on that property. We did some lead and asbestos abatement on it already. And it exposed some of the ceiling. It's like to me,

Sounds like the alterations were made before the permits were even in existence.

Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, it is older framing. There's no... I don't know how far back does the permitting go.

No, no. Good question. Commissioner Thomas, I do have a follow-up question. For the record, can you state what the intended purpose of said property?

The intended purpose of said property is to develop and put additional housing on the property.

If there's one domicile on there now, you intend to expand it?

It is. So what we're proposing to do is four single family homes and two duplexes.

So essentially, there would be additional housing added to said lot versus the one unit. Correct.

Correctly next door, there's another property that was developed a number of years ago. And they have, I believe, eight units on that property. It's approximately the same footprint as ours. I think ours has a more aesthetic look to what we're proposing than the property next door. And I do feel like this is going to improve that whole neighborhood. The property looks yeah, the property looks Derelict in our plan, to Steve's point, we're not going to be infringing on parking on the street. We have that incorporated into our plan.

Do we have any other board members?

No, the street. Describe what the street is. old area, depleted, character change.

There's a church on there that's in the corner. Writing. It's a lot of very modern, huge amount of multi units. So there's a lot of, a lot of multi units on that street. And that's why there's, but we just thought we'll come in there. It's a small house. It's dilapidated. It's fallen down. We'll take it out and we'll put all new housing in there. All this got brought up first. Kind of like in your park where I've done like the beginning of my career was I restored a lot of Victorian and Craftsmanship houses. But and I know how much labor intense it is restoring a house. A house doesn't have that flavor as it's like a farmhouse. It doesn't have the gingerbread. It doesn't have a lot of the foo-foo stuff on the house that you would normally see.

Does it necessarily have a contribution?

That's what I'm just thinking about. I mean, if you drive down the street, does it stand out? For sure. In the wrong way? I've been looking at it for over.

Footprint of the house, how does it differ from the footprint of your house?

The ones we were planning on building are a little more.

Footage footprint.

Square footage footprint. Each unit is going to be around 1,600 square feet for a.

An old house fit on one of your block, on one of your. If necessary, dial it down a little bit and move it around and make it. It's an honest question. Do you think it would be a better project retaining the house? um property have greater value if you kept the old recognized that it's been there since part of the fabric of grandparents and grandchildren can live together the the big

A item that I see is that the garage I think we can work around the House, the other problem is this ginormous redwood tree that's in a way, basically it's one of the only lots that i've seen down in grove way that doesn't have a side.

would be an addition jack that.

absolutely and we're not proposing to to do anything to the redwood tree i i would propose we could go around it and they grow so slow it's not going to blow out concrete we're not many we're not we'll blow it out but changing anything on that but the redwood tree so the the house itself um the garage is as you notice when when when amy pulled it up on the on the list it's on both apn numbers i just built semi in the middle we saw that so if This came up after this whole thing came up. It's like, OK, well, then let's restore the house. Let's take the garage, lift it up, drop it in behind it so we can keep the integrity of the garage itself, the slab and everything.

Not to cut you off, but we do have an allotted amount of time. And the 20 minutes for this item, action item, has been met. So we need to move on.

There's one more question. I wanted to ask if you were even informed of the Mills Act. OK. The county should have told you about the Mills Act because that does save property and it gives you a tax benefit to save the house. So they should have informed you about that.

We could. I mean, the possibility is. There's two lots, and if we could move the garage to the back of the house and make it look authentic, I'm more than happy to try to make that happen for sure.

Do we have any speakers from the audience? That was Steve that spoke, right? Did we get the video?

We're able to load the video.

Staff has not yet received the video.

Okay, can we can we postpone that to the next meeting? And so we can look at the video.

For clarification, as part of a demolition request, it requires that the Commission make a determination for the director to make a decision within 45 days of the application being submitted.

When was the application submitted?

Staff is checking. The application was submitted in July 17th.

July 17th. Margin. Margin. Make a decision. We have to make a decision today because the permit will be.

That's correct. So if, should the commission not make a decision, the director will make a determination.

All right. Do we have anybody to make a motion?

First, you've got to hear from the audience.

Well, I was going to do that, yeah. Anybody else from the audience that want to speak on this subject?

You are online. Feel free to raise your hand if you'd like to speak. There are no raised hands.

These blue cards are on different... City Council Chambers and we're up with um Okay, so if we have that would anybody on the board like to make a motion.

City Council Chambers and discuss it first. City Council Chambers and Number one. City Council Chambers and Castle Valley was known for in this area was known for chicken farms, and this is one of the premier chicken farms left in alameda county. And all these buildings around the outside of it are all chicken farm ranches and they were done for white legroom chickens and this was the number two chicken hatching and chicken egg production city in the state of California after Petaluma. And so I think it's important that We put a lot more interest in the preservation of the chicken houses and I would like to suggest that we send this back and get some additional information on it and how the chicken farm and ranch blends in. I like the idea of moving the house and the barn onto one section and building around it. That's been done in other cities and other areas and it's worked very well. And I would approve of that, but I think we need to know what the chicken farming business is like before. And the only way to do that is to get some additional information.

If I'm wrong, do you know the property number? Because I do believe my fellow commissioner may be talking about another property, which is on our agenda.

28168. 16. Next door is bonsai and old bonsai.

Okay, like, Commissioner Thomas said, we have a lot on the agenda and we need to come up with a decision here.

So he about the same product, the borlawns farm is not these petitioners print this way. I think

to a different site? Oh, OK. I mixed them up then. I'm sorry.

Thank you. I didn't know anything about the chickens. I knew it was agricultural down in there.

I'm not going to argue that there might not have been chickens there at some point. The documents all came together.

Do we have anybody else from the public that wanted to speak on this? Because we really need to move on. Does anybody on the board have a proposal? Because if not, it's going to be in the hands of the planning director, one person, and we're five or eight people.

I'd like to... ...observation of...

I mean there's always a possibility right it's just money and time and that's what it is so but if the possibility of that maybe I've already I've already asked for public comment nobody said anything so I'll second that motion Paul

Just before we vote on ask a question i'm just curious what that does to their permit status if there's some deadline that we're going to that they're going to mess with the.

believe we have the option to require the submittal of additional information, it looks like from.

So does one of our board members want to make that so we can move on because we got a full agenda and at least a motion in a second to clarify additional information to me means a deep analysis.

His story.

And and to show us the video that we didn't get to see so. Can we make so who made.

OK.

So I guess we're calling to a vote then on the motion. Can we restate the motion please.

PROVIDE ADDITIONAL HISTORIC EVALUATION THROUGH THE DPR REPORT?

NEW SPEAKER P. WE HAVE THIS ON THE FLOOR NOW, SO CAN WE VOTE ON THIS PROPOSAL?

Thank you for your thank you for your statements. We appreciate it. But the public comment is done on this action item. All right.

Go ahead with the roll call vote.

Commissioner Cole Bruno.

Aye.

Commissioner Mendoza.

Aye.

Commissioner Menard. Aye. Commissioner Thomas. Aye. Commissioner Walsh Meyer. Aye. Commissioner Willis. Yes. And Chair Farley. Aye. Motion passes.

All right. Now we're going on to item two, consideration of proposed demolition of agricultural structural barn at 5198 Proctor Road. Let's try to keep this within the 20 minutes because we went way over on the first one. So I have one staff presentation.

This is Amy Claros again with the Planning Department with PLN 2026-155, the Historical Assessment for Proposed Demolition. And this is for the proposed demolition of an agricultural structure, a barn. The property owners are Robert and Robert Dean, and the applicant is Kurt Harold, who is the architect. This is located at 5198 Proctor Road in Castro Valley, and the APN is 84C-970-1-3. The parcel has frontage on Proctor Road. It has an access driveway to the rear. And the two structures on the property are the barn and then the gazebo. This is just a better look at the aerial of the barn and the gazebo. And this is in context with the other agricultural buildings on the neighboring parcel, 84C-970-1-1. The zoning is R1RVHO, single-family residential, recreational vehicle, and hillside overlay. The general plan is Castor Valley General Plan within the hillside residential designation. The two structures on there, as mentioned, are the barn structure and the gazebo. The barn is estimated to be constructed in 1920, gazebo is unknown. And the parcel size is 33,570 square feet, which is about 0.77 acres and the barn structures to be demolished. And these are photos provided by the applicant of the barn. Then going through the evaluation criteria, it is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns or local or regional history or the cultural heritage of California or the United States. It is associated with the lives of persons important to local California or national history. It embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, region, or method of construction, or represents the work of a master, or possesses high artistic values. It has yielded or has the potential to yield information important to the prehistory or history of the local area, California, or the nation. So the primary, sorry, that's a typo, primary residence, the barn, has been identified as on the unincorporated Alameda County Historic Survey. The subject parcel was created through a boundary adjustment, BA 46-01. The parent parcel, which is 84C-970-2-1, which is now referred to as 84C-970-1-1. It's associated with the Borlaz Farm, which is a significant Castro Valley poultry farm. And there were two historical evaluations conducted, one in 2002 and one in 2008. that both found that these structures were, they qualified for the California Register of Historic Resources, and the 2008 one found that it qualified for the National Register of Historic Places. And these are pictures from the 2008 evaluation. The structure in question is Chicken House 3 on this site plan, and then a photo of the 2008 evaluation. I request that your commission make an initial assessment of whether more analysis is needed or if the information provided is adequate to determine that the barn structure is not historical resource and no additional analysis is necessary. And the applicant and owners are here and staff is here for questions as well.

Is that is that Kirk? Okay.

Could

My name is Curt Harold, architect. I'm learning a lot about the Borlaz farm from all the documentation and reports that have been coming through. I just wanted to kind of Point out a couple of things from the architectural side of the piece of property. Amy, if you have. I guess before she's going to put up the architectural site plan because there's an easement on there, I just want to go and then to the gazebo and explain what happens on the right side of the gazebo from a property standpoint. So from a historical standpoint, not based on the actual structure itself, this property is a flag lot. It's actually the elevations higher than this there. City Council Chambers, Or is this not it's not visible from from the street it's not even accessible by the public to get to up to the piece of property, you can see, on my site plan I show the location of the House, which is the dark shaded area, and if you look directly to I guess it's kind of the. worth. The ash lines are diagonal. That is a utility line easement that goes through, kind of breaks this property into a couple pieces. And then if you look just behind, just southeast of the shaded structure, you'll see the little gazebo building. City Council Chambers, All the way to the property line down to the southeast is just is a steep steep slope, you know downhill so it's from a building standpoint, so very limited piece of property is 34,650 something like that, so it sounds really large, but the buildable area is is. City Council Chambers, Where i'm showing the the shaded structure there that. And I'm just saying that just for reference purposes. It's not in reference to any historical significance, but I just wanted to make sure. Also, the owner wanted me to point out that the existing You can see by the dash lines the existing barn or chicken coop. When they subdivided this piece of property, he says the neighbors said there was 30 feet of the original coop that was taken off so they can get that property line on the left-hand side there. Also, when you look at the building, there is siding that is inconsistent with other siding on the other side of the building. There's some plywood siding where it's obviously not . This is a new roof system that's been put on because the previous roofing system leaked. So this was put on, I don't know, 10 or 15, 20 years.

So oriented. So confused about all of the buildings we saw that were on the site plan. And it's hard to see your component in this and these work reports for any other buildings on the property. I think somehow I need to see the site plan and get this whole thing clarified in my

Commissioner Willis, I also have a quick question. So you're talking about demolishing the barn, not the house, is that correct?

That is correct. In fact, if you look at what's up there right now, you can see basically the property lines. And so the farmhouse with the tower and the old barn and the building chicken coops number one and number two are on another property.

OK. So they're on a different parcel, but the historic reports were written for all of these buildings prior to the subparcel. breakup of this property, right?

Any director signed off on splitting the piece of property in December of 2001, and the report that you're looking at is from 2008.

Oh, the report saying that the barn you want to demolish is historic?

So what you're saying i'm just saying that they're different pieces of property, but the split happened in 2001 and the report that you're reading was written in 2008. or both parcels so the basically the old ranch is on the other piece of parcel it's a property it's not on ours they're just your curiosity, how do you ever get to this, the larger portion of the remaining parcel. The property there was a developer in 2000 that ran into the county and died from heart attack because he had gone through so much trying to get a bill So the kids inherited and they tried to sell it and nobody would buy it because you can't access it they were going to fill the canyon or the gully over on the right and the Fish and Game came up with a one foot by 200 foot wetland. So you can't drive through it to get to the property.

I have another quick question. My understanding was that the owner was Josette Mowry. Is that? Pardon? My understanding was that a couple of years ago, a woman named Josette Mowry bought this property.

She owns the big piece of property.

which is where the barn is, is that correct? She owns that, but you're not talking about, it's unclear to me what you're trying to demolish, if it's the barn or the house.

If you look at the picture and you see the building with the white roof, that's on Robert and Robin's property.

That's where you wish to build a new house, is that what's going on?

That is correct.

Is that the barn with the white roof?

The actual barn barn is the one on the far upper left, and then there's that house with the water tower, and then there's chicken, which I think is in the middle, and chicken coop one and two. So one I think is up at the very tippy top, and then two is the long, long, long one on the far right. So the white-roofed building is the chicken coop number three.

It's on their property. And you're saying that means access to the large portion behind the white roof.

You know, I was the parcel that you their parcel over and a half acres. The canyon that with houses, but they turned it down, so now you can't get to it.

Anyway, a fire truck and you're saying that the that the owner of the larger parcel before it got subdivided. This subdivision they owned it and subdivided it themselves, knowing that there would be no access to the rear portion of the property. to our department we asked them about you access it on the right and now there's me a goalie that's about 40 we've been presented with information that these these built this property but historic significant project now is going to isolate them from the public And those. Historic celebration that may come forth in the future.

I want to give the board members a chance to speak now to also yeah, so any other board members like to speak on this subject.

Have we heard from everybody I'm asking if there's any more because I want to hear from everybody else I have no more questions for them you have no more questions anybody else on the board want to speak on this subject so This this report is naming the the entire Or loss farm as being as being historic and Then i'm looking at a request to decide if to melt demolishing the barn is going to affect that historic potentially historic farm and what is the relationship between the barn and these other built. More than saying that that the chicken houses were what was related to the Castro valley poultry industry. The barn was used for cows and hey So how does that so i'm unclear how that makes the barn historic or not.

Do we have anybody else from the public that would like to speak on this subject okay. Okay.

If you could speak into the mic. It's not being picked up online.

What's your last name?

Robin Hill. OK, thank you. The shed that we own, we call it a shed. It was one of the coops. And then when we bought, we were sold a buildable lot. That flag lot was considered a buildable lot when we bought in 2010. We ended up attending a meeting because there was some questions about the property behind us, which is Josette's property. And at that meeting, the historic society was discussing whether this was going to be part of the historic society or not. And they were only discussing the buildings on Josette's property. They didn't include ours as far as we understood. Because there was a subdivision planned. It's on paper. We have a copy of it and stuff. And on it, they flagged those buildings to be saved from being part of the subdivision.

And then thank you so much. We do appreciate it. At this time, we are going to move on to the next agenda item.

We still have to make a motion to make a motion.

So we actually have to have an actionable item. It's not that your statements or your testimony is important. We actually have to make a vote on it in order for this to proceed forward. Otherwise, you guys are just wasting your time coming to the meeting. So that's why I'm moving the calendar along so we can actually get some progress done and make a motion to make a vote. to say yay or nay on demolition of said property, OK? Well, I think we've exhausted the question.

I have a question that hasn't been asked.

Well, OK, we also have a large agenda. So OK, go ahead and ask the question. Let's make it.

The question I would like to ask is, would the applicant consider allowing a public easement to the rear buildings at the rear of the property as part of the approval of demolishing the chicken coop number three?

Limit the answer to yes or no.

If you could speak into the mic. I'm sorry. It's just to make sure we catch this on the mic.

No. Anyone have a motion to make on this proposal?

Chair Farley?

Wait. We got to ask if there's anybody else from the public. Did we do that? Yeah.

Not yet.

OK. Does anybody else from the public like to speak on this?

There are no raised hands at the moment.

OK. I'm closing discussion then, and we're going to make a proposal and vote. So anybody propose? Yes.

One of the options we have is to require the submittal of additional information. This property is so confusing that there's no way that I can make a decision on it. And I would like a clearer understanding of what. So I move that we require submittal of additional information before we make a motion.

Seconded. Let's call the vote.

Commissioner Colbruno.

Aye.

Commissioner Mendoza.

Aye.

Commissioner Menard. Aye. Commissioner Thomas. Aye. Commissioner Welshmeyer. Aye. Commissioner Willis. Aye. And Chair Farley. Aye. Motion passes.

What we're eyeing. The motion was to require the submission of additional information so that this board can make a clear and concise decision. Right now, the property lines as well as the information submitted does not yield the comfortability of the board to make an actual decision, yes or no. So the recommendation was to require additional information so that we can make an informed decision. That would be coming from the planning. Exceeded see me of whatever it will. It says. Her strong board map lines, whatever additional information that they will actually request that will be forwarded to us for the next meeting toper first. You're talking about your your historical committee or. We are the county's historical survey Commission, so we oversee and have jurisdiction over all the mid county properties that's in an unincorporated areas that it probably was your private city and or local jurisdiction historical committee or survey, not the counties.

Let's close because we have a big agenda, so please let's move on.

Thank you.

We're now on consideration of proposed, we're on to consideration of proposed demolition of Building 200 at the Nuclear Center staff report.

Staff is pulling up the presentation, but we'll take a minute to do so.

me Claros with the planning department with PLN 2026 154. Historical assessment for proposed demolition of building 200 at the via Cito's nuclear center. The property owner is North Star via Cito's and the applicant is Haley and Aldrich. This is located at 6705 via Cito's Road in Sonoma, and the APN is 96 dash 350 dash 1 dash 16. This is the overview of the parcel as a whole and the structure in question is within that red square. And then this is a better look at within the red square is building 200 which is highlighted with the red square again. The property is zone m to be which is heavy industrial 500 acre minimum building site area. it's located within the east county area plan within the resource management general plan designation. The style is an industrial vernacular office building building 200 was constructed in 1957 and the property as a whole is 129 point 42 acres. And this is the front of the building building 200. The view of the building 200. The southwest view. Then going through the evaluation criteria again, it is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of local or regional history or the cultural heritage of California or the United States. It is associated with the lives of persons important to local, California, or national history. It embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, region, or method of construction or represents the work of a master or possesses high artistic values. It has yielded or has the potential to yield information important to the prehistory or history of the local area, California, or the nation. The nuclear center as a whole has been identified on the historical and cultural resources survey East alameda county in 2005 and on the unincorporated alameda county historic survey in 2008. The property was previously owned by ge renova Inc, which was the general electric company, the operators of the decommissioned nuclear Center. And there was a technical report that was conducted by search recommending that building 200 is not eligible for nomination on the national register of historic places. And this is the historical and cultural resource survey for East Alameda County done in 2005. The property as a whole was designated as a keeper, which means it was likely to be individually significant based on the integrity and visual qualities alone. And then the other coding is just research and development and the style is modern. Staff recommends that your commission make an initial assessment of whether more analysis is needed or if the information provided is adequate to determine that the structure is not a historic resource and no additional analysis is necessary. And staff also recommends that any approval of demolition be conditioned upon the following. All aspects of the demolition process shall comply with CEQA to the extent that all employees, guests, and residents are safeguarded from exposure to and from hazardous materials that may be released. The demolition process shall incorporate measures from the project CEQA documents to protect critical habitat, flora, and fauna, and additional conditions as may be required by future CEQA review. And the applicant and owners are not here today, but staff is available for questions.

kind of concerned about the environmental impact with the nuclear and hazmat teams or whatever to take this stuff out and make it safe and not expose any of the public to any hazardous materials. I'm concerned about that. Does anybody else have any comments on that?

City Council Chambers, I have some comments so North star. City Council Chambers, purchase the nuclear Center to decommission it and basically from my understanding, it is that every one of the pieces of. City Council Chambers, Every one of the buildings on this property. City Council Chambers, will be. A. Go off the taken off of the property. Basically, the company need to those that all the properties and do environmental cleanup to prepare the site for future industrial commercial use. So I don't see anything particularly showing that this office building is historic, but the site is definitely historic. It's one of the first places where the research of using nuclear power after World War II to convert it to nuclear energy and to electricity. And this is a huge... development in nuclear research um so the site is very historic um but this company northstar is basically um ready to demolish and and deconate and environmentally um of I can tell us pretty much every property on here. So my question is, how do we acknowledge and protect the site, some portion or something about the history of this nuclear site? While this decontamination and demolition of the whole site is ongoing?

Can we get a shit is building in a

What you're building any other one See how is the applicant is not here that most likely a question for them One of the things that happens in sites like this I I see this as a historic site the entire site is And when you start demolishing the buildings and then the site loses some of its historical integrity, because some of the buildings that are critical to the aspect of the site go away and then you've lost a lot of the historical integrity I I don't believe that. any of these buildings are not eligible for the National Register. I believe most of these buildings are eligible for the National Register. And I believe the site as a district is eligible for the National Register. And I think the historical analysis has been flawed in some way. And I would like to see a qualified historical architect look at it. So I would like to see it re-evaluated. Because I can't believe that all of these buildings are not eligible or any of these buildings are not eligible for historical presence in that is the first first privately funded nuclear generating plant in America. And, and all these buildings were contiguous to that that operation and they're critical to it, and I know. That G has been trying for probably over 20 years to demolish all of them and they keep running a roadblocks and I think they got they paid somebody to get this fancy historical resource done here without doing a full fledged historical resource and i've just like to see a better historical resource analysis.

So if you look on page 32, architectural history results, they're saying that every single property, including the nuclear reactor, the test reactor, the chemical building, the general electric test reactor, none of them are eligible on the historic register. So, and then this company owns this property, and they are the ones that are in charge with contaminating it and preparing it for industrial commercial use. i don't know what is our um skin in the game in this given what can we do at this point at this point when they've already been sold to a place that's decontaminating the whole place which is as al says uh you know a major historic um property um after the nuclear turn to try and find uses for nuclear energy after World War II and the use of the bombs. One more comment.

Just before this, we approved a historical analysis on a chicken coop for the historical significance of it, and I think the nuclear reactor that was out at Vallecito needs a higher priority, and it needs to be reevaluated.

Okay, do we have any questions from the public?

We have one speaker. Ellie, a.

Thank you. The couple of things about one is the nuclear technology, the General Electric did a boiling water reactor nuclear technology, and they developed many generations of that. And then they built a lot of nuclear reactors all over the world, not just in the United States, not just in California, but this technology was built all over the world. So the major historic outgrowth of that was that this technology was installed in Fukushima Prefecture in Japan with... and they got hit by a tsunami. So I think some people might remember that. Coming back to this site, Vallesitos nuclear reactor site, the county is very good at using a microscope to look at the sites and only talking about things that they want to hear, only talking about one square inch at a time or one building at a time. And not looking at the history of the whole site. This is hundreds of acres. And the county put out a press release a few, like a year or so ago, talking about the great new industrial use of this site, that there is going to be industrial production of a radioactive material. substance that is going to be useful for deep space batteries, deep space electrical production, deep space probes. So that's something interesting, you know, nuclear power being produced right here in Sinaloa, California. Featuring advertising from Alameda County Supervisor David Halbert. So just go look for that. Find that press release. And then also, the county is very good at saying that only a certain part of this area should be designated as industrial area. They like to point fingers at something at the Measure D, and they claim that Measure D doesn't really account for this site properly. Of course it does. So there is a portion of the site which is zoned industrial, and then they want the rest of the site to be rezoned whatever they want. So I guess it would be what, luxury houses? Yes. or something. So the county kind of use the little bit of it as industrial, and the rest should be really opened up for development, any kind of development that the county wants. And I actually measure D says it should be large parcel agriculture, I believe. So watch out for this. Thank you.

Any other speakers?

There are no additional speakers.

Can somebody call for a motion on this project?

I move that we request a submittal for additional information identifying with a historical architect approved by the county to analyze this property for historical significance.

To that motion that would like to add that I don't like being threatened by the notion a Scientist and where It was a contaminated site that seems to be a threat. No one would be allowed to live out there right so um i just don't want to be burdened by that and those issues need to be resolved prior to this issue coming to the board for historic reasons so the ad would be a full analysis of the hazardous materials on that site And anything that follows, follows that plan of cleanup, if there is any. Do we have any evidence that it is?

You're asking for an environmental study. Yeah.

Yeah.

OK. I am. I'll approve that.

I don't know that we have company is I would love to see that, but I don't know if we have the authority to do that. It's an environmental .

And most likely the decontamination will involve drilling test wells, test holes throughout the property and analyzing the soil to see if there's any radiation or any uranium or any radioactive material that's leached into the soil. And it would be, it would not be a major operation, I don't think. But I think the historical significance of this is greater than is percentage in our binder.

I think we've already called the question, and we had a motion, and we had an add-on addition to the motion. I think we should vote on the motion that was brought to the floor. I move to rescind my addition. You rescind it?

If it makes voting simpler, yeah.

I think the environmental impact has to be in there, so I would like it to stay.

You could make it conditional upon whether we have the authority to actually do it. That would make more sense.

Based on that, I would like to do a vote on that information.

We were just all second the motion. First of all, because I don't think there was a second.

Commissioner Colbruno. Commissioner Felix.

Aye.

Commissioner Mendoza.

Aye.

Commissioner Menard. Aye. Commissioner Thomas. Aye. Commissioner Walsh Meyer.

Need a clarification, please. Are we voting on just Al's motion for additional historic analysis?

In your add-on.

In the add-on.

On condition about whether we have authority to do the environmental report. That's correct. That's correct. OK, aye.

Commissioner Willis? Aye. And Chair Farley?

Aye.

Motion passes unanimously.

Michael Cabrino has to leave, but he has a family commitment. Thank you. All right. So we are on to the formation of the ad hoc subcommittee to consider the Nike missile site listed on the county register for a national park action item.

Or for clarification as staff has included this in the agenda in your previous meeting Commissioners requested. This item be included for an ad hoc subcommittee for consideration for the Nike missile site listed on the county register for national park, so this is an opportunity for the Commissioners to discuss this item and identify Commissioners should you choose to do so, informing this subcommittee.

I'd like to speak a little bit on this. I've done research with the National Park Service and they said Caster Valley and the surrounding areas would make ten million dollars based on economic revenue generated by people coming out and visiting different sites in the area and the Nike missile site. So based on that, I'm trying to get information together so I can make presentations to each one of the Board of Supervisors to give them information on how it would economically impact our area. And it would be nice to have a national park because Alameda County has none. We don't have any historical national areas where people can come. So it would be nice to have one in Alameda County. We do have one in Contra Costa. The O'Neill home site. Does anybody else have anything to say on the Nike missile site?

So first of all, I want to clarify what we're talking about. There is a difference between an application to the National Historic Register and being a national park. The national park has to be commissioned by Congress.

It's not necessarily a president can designate by the Antiquities Act, a historical site.

But also national parks generally are very large properties that have a lot of scenic property within the site. I mean, you're talking about Yosemite, Yellowstone. This is not Yosemite and Yellowstone. This is not.

I think it has historical significance and it has World War II, Cold War, and Marin already has a national site. So it would be nice to have something in Alameda County for somebody.

Don't we have a speaker? He needs his input. There's nobody to ask questions to. All we can ask you is questions.

Now we need a discussion, we need to know somebody to speak to, but I also just want to clarify, are we talking about. Putting the Nike site on the national on the on the register, which means that alameda continues to own it, are we talking about putting it on making trying to make it a national park, which means that the Congress owns this property, not us so. I want to know, I want a clarification of what you're talking about.

Ford designated the one in Contra Costa County, President Ford. So it was not Congress that made that designation. It was one president.

So the question is, do we go for a National Register site or do we go for a National Park site? Those are two different applications. Which one do you are you proposing?

I'm proposing we go for the National Park as It will generate $10 million for our county in revenue based on

hotel stays and in restaurants and does any uh we also had a speaker from the audience greg brown this commissioner thomas i just want to remind my fellow commissioners that we're actually discussing the formation of an ad hoc subcommittee to consider the nike missile site listed on the county register for national park so the commissioners would actually be able to City Council Chambers, Have a or the ad hoc or whoever Commissioners participate on set at ad hoc subcommittee would actually be able to discuss that and make the recommendation to. City Council Chambers, The board whether or not we would vote on it, so you guys actually have the right to discuss and decide whether or not the ad hoc subcommittee even thinks that the Nike missile site would be. City Council Chambers, eligible or would be a good recommendation, so all of you are correct.

Do we have anybody else on the board? And we have Greg also from the public, Greg Brown.

Good afternoon, Alameda County Historical Commission. It's an honor to be here. And as I said, my name is Greg Brown. I'm a Nike Missile Veteran and I live in San Lorenzo. I just want to say a few things. Since we talked last, I've been in contact with the California National Guard historian in Rancho Cordoba at their headquarters for the National Guard. And they're very interested in what the commission is doing here in Castro Valley. The contact person, I gave this to Linda, is Command Sergeant Major Daniel Sebi. And that's all he does. He told me a story real briefly. All the Nike records were destroyed in an arson fire in Christmas of 1974 in Sacramento. So they don't have any records. So even the records, the architectural report that you guys did, I forward to him. Because really, it's more records than what he has. And in return, he also gave me information on a naval machine gun range here in Castro Valley. You're probably aware of it, but he had a bunch of information, blueprints and pictures on that. But bottom line is there's a lot of history here in Alameda County, military history. And SF 31C, the buildings that are on Fairmont Ridge, can tell that story very well. The National Guard, this is a National Guard site, so it's slightly different from SF-88 because it's National Guard where SF-88 was a regular Army site. So I have one thing I wanted to submit, and I gave this to Secretary Gonzales, was an 18-slide PowerPoint presentation that's very good. And Sheriff Farley, you might want to look at it. The narration's there too, but I gave it to her on a USB. And I think that would be very good presentation to the county or any directors that want to see what it is that the commission here is trying to do. As far as being an historic site, that's a whole other discussion. But having the ad hoc committee I think is a great idea to do that. That's a great forum. I also have, I want to report a hazard on the site that I saw when I was up there. And it's tree limbs. There's a lot of eucalyptus trees there. It's really overgrown. And tree limbs over the fence. But I'd hate to see one of these tree limbs go down on all the, on one of the buildings that had just been renovated. So I have some pictures here. There's another situation also with two freestanding towers are on one end of the site and the trees are actually growing up into those towers. And if we have a windstorm, those towers will bring that those lightweight towers over. So I'd like to submit this, if I may. And also I have some information is my contact information. And I notice The information you got, Chair Farley, was off of my website at Thielen.org, which is a great site. But I also have information on the five other Nike museums in the U.S. and one in Coe, Italy, which is excellent. And also a presentation I did that's on at Web Thielen on SF31C. So there's pictures and the whole story there too. The web addresses are there. So I'm going to submit these two things to you and end by saying great job, Commission, and continue because SF 31C at Fairmont Ridge has a story to tell. And the good thing about it is future generations can come up and see it. witness it and not read it in a book. The Cold War history here in Alameda County. Thank you, Greg.

Thank you very much. First of all, thank you for coming. Would you be interested or available to show your PowerPoint to the commission perhaps at the next meeting?

Absolutely. That's why I'm here. Yeah, that's why I'm here. It'll be about, it's an 18 minute, I'm trying to do it in 15 to 18 minute time frame.

So if we can put it on the agenda, if the commission agrees. Thank you very much. Thank you all.

Is there any other information from the public on this subject? Because we got to consider an ad hoc subcommittee. So is there anybody else from the public that would like to speak on this?

We have one speaker online, Kelly A.

Okay. Yeah, there, it turns out they had a number of these Nike missile batteries around the Bay Area. on high ridges, all of them, of course. One is called SF51 on Sweeney Ridge near Brisbane, which overlooks the San Francisco International Airport. Another part of that site was on Milagra Ridge near Pacifica. And then the National Park Service oversees the best preserved Nike missile site, which is SF-88 in the Marin Headlands. That is part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. And they offer tours, I guess. Um, so there, there, there, uh, there is some historical stuff going on with the national park service. Um, and so as far as, you know, making a giant national park out of, uh, or whatever, um, I don't think that's, that's necessary. What, that's not what, what, what they do with these sites, but they, um, the national recreation area is a bit giant park, but this is a small part of that. Um, and then for, you know, the, the, uh, The tourism or the public interest in visiting historic sites, one of the most popular historic tourist attractions in Alameda County is the summit pole at Mission Peak in Fremont. People walk up a mountain for two hours or three hours to go take pictures with this summit pole. So even little things that are historic will bring thousands of visitors every week and show up and be documented with many photos on Facebook or on Instagram

um or on tick tock every all the time on social media thank you i have a question to that speaker um uh i've forgotten your name i'm sorry can kelly um can you say that again are you saying that this um base in marin it has been annexed into the golden gate national park

It's not a national park. It's a national recreation area. I don't know how that, but that's what they call it. And it is part of, it's overseen by the National Park Service. And they do offer tours at Nike Missile Site SF88 in the Marin Headlands.

And just to clarify, it is no way connected physically with the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

It's physically part of it. It's inside the Golden Gate National the Golden Gate Golden Gate National Recreation Area. That's why the National Park Service got it.

Would this be appropriate for Greg to answer the question of where as it could he make a comment, public comment about It's part of the Presidio.

He can do it on the presentation when he does the 18-minute thing because we should move on because we still have to pick people for the ad hoc committee. So I would like to volunteer myself for the ad hoc committee for this because I'm really passionate about this.

and then it's true we could have three up to three members is that correct it's correct i would like to volunteer for this i'm sure linda would actually my intention is to have a ad hoc committee that is not non-ad hoc committee subcommittee of this commission but that includes Supervisor Miley, who's interested in how to repurpose this to include some local veterans, like Greg Brown, who know all about this. There are many, many options for this piece of property that doesn't even need to include being a national park or being on the National Register. There are a lot of different opportunities. i'd like a broader range of people who are interested in this and and um including gsa who you know who's taking care of this property including uh nate miley in whose district this property is and he's very interested in repurposing it um i'm not sure how to go about that but i that's how i that was my vision of it rather than linda you're not for a national nothing on national at all City Council Chambers, I didn't say that i'm saying I think we have to have more experts in the in the in the room in a committee, rather than just rather than the people on this Commission, because I think we're not on. think we're not going to get the kind of information we need. I mean, it's a huge thing to make this a national park or to put it on the National Register. Supervisor Miley was interested in possibly having a consultant look at the look at the property and do a historic evaluation of it and see what other options there are. But i don't think we can leave him out of the discussion or gsa out of the discussion or the nike veterans out of the discussion or other people in the public who are interested in this um in addition to representatives for for from this commission i don't know that being on a subcommittee amongst ourselves is going to

um come up with the details and detailed information we need to make some good decisions about what the possibilities are for repurposing this site i have a question for staff if we have three or four commissioners on it is there any restriction about getting other members of the general public to be also on the subcommittee

City Council Chambers L' is a great question staff would like to confirm with county council, the ability to do that as part of the process so. City Council Chambers L' As a recommendation, you can consider should you choose to do so as a Commission to. Defer your decision on the formation of ad hoc subcommittee to the next meeting and also make any necessary adjustments as far as what you'd like to call this subcommittee, but in short and have to reach out to county council for confirmation.

let's do that, then, and we'll postpone it till the next meeting and we'll have county council look into whether we can have outside people.

And my reason for this is that this is not a simple thing there are a lot of military secrets, a lot of military information that none of us have any clue about what what it is, and I think it's. it's worthy of a lot of good minds, in addition to ours being on a subcommittee sounds good, thank you um.

Okay, so now we're on to old business, the Tesla. Commissioner Willis is on the Tesla.

I don't have any new information on that except that it looks like we have a speaker who might talk to us today. Yes, we do have a speaker on this.

Is there anybody else on the board that wants to talk about the Tesla site? Okay, go ahead for the public.

Good afternoon, Commission. And about two years ago in September of 2024, the commission sent a letter to the state parks department affirming its support for Tesla to be established as a reserve. We recently sent a letter to the chair and the commission through staff. I don't know if it made its way to you yet. I do have copies that I can provide to the Commission. In that letter, we suggested and requested two things. One is that the Commission write a letter to the State Parks and Recreation Commission, an updated letter affirming its support for Tesla to be established as a reserve. And the one thing that is somewhat different from what the commission considered at its last meeting, which was to continue to be apprised of the progress of the project and consider writing letters at the appropriate time. At this point, we're requesting that a letter go to the commission before the general plan and EIR, those draft documents are released so that The department has the commission's letter in hand in the preparation of those documents. It happens that the next meeting of the State Parks and Rec Commission is in October, towards the end of October. The second thing that is attached to our letter and that will be provided to the commission is a 2012 letter from the State Office of Historic Preservation, a division within the State Parks Department, that identified that the Tesla Historic District met the requirements for listing on the National Registry of Historic Places at the state level. State Parks has never acted upon that. the concept plans that they released last fall did not include the development or establishment of that historic district and to the pursuit of listing on the national registry so the other element that we would request the commission consider in its letter is to include that request to the commission that they actually act upon this 2012 assessment by their own division that this area meets the requirements. The last item is we're aware that the county has its own designation of historic places. And we are not certain if the county pursuing that designation City Council Chambers, is possible, given that the ownership of the land is the state of California, but we would request that there be an evaluation or exploration of that possibility, because this is an area that is important to Alameda county. I'm glad to provide or address any questions. I do have copies of the letter that we sent and also a one-page document, which is just an information sheet on Tesla. As you know, at the last meeting, we did a presentation to provide an update of the project. And I'm all done, sir. An update of the project and information for current members. And I have both of those documents here. Thank you very much.

City Council Chambers, All right, so I think we should review the letter and look at it and read it and then. City Council Chambers, has to be done by before October, the end of October so.

City Council Chambers, doesn't have to be done it's just. City Council Chambers, It would be ideal if we would put.

City Council Chambers, We mean we made October 1 so we got time to present it to us and then we'll look at it and then we'll send it out if it's approved by the board. City Council Chambers, All right, thank you very much, thank you, thank you. And we said there was no more speakers.

It's correct. There are no speakers online.

Okay, we're moving on to discussion of potential amendments to the historic preservation ordinance to further protect historical significant buildings. I have not had a chance to research this because I've been going hot and heavy with the National Park idea. So I have not done any more research on this because I'm trying to get a presentation together for the Board of Supervisors. So I'm going to postpone this one until the next meeting. Does anybody from the public have any discussion on potential amendments to historic preservation to strengthen the ordinance?

out there, there are no speakers.

have one question in one of the documents that we got and I remember where it was that it reviewed the historical. ordinance by the county and it left in limbo whether it was. uh people the residents could put on it only or whether everybody could put it on and i would like to see uh the latest update of the historical preservation ordinance of by our next meeting because there were some questions on it that i remember being an issue could you provide further clarification on on the historic preservation ordinance yes send it to you flying

If you can send it to staff, that'd be great. Thank you.

The reason why I put this on the agenda was because people make so many alterations by the time it comes to our commission, we're told that it's not historical significant anymore. So my concern is we're losing a lot of historical buildings because all these alterations are made and, and we need to have a fix for it. So we don't end up losing so many historical buildings because there's been so many alterations done over the years. So, um, That's why I put on the agenda. And if we have architects out there or anybody who knows any information that will help us make a decision and present something to the Board of Supervisors, it'd be great. Thank you. Since we don't have any speakers on this subject, we're gonna move on to the Castor Valley Historical Survey.

So well, I say something. So I'm a member of the suit committee. And so apparently this was spearheaded by Dominic Lucchesi from the So my understanding is that it's a Castro Valley historic resources survey. They're looking for volunteers. It's going to be for a comprehensive historical survey of properties of 45 years of older in Castro Valley. And then there's going to be an intensive survey of 25 of those properties. And they're looking for volunteers from the commission here and also from the community. A total estimated time is going to be about 30 hours and there's going to be some of the dates are October 24 it's going to be a workshop. And then late October early November there's going to be three days of field work and early 2027 is going to be a dpr research. Pro pro cool. procuration one to two weeks. So those are the notes that I have for that.

City Council Chambers, So I also received the letter from Dominic and i'm on the subcommittee as well, and so I did recommend. City Council Chambers, rick Kelly to be contacted to see if he's interested he's the one that wrote the historic book a couple of years ago about Castro valley and he cited as a major resource for the surveyors going forward so. That. So hopefully, Dominic will be able to enlist his volunteering for this survey as well.

The other commissioners have anything on this.

I just was wondering, is this another one that's going to mean outside?

I said that was what Dominic was asking that by last Friday, we presented him some names of people who might be potential volunteers. I don't know if he got any information from a good question.

Yes, I've gotten I've received emails from Mr. Casey and and I have not seen any information that he has chosen any outside people for it other than the three of us that are on a commission.

He's asking us to reach out to potential volunteers, right?

A point of clarification, please. Didn't we hire?

We've got a subcontractor that's going to be doing the historical survey. We need to, as a commission and as a general public, this information on Castle Valley, we need to give them the information as to what the parameters are for their historical research. Do we research all the barns and all the trees and all the houses and all the buildings, commercial and industrial? And what are we including in it and how complete are we going to do it? and a whole bunch of other questions i'm sure like casey is going to come up with some ideas that i haven't even thought of yet but i was involved with the one in fremont and i know this is like a producing a business plan to hand to the consultant to execute yes anybody from the public like to speak on this subject there are no raised hands

Okay, then we're moving on to updates and discussion of the historical plaque pilot program. Um, I've been reached out by staff and asked that we have a procedure for the plaque program. Thomas vice chair Thomas did present a, uh, on another city that had a plaque program already in place. And I don't know if we want to go just with their recommendation, or we're going to tweak it a little bit.

Happy to expand upon that. This is Commissioner Thomas. I am very, very, very pleased to inform my fellow commissioners that the county is already advertising our plaque program and one from the county planning department They asked whether or not we will be following like the chair said city of alameda's historical preservation society, because they allow for recommendations from the city residents online. The city residents can actually pick the buildings and then submit nominations for the plaque recipients online. It's virtual, it's easily tracked. However, I remember our former commissioners were asking whether or not we were going to go the digital plaque route as long with the QR codes and then different materials. So I told them TBD on whether or not we were going to actually decide on the materials for said plaque program. But we do not have to follow the city of Alameda's historical preservation plaque program society. It is up to this board and commission to decide City Council Chambers, internally, how we want people to submit suggestions or if some of our fellow Commissioners already have their own ideas of sites that would be eligible will be potentially good recipients of the plaque program as staff, I know we have $10,000 already awarded is that award. For the fiscal year as in it's going to expire soon, or do we actually have time to use the allocated funds.

Thank you for that question so staff did procure a consultant to fabricate the plaque so we have that in our contract. terminates I believe early 2028 we have some time to make some decisions in order to determine which plaques are of a priority, based on the procurement process we did receive one. Application and that was. Southern California bronze. And so as part of that, based on the details that was provided, recommendations such as 14 by 18 plaques with the materials suggested, it would be limited for up to four of those particular plaques. So hopefully that provides some clarification.

Awesome. What's the exact, what does the plaque exactly look like? Because I suggested that they put a picture behind Because a lot of the historical places have on their plaques, they have like a picture with wording on it. So I was wondering what kind of plaques that they were looking at.

For clarification, what was incorporated in the request that the county had sent out included the Meekland plaque, so it would be something similar to that. It would include a potential image if that's what the Commission so chooses with some description text. If the Commission is interested in writing, you know, having a little bit of language related to the plaque program, the PRHC plaque program, that's also open as far as discussion as far as what the Commission is interested in seeing specifically on the plaque, the reason why I say images because I just saw a historical.

historical monument thing from California and they put it between two buildings and I had no idea which building that they're talking about because it's in the middle of both. And it says it's the first courthouse in Alameda County. I don't know if it's the one building to the left or the one building to the right. Placement was really bad. And because there's no picture with it, I have no idea which one's the courthouse. I just look at it and I'm like, which one's the courthouse? It I was driving by I think it's in Fremont somewhere or Union City, but I drove by and said it was the first courthouse and it's in the middle, so I have no idea, so we need to. When we educate the public on on things we have to make sure we have good placement and that. City Council Chambers, When they read it, they know what they're reading you know, because I had no idea which one is the actual first courthouse.

City Council Chambers, will be up to this board to decide where exactly the plaques get placed right, so the entire plaque application and installation will be just customizable it will be over saw by this board, and it will be our final decision as of where it's physically installed correct stuff.

Correct there is time for the Commission to determine what what that looks like.

A couple of questions i've talking to some people about qr codes and qr codes are dependent upon a website, and so my question is basically if we had a qr code that reference it to the county's website would that be okay.

theoretically, yes, if it were included as part of the image, for example, the quotes that we did receive. One providing the example did include a photograph so I would I would suspect that having some sort of qr code embedded in the images is feasible possible, but it depends, of course.

Okay, and the other question I have is. One of the things that's critical in plaques, in my own opinion, and I've had to rewrite some plaques and a couple of times in Fremont, and so the text on is critical on a plaque so we've got to make sure that the text file is absolutely accurate before we put it out. and for mr farley commissioner farley's uh comments about courthouses go down to the 12th street courthouse uh there's a series of plaques put up by the alameda county historical society that has the individual plaques in the courthouses and there's one in alvarado and it was the top of a a business it was the first courthouse in in alameda county in fremont Yeah, well, no, you're in your city city.

Oh, okay. So that's where I saw the state sign, but it's in the middle and I had no idea which one it is. Right. Um. So, is there anybody from the public that would like to speak on this?

There are no raised hands.

I do want to say, staff, thank you so much for your diligent work. This pilot program was a recommendation from this board, but the actual legwork as far as getting it launched, getting it started, allocating the funds, et cetera, was all the planning departments. um work and effort so i want to go on record for by saying thank you to you guys and it is nice to google something and see our last conversation discussing the plaque program available for the public so that they can see that we are moving and shaking on this board

The staff did reach out to me that they want us to finalize a procedure. So we need to have a meeting between us. So I'll email you so we can get together so we can finalize it and then have the board approve it. Because that's what staff asked me. They recommended it. All right. Since we don't have any other information from the public or anything, we'll move on. And we have updates, discussion on potential Mills Act projects. Commissioner Willis.

First of all, is there any staff update on the letters that went out and if there were any responses by the public who received those letters to apply for the Mills Act?

City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. staff has not received any additional requests regarding the mills act, however, we did send out letters last year in July to owners of the properties that were either on the county register or had been identified in previous surveys just to. City Council Chambers. To provide a little bit of background of. What what occurred in the past, and so this included the mills act process for adding the property into the county register and a total of 145 letters were sent based on. The information that we had and flyers were also posted at the San Lorenzo and Castro valley public libraries.

So in response to the 145 letters, how many requests did we get for Mills Act application?

So far we have received none.

Okay.

I had some just general conversations with the people who own the Chabot Theater and one of the local barn owners, and they were interested in being on the register and learning more about the Mills Act, but when they learned that there was a significant cost of around $5,000 for them to hire a consultant, to show that their property was historic, they pretty much backed off at that point. So I think that is a major... City Council Chambers, blockage to people wanting to get on the mills act. City Council Chambers, wanting to apply for the mills act, which is also pretty complicated process as well, and so. City Council Chambers, I don't know what what we could suggest, but. City Council Chambers, I do think that that is somewhat of a barrier to people wanting to explore. City Council Chambers, being on the register and applying for the mills act.

I have concerns because we have a gentleman that presented demolishing a building today and he was not even given the option or even talked about the Mills Act. And I think that we should let the people know that there's other options out there. They don't have to demolish. Hey, we got a Mills Act. This is another option of saving this building. And if they're not even told about the option, that doesn't give them another avenue. So I'm suggesting that the county, when people are presented with demolishing buildings, that they're given other options. So maybe that it won't come before this board because they'll say, oh, wow, I didn't know that was an option. So basically they save an historic building because they go, I get tax benefits. I didn't know about that. So let's go this avenue now. I think we should give them as many options as possible and not limit their options because it could mean saving time for this board. So that's my suggestion.

I think that's a good point, but I think the fact that we did notify 145 people about the Mills Act and we didn't get any responses means there's something a little bit more in depth that we need to discuss about that process.

Right, but this was an old building and these people weren't even notified and told that there was an option. So that's all I'm saying.

to um follow-ups commissioner thomas i think um both chair farley and commissioner willis have a very very valid point it might behoove the county because out of 145 letters being sent out to have zero response would point logically to me that there's a potential messaging problem either there's something in the marketing or in the messaging of the mills act that people aren't just dissecting or understanding properly because it is it's financially beneficial for them like there's tax benefits there's historical benefits there's societal benefits etc so maybe We take a look at the the letter or that was sent out. stuff and just take a look at it and see if maybe we can come up with. I used. It or more feedback or more interest expressed by the local.

I think that's that's a good idea. But I think, looking at the mills act it's a complicated thing, and it requires the person to partner with the county for 10 years. There's a lot that goes into it. I don't think anything the county could do to change the the marketing of that program and i think again i think some of the barrier is the cost to someone to get their house on the register um and to um you know it's like five seven thousand five to seven thousand dollars from what i understand so so i don't know how we can change that but um my opinion might be one of the

Is to that point, is there any opportunity the staff knows about that could potentially limit the financial barriers are like if there's any type of county funds, someone potentially eligible for if they express interest in registering the Mills Act but like the Commissioner will accept.

Fortunately, at this time, no.

Sounds like we need to look at the fee structure because it sounds like it's way too high if we're trying to save old buildings. We need to look at suggesting they lower the threshold. Clarification.

Discussing the cost of the historic Anybody from the public who would like to speak on this Mills Act project Are no speakers

Right, I guess we're going to move on, then we're going to go to discussion of the preservation of the center street bridge. staff. That has no updates on this item um you know when it's going to go back to them again because we haven't heard anything about saving the rails or anything I mean it it doesn't sound like there's no motion.

And staff has no updates on this item.

Can you look in to see where we're at? Because I haven't heard anything. The last couple meetings, we haven't had any updates at all on this Center Street Bridge.

I believe at the last meeting, our staff, Dominic Lucchese, had mentioned that there was a consultant that Public Works Agency is looking into with regard to just a general review. And so that process is still in place and we have no updates on that to date.

They didn't give a date or anything. City Council Chambers, No, not at this time, but we can reach out to public works again for additional updates at the next meeting Okay, thank you, is there anybody else that would like to talk on preservation of the Center street bridge do I have something for you chair farley.

City Council Chambers, I recently was riding my bike across the expanded mission expanded bridge on mission boulevard at the alameda creek and I realized. that one side of that rail that's very much like what you're the one in castor valley remains but it was altered to comply with current life safety issues you cannot see it when you drive across the bridge because they've poured concrete barriers protecting the pedestrian path but the face of the railing that faces the creek best It's been rehabilitated. I'll take a picture of it next time and share it with you. That'd be great.

There you go.

All right. So is there anything from the public on this?

There are no speakers.

All right. So we're on to stipends for PRHC members. Commissioner Willis.

Okay, well, I don't have any information. Do you have anything, Angelica, the staff?

Staff has none. Just wanted to clarify that in the previous meeting, there was a survey that was distributed to the chairs of commissions to complete a survey.

I did send it out. I completed it, except for when I submitted it, I missed the last question. i needed to update them with i was going to thank staff for all the work they do and if it wasn't for staff we wouldn't have all the things we have on this commission so that was what i was putting in the last thing but it got submitted before that that piece got put in there so um so angelica do you know where it is in the process and with whom it is in the process at this point

At this time, staff has no additional updates other than the survey being completed. I suspect that the county administrator's office is looking at the responses to the survey since it was distributed to all the commissions and committees. That's correct, yes.

They have a lot of questions about our commission, what we do, how many members, a lot of different varying questions. They were just fact-finding, basically. Was there anybody else have any input on the stipends? Anybody from the public?

There are no raised hands.

Okay, we're on to the discussion of the Chouinard Barn, Commissioner Willis.

City Council Chambers, don't have any update the last I heard the East Bay regional park district historian was working on an environmental report about the chenard barn and would get back to me or the Commission when they had more information i'll check on it i'll touch base with her. City Council Chambers, Before the next meeting that nothing to report today anybody from the public.

City Council Chambers, Okay we're on to the discussion of the pop pop or cemetery you're on again Commissioner willis.

City Council Chambers, So this one is, you know, there is a popper cemetery that we own that's near the Catholic cemetery. City Council Chambers, It is close to the public there's some concern about it's being taken care of. City Council Chambers, But I don't have any new information, so I don't know what I should keep it on the agenda or wait until. Nothing else. I mean, we have so many things on the agenda as it is. So maybe we should just put it back on at another time.

Staff get that? I guess she wants to pull it for now.

Commissioner Thomas, in order for us to remove one of the old business agenda items, will we have to make a motion?

No, there's no motion necessary.

Did anybody from the public have anything on the.

No speakers.

OK, so we are on to a discussion of the San Lorenzo Pioneer Cemetery water damage. I'm still researching to find out what studies were done previously. that the county did so we can try to get a claim so we can get recoup some of the money from the water damage. So I'm still looking into this. I did notice when I went by that the all the trees that they cleared, they made a pile and it's still there from a month ago. So I was wondering if GSA plans on taking all that out of there, what they're doing. The pile's still there and it's higher than me. It's very, very tall. They just have a pile of trees and then they never removed them. They forgot them or something. I don't know. So you may want to look. Maybe they just forgot to pick them up. It's been a whole month. So maybe they can look into it.

Staff can reach out to GSA about that.

OK. Thank you. Is there anybody from the public that would like to speak on that?

There are no speakers. Can I make a quick comment?

City Council Chambers, So I thank you for all the information about all the lawsuits that were filed. City Council Chambers, pertaining to water damage at other sites it's probably pretty similar to what we have my question to the staff is would county council. City Council Chambers, file a lawsuit on behalf of. Any. City Council Chambers, Act images to collecting damages for this for the pioneer cemetery.

It's a really great question. I would have to reach out to County Council for additional information on that.

You might want to give them the packet because Caltrans has been on the losing end a lot of times in these suits. If you look at their track record and the damages that they've created over the years and the money we can claim without doing a lawsuit is minimal at $12,000. They they max it out to where you can only collect like 12 to 14,000 that was it so that's why Council might want to look into it. How how would we collect it if the Council doesn't file a lawsuit how how would we collect even the $12,000 we, we have to file a claim and I don't even know if the it's past you know it's probably statute of limitations, we probably ran out.

So that's probably another question for County Council as well.

Staff has added that to the list. Thank you. Staff has added that to the list to to reach out to County Council and ask that question.

Right. And we've so nobody from the public had anything on that. There are no raised hands there's no so now we're on the updates of repair maintenance of lake Chabot Nike missile site, the what. White cotton cottage in the San Lorenzo pioneer cemetery and the old caster valley library, the staff have any updates on the maintenance.

I've has no updates at this time, you know, in the previous meeting, there was the certificate of appropriateness for white cotton cottage, so you should have received the most recent updates on that particular one, but the others I don't have any updates at this time. Okay.

Yes. One of our speakers from the Nike missile site indicated that there were trees overhanging the buildings. And eucalyptus trees in dry climates as we are in now tend to fall off of buildings, off of trees. And I think it's mandatory that GSA get out there and prune those trees so that they're not overhanging the Nike missile site and we lose them from demolition by, And act of God, yes. So can we get GSA to go out and prune those trees?

Well, he also said that the trees were growing into the tower and we need to make sure that they're removed so it doesn't damage the tower. So I think that should be a ASAP as soon as possible type thing. Because if it create, if it has to come back to our board that something happened and we've let staff know about this, it would not make me very happy.

Yes, staff can forward the concern to general service agency staff.

Thank you very much. Anybody else have anything to discuss on this? Okay, anybody from the public? Okay, so we're moving on to the CAL FIRE funded urban forest planning project informational item staff update.

Do you have a couple updates on this some exciting updates, but give me one second while I pull up a flyer so you all can see and learn more about a Community workshop that's going on on September 29. having some technical difficulties but um i will just say we do have hard copies of the flyers in case you're interested but i just wanted to let you all know that there's a community workshop where community members can learn more about the urban forest plan and that's located at the san lorenzo library between 5 30 and 7 pm so again that's on september 29th there's also a survey that's available so that City Council Chambers, We can receive input regarding the urban forest plan regarding Community members interest about the work that we are doing. City Council Chambers, So just wanted to give you that information and I can hand out copies of this, so you all have that and we can include in the the meeting minutes as well, so it's part of the record and, as mentioned, we do have copies at the the back table if you're interested in learning more.

City Council Chambers, Anybody else from the board or the public like to speak on this subject.

or no speakers okay commissioner announcements yes uh this month is again one of those uh annual events where i have a birthday and it's close enough to the christmas season that normally we have uh treats and sparkling cider in here after the event my birthday is the end of this month so at the october meeting i would like to suggests that we celebrate my birthday, I'll be a youngster of only 87. 87.

Awesome, awesome, awesome.

Commissioner, you don't look a day over 30.

Any other commissioners have announcements? Nobody else has announcements.

One more question. Yeah. new commissioners are they getting ethics training ethics training is a requirement um i forget i don't have the exact details as far as when it has to be completed but there is a time frame from when they're appointed and when that has to be done every two years or something like that and i i would be anxious to know if the newer commissioners are getting ethics training because It can ruin all of the plans we do here on this commission when we do something wrong and it gets appealed and we lose our motion.

I just wanted to say something real quick. So I've actually been serving in the San Leandro Planning Commission for, this is my second term. So I've been doing the training for every two years.

Do other commissioners have announcements? not I have to go on to the agenda items for future she suggested that the elections will be in January again so we're gonna have to pick a chair and a vice chair and all those good things every year so we have to set up some kind of subcommittee to plan this so I guess Yes, we can wait a little bit because it's not till January, but we need to think about this in the future. So maybe If it's January, maybe November.

For clarification, the PRHC bylaws specifically state that the subcommittee is formed in October. So it's very specific. That's correct. It's very specific as far as what needs to occur between October and January. So I can I can assist with making sure that we follow the bylaws. But there will need to be some sort of line item at the next meeting to form a committee to make a few selections.

All right. I didn't know it was October. I thought it would be closer to January, like November or something.

Just to clarify, it's October where you select members, volunteers to identify a potential list of chairs for the next year. And then the following meeting, November, that's when they would highlight who would be recommended. And then in December, you'd make a decision. And then January, that's when the new chair would start their duties. It's very specific in the bylaws.

We've served a quick year here, me and Thomas, though. All right. All right. So then now that we know that, if there's no other important information, I guess we're going to adjourn the meeting.