City Council - Regular Meeting

And I always have them during meetings so that if I start coughing, I can't do it.

Good evening everyone and welcome. I'll be calling tonight's special city council meeting of July 2nd, 2026 to order. Let's stand as we proudly say our present of allegiance. Madam clerk, can you do roll call please?

Yes councilmember Brando Cruz here Councilmember Melissa Lamontina here councilmember David Oro here vice mayor Mark Joseph here mayor Pierre Washington here Report on closed session confirmation of reportable actions Mr. Summers

Thank you, Mayor. The Mayor and Council met in closed session and considered two items, one of existing litigation, second regarding anticipated litigation as stated in the agenda. The Council provided direction to staff and Council and took no reportable action on either item. Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Any questions for Council? None? Thank you, Mr. Summers. Moving on to proclamations and presentations. We actually have one proclamation, but no one to actually receive it. It's for the 4th of July. I'll read it. We'll also be presenting this on Saturday. But I don't have anybody here tonight to receive it, but I will still read it. It's celebrating the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. Whereas on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence established the United States of America and proclaimed the enduring ideal of liberty, equality, and pursuit of happiness forever, changing the course of history. And whereas for 250 years, our nation has been shaped by courage, perseverance, innovation, and service of generations of Americans who have worked to strengthen our democracy, expand opportunity, and build a brighter future for those who follow. And whereas on July 4, 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the United States of America, commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence and celebrating the enduring ideals of liberty, equality, and the pursuit of happiness. And whereas the city of American Canyon is proud to celebrate the diversity, resilience, and civic spirit of our community and encourage residents to commemorate this historic milestone by coming together in a spirit of gratitude, service, and unity while looking towards the future with hope and optimism. And whereas the City of American Canyon encourages residents to commemorate this historic milestone by reflecting on our nation's history, participating in civic life, celebrating our shared values and looking towards a future guided by mutual respect, civic responsibility, and hope. And now, therefore, I, Pierre Washington, Mayor of American Canyon, on behalf of the City Council, do proclaim July 4, 2026 as the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States of America. and encourage all residents to join in honoring our nation's past, celebrating our present, and inspiring future generations to uphold the enduring ideals of the liberty, opportunities, and democracy. Dated July 2nd, 2026. So that's the proclamation that will be read on Saturday as well.

Perhaps we'll take a picture then. with the whole group. Oh, just us? Yeah, no, no, at the ceremony.

Oh, I thought you wanted us just.

No, no, no, not tonight, on Saturday.

Okay, sounds good, okay. With that said, and I know that we're not gonna take that picture right now, public comment. At this time, I'd like to open up the floor for public comment on items that are not listed on tonight's agenda. Each speaker will have up to three minutes to address the council and when you come forward I would just ask that you state your name For the record madam clerk.

Is there anyone in the room wishing to make public comment on anything not on the agenda? All right, and we don't have anyone online so no public.

Okay, but then I'll close that comment that Public comment and return to council see if there's any changes which they shouldn't be I've seen none

Uh, if there are no changes, I move that we approve the consent calendar.

There's actually nothing on the consent calendar and nevermind straight into business. There's no public hearing tonight. Uh, so we'll just move straight into our business item. Uh, we have one business item that item tonight's on tonight's agenda, uh, is item number four, uh, the election code 92, 12 report for measure M. And I will turn that over to Mr. Holly to kind of lead us into that.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. I'm gonna provide a kind of brief introduction and then we have a team of consultants appearing virtually to provide an initial part of the presentation. And so we have Rod Stinson from Rainey Consultants and Todd Chozinga from GHD Consultants will be appearing online here in a moment. This item tonight is procedural in nature and there is no recommended action. The intention and the recommendation from staff is to simply receive and file and then to set a time for your future consideration of a citizen's initiative that has come forward. The name of that citizen's initiative is entitled Watson Lane Marcus Road Mobility Element Amendment Initiative. Starting in April of this year, there was a notice of intent to circulate the petition for this initiative. It was posted. Signature gathering commenced and was completed thereafter. It came to your council about a month ago with the requisite number of signatures, and at that point, you all certified that the requisite number of signatures had been presented. That was aided in part with efforts from John Tudor and the Napa County Registrar's Office. The required number is 10% of the electorate in the last election, which for our cases was about 14,000 registered voters, or 10% is about 1,400 signatures. So the signatures have to be American Canyon voters, registered voters. And the proponent of the initiative has to be a registered voter in American Canyon. And so all of those procedural aspects have been met and you were presented with the decision on June 2nd that said, you now have three choices. Now that this is before us and it's properly certified, you have three choices. You can A, get more information, B, you can say yes and vote it in as new law, or C, you can send it straight to the ballot and have the voters decide. The council at that point in time said, we probably want more information. And so that's what this item is tonight. It's that information. The part of the elections code that we're referring to is section 9212. And so this report has a clever name called the elections code 9212 report. And so we enlisted the help of some experts to help us prepare this report. The purpose of this report is to inform. That's it. This report is not intended to advocate for or against this initiative. It is intended only to provide information as to what does this initiative do. If the initiative passes, what does this initiative do? It's meant to be an informational item. And we needed some assistance, mainly because it was a short turnaround in 30 days. And so we enlisted, like I said before, a planning firm reigning consultants also GHD just for reference GHD actually helped the city prepare its general plan update which was finalized last year they particularly worked on the mobility element or the circulation plan and so we engage them again because this initiative deals with the mobility element of the general plan actually it proposes to amend the recently adopted mobility element of the general plan and so The report is broken up into a couple of chapters or sections, if you will. It starts by describing the initiative and what it does, providing a kind of distilling explanation of what the initiative does. And that's on the first couple of pages, there are maps and text and charts. And then it goes into these different sections where we identify impacts. And the list of categories of impacts are specified by the elections code. It says the council can order a report talking about these impacts of different categories, fiscal impacts, for example, planning impacts, housing impacts, infrastructure impacts, business impacts, vacant land impacts, other impacts. READS LIKE A TABLE OF CONTENTS AND THEN THOSE PARTICULAR SECTIONS. SO THE ITEM AGAIN TONIGHT IS TO REVIEW THIS INFORMATION. WE WOULD ENTERTAIN AT THE MAYOR'S, YOU KNOW, WE WOULD ENTERTAIN PUBLIC COMMENT ON IT. THERE IS NO RECOMMENDED ACTION. STAFF IS RECOMMENDING THAT YOU HOLD A SPECIAL MEETING NEXT FRIDAY ON JULY 10TH AND AT THAT POINT IN TIME THE COUNCIL WOULD THEN DECIDE WHETHER TO ADOPT A MEASURAMENT AS IT IS without alteration or to send it to the voters, in which case it would most likely be the November election this fall. And so with that, I'm gonna kind of turn over to our presentation or I don't know who's running the presentation actually.

So we have several consultants online. I believe it's Rod that's going to start the presentation. Rod, if you could show your camera and you can share your screen at any time and unmute yourself.

ROD, WE'RE WORKING ON YOUR VALUE TO MAKE SURE WE CAN HEAR YOU.

WE HEAR IT ON THE COMPUTER, NOT ON THE ACTUAL COUNCIL CHAMBERS. We've got I.T. on the way to just bear with us for a moment please. Rod, can you try speaking again, please?

Yeah, test one, two, three, testing. We got you. Thank you so much. You sound good, Rod. All right, great. All right, and I know that, you know, Jason gave a great introduction there. I don't know if he wants to continue moving through presenting Measure M or if you want me to take over and going through the report.

Maybe go to the next slide and we'll... We already sort of covered this process, but this slide really shows where we are. We received the initiative back in April, gone through the processing. Today we're receiving and filing and it would be July 10th where a decision about adopt or sent to voters would take place. We can go to the next slide. Yeah, just a broad overview about Measure M. I mentioned before, The city has a new general plan. That process took us a better part of four years or more. And there's a pandemic in there, so some of that time doesn't count. But it took us a better part of four years to complete because it's a complicated document. It itself has many chapters. It describes the future of American Canyon and how development activity will occur in the future through the year 2040. And in that general plan, there are chapters or what are known as elements. And in particular, there's a mobility element which describes, you know, how transportation will be accounted for in the future. And we call it mobility because we don't just think about cars anymore. Some people may not realize this, but in the past, we only really thought about cars. Now we think about all modes of transportation, and so we give it a title, Mobility Element, to kind of remind ourselves that there's more than one way to get around. It doesn't just have to be a car. And so the initiative proposes to change that recently adopted mobility element. It proposes to add a new connector between Watson Lane, a new connection between Watson Lane and Marcus Road. It proposes to re-identify, reclassify Watson Lane as what's known as a two-lane east-west minor collector. And later on in the report, we'll kind of explain the significance of what that is. The initiative proposes an improved at-grade railroad crossing at Watson Lane. There's one there today, but it proposes an improved one. And it also contemplates the removal of planned crossings from the Watson Ranch area over to Highway 29, either at Rio Del Mar or South Napa. That's the current mobility element. and this initiative contemplates those not happening and the removal of those. So this picture right here, and I apologize for the clarity of it, is what was, it's a picture of what was submitted and it's meant to depict how the new Miner Collector Street would look. So what you're looking at it is like if you slice the road as you're kind of standing there and you're looking at it and you did kind of a slice through it On the left-hand side, you see where there would be a trail or a sidewalk, and then there's a little gap, and then you see a roadway there on the right-hand side, and then there's nothing to the right-hand side. And so we call that a cross-section in engineering terms, and it's meant to show the public, you know, how a road would look, you know, the different features of a road. We'll go to the next one. So this slide is the general plan, the new general plan from last fall. And this is a map of the different transportation improvements, right? Where would the new roads go? What kind of roads would they be? Generally on this map, if it's a solid line, it's a road that's already there. And if it's a dotted road, it's a road that's planned to be but doesn't exist today. And so this is the map from the existing general plan. And then right on cue, this is the map, what the world would look like if the initiative passes, if it's adopted or passes. And so there's proposed changes. Roads would get a different classification. There's a new classification, the minor collector classification, the minor collector modified, I should say, is proposed, and then different roads would follow that classification. And then there's a linkage between Marcus Road and Watson Lane, which you can, I think, see in the middle of the page there, a straight line, a straight connection between Marcus and Watson Lane. And Rod, if you wouldn't mind going back, I wanted to kind of point this out. So right now, in our general plan, Marcus Road doesn't show up at all. It's not part of the network. It's really, at the moment, serving the internal aspects of Watson Ranch. It's not serving a broader purpose. This mobility element in the general plan is to show broad city connections, right, east to west, north to south, call it 50,000 feet, that kind of elevated view. Those things that would connect the community across in either direction. And there is no connection from Marcus Road to Watson Lane, which you can't see in this picture that shows up in the Watson Ranch. Specific plan is Marcus Road serving Watson Ranch and then connecting over to the right to Newell Drive. I think go back to the next slide, Rod. What is proposed by the initiative is the straightening out of that road, that this road would then be in the general plan as something serving a broader purpose and connecting straight into Watson Lane. And it also shows, can you go back one more slide, Rod? You'll see Watson Lane doesn't show up on this map either. Our current plan doesn't show Watson Lane because Watson Lane isn't serving anything other than the neighbors that are out there. It doesn't have a broader purpose. And then go slide one more time, Rod, forward. Now what the mobility element would show is Watson Lane having a broader purpose extending all the way over to Newell and having this connection to Marcus. Next slide, please. Besides just changing pictures, the initiative also changes the text of the mobility element. Here it proposes to add a new policy, policy 1.2.9. I'm not going to read the whole thing, But it proposes to add a new policy. The general plan is a list of tables and charts and policies, things we're trying to accomplish. And this would be another policy that is added to the mobility element. In addition, it's proposing to add other, the initiative is proposing to add other text amendments. Here it's describing a Watson Lane, Marcus Road connector, which is basically a word version or a textual version of the maps that we just talked about. So those pictures on the map, sometimes it's easier to just have people look at pictures, but these words are meant to further describe those pictures that are up on the map, in particular the new, Watson Lane, Marcus Road connector. There are also a couple of other text changes proposed by the initiative here. These are more like edits, if you will. And so there's some edits around Newell Drive and Mallinway and, yeah, Newell Drive and Mallinway talking about the cross-section. What kind of a road would it be? And so those that are proposed to be additions as edits have the single underline and then those that are deletions are shown as a strike through. And so these are the additional proposed text amendments from the initiative. Next slide. Um, and I'm going to transition over here now to our primary consultant, Rod Stinson with, with rainy, uh, planning, who, uh, we'll talk more specifically about the report, its structure, uh, et cetera.

Great. Thank you. Um, good evening, mayor and council members, Rod Stinson, rainy planning and management. Jason's intro in the beginning really kind of set the stage for this slide here, which is based off of the Elections Code 9212, dictates what this informational report includes, and those are listed here in bullets. And Jason mentioned them earlier, so I'm just going to skip along, but the following slides will present under each one of these topics, the conclusions of the report. The report itself has much more detail. This will be just a general summary of what the conclusions were. So the first topic is related to fiscal impacts, and I should note that the initiative itself does not provide any funding or funding mechanisms within the initiative itself. All of the figures and dollars that are talked about on this slide would come from the city's existing budget. It would need to come from somewhere. It's broken up into two different costs, one being planning, as you can see, and then implementation, which would be the actual construction of the roadways. And as it relates to the planning costs, and we'll get into this in a couple of subsequent slides, but there's some planning law that requires the city to have an internally consistent general plan, and any specific plans need to be consistent with the city's general plan. And so what that means is that there are some inconsistencies that we'll talk about later, but upon approval of the initiative, should it pass, there would be some immediate inconsistencies that would then compel the city to process specific plan amendments and amendments to ensure internal consistency within the city's planning documents. And so that planning effort is what this first bullet is about or first paragraph is about. And that planning effort is estimated to run around a quarter million to a million dollars. And then the other component is the actual construction of the roadways. And based on construction of similar roadways within the city, it's estimated at a $3,500 per linear foot of roadway construction amount, and then between half a million to a million dollars per railroad crossing. And then for undergrounding utilities, it would be about $2.5 million per mile of undergrounding those utilities. These cost estimates do not include any parcel acquisition related to widening of right-of-way that may be required. Should be noted, though, that some of the reclassifications would actually result in a savings related to construction of Marcus Road to the tune of about $2 million. And then the construction costs of Newell Drive would be reduced by approximately 10 to 15%. So getting into the general plan consistency and the consistency issues we were talking about earlier, the city's general plan includes many mobility policies, mostly related to bicycle and pedestrian access, and some of the reclassifications associated with the initiative would be inconsistent with some of those policies. The construction of Watson Lane connection, depending on the timing of some of these improvements, if that happens without Newell Drive connection being in place, it may result in some cut-through traffic related to State Route 29 onto local streets. And then the proposed amendments and potential conflicts with the general plan could also result in conflicts with other adopted mobility plans that the city has, for example, the bike plan, the bike and ped trail plan, etc. And this slide here is the Watson Ranch specific plan circulation map gives kind of a context of the roadways that we're talking about and we're discussing previously. Highlighted here are the roadways that the initiative mentions. And so the initiative, as mentioned previously, would immediately kind of cause inconsistency with the specific plan and the general plan, which would then require the city to reconfigure circulation plans to reconcile those inconsistencies. Some additional conflicts with the specific plan are related to the potential abandonment of Rio Del Mar as a major access route to the specific plan. The way that the specific plan has classifications that are consistent with the existing general plan, again with the Initiative would then be, if the initiative was accepted, would then be inconsistent with the existing specific plan and those would need to be remedied. In addition, the specific plan has goals and policies related to mobility, That would be inconsistent. There would be a lack of a connection between Vine Trail and Marcus Road. And with the approval of the specific plan, there were certain ordinances and resolutions adopted as part of those entitlements. And there would be some potential conflicts with those in particular as well. As it relates to housing, the initiative is not expected to affect the city's ability to meet the arena numbers and despite a two existing residences that may be impacted by right away expansion. it's not anticipated that the initiative would result in significant demolition of existing housing elsewhere. As far as infrastructure impacts, there's no direct impact on schools, parks, public facilities, and underground utilities, but existing right-of-way constraints and utility conflicts along Watson Lane specifically would likely require right-of-way acquisition and or utility relocation. And then related to the modified at-grade crossing, the California Public Utilities Commission has some fairly specific safety requirements that the city would be required to coordinate heavily with that agency and may result in some additional right-of-way needed as compared to what the initiative includes. For business impact, the proposed amendments would not discourage businesses from locating in the area. It would not result in any demolition of existing businesses or the significant loss of land that's designated for business. And in fact, the future Marcus Road extension may actually support some of the surrounding commercial in that area. The substitution, however, of Watson Lane for Rio Del Mar and or South Napa Junction, should that happen, could potentially affect transit routes and bus stops, which could impact businesses related to having a direct access to State Route 29. For vacant lands, the Marcus Road extension would move northward across a privately owned and currently vacant lot. And that new roadway area would convert approximately 2.7 acres of the vacant land to roadway use, which has not been anticipated in the existing mobility element. Additional minor impacts to vacant land would occur related to right-of-way for any vacant lots surrounding the redesignated roadways. As for agricultural and open space impacts, the Watson Lane-Marcus Road connector road would largely be constructed through an area that's designated by the state as farmland of local importance. Although that area has been heavily disturbed and it's not currently in heavy agricultural production currently. And then the initiative would not impact any open space or areas designated as as open space by the city. For business districts, the initiative is focused on roadway improvements and the mobility element, and so would not necessarily impact any business districts within the city. And then in addition, the city does not have any HUD-designated revitalization areas, and so no impacts related to that would occur either. And so from here, we're going to get into some traffic impacts. And so we are joined by GHD and Todd Tregenza in particular, and he will be walking through their analysis of traffic impacts. And we'll start with this slide here. So take it away, Todd.

Thank you, Rod. Rod has covered quite thoroughly a lot of the topics here that relate to circulation and mobility. So I'll try to keep things tight and brief, and if there are any questions at the end, I'm happy to take those. This figure here really is a refresher, a reminder of what's in your current mobility element. The Newell Drive extension in particular is currently envisioned as a four-lane arterial from Rio del Mar down south towards city limits. and then north of Rio Del Mar as a major collector. And that major collector cross-section, as just a reminder, kind of to the top right of your screen, shows around a 46-foot curb-to-curb width, which includes one travel lane per direction and a turn lane, as well as separated sidewalks and on-street bike lanes. Next slide, please. We've already seen the revised minor collector street cross section that was presented. And I'll get back to that in a minute. But just some high level findings. Some of this is up to the sequencing and phasing of how things are built. And so this is not necessarily lined out in the initiative itself. It doesn't say to build, one roadway first or later, but just as a consideration, something to think about is as new development fills out in the Watson Ranch specific plan and other annexation areas east of 29, solely depending on this connection through Marcus and Watson Lane to Paoli Loop will introduce traffic onto a rural roadway. If Marcus, for example, is extended and connected into Watson Lane, but Watson Lane is not improved immediately, it creates some conflicts between the amount of traffic moving between new growth areas and State Route 29 north and south. Not to mention the railroad crossings. We spoke briefly already about the need to improve the at-grade crossing at Watson Lane should we want to introduce any additional traffic to that crossing. At-grade railroad crossings have some inherent safety risks. And another thing that was mentioned in the initiative and that Rod mentioned earlier was this statement that the connection at Watson Lane could serve in place in lieu of at-grade crossings at either South Napa Junction, where you have one today, or Rio Del Mar, where one is envisioned in the future. That language in and of itself could result in a built-out circulation element that only has a grade crossing at Watson Lane, quite a bit further north from where they are in vision today, and that poses some circulation concerns as well as emergency access potentially concerns. You know, getting to and from 29 from those development areas would be more challenging if you have to go all the way up through Paoli Loop or down towards American Canyon or Donaldson to the south. The cross-section, just to... cover that briefly. Jason mentioned at the very beginning, there is some fuzziness to the graphic. It's not entirely clear what all these dimensions are, but there is clearly some variable dimensions. And the one thing I would like to call attention to is that the curb to curb width for the minor collector street that's envisioned here, along Newell and along Marcus and the other streets through the system, this modified minor collector street does not have an on-street bike lane, which in and of itself may not be a conflict with your circulation policies, mobility element policies to have a multimodal system. But the fact that the trail or separated sidewalk width is variable, that kind of concrete pad off to the left of the cross section. It appears to allow a sidewalk that is too narrow to support bikes on it. And so you could end up in a condition if adopted like so that you don't have a cross section for these streets as they develop that guarantees a multimodal cross section. With that, I'll move to the next slide. So additional kind of safety impacts related to that cross-section. As you recall, the cross-section that I referred to earlier, that three-lane cross-section where you have one lane per direction and then a center turn lane for a north-south parallel route to 29 has built-in capacity for... if there's a vehicle breakdown or another incident on the road vehicles can pass by if the minor collector cross section as proposed is constructed as the newell drive alignment it could force vehicles to pass into oncoming traffic if they were trying to pass a parked or broken down or stalled out vehicle that's something to acknowledge there And another item also to acknowledge is the lack of on-street bike lanes does force cyclists moving in both directions onto a separated facility. And there are some areas within your circulation system where that bi-directional cycling traffic would interface with directional bike lanes and create some conflict points that need to be managed carefully at intersections. And I think we've already covered the other grade crossings, so I think I will then conclude there. And I believe that's it, unless I'm turning it back over to Rod or Jason.

I think that is it, and we'll pass it back to staff at this point. And we're available as a team for any questions, should they come up.

Thank you, Rod and Todd. for the additional information. At this point, Council, you know, just kind of circling back to why we're here, it's to receive this information, share this information with the public. A lot of information is here. It's 30 some odd pages long. And so, you know, we released the information yesterday. We're hearing it today and the additional information. That's why we're not taking any action. And if there are any questions that you have or members of the public have in their comment, we'll do our best to try and answer them.

And we'll turn it back over to you Thank You Jason rod and Todd for the presentation and I'll ask real quick for the council if there's any clarifying questions before I open it up to public comment vice mayor

Yes, I I have a lot Question clarify questions clarifying actually so thank you for the reports and and So I'm going to start with the first one It's an issue that I raised with the city manager what I'm calling carrying capacity in it. There may be a more appropriate term, but As was mentioned Marcus Road and Watson Lane were originally designed to essentially be local roads and WATSON LANE WAS JUST CONSIDERED TO BE A COUNTRY LANE ROAD SO YOU KNOW AND THEY HAVE DRIVEWAYS TO COME OUT AND ALL THAT SO HOW IS THERE ANY WAY TO CALCULATE HOW MANY VEHICLE TRIPS CAN THOSE ROADS ACCOMMODATE AND THEN COMPARE THAT TO THE NUMBER OF TRIPS THAT ARE GOING TO BE GENERATED CERTAINLY BY THE EXISTING DEVELOPMENT AS WELL AS PHASE TWO OF THAT DEVELOPMENT AND SO I'M WHAT I'M TRYING TO FIND OUT IS regardless of anything else, if this was the new circulation, can it handle the trips envisioned in the Watson Ranch plan? And that's the first question. And maybe I'd like to just do it sequentially. Here's my first question, then I'll ask the next and so on. So how does this relate to the capacity to get trips or get vehicles in and out of the ranch compared to what Newell was originally envisioned to do?

Yeah, so appreciate the question, understand the question, Vice Mayor, that the purpose of this report is to explain what the initiative does. It doesn't, it isn't a traffic study and it isn't a study of capacity of roads and things. It does, to the question that you have, we do talk a little bit about the existing general plan and the levels of service. And so I can talk a little traffic theory and Todd can certainly jump in if he wants. roadways as you go straight generally have a fairly high capacity. It's when you get to a point of conflict where a right-of-way has to be decided of who gets to go first, namely like an intersection, that you end up reducing that capacity. And when you have to stop and then go again, that capacity is reduced. Free-flowing traffic versus stop-and-go traffic and stopping at a right-of-way control. In the context of what this report looked at, it talked about our existing general plan, and it talked about our level of service standards. When we evaluate traffic, one of the things that we look at still in our general plan is what we call level of service. For those who don't know what level of service is, it's basically like school again, right? A is good, F is bad, and there's gradations. There's a corollary to how long you have to wait. The longer you have to wait, that's considered bad. You get an F. You don't have to wait very long. You get an A, and that's good. We have a level of service standard of D, which means you barely pass. And so that's acceptable. And so there's a certain second of delay that correlates with level of service D. This report doesn't get into the analysis of the Watson Ranch project, the capacity of roads, and so forth. But It does point out that the general plan currently doesn't have level of service standards for Watson Lane or the Watson Lane-Paoli intersection because we don't have level of service analysis for small neighborhood streets as they go to larger streets like Paoli. And in this case, the initiative doesn't do anything to talk about what a collector intersecting with a collector would do. The rest of our general plan does, right? Where American Canyon Road hits Silver Oak, for example, two higher order streets, we have level of service standards for that intersection because one's an arterial and one's a collector. And so we describe what the acceptable level of service would be at that intersection. The initiative doesn't go through and describe what an acceptable level of service would be under this proposed mobility element for the new Watson Lane-Paoli intersection. And so it kind of points that out. It doesn't say whether it's good or bad or whether there's capacity or not capacity, and that's not the purpose of the report. It does point out that if a level of service is exceeded, then the general plan says you have to make improvements. You signalize an intersection, you add turn lanes, and so on and so forth. The initiative doesn't talk about how you would do some of that, and so there's some inherent conflict in there. But again, it doesn't say, and we didn't analyze, and we didn't ask the consultants to analyze how many trips are generated from Watson Ranch. Can they all fit on Marcus Road, or can they all fit on Watson Lane? Because that's not the purpose of the report, is to describe what the initiative says.

Okay, then the second one is, especially since there's no funding for this, does the city have any legal right to say, uh... until watson lane is improved and apparently deal with the right away that varies from forty to forty six feet which i think is an interesting road but until those improvements are made do we have any legal right to say we're not going to allow that free-flowing marcus road make connect but we're not going to allow uh... any westbound traffic on Watson Lane until Watson Lane has been improved per these new standards, considering there's no connection currently.

Yeah, I mean, if Matt wants to weigh in, he certainly can. My point is going to be only to get back to what the purpose of the report is, which is to describe what the initiative says. do we have a theoretical right to restrict a movement on a public road? I'm guessing he's going to say it's going to depend on the facts of the particular situation, and it's pretty speculative to kind of point that out, but I don't know.

Yeah, I would agree with that. What I would add is that the 90 to 12 report process is to analyze the initiative as proposed and its impacts. And so the initiative does not include in the initiative's own terms ANY ABILITY FOR US TO THROTTLE OR LIMIT TRAFFIC ON MARCUS ROAD OR ON WATSON LANE. COULD WE DO THAT UNDER OTHER POWERS IF THE INITIATIVE WERE ADOPTED AND WERE PASSED BY THE VOTERS? THAT'S AN OPEN QUESTION THAT WOULD DEPEND ON THE TRAFFIC, THE ENGINEERING TRAFFIC FLOWS AND SOME MORE DETAILED ASSESSMENT.

Under one scenario, Marcus Lane could be extended, connect to Watson Lane. There is a road there, and all of a sudden, even though we don't have the money to make any improvements, the traffic could start flowing.

That's what's proposed by the initiative.

OK. All right. The next one is kind of relating to the ambiguities. And there's a lot of them. But the one that bugs me the most is the language that says, and I forget the exact wording, that the connections from 29 in Watson Lane or Watson Lane could be in addition to or in lieu of the connections on 29. You know, it's one or the other. And my question is, who gets to make the decision? I guess, how do we address the fact, I mean, it just seems like it wasn't well thought out, but how do we address the fact that it's one or the other, do we toss a coin?

What I'm going to do to respond is to read the text of the initiative. We'll start there. So this is in Section 3 in that description of the Watson Lane-Marcus Road connector. Kind of halfway through it says to further enhance roadway connectivity to the east-west portions of the city. The existing segment of Marcus Road north of Rio Del Mar will be extended northward to connect to Watson Lane. Marcus Road is a minor collector with one motor vehicle LANE IN EACH DIRECTION, BICYCLE LANE, SIDEWALKS AND PARKING ON ONE SIDE. THE WATSON LANE MARCUS ROAD CONNECTOR ONCE CONNECTED AND IMPROVED IS RECOGNIZED AS PROVIDING A VIABLE CONNECTION AND SECONDARY ACCESS TO THE WATSON RANCH SPECIFIC PLAN IN ADDITION OR AS A SUBSTITUTE TO THE RIO DE MAR AND SOUTH NAPA JUNCTION SECONDARY ACCESS OPTIONS. SO I THINK THAT'S MAYBE THE LANGUAGE THAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT. WHAT I WILL SAY IS THE INITIATIVE DOESN'T SAY WHO DETERMINES IN ADDITION OR AS A SUBSTITUTE TO THAT LANGUAGE SEEMS TO THINK OF SOME SORT OF DECISION-MAKING PROCESS. THE INITIATIVE DOESN'T SAY WHO IS THE DECIDER OF THAT. SO WE WOULD LOOK AT OTHER STATUTORIES, YOU KNOW, SETUPS AS DECIDERS.

WHAT I WOULD ADD TO THAT IS quoting the construction and improvement of Watson Lane-Marcus Road connector will be done in phases as necessary or desired to meet development needs. There to the initiative, end quote, there to the initiative is one using passive voice, so leaving unsaid who the decision maker is, but two, the qualifier of that decision is that it's to meet development needs without specifying as determined by who, which developers, which set of needs, that's another ambiguity inherent in the present language, which we would have to assess if it passed how to resolve that.

Okay, so given that, I mean, the city could decide that we still want to punch through 29 at Rio Del Mar, for example. The initiative doesn't, there's no mechanism to say, wait a minute, you can't do that because we just decided we win the lotto or something, and we want to spend the money to fix that, to extend Rio Del Mar, for example. So it doesn't preclude us from doing that. It just means there's some ambiguity as to whether we have to or not.

My sense is it doesn't say. So it would come up in the context of who's deciding whether a substitute is needed and why and what the criteria are. It doesn't decide what the criteria is. It doesn't lay out anything. So you would then have to forecast a situation in the future where either an entity or the city is trying to decide about substitutes. IT DOESN'T SAY THE CITY DECIDES WHETHER IT'S SUBSTITUTE. IT DOESN'T SAY WHETHER THE DEVELOPER OF THE WATSON RANCH PLAN DECIDES IT'S SUBSTITUTE. SO YOU HAVE TO COME PROBABLY LOOK AT SOME OTHER THINGS. IT DOES NOT PROCLUDE US. I DON'T READ LANGUAGE THAT SAYS, YOU KNOW, ONCE MARCUS WATSON ROAD CONNECTOR IS BUILT, THE CITY SHALL NOT DO MARCUS ROAD. THAT'S NOT IN THERE. SO IT'S AMBIGUOUS. AND YOU WOULD BE LEFT, WE WOULD FIGURING OUT WHO'S TRYING TO DECIDE WHETHER IT'S ADEQUATE SUBSTITUTE OR NOT.

AND THEN IF THE DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT DIRECTED THE DEVELOPER TO BUILD ONE OF THOSE HIGHWAY 29 CONNECTORS, THEORETICALLY HE COULD ARGUE WITH THIS INITIATIVE, I'M GOING TO GO WITH THE OR AND WATSON LANE HAS ME COVERED.

WELL, AGAIN, THE CITY HAS A POSITION OF WHAT THE PLAIN LANGUAGE OF THE DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT SAYS AND IT REQUIRES ONE OF THOSE CONNECTIONS TO HAPPEN. to the extent that this initiative might be in conflict with that would be resolved at a future date. Generally speaking, you can't use initiatives to adopt development agreements. Not sure whether there's authority about amending new development agreements, but it's a pretty clear line linking those sort of concepts. So to the extent someone wanted to say this initiative now changes my development agreement, I think we would have a perspective that maybe we didn't agree with that. The purpose of this report is to describe what the initiative says and the information. It isn't to talk about hypotheticals in the future.

If I could add there, what I would add is that, yeah, the city's position would be that a development agreement cannot be amended by initiative. The extent that this purports to do so is a question that would be resolved in the long run in another forum.

Okay. Then back to the original profile of Watson Lane. It varies from 40 to 46 feet. and I'm assuming that we would, my looking at it, and I have glasses, so who knows, I can't see that well, but it does seem as if the roadways are gonna be a consistent length, and the variable seems to be the sidewalk or something, because I'm trying to, visualize what a road profile looks like when the right-of-way kind of varies with the existing right-of-way.

So, yeah. I'll take a stab at sort of, I didn't really hear a question there, Vice Mayor.

Yeah, it's more like explain what it would look like. I mean, what would it do to the sidewalk, for example?

Yeah, so again, what this initiative proposes is is to create a new cross-section of a street that the mobility element has a list of types of roads. And they have different names, local street, minor collector, major collector, arterial. And there's a whole list of them. And then there are these cross-sections that show you what they are. All of the other cross-sections have very specific numbers, very exact numbers. There isn't a range in the different things. They're all very exact singular numbers. What the initiative proposes to add is a cross-section that has variability into it. And that's unlike its brethren here in the rest of the mobility element. So it's common in an engineering process, a roadway design process, to create typical cross-sections that have variability into it. And that's because roads are not often a perfectly straight lines. So sometimes they might be 6 feet wide and sometimes the sidewalk might be 5 feet 11 inches wide, for example, right? And so it's common in engineering as you're preparing plans for construction to have a cross section with variability into it. But that's not what this drawing is. This drawing is a cross section in a general plan or proposed cross section in a general plan. It's not a construction document. You know, the variability doesn't provide any sort of certainty about what would go there. So, you know, that's what's in there. We're left reacting to what was presented to us. The documents, the actual petitions that went around and signatures were gathered upon, had this exhibit in there. And as folks go and look at the actual numbers that were in there, they were difficult to read. I don't have to require glasses from my eyesight yet. And they were difficult for myself to read. So we, with the consultant team, put on our professional engineering and professional planning, transportation planning hats and said, those numbers are probably this, right? Because you sort of, use your expertise and say they probably mean this. And we had them prepare the report based on that probable sort of, you know, expert opinion. There would be no sense of creating a report that had, you know, numbers that wouldn't make sense because the purpose was to try and create a report on our best assumption of it. There wasn't a clear drawing that was brought forward that answered those questions. And there wasn't a description in text either. Oftentimes in construction documents you will have a picture and then you'll have words that describe the picture. so as to remove the ambiguity. In this case, there wasn't that, so we put on our professional hats and made our best guess. But we wouldn't know how to answer that question on what the future's gonna look like because of the variability.

Okay, last question. The 9212 point, or the report, identifies a number of areas where the general plan is inconsistent with what this initiative is. And in some of those areas, I'm sure we could just amend the general plan and address it that way. But some of it, because of the sidewalks and some of the active transportation elements, if I'm not mistaken, those, as much as we want to think they were our clever ideas, I think they were driven by state policy. So to the extent that the initiative starts eroding our ability to address active transportation responsibilities, even if we can amend our general plan, aren't we gonna run afoul of some state clearinghouse that says, wait a minute, you're not providing sidewalks, you're not providing all the amenities that we as a state policy have adopted as these are things you have to do with public roads? To be sarcastic, could they take our bike-friendly status away from us?

Well, Bike Friendly Status is a third-party nonprofit, so they can do whatever they want. Although that would be a shame if they did. But what I would say is there isn't the equivalent. We're familiar with that concept more for housing elements. HCD, for example, a state agency, they have to bless a housing element, and you can't change portions of the housing element without getting HCD's approval. There is no equivalent for that on the mobility element. you're left with other plans and other good ideas and conflicts. And yes, there are inconsistencies between this initiative and other parts of the general plan. There are inconsistencies with the Watson-Ramsey Pacific plan. And there are potential other consistency without planning in where limited in the 30 days we had to identify all of the things that there might be some inconsistencies with. But, you know, there, There isn't a state agency in charge of bicycle or pedestrian paths like there is HED in the housing element. So there isn't somebody who's gonna revoke our circulation element like HED might with the housing element. So are there potential conflicts with those other plans? Yes, would we have to seek to remedy them? Yes, because we can't have an inconsistent general plan. But there isn't that state agency that's gonna lord over us.

All right, well, thank you. Thank you for clarification.

Seeing no other question, I'd like to open up the public comment for item number 12. Madam Clerk, do you have any speaker cards?

Yes, we have Christina. Christina, if you'd like to go up to the podium.

Good evening, Christina.

That's a light, sorry. Good evening mayor, council members, city attorney, city manager. Christina Guido with McGrath Properties this evening. We received the report and the supplemental materials and quickly turned around a letter we'd love to submit to the city and I have copies here to submit afterward. But I'd like to read whatever I can into the record this evening before my three minutes are up. We respectfully respond. to the 9212 report and the letter prepared by Rutan and Tucker on behalf of the owners of the Hess Laird property. We'd like to raise these issues for the city's consideration. Rutan and Tucker's letter grossly mischaracterizes Measure M. Namely, it represents the owners of the Hess Laird property. Rutan and Tucker does not represent the interests of the American Canyon community and the electorate. The letter fails to acknowledge that the people's power of direct legislation is constitutionally based, zealously protected by the courts, and is by definition a pushback to the status quo. a rejection to what Rutan and Tucker refers to as years of comprehensive planning and environmental study. That's the constitutional right of the people. They can legally disagree with such years of comprehensive planning and environmental study, take matters into their own hands, and decide what they determine to be a better future for their community. And that's what has been started here with Measure M. Measure M directly states in Section 1, that the initiative amends the mobility element of the general plan by designating a new Watson Lane connector to provide northern access to the city's planned areas of development, including connections to Newell Drive and Marcus Road, as well as clean up other omissions in the 2040 general plan's mobility element. This new Watson Lane would be developed with specific improvement standards that provide safe travel for the public. Measure M further states in section one that this is our city, our community, and the decision as to what is right for American Canyon. It is time for the voters of American Canyon to stand up and improve circulation at the northern end of the city. Supporting this initiative measure and its general plan amendment will ensure improved circulation in the northern reaches of the city of American Canyon. Rattan and Tucker and their clients, the Hess Laird property owners, may refer to the status quo, but it's not their call. It's the will of the people of American Canyon through their direct power of initiative, which is being exercised here. Rattan and Tucker is incorrect about what other land use regulations Measure M had to include. Under California planning and zoning law, if the American Canyon general plan is amended, for example, through Measure M, the Watson Ranch specific plan and zoning and all other subservient city land use regulations are to be amended consistent with that amended general plan. With 10 seconds left, may I give a copy of this to Madam Clerk or Mr. Summers?

Give it to the clerk and then she'll distribute it. Thank you. And thank you, Christina.

All right, next we have Sam Claresi.

Good evening, Sam.

Good evening, Mayor, council members, and neighbors. For weeks, we've been told Measure M is about fire safety, what's best for the community. But the city's own 9212 report says the lane is not the safest solution. In fact, it warns that if Watson Lane is built before Newell Drive, emergency response could actually be worse because of the at-grade railroad crossing. If public safety is truly the priority, then let's build the road that's actually designed to serve the entire city. That road is Newell Drive. Newell Drive is the professionally engineered solution. It is designed to improve emergency access, reduce Highway 29 congestion, and serve American Canyon for generations. Instead, we're being asked to accept a shortcut through an established neighborhood because it's cheaper for one developer. We're told Newell Drive is decades away, yet the city's own report says Watson Lane still take years of planning, railroad approvals, property acquisitions, and construction, while costing at least 20 million to 30 million. And here's what frustrates me the most. This developer wants the benefit of Newell Drive. In fact, he loves Newell Drive, but he doesn't want to help pay for it. Instead, he wants the taxpayers and longtime Watson Lane residents to bear the burden while he gets a cheaper route to Highway 29. McGrath might act like the friendly neighborhood developer, but he's not. American Canyon deserves a real commuter relief, real emergency planning, and real accountability. This project benefits the developer and the developer should help pay for Newell Drive instead of asking our community to settle for less. I urge you to reject this absolute joke of a measure and hold the developer accountable.

Thank you.

Thank you, Sam.

And before the next speaker comes up, I would just ask that the speakers address the council. I know that it could be an emotional moment, but I just want to focus it on the council.

And I agree. Can we technically check what's going on? I'm getting some feedback that it may be getting recorded, but the people watching TV can't hear the sound. Is there any way to verify that? I'll say it again. David? Not necessarily, but...

Mark, is that on the TV, or is that on the, we have a variety of channels we broadcast on.

I'm guessing it's channel 28.

We broadcast on YouTube, we broadcast on other channels, but.

So it's. Oh, okay. Okay. All right. Well, yeah, the important thing is this is being recorded, so we can all watch it. Okay. Okay, thanks.

And I'll note that the meeting can legally proceed given that we are present fully here in person with all the agendas in place and the other channels including YouTube and the Zoom link are available through the city's website. Thank you.

And I would ask the city manager just to help the speakers out if we could tilt the monitor this way. I think that would help. Yeah. Thanks, Juan. I appreciate it. And Madam Clerk? Can we call up our next speaker?

Of course. We have Jacqueline Bursch.

Good evening, Jacqueline.

Good evening. I like it pointed this way. Something just stuck with me that was said just before, not with Sam, but before. What is right for the community, what's happening is not right. It's not right for the community. It's not right for the residents whatsoever. What is right is not to be greedy. It shows in what was just shown to us. It's saving him money. It's taking away a lot for this family, generations that were there. We have stuck to it. Our generations have. And now to save what is right is to stick to Noel Drive. That's what it is. People are arguing, suing each other, doing all that. Now there's individual families being involved that should not be involved in all this. We love being involved now. We're hearing everything, all the plans. We weren't part of the city anything before. Now to know what's actually happening is important to us. But with Measure M, it's greedy. It's not helping anyone but one person. to get his way and to say it's a community thing, then share all the information. Even when I'm sitting here listening, questions that were being asked about what was just shown to us, it's still up in the air of who's doing what, what's this? There's no real answers besides Mejrem is going up for the voters to decide. Then give the voters the proper way. The way it's written doesn't clarify who's doing what, when. You can access our road, but you don't have to do anything to it. At that point, it's dangerous it's listed on there to drive on that road there's already accidents and safety concerns for someone to say we can open that we'll do it in phases it's a little road you should not have that road open for people to drive on until it's complete and at that point you should also be working on noel and not just stopping you have two other options before that and that's all i want to say thank you thank you jacqueline

Okay, next we have Robert Raven.

Good evening, Robert. Hi, it's good seeing you all again. And I was just interested how kind of limited the study was. I mean, I understand that was just a study of what's in the ballot initiative, M, but you kind of just been talking about what's left out. But I didn't read that in the study, that what's left out would be really helpful so that the people know what is left out of this, that you just talked about just now. Okay, it'd be great if that was in the study too. So what is missing? Well a year ago I was here and you all voted I think unanimously to go to zero emissions by 2030 and it's already halfway through 2026. And unfortunately, projects like M will increase carbon dioxide, increase sprawl. They'll be car-dependent. There's no way a bus is going to be going up there. And you can't walk downtown from there. You have to drive a car. And unless they're all electric cars, it'll increase carbon dioxide in our emissions, which is the opposite direction that a year ago y'all pledged, I think unanimously, to go that direct, you know, to zero. So the way to do it is, of course, to do infill. Instead of building that road, you could pop it out, I think it's Rio Del Mar and South Napa Junction. It's right there. You could see it. I mean, for sure, a fire truck can get in that way, and people can evacuate that way if need be. You know, it's right there. As of right now, people cannot walk from the Watson developments back there to 229. They can't walk to Walmart or any of that stuff if you wanted to go there. And you'd have to drive. Watson Ranch is car-dependent, even though it's yards from downtown. It's the wrong way to go, to go that way. We need to open those other roads. Also, everyone's talking about fire access. Well, there are two access points for the Watson Ranch as it exists, right to Donaldson, right to the fire station and police station right there. You can't get any closer. And so with exits right to 29, should be no problem. Should be fixed. Another issue that was not in the report was any traffic study. What would happen to the eastbound traffic? Would Amazon trucks be going that way? Because Google says that's quicker than going on 29. Would 18 wheelers be allowed going down that street into your neighborhoods?

Thank you.

Thank you, Robert.

Next, we have Sam Clarisse, Sr. Good evening, Sam.

Good evening. I'd just like to say that it seems like Mr. McGrath loves Newell Road, but the cheapest way is Measure M to come down Watson Lane. But last I heard, he has permits to do 1,253 homes up there. at let's say $700,000 a home is over $877 million. Let alone, I think that he has apartments. So we're talking a billion dollar project and he doesn't have the money to do his fair share of Newell Drive. I think that's wrong. I think Measure M is wrong. I think he's just using the people with the free tacos and the lack of information and how they're going to take people's property and how it's going to affect everybody. Even he himself, when we met with him, with my wife and neighbors, said that it wasn't going to alleviate traffic at all. I think Newell Drive would be the best thing for the community to alleviate traffic. For the community not only Watson Ranch and have a safe way out in case there is an emergency So anyway, thank you.

Thank you, Sam Next we have Jeanette Goitsch Good evening Jeanette

Good evening, Mayor Washington, City Council members, and members of the public. I want to speak regarding Measure M in Watson Lane. Today, I read as much as I could of the three attachments for Measure M. I mean, the better part of my day, I'm not lying. I came up with the same conclusion as I did at a previous City Council meeting. Measure M, as it pertains to lengthening and widening Watson Lane so that the developments east of 29 can easily reach Highway 29 will be, in my mind, a serious mistake. It will destroy the properties, the people's livelihoods, and the environment in that area. If a road is needed to reach the developments, other suggestions are given at the previous meeting, for example, the Napa Junction Road. At any rate, the conclusion that was given by Rutin and Tucker, LLP, seems to make sense to me. That is, Measure M should be rejected outright. They gave many reasons why it is a poorly written measure, and I think that was kind of the discussion. It seems like there's no real reason. anything positive in this. Anyway, one more suggestion. I wish the residents could have had more notice of this meeting. We were notified by email about 26 hours ago and also the upcoming vote on July 10th at 10 a.m. I mean, maybe that's why nobody's here. I mean, not too many people. They're on holiday. But thanks for listening.

Thank you, Jeanette.

Next, we have Debbie Runke.

Good evening, Debbie.

Good evening, Council. I'm going to apologize. I'm a little disorganized tonight because, like Jeanette said, it was a lot of information. I did my best to look it over. I agree with most of what other people have already said. I'm really frustrated that one developer seems to think he's the boss of American Canyon and is going to come in and tell us what should be done because he seems to have been a little short-sighted in this project from my point of view. I think the developer works for us or for you. You guys work for us, right? We vote for you and developers come to you and that's how things get approved and move along. I think he needs to do his part. Newell obviously has to happen. I don't know if it'll happen in my lifetime. I've said that before. It'll be great. I don't think Watson Lane is the answer. I don't want to see people that have lived there for generations lose their land. I'm also concerned that I've heard that because they're not part of the city limits, unless this annexation happens, they don't even get to vote on it. So we're going to put it on the ballot, but they don't get to vote on it? That sounds crazy to me. So I'm kind of leaning towards I don't even want to see that on the ballot at this point because I don't think it's fair that we're gonna decide What happens with their livelihood and their property? I'm gonna run out of time You still have a minute I think the measure is purposely ambiguous and vague and And that's why we can't answer all the questions because that's how he wants it. They don't We don't have to have all the information, and then he's gonna drag it out in court, and this whole thing is just gonna go on and on and on, I feel like. So my vote, and I don't know if this is even an option. The report said that they recommend it gets rejected outright, but in what I saw in the city documents, it says you have to either adopt or submit to the ballot. So I'm not sure on that part. Did we pass the point that we can outright take this off the table or.

We're not gonna open it up. I know you're not gonna answer that, but that's just. But we will answer that, I'll have.

I just read like two different things on these two different reports, so that was just a question I had. I'll be back on the 10th and see where you go with it, but right now I'm, I don't wanna make a decision that affects the livelihood of the people that live there, I don't think that's right. That's kinda my point, sorry I was so jumbled.

Next we have Matt Francois.

And thank you Debbie. Thank you. Good evening Matt.

Good evening, Mayor. Thank you for the welcome. Greetings, City Council. Matt Francois with Rattan and Tucker. We are the land use council for the Hess Laird property owners. We strongly oppose this proposed initiative measure. It's deeply flawed and it violates several independent provisions of the election code. So Ms. Guido is correct that, of course, the local voters have the right to submit an initiative for the ballot. The other part that she didn't mention though is it has to comply with state law and for at least 10 or 12 reasons that are outlined in my lengthy letter to you. This measure does not comply with any of those provisions. So these include things like creating internal plan inconsistencies violating the full text and single subject rules. impairing essential governmental functions like the way you adopt capital improvement plans and budgets. There's nothing in this about funding this roadway expansion, but they're imposing the obligation on the city residents and other developers to address this issue for them. It also doesn't, it consists of an improper directory measure. So for all of these reasons are outlined in our letter, we would urge you to vote to not put this measure on the ballot. Napa County faced a very similar type of flawed addition of measure. a few years back dealing with the tree preservation ordinance. And because of these internal inconsistencies, they voted to not put it on the ballot. That was challenged, of course. Napa County was upheld by both the trial court and the Court of Appeal in a reported decision. I won't try to... The point I want to make is that obviously, and I serve on a city council too, so I appreciate your service. I served on a planning commission before that. I know the years of effort that goes into adopting a general plan. And I know the time and the public comment that goes into it. And I know the thousands of pages of environmental documents that comprise it. And they're based on things like traffic studies and noise studies and air quality studies. So just last November, You adopted a very thorough well thought out circulation plan that reflected all of those studies that you had done and all of that public input that had come in and now less than six months later. You're being faced with a document that doesn't answer any of those questions, that didn't do a traffic study, that didn't do an air quality study, that didn't do a noise study. And you're asked to just accept it on faith that this is going to work out all right and that there won't be any impacts. You don't have the proof in terms of actual studies that these impacts are being mitigated as they should be. So again, we would urge the council to not place this unlawful measure on the ballot. We're happy to answer any questions you have and thank you for your time. Thank you.

Thank you, Matt.

Next, we have Jessica Sanders.

Good evening, Jessica.

I'm a little less nervous this time. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and City Council. I wasn't planning on speaking tonight, so I came up here looking like I hauled sheep all day, because I did. So I apologize. But I just wrote something down a few moments ago. I guess that doesn't give me a chance to panic for weeks about it. But a previous speaker mentioned improving circulation. I can't let that go unchecked. Mr. McGrath told us personally that we wouldn't have to worry about traffic on our road because it would be so inconvenient for people to use, commuters wouldn't use it. He said that traffic would also be limited because all it would take was someone getting stuck behind an eight-minute train, which I timed. while it changed rails. He also suggested that we speak to the city about, sorry, I think I skipped a spot. He said the traffic would also be limited because all it would take for someone to get stuck behind an eight minute train while it changed rails. He also suggested that we speak to the city about getting a camera to ticket non-residents of Watson Lane and Watson Ranch for using the road, which I don't believe is even legal. So how much circulation can it really improve? Thank you for letting me jump up here real fast. Unplanned. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Jessica.

Before I go to online comment, is there anyone else in the room that would like to speak?

OK.

I have Justin Hamilton Hall online. Justin, please unmute yourself.

Thank you, Nicole and Amy. I didn't know that this is especially me on Thursday night. I want to take a moment and I want to see that whole street, the Howard 29th Street night. I want to see the run out. And I was listening to an application that was on top of me with them. I thought I'd listen to that. My question is to speakers online. I want to see if you guys can email me. I think you're both them online. You're a great job. And I want to see the ninth restaurant at Delmore, Fresh Street, the highway 29. So I want to see if I can get on the email list them or maybe email me. I have them email me and I can email them back for C and I can zip down the list. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Justin. I'll provide, I'll provide those people your email address and they can reach out to you. Next call.

Is there anyone else online that would like to speak? Okay. We have no additional comments.

Thank you then seeing no additional public comment. I'll close for the comment and bring it back to the council like City manager mentioned this item is before us to receive and file a report Persuading to election code section 92 12. Are there any questions or discussions amongst the council? councilmember oral

Yeah, I do want to, there were some questions raised during public comment and I do want to try to attempt to address them while we're here this evening. One speaker talked about the limitations of the report, meaning that it didn't look at environmental studies, things of that nature. Can you talk to us about why that is? I know that we've been told that it's a very narrow focus and we're only looking at certain aspects. I just want the public to understand that.

Certainly. Again, these reports are kind of unique. As we go and do other planning studies or other government activities, we look at a variety of different aspects and considerations. The provision of this report is tailored narrowly. It's per the code, 9212, and it lists those topics. It's very prescriptive in that nature. So we're not allowed to, nor practically would we have the time to do a large amount of environmental studies or other sorts of things. This is focused very narrowly on what does the measure say, what are these criteria, what are those impacts. We're under a 30-day deadline to put the report together, present it to you, and you now have 10 days from today to make a decision on what to do with Measure M, put it on the ballot, or adopt it as is. It's a very limited scope of what we're allowed to study. It isn't our choice. We don't get to say, let's take two years and study this initiative and study all the possible good and bad and environmental and all that. That's not an option available to us. It is a very, very narrow purpose that we're allowed to.

Thank you. The next point of clarification was around the notification of meetings. I just want the public to also understand that we're on a tight timeline and we had put together a report in 30 days and we had to coordinate meetings with ourselves that are out of normal order. And so can you talk to us about that?

Yeah. The city council adopts usually in December a meeting calendar, a regular meeting calendar for the upcoming calendar year. You did that this past December. Our last regular meeting was, I think it was Tuesday the 16th is my memory. That was our June 16th meeting. That was our last regular city council meeting. We're not due again to meet regularly until July 21st. It's been the practice of the council to have a summer recess because honestly we all need a little vacation sometimes. Um, and so we don't have any regular meetings set up, uh, and then faced with this measure with the very, very prescriptive timeframes, um, and, um, the limitations that we have to follow, uh, we have to call special meetings because there is, uh, the next regular meeting is July 21st. That is outside of the deadline that is in these election codes based on when, uh, the petitioner sent us the documents. Uh, so, uh, we didn't have a choice to wait until your regular meeting. of July 21st because that would have been too long. And so we now have to call this series of special meetings. And we needed, honestly, every bit of time to put this 30-page report together. We did our best to comprehensively follow the topics that are in the elections code. But there's quite a bit in here. And there's a lot of things that we had to consider and review. And there was a team, you know, I'm proud of the work that they pulled together and did. But we couldn't take this practically and get it on July 2nd. Okay, two weeks later, here's your report and at the next regular meeting. So you didn't have any more regular meetings on your calendar. And we couldn't have even waited until next Tuesday, the 7th, which may have already been, in other circumstances, a regular meeting, because we would have run out of time.

yeah so it's it's based on election code and law and all that okay this would be a good segue to say that this is how difficult it is because our next meeting is on friday november i mean uh july 10th correct and um i had a long planned holiday because we don't normally have meetings at this time and i won't be here for that unfortunately and kind of disappointed that I won't be. Then the other thing was, I just wanted for people to understand, yes, there is a billion dollars being invested, or between a half a billion to a billion dollars being invested in American Canyon around the Watson Ranch project. That's the cost of the project, it's not necessarily, and I'm sure the developer came in here thinking he needs to have a profit. but a billion dollars goes to all kinds of places. Can you talk to us about how normal development works and how that comes about? There's actually other players involved in there too.

Yeah, certainly. I'll say with this particular project, we've not ever received any sort of pro forma that explains how the business plan for this project will unfold. But generally, you know, private development, takes, in the case of greenfield development, which is what this project is, it was raw land undeveloped before, somebody acquires that property in some form or fashion, often there's a cost for that, and then they begin to invest in infrastructure. And so pipelines, roadways, signs, trails, they invest in those infrastructure and they also start to create areas for where their activity's gonna happen. This is an extraordinarily unique project. in that it does a couple of things, the revitalization and reimagination of the Napa Valley ruins and gardens. And so there's quite a bit of a component to that. And then it's surrounded by a more traditional sort of suburban housing development. And so what's known as the master developer comes in, builds all of the roads and the pipelines, the sidewalks, and then they grade these flat surfaces. And then often what happens is they then sell those paths, as we call them, These subdivided pads, usually when the development begins, it's a large piece of land, 200-some acres in this case, a singular 200-acre type property. And they go through a process to gain our approval to then create very small properties, 5,000, 6,000 square foot properties that they turn around and sell. And then there are home builders, in our case, D.R. Horton and KB Homes are national home builders who've come to American Canyon. And they're the ones that put the concrete footings in the ground and the wood sticks coming out of the ground and the roofs and all the paint and everything. It's the home builders that do that. So the master developers in this case would have had expenses to put in roads and pipes and sidewalks, and they would have then sold those finished lots to a home builder, and the home builder comes in, they buy materials, they hire people to then erect the homes, and then eventually it's the home builder who then sells it to the new home owner. So at each step of the way, there's a transaction. These large home builders are very formula-based. They're large corporations. They know exactly what their costs are going to be. They have a pretty good understanding of what their sales prices are going to be. They have, obviously, investors, investment committees. They have a certain rate of return. And it's a very thin margin. It's not like the restaurant business necessarily, but it's not a very large margin on the home builder side. And in fact, one of the first home builders, D.R. Horton, has exited from the picture and is now just KB Home, who's out there. So You know, I don't, again, having not ever seen the performer for this particular project, I don't have any way of saying what, who's making what money and how much and that. And honestly, no one here in this room, aside maybe from one of the attorneys who works for the developer, would be able to speak to that with any kind of knowledge. But what I can tell you is that those homes would then sell to the homeowners and, you know, there are costs involved with doing all this. So hopefully that answers your question. Yeah, thank you.

And then one last question regarding the ballot. I know we're here to talk about the 9212 tonight, but there were suggestions around from the audience and from another property owner that's north of them to remove it from the ballot. And, you know, I've been told through the years here that the voter led initiatives are sacred in the state of California. And that was the first I've heard of somebody putting somebody even close to us pulling an initiative, a voter led initiative off the ballot. What are what are the. Yes, thank you. The repercussions, if that were to happen here and the options for this council, should they go down that decision?

Yeah, I'll turn it over to our attorney to answer the question because you're not talking about suing people. So for those options to play out, so I'll let Matt kind of talk about it.

Yeah, so Elections Code section 9215 is clear that once a petition is received that meets the signature threshold requirements as is met here, then the council has two choices. adopted, submitted to the ordinance, or as was done on June 2nd, order 9212 impacts report. That impacts report is back here. And so now we're in the world of elections code section 9215 subsection C, which provides for two options, either adopt it or order an election. And there's a 10-day clock, which is hence the July 10th meeting. So as I look at it, the council has two statutory options. adopted outright, exactly as proposed, or submitted to the voters. Other places have, including Napa County, and I'm sure others around, have exercised a third unstated in the statute option, which is to simply do nothing and then immediately get sued. do nothing and then sue to ask a court to relieve you from that opportunity. Either of those two options are immediate litigation and you're inviting, especially the cities who have sometimes done nothing and dared to be sued, courts tend to look disfavorably on simply doing nothing. Those who have sought better equities would file the suit affirmatively. So then the city would be in a position of suing the named proponent, Ms. Marcus, and So the other option there, of course, is to look at the statute, which provides you two options, adopted outright or submitted to the voters. Those who have concerns, as expressed tonight, and I believe in other elements of the public comments, have their remedies.

Vice mayor and I just wanted to answer some of the other questions Councilmember Oro covered most of them, but there were two others one was kind of related to the Clock that's ticking and the reason we're having a meeting at 10 o'clock in the morning or I guess 11 on Friday, which is even more you know, inconvenient relative to our normal meeting time is because we actually have to make a decision that day and get the paperwork to the county that evening. So not only is a Thursday meeting and a Friday meeting pretty unusual for us, but an 11 a.m. morning meeting is really unusual, and the reason is strictly to be in compliance with state law, not because our theory was if we have it weird times, no one will be here. And then the other one.

So, Vice Mayor, I don't mean to be rude and interrupt, but I wanted to kind of add on to that point. Okay. As our attorney kind of articulated, the matter that is in front of you now and would be in front of you on the 10th is very limited. Assuming you don't have an intention of affirmatively suing Ms. Marcus and getting us off the measure, assuming you're not interested in doing that, then you do have two options. And the amount, while the public may have great testimony and great reasons and all sorts of advocacy for or against measure M that isn't up to the council. You don't get to decide yes or no on measure M your only choice is whether the voters should decide, or you should decide for the voters and do it yourself. And so when confronted with that, it isn't like people are missing out on opportunity to advocate for against something that you might be able to consider the things that you could consider is very narrow. And so that's part of our thought process along with the super compressed schedule that says, look, it's not our first choice to be doing this and our second choice to be doing this at these odd times, but here's what we have to fit into our other existing schedules and so forth. So I wanted to just kind of elaborate that for folks that even those who can make it on Friday the 10th and having a very impassioned three minute remarks still doesn't mean then you're going to say no on measure 1 and so forth.

They may persuade us to vote no in November, but not necessarily on the 10th. The only other one was there might have been some confusion about two options or three. The two traditional options for us is either approve it outright or send it to the voters. The third option, as our attorney pointed out, is kind of the unofficial one, and that is what our the attachment is arguing is we should just sue to not have it on the ballot. That is an option, I guess, but it's a little more problematic or at least more expensive. So again, not arguing anything but trying to clarify some of the questions that people had so that they don't walk away thinking why did we schedule these weird meeting times and is there two options, three options, or what?

For me, I want to give you a little bit more air time for our city attorney and bring it back to what we're here for tonight. That's the 9212 report. And I guess for the benefit of the public, what would you say, attorney, is the most significant consideration identified in this report that the council should be weighing in on for next week?

Thank you, Mayor. I think there's a couple of points that the council considers the two basic options to adopt it outright. or submitted to the voters, perhaps submitting with acknowledgement of the reservations and the reservations of the concerns, is a couple points. One, the no new funding. Nothing in Measure M, as drafted, provides any funding sources. So the question becomes, how will these adjusted roadways be paid for? And how will these adjusted transportation elements, including the proposed expanded crossing at Watson Lane, be paid for? The inconsistencies with the general plan, the remainder of the mobility element, the Watson Ranch specific plan, and the development agreement, as laid out in the report and is in commentary tonight, how do those inconsistencies get resolved in the best way? Mindful that there's a hierarchy. The general plan is at the top. This in Measure M purports to amend the mobility element, so that creates it, that's part of the general plan is thus at the top, but there's those identified inconsistencies with the general plan, and then below that you have the specific plan, and together with the DA and the other entitlements and how do all of those inconsistencies get wrapped up? And then last, as the council is assessing, again, the impacts, what are the potential impacts of routing apparently significant traffic through Watson Lane and then to Paylor Loop and then on to 29? And what does that look like on the ground real world impacts? As noted, we don't have a traffic study prepared tonight because that's beyond the bounds of Elections Code section 9 to 212, but that's one of the main questions to be considering. as the community and the council. The council's assessing the options for the 10th and the community the options thereafter. And I'll also note the, as we've noted, the basic options of course are adopted outright or submitted to the voters. And as part of that, it's not uncommon for councils to submit a matter to the voters that there are concerns about. And then those who have immediate concerns have remedies and the voters have the ultimate remedies.

Thank you, sir. Thank you. So if there's no other further comment from the council, I will entertain a motion to receive and file this election code 9212 report and I guess direct staff to schedule the special city council meeting for July 10th as recommended. I'll make that motion. We have a motion. I'll second. We have a second. And can we get a roll call, please, Madam Clerk?

Council member Brandon Chris, yes, Council member Melissa Lamontina, yes, Council member David or yes, vice mayor Mark just yes, they're here Washington.

Yes. We've conclude our business for this evening on behalf of the city of American Canyon and thank you for all that came here this evening. We are a juror adjourn and enjoy your 4th of July happy. There are good night American Canyon.