Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Just give me one second Okay, I'm getting all the electronics going here All right chair, are you ready to begin?

All right, perfect. It is 630. I'll call this meeting to order Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance All right, Nicole, can I get a roll call please?

Yes, Commissioner Royce-Hall, excuse me, Youth Commissioner Royce-Hall and Youth Commissioner Abyssinia Belvin are both absent. Commissioner Marilyn Avalon? Present. Commissioner Eric Altman?

Present.

Commissioner Devette Muhammad? Present. Vice Chair Shelby Goss? Present. Chair Charles Plummer?

Present. Thank you. At this time, I'd like to open up to any public comment for items that are not on the agenda.

Okay, is there any public comment from anyone in the room on items not in the agenda? Okay, would you like to? Just one comment. Okay, please go up to the podium and state your name.

Hello, my name is Philip Thomas, and the only comment I want to make, I think you guys are doing a great job for the city of American Canyon. Keep it going in that direction. That's it.

Thank you so much. Somebody pay you to do that? Is there anybody online?

No, there's no one online.

No other public comments? So at this time I will close public comments. Director Cooper, are there any agenda changes for this evening?

Chair Plummer, we have no agenda changes tonight.

How exciting. Thank you very much. Moving on to the consent calendar for the minutes of April 23rd, 2026. Do we have a motion to approve?

I will make a motion that we approve the consent calendar. Do I have a second?

I'd like to second that we approve the minutes from our April 23rd meeting.

Nicole? Nicole?

YES, COMMISSIONER MARILYN ABALON. AYE. COMMISSIONER ERIC ALTMAN.

AYE.

COMMISSIONER DAVETTE MOHAMMED. AYE. VICE CHAIR SHELBY GOSS. AYE. CHAIR CHARLES PLUMMER.

AYE. MOTION PASSES. MINUTES APPROVED. PUBLIC HEARINGS, DIRECTOR COOPER, ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION GENERAL PLAN AMENDMENT.

members of the public. I'm Brent Cooper, Community Development Director, and very pleased to present a major milestone, and it's a new active transportation plan. We're really grateful for the hard work that the Napa Valley Transportation Authority put together to lead this. We have Patrick Band from the Napa Valley. He's been the project manager for the transportation authority and He'll be giving you a presentation about this as we've done with other plans in the past that NVTA has prepared they do it in a way so that each jurisdiction can Adopt its part along with the countywide Policies and standards so that we're kind of all working the same tune, but it's tailored it's a very nice way to work it out and And so we have this plan, it's in the packet, and it's tailored for our city, and it would become adopted into the general plan as an appendix, and then it would replace the earlier bicycle and pedestrian plans that were done a number of years ago. And so with that brief introduction, I'm gonna turn it over to Patrick, and he can kinda give you the highlights.

Thank you, Brent.

Again, Patrick Band. I'm a senior planner with the Napa Valley Transportation Authority and was the project manager for this effort for the last almost two years. So I believe that you've seen a kind of similar presentation from me maybe six months ago, give or take. So we'll go over this. Feel free to stop me if you have questions. And then I think we'll pass back to Brent if there's any, you know, kind of public hearing related items that we need to go over. So just kind of level setting, where are we coming from? What is this plan? Why are we doing a countywide transportation plan? And why are we doing an active transportation plan specifically for American Canyon as opposed to a bicycle plan and a pedestrian plan kind of as those plans are ready to be updated? Really the effort here is to align bicycle, pedestrian and other mobility and micro mobility modes of travel with best practices as they've been developing. And as you've probably seen just walking around town and reading newspapers, there's a lot that's shifting in how people get around our communities. The advent of electric bicycles in the last handful of years and the increasing use of electric scooters and other forms of e-mobility have really changed the way we think about the active transportation spaces and infrastructure that we're building in our communities and the programs that go along with that. We also want to make sure that these documents are consistent with state law, regional policies, best practices, and incorporating new treatments that didn't exist seven or ten years ago when those prior plans were developed, including things like class four protected bikeways, the appropriate use of sharrows or shared facilities where cars and bicycles use the lane together, things of that sort. And I think first and foremost, we also wanna make sure that we're maintaining eligibility for funding. A number of funding sources require that local jurisdictions have a both adopted and current plan that includes various projects in order for those projects to be eligible for funding, particularly from the regional and state levels. And as you'll see in the next couple of slides, we did significant public engagement to ensure this plan reflects not just those best practices at the regional or statewide level, but also what the City of American Canyon and our local communities were looking for. So a bit of timeline, I said this has been about a two-year process. We kicked off this effort in the fall of 24 and went through data collection, evaluating existing conditions, extensive community stakeholder engagement, developing recommendations, and then plan completion with the Napa Valley Transportation Authority Board of Directors adopting this county-wide section of the plan in March of this year. As I mentioned, significant public engagement, nearly 2,000 interactions with individuals over that two-year period. We did in-person workshops or open house events in Napa and Calistoga. In American Canyon specifically, we did participate in both the 2024 and 2025 Meet Me in the Street events, so three events times two years there. We tabled at American Canyon Middle School at one of their career fairs talking to students at those middle school grades about how do they want to get around their communities and did a total of more than 30 partner events and presentations including to organizations like this, bodies like this. We had interactive online elements as well with about 450 comments received on interactive web maps and nearly 200 responses to a countywide survey. And all that information, all that community engagement comes together into what does the plan look like and what are the goals for the plan. So we have six overall goals for this new active transportation plan. Safety, equity, accessibility, and connectivity. Those are kind of the base of the plan, and then building on those components of the goals are sustainability, talking about mode shift and reducing single occupancy vehicle trips, maintenance, ensuring that we have a plan for maintaining facilities as they get built out, and evaluating and collecting data both on existing use of existing facilities. NVTA recently partnered with the city to install a bicycle pedestrian counter on Wetlands Edge to evaluate how many people are using that excellent shared use pathway along the wetlands. And that kind of information is going to be valuable in both evaluating what is the success of those kinds of projects, as well as competing for funding for future expansion of those facilities. In terms of the organization, as Director Cooper mentioned, we have a dedicated chapter just for the City of American Canyon, as well as a number of appendices, best practices toolkits, and a countywide policy framework that establishes kind of a baseline for how all of our communities throughout the Napa Valley are approaching issues around active transportation, but also still providing flexibility for local jurisdictions to add on to that to address any unique specific local needs that may arise. Just kind of talked about this a little bit, but I'll dive in a bit more detail. On the policy side, again, what we did is looked at what are the existing adopted plans say. We want to make sure that we're being consistent with, for example, your fairly recently adopted general plan, leveraging that best practices from the region and the state levels, and organize these in what we call a safe routes ease framework. So categorized engineering policies kind of together, education engagement topics together, encouragement and evaluation. and as I said you know really these serve as a baseline as a floor not a ceiling allowing and encouraging jurisdictions to go above and beyond if it feels appropriate for that individual community The treatment toolkit is something we're very proud of having in this plan. It's about a 65-page document that provides fairly simple but also accurate guidance and context for what are the right types of treatments, what are the right types of improvements for a given situation. So this is designed both as a resource for whether it's public planners or engineers, but also individual residents who may feel like, hey, there's a speeding problem on my street and I don't feel safe walking or biking. What are some opportunities to address that? So what are minimum sidewalk widths? What is the appropriate use of a protected bikeway versus a bike lane? Things of that sort. Also looking at a number of traffic calming treatments that may be a little bit innovative for communities in the Napa Valley, but have established proven track records and are things that can be adopted either on interim or on a permanent basis moving forward. We did a pretty extensive needs assessment looking at the entire roadway network. As I mentioned earlier, one of the first phases of this effort was to collect data on the existing road network, existing speed limits, historic collision data to evaluate what we call level of traffic stress. So how comfortable is it to bike on a given corridor? And we'll talk about that a little bit more I think on the next couple slides. also looking at using big data to evaluate and model where people coming from or where they're going both for their existing vehicle trips but also bicycle pedestrian trips and those vehicle trips that are relatively short two miles or less that could be theoretically converted from single occupancy vehicle to walking or biking And as I mentioned, level of traffic stress is something that we really focused on in this plan and developing the recommendations for the street network specifically. So LTS one through four can basically be considered one is great, one is green, one is everybody, whether you're eight years old or 80 years old, you feel pretty comfortable walking or biking on that corridor. As you move up into that three and four, those are facilities like Highway 29 Broadway through town, where you've gotta be pretty brave to wanna bike on that corridor. And what we found, at least in American Canyon, is about 15% of the total roadway miles in American Canyon are considered high stress, that level of traffic stress three or four. So there are significant opportunities to reduce that through future roadway projects, and unsurprisingly, those are the streets that we would all kind of think of, Highway 29, American Canyon Road, Newell, et cetera. So getting into kind of the meat and potatoes of the plan, we again did some significant evaluation of the existing network, and you'll see this is just a county-wide snapshot of mileage, and we'll have some additional detail on the next slide just for American Canyon. But what we saw is in 2019, there were about 13 miles of existing bicycle facilities. And in 2025, we had about 18, almost 19 miles of facilities. This plan calls for an additional 25 miles of facility for a total of about 43, 44 miles at full plan build out. And thinking about the timeline again, this is a long term plan. So there are certainly near term opportunities, but we're thinking 15, 20 years in the horizon. In terms of the existing bicycle network in American Canyon, getting to that kind of roughly 20 miles number, we have a significant network of shared use pathways and what we like to call jumbo sidewalks. Yes, I'm sorry, go ahead.

If I can just a quick question going back a moment or two. You had said the plan is designed for like 15, 20 years. Yes. I get that, but my question really is with the numerous advancements as you opened with that we're seeing in terms of active transportation, is there a plan to update this plan significantly prior to that 15 or 20 year lookout. And what kind of window are we looking at for that?

That's a very good question. Thank you for asking it. So yes, NVTA does update our countywide plans on roughly a five year Uh, timeframe. So every five years we look at a plan and sometimes they're relatively minor updates. If not, a lot has changed. Um, in this case, uh, we had the pedestrian plan, which is actually getting very old. Um, the last pedestrian plan was adopted in 2013. Um, and then the last bicycle plan for Napa County and American Canyon was 2019. So again, we're a little bit beyond that five-year planning horizon. Part of that was due to COVID, kind of delaying this effort from kicking off and then having additional work that we needed to do. So yes, we will be updating this plan and doing a snapshot update at least every five years. We will also, as I'll talk about a little bit later, continually do updates to the network and evaluate progress on an annual basis. So we'll be working with public works departments, planning departments, to identify, okay, if American Canyon has, right now, let's call it 20 miles of existing facilities, I think there's a discrepancy on our tables, which we'll fix, that, you know, where are we in 2028? Where are we in 2030? To ensure that we are making that progress that we want, and I'll also note, although this kind of plan does have a fairly long planning horizon, We also identify key opportunities in the plan, which we'll talk about in a few more slides, that are more near term, where there are relatively easy or relatively feasible improvements that can be made, whether it's due to existing planned roadway projects or funding opportunities that may come forward. One great example is the SR 29 corridor through American Canyon. You're all very familiar. with the work that NVTA is doing with the City of American Canyon and Caltrans for that corridor. So that is a kind of near midterm opportunity to add class one shared use pathways to the corridor that we anticipate having under construction in the next handful of years.

Thank you, I appreciate the very thorough reply.

Of course. So again, existing network, and then the question is, okay, so we've got about 20 miles of existing facilities, most of that is class one shared use paths, or what we call jumbo sidewalks in some cases, where you have about a 10 foot wide sidewalk that can be used by both bicyclists and pedestrians, and then a number of bike lanes, and a small handful of bike routes and unclassified facilities. Those unclassified facilities are primarily in the kind of wetlands area and the Mike's Hike and Bike loop around the old landfill where those are gravel facilities, but they are used both for recreation and active transportation. We want to capture that and the benefits of those accurately, so we created a new category of what we call unclassified because they don't really meet the requirements for any of the other types of bike facilities in the plan. So as I mentioned, we're looking at about 20 miles currently, and the plan proposes about another 19 miles of facilities over the planning horizon for this document. In terms of prioritization, and going back to the Commissioner's comment just a moment ago, we have identified a handful of projects that can be prioritized in the near term, and we evaluated priority projects based on five key criteria. Safety is the project located on what we call a high injury network. That is a corridor that sees a significantly higher than average rate of severe injury or fatal collisions. Highway 29 through American Canyon qualifies there. Equity is the location, is the project or the corridor within what we call an equity priority community, or an EPC, which is a designation by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission for areas that have historically been under-invested in. The city of American Canyon has one of those in kind of the southeastern portion of town. Also connectivity, what is the benefit of connectivity for that corridor? Again, thinking about the American Canyon 29 example where that would provide significant connectivity to existing businesses, to residences, improve east-west connectivity across the highway. Plan consistency, is it consistent with an existing general plan project or other priorities that have been identified by the jurisdiction and community support? So there are a number of those projects we identified as well that are kind of those near-term opportunities. We also want to talk about pedestrians just a little bit. I talk about bikes a lot, but I don't want to ignore the pedestrian network and the opportunities to improve safety and connectivity for pedestrians. We did a similar analysis on the PED network. looking at where are there existing sidewalks, where are there gaps in the sidewalk network, identified key destinations. So we looked at where are there transit stops, where are there schools, where are there parks, where are there medical facilities or key retail destinations that whether it's kids or seniors would be likely to want or need to go. and then basically drew a 500 foot circle around all of those and identified, is there a sidewalk gap within 500 feet of those key destinations? And if yes, then we want to prioritize closing that gap. And so what we found was most of the gaps are just west of the Broadway 29 corridor, James Road and other roads in that neighborhood, portions of Donaldson Way on the west side of the highway, portions of American Canyon Road on the west side as well. And so what we identified is about, let's see here, 1.7 miles of near-term sidewalk gap closures that can significantly enhance walkability for pedestrians in this community. So we added a slide. I'll let you take over from here.

Okay, Patrick. I wanted to also point out that the next item on the agenda is general plan consistency with the capital improvement projects. And so you think about a document like this identifies needed capital improvements to improve pedestrian and bicycle, and then on an annual basis, Pebble Grove comes and shares what capital improvements we're doing to help fulfill the objectives in the general plan. And with regard to pet and bike, this would be a very key document and a very convenient reference resource for for not this year obviously because we're just doing it now but but in subsequent years this will be a great document to help focus our attention on what's what are needed capital improvements So just to sort of wrap this up, we always share with you the California Environmental Quality Act and how this complies. This action, General Plan Amendment, needs to be accounts for the state environmental law, and it happens to be that it's statutorily exempt. So if you're gonna be exempt, that's one of the good ones Because it's kind of bookmarked as you know, it's promoting active lifestyle Reducing uses of automobiles It's it's the thing we want our community to be able to to have a community where you can do that and the state law recognize that so With that, we're recommending approval for this general plan amendment, and your recommendation would move on to the City Council. The City Council is having a joint meeting with the Open Space, Active Transportation, and Sustainability Commission on June 12th. And so they're kind of doing a two-for-one meeting there to review this plan and hopefully adopt it that night. So with that, Patrick and I are glad to answer any questions you have.

Thank you, Director Cooper. Thank you, Mr. Bann. We appreciate that. Commissioners, questions?

I've got just a couple of questions that tie back, and again, I really appreciate the detailed response earlier. Because of what I do professionally and some of the people that I interact with, there's a lot of stuff going on in terms of transportation, particularly local, the quote-unquote last mile, which has been a significant impediment to mass transit, particularly in areas like this, where it's even if you could Take a bus to BART or to the ferry. How do you get to the bus?

How do you get from the bus?

There's also the concept that I don't know who has kind of heard it put this way, but what's a Tesla? It's a battery with four wheels. There's lots of concepts now of doing much smaller, cheaper, basically battery storage units on four wheels that you could, like a Waymo, call up at any time, have you cover that last mile. Has any thought of the development of those kinds of advancements been looked at in terms of developing the plan and what that would mean. Because it might mean things like converting some areas that are an open parking lot or something to a storage station for these on-demand vehicles. that would get called out and used back and forth. Now, how would that be financed? That's a whole different question, whether the city, the public or whatnot would finance having a fleet of, depending upon the size of the city, eight, 10, 300 or whatnot of these kinds of vehicles is a different issue. But have those kinds of, that kind of thinking been taken into account in looking at the plan? I know it's a loaded question, so I appreciate that up front. I appreciate the best shot at it.

Yes. Let me try to divide that question into a couple of little pieces. So in terms of the first and last mile question or topic that you raised, it certainly is a challenge. And that is part of why when we were doing the pedestrian gap analysis, we focused on that 500 foot buffer around key destinations, including transit stops, including retail schools, parks, et cetera. When you're talking about Waymos and EVs and adoption of new mobility modes, those are topics that are actually being addressed in NVTA's countywide transportation plan as we look at what might transportation in Napa Valley look like in 20 years at a more macro level as opposed to just in the active transportation space. And I think that you'll be pleased to find that there is some discussion about that. You may be aware that just late last year, the state did approve Waymo to expand operations into both the greater Bay Area, which includes all of Napa County, as well as the Sacramento region. That's not happening yet And my understanding is that those conversations with Waymo between local jurisdictions and that company are in very early stages It'll likely be a number of years until they're running their you know autonomous vehicles in Napa County communities, but it's something certainly that we're aware of and thinking about and starting to have those conversations about how do we accommodate how do we address the potential challenges that come from those new mobility modes and

All right. There's a couple of different things that are happening today and also in the future, as Patrick was talking about. Today what's a really nice service for NVTA is you can have the bus come to your home and pick you up. and take you places. So that's really a wonderful service to be able to provide that last mile because it's like the last feet, which is pretty nice. I don't know if you could take our little commuter bus maybe to a transit bus that goes on further to Bard or somewhere else, but that's a wonderful service available today. I did attend last night's workshop by NVTA here, and so was our chair. Nice to see you. And maybe others that I've forgotten. It was very well attended. And there is a plan for Highway 29 for, I think the term, like a transit hub. And this has amenities beyond what you might normally expect. It's not just buses and park and ride, but I think there is battery storage there for perhaps your car or your bike or new innovative vehicle that needs charging and other amenities that you might see beyond what you would expect to see at a park and ride or a bus transit station. So more to come. Maybe I could ask Patrick. You mentioned the transit, the transportation plan. That's another large, important program happening. Do you have maybe an update on that?

yeah so the countywide transportation plan is also a plan that is updated every five years or so we're currently in the kind of middle stages of developing that document it should be going to the NVTA board for adoption I believe in September so that's something that you know you can look forward to seeing on an NVTA board agenda in the next handful of months It's entirely possible. We do love American Canyons. Either Diana Meehan, our principal planner, or myself would be happy to. Happy? More than happy, even, to provide that update.

Well, thank you both. I appreciate it.

Commissioner Muhammad?

So on page 13 of your presentation, thank you for the presentation, by the way, and the information provided in the packet. So yeah, so the projected new annual commuter bicyclists has those numbers on there. Do you know what the current number of bicyclists that are using?

You know, we don't actually have really accurate numbers for those corridors specifically. and even we have to estimate kind of city-wide numbers. What we do is use a number of data sources. We use the US Census and their American Community Survey to evaluate commute mode share. So they have a question in the the survey that they send out to American households every year that asks about how do you get to work every day? Is it on personal vehicle? Is it transit? Is it a bus? Is it walking or biking? Do you work from home? So that's a data input source. We also, as part of this plan, used big data sources to evaluate based on cell phone data. how people are getting around and using the speed that people's phones are moving to estimate whether they're riding transit, whether they're in a personal vehicle, walking, biking, et cetera. And of course, all that goes through a rigorous validation process as well. But we don't have really good data for each corridor, but that is why we are trying to expand our fixed permanent counts network. And I did mention that counter that we've put already on Wetlands Edge, and we're certainly hoping to do more in the next handful of years.

Thank you.

Commissioner Goss.

Yeah. Thanks so much for the presentation. I wanted to look at the map again for the pedestrian facilities. I think you have mentioned a certain number of miles being proposed as priority. Yeah, so there's no legend on that map, but I think I found it in the actual plan.

Yes, and I was hoping it would be straightforward enough.

Fair enough. But yeah, so the red, I presume. But then is any of that along 29 also... Because I know that part of that green dotted line I don't think is current sidewalks. That is not current.

So you'll see there's two types of green lines. On this map, there's the solid which is existing. Class 1 shared use pathways or what we call jumbo sidewalks sometimes. The dashed line which you'll see along the Broadway 29 corridor. and a couple other locations, Eucalyptus is another one on the northern side of town. Also the east side connection that's planned, proposed, the new extension. Those are future class one shared use pathways. So those fall under that class one bucket where we see 21 miles of future.

Got it. And for those locations, both the dashed green and the red, so those have been identified as priority locations in this plan. Are there current projects proposed to address any of those locations, or is that...

PROJECTS WILL BE DEVELOPED BASED ON THIS PLAN. AGAIN, ONE OF THE GOALS OF PUTTING THIS PLAN TOGETHER IS TO IDENTIFY WHERE THOSE GAPS ARE SO WE CAN THEN DEVELOP PLANS TO MOVE THOSE PROJECTS FORWARD AND TO BE ABLE TO SECURE FUNDING. OKAY.

THANK YOU. APPRECIATE THAT.

I wanted to say thank you again for your really detailed report. Thank you. My question is a little bit more broad, and I don't know how it fits in here or if you can respond to it. I really like how you talked about the baseline, you know, the safe route ease. And when we consider safety in our, you know, things are just moving so fast and rapidly as we talk about, you know, Waymo, autonomous cars and all that. So now we're seeing you know, modes of transportation. And I see a lot of our youth on e-bikes. How do we as a community and then this plan, how do we address e-bike safety with our adults that are using the e-bikes as well as our youth that are riding the e-bikes? And we'll be sharing these pedestrian walkways, these bicycle pathways. How do we go about as a community to reinforce our expectation of safety?

Thank you, Commissioner Abalon, that's a great question. One of the interesting aspects of pedestrian and bicycle is it needs planning, public works, and parks. A lot of things that we do, you know, you can really divide these things and we're all kind of happy in our lane. But this is one of those issues where we all have to work together. And our assistant or deputy city manager, Ali Akeda, has been working on a policy about e-bikes on our multi-use paths. And so, yes, the issue is definitely a serious one because there can be injuries just because of the speeds that you can get on those bicycles. So it's not something I can tell you what the status is, but it is a follow-up item that I can bring back to the commission.

Thank you. I appreciate you addressing that. Thank you.

Thank you, Commissioners. I have a few questions myself. First of all, Mr. Benn, thank you. Wonderful presentation, great updates. I did attend last night's meeting as well. Seeing you, Director Cooper, thank you. I think the connectivity of this city is incredibly important. both for seniors in this city and for youth in this city. I think the biking lanes are incredibly important as we have particularly students that transcend from the west side to the east side or vice versa, both in the morning and the afternoon when traffic is heavy, attending both the middle schools and the high schools which are on opposite sides of the city. I THINK FOR PRIORITIZING THINGS WE NEED TO PRIORITIZE THE CONNECTIVITY OF THE EAST AND WEST SIDE OF THE CITY SAFELY SO THAT ALL MODES OF TRANSPORTATION CAN CROSS SAFELY ON THAT. I DID HAVE ONE BIG QUESTION. THIS MIGHT BE FOR DIRECTOR COOPER. VARIOUS DEPARTMENTS THAT HANDLE OR NEED TO COORDINATE TO MAKE SURE THAT THERE'S SAFETY AROUND IT. WE TALKED ABOUT THAT HUB LAST NIGHT WHICH I THINK IS A BRILLIANT IDEA, HAVING A CENTRAL HUB IN THE CITY THAT CONNECTS AND ALLOWS VARIOUS WAYS OF CHARGING. My question is, when I look at these maps and I look at Newell as a whole and the full extension of it, or if I look at the Broadway plan or even the wetlands edge, you know, we're talking between, you know, a mile to two miles to three miles, right, of length that runs. Are there any consideration given to pause areas or rest areas, water stations or things of that nature? Is that an NVTSU thing? Is that a municipality thing? I just think that having those, it's more of a convenience, obviously, but I think having those kind of reassures and reinforces that we do want people to use these certain modes of transportation, that we're willing to provide pause areas to allow them to have that benefit.

It's a great question, and the answer is yes. So both in terms of the completion of the Napa Valley Vine Trail, which includes portions of the Class I network through the city of American Canyon and north to Napa and south to Vallejo, There are planned locations for what we call rest stops. But I think you're also talking about broader amenities that are needed to support active transportation use and just generally people getting around our communities and being comfortable, whether that's a water refill station in a park, restrooms, other kinds of amenities like that. And we do have policies in this plan that address the need to develop those amenities over time. And I think it also applies, at least in the bicycle context, to bicycle parking. One of the things that we identified in this plan that was a little bit lacking is both the need for short and long-term bicycle parking at key employment centers, as well as at key retail destinations. So if you want to be able to ride your bike over to a cafe and grab a cup of coffee with a friend and then be able to head back home, you need a place to park your bike there. um even if there's a facility to get you to that destination you still need to be able to park your bike there so it is addressed both at the kind of the regional context through major projects like the vine trail as well as in the policies within this document thank you for that also um uh chair plumber uh i may be speaking out of turn

Hope not. But there's also the recent parks master plan. And it would seem a lot of these trails by go through and connect into the parks and having facilities like you're describing also works well just for the park itself. So you can get kind of double benefit there if the trails are next to parks where these facilities are available. So I'm gonna make a note, take a look at the parks master plan and see if there may be, it may have been addressed in there.

Yeah, I think it's wonderful. Like I said, I think there's an excitement to have this city, one, walkable, because a lot of these sidewalks that are highlighted in red, I've seen them personally. They're bad. They're not safe for anybody to be transgressing in those directions. So just having a plan to move forward with that I think is exciting. And then adding the additional conveniences that we're talking about, I think, and the safety issue and the storage of bikes and whatnot, especially e-bikes, because there are a lot of them in the city. Those aren't going away at any time either. but it is getting people to use less vehicles, right? So less impact on the city. Thank you very much for that. Appreciate it. So it looks like we have a resolution on the table here. Oh, sorry, one more question. I'm sorry, Commissioner Altman.

It just occurred to me as you were talking, Chair Plummer, that one of the things that I know you and I have spoken about offline at times, and I didn't see it specifically addressed here, but is, and I don't even know if it's part of, or should be part of this plan. Sorry, I forgot to turn that on. My apologies. So I don't know if this should be part of this plan or not, but we've talked about Highway 29 and about students crossing both directions. What improvements, if any, are contemplated, whether it be going down or going over, to provide a safe, not on street level, area for the kids particularly but to to cross 29 safely i mean it this has been one of the long-standing issues in this community is that 29 splits us big time into East and West. And the safety factors of crossing, to me it's one of the reasons why I was pleased when on the 29 improvement plans they decided to do away with the roundabouts because I was like well okay but how is it safer for kids to cross the roundabouts because while people slow going into the roundabout on the other side people tend to speed up exiting the roundabout so now it's not safer to cross next to a roundabout than it is to cross under a stoplight. So is there any comment that can be made regarding doing something to ease the crossing of 29?

Patrick is happy to.

I should stop using that phrase. So I will say that there was, in prior iterations of countywide transportation plans, the concept of doing a bicycle pedestrian overpass at American Canyon Road. My understanding, although Director Crouppen will correct me if I'm wrong, is that that has actually been taken out of the most recent iteration of the countywide transportation plan draft based on the projects that were submitted by the city. I will say, though, that as part of the Highway 29 corridor plan that is being worked on now, that there will be significant safety improvements to the intersections. And just a couple of examples of what those can or will look like. One is what we call leading pedestrian intervals, which is when there is a stop light and then the green light for both traffic and pedestrians to cross, whether it's east or west, let's say, that pedestrians actually get the walk signal two, three, four seconds prior to the vehicles getting their green light. And so that can allow pedestrians to get into the intersection prior to vehicles getting their green light, both positioning them further forward so they're more visible to vehicles, and making sure that they have that extra time to cross. Secondly, the plan includes, in a number of locations, what we call pedestrian refuge islands. So for example, think about the American Canyon Road crossing where you have, I think it's three lanes in the southbound direction, including that merge, and then I think at least three or four in the northbound direction on the south side of the intersection. So we're talking about seven or eight. lanes of traffic that you have to cross to have a dedicated refuge in the middle of that intersection to allow for pedestrians to kind of cross one section and then cross the other if they so choose now some people may choose and there may be enough time to cross all the way but it again provides that extra space particularly for seniors or kids or you know if i had a couple years ago my three-year-old at that time son in a little burly trailer and i was riding him you know through town and napa it can be a little hard to get going and get that bike going with all that weight and through the intersection in time so those are just examples of some of the crossing improvements that will be part of that plan in addition to high visibility crosswalks and other treatments that will enhance pedestrian and bike safety thank you other questions

Thank you, Commissioners. Thank you very much. So we have a docket for a resolution. I'm sorry, Chair.

We have to open it up, the public hearing.

Thank you. We do have to do that, don't we?

All right. At this time, we'll open up for public comment.

Is there anyone in the room that would like to comment on this item? And we have no one online. Now we'll close public comment. Thank you.

Okay, now we can talk about the resolution. So we have a resolution on the docket. There's a recommendation from Director Cooper and the staff determining that the City of American Canyon's fiscal year capital improvement program is consistent with and in conformity with the City of American Canyon General Plan.

Chair, I think you skipped ahead to the next item. Oh, is that the wrong resolution? There is a resolution for this item, but it is to approve the recommended approval of the general plan amendment. There it is.

General Plan Amendment to incorporate the American Canyon Active Transportation Plan as an appendix into the General Plan Mobility Element. Yes, thank you for that correction.

I make a motion that we approve the plan.

I'd like to second that motion.

Thank you very much. That's resolution number 2026-03. Can I get a roll call, please?

Yes, Commissioner Marilyn Abelon. Aye. Commissioner Eric Altman.

Aye.

Commissioner Devette Muhammad. Aye. Vice Chair Shelby Goss. Aye. Chair Charles Plummer.

Aye. Thank you very much. Director Cooper, thank you. Fiscal year 26-27 capital improvement plan.

Yes. I know, well I read the report, but we have Christine here from the Public Works Department who will be presenting this item for you.

Good evening, commissioners, members of the public. My name is Christine De Los Santos. I'm here in behalf of Public Works Director Erica Amon-Smithies. She and my supervisor, the senior civil engineer, both have prior family commitments, so I'm here in behalf of them. I may not know all the answers to your questions later, but I will make sure to get them back to our director so she can bring it back to the commission later. So hopefully it will be short. So as Brent has mentioned earlier, each year the Capital Improvement Program, or CIP, is updated to remove finished projects and add new ones. The city's 2026-27 CIP, which should be in the attachments in the packet, show all the 45 projects in six divisions. Civic, Parks and Recreation, Transportation and Public Works, Water, Wastewater and Recycled Water. Currently there are 35 projects currently budgeted with 10 new projects being added to the next fiscal year. SOME OF THE PROJECTS INVOLVE PRIVATE PROPERTY TO BE ACQUIRED, THEREFORE TRIGGERING THE SECTION 65402 CONFORMITY FINDING. ACCORDINGLY, THE PLANNING COMMISSION IS TASKED WITH REVIEWING THE FISCAL YEAR 2627 CIP AND MAKING THE FINDING THAT THE CIP ACTIVITIES ALIGN WITH THE GENERAL PLAN GOALS, POLICIES AND INFRASTRUCTURE PLANS. FOR EXAMPLE, THE ROADWAY Roadway construction would be consistent with a general plan when the roadway is depicted on the mobility element plan identified in the goals and policies or listed as an implementation program or activity. So staff has reviewed the proposed fiscal year 26-27 CIP projects and evaluated the proposed improvements for consistency with the classifications and policies contained in the general plan as shown in the attachment. So all of the projects, sorry, I don't have a presentation. But these activities are consistent and in conformity with the policies contained in the general plan. So we have the planning commission's conformance determination will allow the CIP to be brought to city council for adoption along with the anticipated expenditures and projects over a five year period at the next city council meeting in June 2nd. I think we have a resolution determining that the City of American Canyon fiscal year 26-27 capital improvement program is consistent with and in conformity with the City of American Canyon general plan. So with that, I can open the floor for any questions.

Thank you very much. We appreciate the updates. And I think you're going to get some questions here. Where should we start? Commissioner Ullman? No? Commissioner Muhammad?

You ready to write this down? Yes. So my question is, out of the 45 CIPs, what projects are realistically fundable within the next three to five years? Write it down.

That is a good question.

If I might just add here too, I think if we want to table this resolution, I guess this might be at the direction of the director, simply because I think there's going to be questions that are going to be asked here of this commission that may not be, unfortunately, able to be answered at this time. And I'm not sure that any of us would be willing to move forward with this resolution until we have some of those questions answered. So if that's Something for deferment, yeah.

One point I might suggest is I recognize the point about additional information. One note, though, in terms of project specific details, perhaps that could be provided through a detailed staff report on the back end because the budget calendar does depend in part on this resolution moving forward. And that, of course, is set for consideration by the council on Tuesday. so that would be tuesday june 2nd so that'd be the only challenge in the commission not acting tonight but i recognize that the commission isn't comfortable that is that is understandable but one other point just in terms of timing to bear in mind if perhaps the questions and the details could be provided through a report on the back end that may be an option or they're carved out of this is carved out of the larger and is brought back and added later

yeah and we could always come back and add more additional information later absolutely including with the more robust presentation from staff well let me let me clarify that so just um that i'm understanding it and the commission can ask their own questions as well so what you're suggesting is ask our questions and then have the questions or the answers provided of those questions at the back end of this this after the adjournment of this meeting is that what we're saying but how would we pass the resolution during the meeting without having the answers to the questions the question would be if the commission is comfortable

PASSING RESOLUTION ON THE PRESENT MOMENT BASED ON THE INFORMATION PROVIDED BY STAFF SO FAR AND IN THE WRITTEN MATERIALS.

I UNDERSTAND. OKAY.

IF THAT'S WITHIN THE COMMISSION'S PREFERENCES.

Okay, well let's continue with the questioning and see where we're at with that first. That sounds fair. Commissioner Muhammad, do you have questions?

Can I jump in with just more of a procedural question relative to what the City Attorney and Community Development Director were just referencing and discussing, which is I get the need to get budgets done in a timely fashion, but Isn't there enough time for it to be pushed since they meet every two weeks to the next meeting and still be timely? If I'm not correct on that and there has to be multiple readings for it to pass, I might not be correct. I'm not sure what the full process is. But so if you could expound a little bit, it would be helpful to giving me some additional clarity.

I think from my perspective, when we bring an item to the Planning Commission for your consideration, you have options. You can adopt the resolution, you can modify it, and you can continue it. That would apply here. So if that's the Commission's choice, then there are things that can be done to accommodate that. And it's not really, it's not a you problem.

Yeah, and I would note the present calendar, the council, of course, does meet both June 16th and June 2nd. The present calendar has the budget item up for council consideration on June 2nd, mindful of other items on June 16th. But, of course, it is possible to approve the budget and have this recommendation come on the back end. That would be fine if the commission is not prepared to move forward tonight.

There's a variety of options, I'm sure. We haven't thought them all now, but there are always options. But fundamentally, the commission has the choice to approve, deny, or modify a resolution. Absolutely. Or continue. Got it. Thank you.

Thank you for that explanation. It's helpful to know what our options are. Commissioner Goss?

Thank you, Chair Plummer. Yeah. I know you mentioned, you know, based on You know what we're hearing tonight and also based on the agenda packet that was provided with reading I would just like to point out that there's not any description about any of these projects provided in our agenda packet there is a complete list. But reading was minimal. And. I'm curious, you said 35 of these projects are already in the program and 10 are new. Which are the 10 new ones?

So I did highlight it on my copy. But if you have it in yours, they would be the number five, number six under the civic projects. On the parks projects, number 17. Under water would be number 34 and number 35. Under wastewater, number 40 through 43. And recycled water, it's number 45. Okay, thank you. I will definitely put in my notes to add descriptions of the projects if the commission is interested in that.

Commissioner Mohamed.

So my other question is financial as well. Does the adoption, so first of all, I don't have any issues with the the CIP being consistent with the general plan, but I do have questions on the financial end of it. I want to know, does adoption obligate the city financially in any way, and then what grants does the city have or can get to complete these projects as well?

So on the transportation, I can speak about a couple of projects that I know for sure have grants on it. So the Green Island Road project, which is ongoing right now, has a grant with the EDA. The American Canyon Road guardrail project also has some state funds appropriated to it. We also have ARPA funding from the federal. That's on the Melvin sidewalk and storm drainage project, which is very, very close to the end. We also have some grant funds on the Melvin Road pavement rehabilitation project.

Thank you.

What I would also add, if I could jump in, is that the proposed resolution, whenever approved, finding the projects as consistent with the general plan does not obligate the city to then spend the money to pay for the projects. That choice is a budgetary choice reserved for the city council. And I do also believe that some of the other projects are funded by a variety of grant sources and impact fees and enterprise funds. The details of that would be, I realize they're not in this packet. I believe they are in the budget, the full budget packet, which should be available later tonight or tomorrow. So that information can certainly be provided to the commission as well in a more precise format too.

Thank you. I just remember in previous presentation packets or information packets, Director Smithy's had all that information in there. Absolutely, yeah.

I have a question. You alluded to or mentioned eminent domain for certain projects. Can you identify which projects are going to require eminent domain?

The Green Island Road project requires private right-of-way acquisition because of the widening portion of it.

Sorry, that's under transportation number 16 or 18?

Number 18, yes.

Correct, okay.

Is that the only one?

I think that's the only one. Okay.

Thank you very much. So commissioners, where we sit on this? Do I have a motion to adopt a resolution?

I'm sorry, we need to open public comment.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Now it's time for a public comment.

Is there anyone in the room that would like to make public comment on this item? Please go to the podium and introduce yourself.

If you're gonna wait if you're gonna wait and get additional information to make your decision This additional information on the back end. I'm just wondering how we would get that So if you decide tonight, you're gonna pass this resolution based on something you may get between now and Tuesday I probably won't see it till Tuesday and Don't know if I this is my first planning commission meeting in a long time, so I don't really know how it works But I'm not sure I like the idea of that if it's gonna be online and I can look at it that's all well and fine, too, but To say we're gonna pass or pass this resolution based on something you're gonna get That maybe the handful of us aren't gonna see until Tuesday. It's just a comment Thank you for that

I just wanted to just highlight that the recommendation is just determining that the CIP project list is in conformity with the general plan. I understand that there's a lot of questions related to budgets and the financial aspect of it, but I think that's what's going to be heard at the next public hearing meeting. which we will be glad to provide the more, I guess, in-depth packet related to budgets and whatnot.

Thank you for that. Any more public comment?

Is there anyone else in the room? Okay, is there anyone online that would like to speak? If so, please raise your hand now. There's no additional public comment.

Thank you. At this time, we'll close public comment. And now, commissioners, we have in front of us a resolution to adopt or not, number 2026-04. Do I have a motion?

Oops. My comment is that, as has kind of been alluded, We're lacking a bit of information that I think would give comfort in moving forward and passing. And it's not even the budgetary issues. And I'm going to take a quick second. And I want to thank you because you've sort of been... you've been put on the spot and it's probably been a little unfair to you, you know, to have to be the one kind of dealing with this. But if the bosses aren't around, you know, you deserve kudos for stepping up and doing a nice job in handling, you know, things. So well done to you. But I just think that without having some of the details about the projects themselves, it's really hard for us to kind of comment, is this inconformity? You know, just a title. I've threw Safeway and Exit By between Jack in the Box and Safeway. The improvements are... ...that are graduating this year. So get them out of the house.

No, just kidding. Congratulations, seniors. And with that, it is 7.51. Good night, American Canyon. Thank you.