City Council - Regular Meeting

you 🎵 🎵 . . . . . ¶¶ ¶¶ Oh, interesting. Madam Mayor, counting down. 10, 9, City Council meeting of May 21st, 2026.

I'm calling the meeting to order at 635 p.m. Thank you for your patience. We had some last-minute things to iron out. Would you please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

I'd like to start by welcoming our acting city attorney, Mark Tran, this evening. He's from our legal counsel, Burke Williams and Sorenson. And Mark will be filling in for Samantha Zuttler tonight. Welcome, Mark. Could you please, Mark, give us a report out of closed session May 11th and 21st, please. Thanks.

Thank you, Mayor. The City Council met in closed session on May 11th and May 21st. Both times, discussion was limited to the items listed on the closed session agenda. Direction was given and no reportable action was taken. That concludes my report.

Thank you very much. Move on to roll call. No council member attending remotely tonight. So city clerk, could we have a roll call, please?

Council member Kern? Here. Council member Lenz? Here. Council member O'Connell?

Here.

And Mayor Mackin?

Here. Tonight, under adoption of the agenda, we had a clerical error on our meeting title using our new agenda meeting management system. Council, we need to move business item T from this agenda for consideration at tonight's Housing Authority Special Meeting. The Housing Authority Special Meeting will be held immediately following this meeting. Council will also need to move consent calendar item L minutes for a joint City Council Housing Authority and GVM ID meeting for consideration at the next council meeting Can I get a first and second to adopt the agenda as amended so moved second? second all in favor aye no one opposed First item on our agenda, we have a proclamation to honor the retirement of Bill Del Chiero of Brisbane Hardware. Bill, are you here? There he is, okay. Thank you, I couldn't see you in the crowd. I have a proclamation here I'd like to read. It's a beautiful proclamation, by the way. This is honoring Brisbane Hardware and Billy, Bill Del Chiero. Whereas for more than six decades, Brisbane Hardware has served as both a trusted local business and an integral part of Brisbane's community life. And whereas the Del Chiero family has operated the store for 63 years, with Billy representing the third generation to lead the business beginning on November 1st at age 26, just as his father and grandfather did before him. And whereas the community's heartfelt response to the store's closure demonstrates the deep impact Brisbane Hardware has had on residents across generations. And whereas Billy's personal connection to Brisbane and his intention to remain part of the community speaks to the enduring relationships formed over decades of service. Now therefore be it proclaimed that the Brisbane City Council honors Brisbane Hardware and Bill Del Chiero for 63 years of dedication, craftsmanship, and community presence and expresses its sincere gratitude for the legacy they leave in the City of Stars. Could we please have a round of applause for Bill? Let's get a, come on up here, let's get a picture. Do you have anything you would like to say?

Thank you, everyone.

Thank you. Let's get a picture with Bill.

ONE, TWO, THREE. THANK YOU. BY THE WAY, THE ORIGINAL ARTWORK ON THAT

PROCLAMATION WAS PROVIDED BY NOAH KELSTETT ON OUR STAFF. NEXT ITEM WE HAVE IS THE 101 CORRIDOR CONNECT PRESENTATION, AND JOINING US TONIGHT IN THE AUDIENCE, I SEE WE HAVE SUE ELLEN FROM SMCTA.

Good evening. Good evening. Thank you so much for having me tonight. Slightly less exciting than the prior item. I apologize. I'm Sue Ellen Atkinson, Manager of Planning and Fund Management with the San Mateo County Transportation Authority, and really excited to be here tonight to present an update on our 101 Corridor Connect program. And we can go to the next slide.

There we go.

All right. So it'll be a quick refresher of the 101 Corridor Connect program and our planning documents under that program, really focused on next steps for the program and moving forward. Next slide. And just a refresher of who the San Mateo County Transportation is. San Mateo County Transportation Authority, I'm sorry. We manage the funding from our voter-approved sales tax measures within the county. So we have two half-cent sales tax measures that are collected to fund transportation improvements. That's Measure A and Measure W. And with those funds, we fund, plan, and deliver transportation projects within San Mateo County. Next slide. Skip over one more. All right. So what is the 101 Corridor Connect program? It is a collaborative program to identify and prioritize projects that can help to relieve congestion on US 101. And congestion means different things to different people. And different projects can help to contribute to congestion management in different ways. So through 101 Corridor Connect, we were looking beyond just the highway and looking at the transportation network as a whole within the county in order to look at ways to reduce congestion in a more holistic way. We are partnered in the program with Caltrans, our local cities, including Brisbane, transit agencies, San Mateo County, and the City-County Association of Governments, or CCAG. Next slide. And the program overall is united by a goal to have a safer, more connected, sustainable, and inclusive transportation network in the county, including infrastructure and programs to support. Next slide. And now that we are at the point where our planning is done, we have four plans under the 101 Corridor Connect program that have now been adopted. We're able to look forward into the next steps of the program and utilize the outcomes of that effort, which helped us to identify projects within the county that are regionally significant and that our community supported. It also helps us to position those projects to be more competitive for funding, including state funding, regional funding, our local sales tax funding, and federal funding as well.

Next slide.

And throughout the development of all of those plans, we had the pleasure of working with working groups that we developed throughout the process. So we had working groups for each portion of the county along 101, and we were really happy to be able to work with your staff as part of our North County working group. We also had transit agency partners as part of those groups, as well as other stakeholders, including Commute.org, MTC. Here in the North County, SFO was one of our stakeholders as well. So we're really glad to have them brought along in the program, and they'll be continuing to work with us as we move into the next steps. Next slide. So just a quick overview of the different planning documents under 101 corridor connect. And the first are our multimodal strategies, which are documents that help us to identify and prioritize needed projects in San Mateo County. that, again, look to reduce congestion along 101. And for our multimodal strategies, we were looking at projects for all ways of getting around. So that includes driving, transit, bike, pedestrian, carpooling, et cetera. And we developed multimodal strategies for the entire 101 corridor through three different efforts. Next slide. So as noted for the multimodal strategies, we approach this in three different planning documents, one each for the North County, Mid-County, and South County. For multimodal strategies, we're looking at an area of one mile around the freeway to really look at the transportation network and identify ways that we can enhance the network in order to be able to get people out of their cars on the freeway. And since it was such a wide area around the corridor, we wanted to make sure that we had the opportunity to really get into the communities and understand the needs, because it does differ along the corridor, of course, how people view congestion and what's important to the community. Next slide. So in doing that, we did quite a lot of community engagement for each of those three planning efforts. including in-person engagement, online engagement, small group focus meetings with community-based organizations. We did social media outreach in order to gather input from even more people. And then we also made use of our high-volume bus stops to get input from people while they're waiting for the bus as well. Next slide. So here you can see just a few of the photos of The engagement efforts that we did, we call them pop-up events where we set up a table at existing community events and get feedback from the community. Next slide. And then here's more of a detailed look at our in-person focus groups that we hosted. So for each planning effort, we hosted four focus groups within that portion of the county to get really in-depth insights from community members that may be less likely to engage with government procedures usually. or who weren't able to meet us at the pop-up events as well. Next slide. So all together, for all three of our multimodal strategies, we talked to a lot of people. This, of course, is a fraction of the number of people within our county, within one mile of the corridor. But we were able to get out in the community and get what we felt was a good sense of what was important in each segment of the county. And so we were really happy to hear from so many people and to get so many different thoughts on what mattered most to the community. Next slide. The outcome of each of those multimodal strategies was top 20 projects within the three segments of So you can see all the way over on the left is the north county, middle is the mid county, and all the way on the right is the south county. These projects were developed by looking at all of the locally adopted plans. None of these projects are new. These are not things that we did to identify new projects to add additional workload or anything like that. The goal is to really look at the projects that have been identified by our local jurisdictions, by our regional partners, and how we could support those to move forward. So by taking the feedback from the community and analysis of data associated with the goals of our program, we're able to identify 20 top projects in each area of the county coming out of the multimodal strategies. So those 20 projects from each of the three plans, so 60 altogether, are now priority projects under the program moving forward. Next slide. And for our fourth and final plan under this program is Active 101, which focused much closer in within a quarter mile of the freeway and focused just on active modes of transportation. This was an effort that was funded by Caltrans and we were really excited to have them partner with us to look at ways to make it safer for people who are walking, biking and rolling along and across the freeway. And we really focused on that movement across because there are very few areas within the county where you can go east-west across 101 if you're not in a car safely. So we were really focused on how we could enhance east-west travel, but also travel along the freeway corridor. So that ranged from really small improvements, like crosswalks or curb extensions, up to those freeway crossings, bike lanes, et cetera. Next slide. Active 101 looked at 101 throughout the county as a whole, but again, a much more focused area within a quarter mile of the freeway. Next slide. We did more engagement for Active 101, really focusing in on where people felt safe traveling and where they did not feel safe, or where they wanted to get to that they didn't feel comfortable using active transportation modes. And that gave us a lot of feedback about how people wanted to travel and the improvements that would be necessary in order to make that travel more safe. Next slide. So for those who love maps, this was a really fun effort. We took all of those comments that we received about locations where people wanted to see improvements and mapped them in the heat map that you can see on the left. We again went to our locally adopted plans. All of our jurisdictions within the county have done such incredible efforts with doing master planning documents for transportation. So again, we pulled out all of the projects within a quarter mile of the freeway and then mapped those along with the comments that we received to develop a priority network throughout the county. Next slide. Which you can see much more clearly on this slide. So that's the orange line, north to south in the county. You'll notice it's not a straight line. And again, we are focused on those crossings of 101 and how we can make it safer for people traveling east-west. So in developing this priority network, we really connected the dots in terms of where people wanted to see improvements and the projects that our local jurisdictions have proposed. And we wanted to ensure that when implemented in the future, that this would achieve benefits that were in alignment with our program. we did some additional data analysis and we found that we can really see significant benefits from these projects when they're implemented. In total, this priority network would contribute about 42 total miles for people who are walking, biking and rolling. And about seven and a half miles of the pedestrian high injury network along the freeway would be improved for people walking. And about six miles of the bike high injury network would be improved as well. 16 of our 25 crossings of the freeway would be improved for people who are using active transportation. And then we would see significant benefits in terms of a reduction in vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions. So this will take time to implement. Each of these little lines that we connected are projects, and we know that transportation projects are expensive and they take time. But over time, we look forward to supporting our partners in DESIGNING AND CONSTRUCTING THESE PROJECTS SO THAT WE CAN SEE THIS NETWORK COME TO FRUITION. NEXT SLIDE. WHICH BRINGS US TO NEXT STEPS FOR THIS PROGRAM. THERE WE GO. ALL RIGHT. SO FOR THE MULTIMODAL STRATEGY AND ACTIVE 101, AS MENTIONED, THERE ARE PRIORITY PROJECTS. AND WE JUST WANTED TO HIGHLIGHT THE PROJECTS THAT ARE WITHIN Brisbane for your consideration. So coming out of the multimodal strategy, we have two priority projects. And then Active 101 includes three segments of that priority network within Brisbane. So these are the projects that we're looking forward to supporting the city and moving forward in the future through technical assistance, through assistance with identifying funding opportunities, et cetera. Next slide. And one of those opportunities is a new mini grant program that we are really proud to be offering as part of the 101 corridor connect program. So the SMC TA board recently approved $4 million for a pilot mini grant program to help kickstart some of those priority projects from being lines on the map into initial design and community feedback. Next slide. And so what that looks like is, in general, $4 million is available for funding for any project that was identified as a priority under any one of those four plans. And the funding is intended to fund the very initial stages of a project, so doing a corridor study, developing conceptual alternatives, doing community engagement to get initial feedback on what you're planning to do. For each project, we're able to offer up to $750,000. For projects that are multi-jurisdictional, if you wanted to partner with your neighbors, we can offer up to a million dollars for projects that have one or more cities coming in. And then we're really excited that we are able to offer this with no local match required. City staff will be excited to hear that there is a streamlined application process as compared to our normal applications. Just a short letter of interest confirming staff availability, confirming if you'd like technical assistance from SMCTA as part of that project. And then if selected for funding, there is a requirement that a site walk is conducted of the project area. And we would ask at least one council member to be present at that site walk. And that gives the opportunity to really see the existing conditions, understand what's out there, and talk about what may be to come. Next slide. All right, so we are still in May. I had to think for a second. So we are at the stage where we're encouraging cities to come talk to us about the potential projects. And we're also making this presentation to all of the commissions and councils in the 101 corridor area. We will be releasing the call for projects for that mini grant program on June 3. Applications will be due in July. But again, it's a very streamlined application. Since it is a streamlined application, we'll be able to turn funding decisions around by August. Next slide. So key takeaways for tonight. Talk with your staff and encourage them to reach out to the TA to talk about potential projects from that list of Brisbane priority projects that they may be interested in putting forward for consideration. Apply to the mini grant program when it opens on June 3rd. And then if selected for funding, again, participate in the site walk. Encourage you all or your staff to reach out to us with any questions that you might have about 101 Corridor Connect or the mini grant program. And then I just also wanted to note that SMCTA is launching a community-based organization or CBO bench to assist local jurisdictions with engagement. So we are providing funding to CBOs to help with engagement with local projects. If your staff is working on any projects that may benefit from CBO engagement, SMCTA can fund that engagement and already has the relationships with the CBOs to help them get started with your work. And next slide is just my contact information. So that concludes the presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions or feel free to reach out after if you think of anything.

Well, and thank you and and maybe I didn't do it justice in Introducing you because I don't know if everyone knows what SMC TA stands for It's the transit authority and the presentation was wonderful. It shows you've really poured a lot of work into Investigating all the different aspects and really reaching out to the public. So I do want to open it up to my colleagues for some questions Councilmember Lentz

THANK YOU, MADAM MAYOR. THANK YOU, SUE ELLEN. SO I'M ASSUMING THAT THE BALANCE IS IN THAT TOP 20 LIST OF PROJECTS.

I WOULD LOOK TO YOUR PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR TO CONFIRM THAT. YEAH, OKAY.

HE'S NOT IN HIS HEAD. OKAY.

THANK YOU.

YEAH, YOU KNOW, So the multimodal strategies, so that's looking at creating multimodal stations or bringing modes of transit to one location, or is it more of an area and then there could be multiple modes of transportation within that

It depends on the project. The multimodal strategy is the whole planning document. And as part of that, we have 20 priority projects. So each individual project is transportation related, but it ranges from being more of a bicycle focused project. Some are transit related, some are highway related, some are pedestrian focused, some are For example, El Camino Real has all different ways of getting around. So the individual projects are the priorities. It's not focused on creating a mobility hub or anything like that.

Okay. And then the last question. You know, here we are with this process that we're going to undertake. DOES THE CITY NEED TO ADOPT THE CIVIC PLAN AND EIR BEFORE WE CAN START TO GET THESE GRANT FUNDS OR CAN WE START DOING THAT NOW?

YOU COULD APPLY TO THE MINI GRANT PROGRAM FOR ANY ONE OF THOSE PRIORITY PROJECTS. IF THAT'S SOMETHING THAT YOU WANT TO UNDERTAKE BEFORE AHEAD OF THE PLANNING APPLICATION PROCESS OR MIDWAY. THAT'S SOMETHING, YOU KNOW, THIS IS VERY EARLY ON IN THE DESIGN PROCESS FOR THAT PROJECT. SO IT WOULD BE LOOKING AT ALTERNATIVES AND OPTIONS. AND IT COULD BE AN OPPORTUNITY TO GET A BETTER SENSE OF WHAT DESIGN YOU WANT TO MOVE FORWARD. SO I WOULD SAY THAT YOU COULD FEEL FREE TO APPLY FOR THAT REGARDLESS OF THE STATUS OF THE OTHER PROJECT.

OKAY.

THANK YOU. So Ellen, thanks for coming tonight. Lots of great progress has been made here. I only have one question. The dates that you showed for the applications, that's 2026? Yes. Okay. I'm looking over Christina Fernandez. That's 2026. So we got a couple weeks here. We'll have to circle back on that. So again, thank you so much for the presentation. I don't have any other questions.

Okay. Council Member O'Connell.

No questions. Thank you for the presentation.

Sue Ellen, I think everybody covered questions I would have asked you, so thank you very much for joining us tonight. Thank you for having me. Providing the presentation.

Thank you.

All right, next item we have on our agenda is oral communications number one, and this is devoted to public making comments, anything that does not appear on tonight's agenda. Do we have any members of the public? City Clerk? Anyone filled out any slips or anyone online?

No slips, Madam Mayor, and no hands raised.

Okay. Moving on to the consent calendar. Now on consent, we're going to have quite a few changes tonight. So before we consider the consent calendar, I do have a request from our Director of Public Works to say a few clarifying words about item number E or letter E. Letter E is proclaiming May 17th to 23rd, 2026 as National Public Works Week. And there he is, our Director of Public Works, Maz Borzorginia. Could you please give us some clarifying information?

Absolutely. Thank you so much for this opportunity. Can we get the slide deck up? So I've got some nice photos that we'll work through. But tonight, I'm here tonight, as you know, this is National Public Works Week. And this year's theme is Rooted in Service Powered by Community. I wanted to take a brief moment to recognize the Public Works team for what they do every single day. Much of it is behind the scenes and often it's only noticed when something goes wrong. Public Works has that feeling. It touches nearly every part of daily life in Brisbane and many communities across our country. It includes safe drinking water for Brisbane streets, our storm drain system, our wastewater systems, parks, facilities, our public fleet, the marina, engineering, capital projects, emergency response, and all the countless day-to-day work that keeps the community running. The photos playing up here in front of us are just a small snapshot of that work in action and the people that are behind it for this community. Public works is not always glamorous work. but when it's done well, it helps make everything else possible. So this department, I just want to say, is filled with hardworking people who care deeply about serving this community, this region, and I'm proud to work alongside them. Thank you. On behalf of the department, I want to thank our council and our community for the recognition this evening and for your continued support of this team.

Thank you. This isn't a discussion item, but if there was a spontaneous eruption of applause, I think we could allow that. Thank you very much. ALL RIGHT, UNDER CONSENT THIS EVENING, COUNCILMEMBER O'CONNELL, I BELIEVE YOU NEED TO RECUSE FROM ITEM M. COUNCILMEMBER LENTZ, I BELIEVE YOU NEED TO RECUSE FROM ITEM S AND O. THAT BEING SAID, DO WE HAVE ANY OTHER CHANGES TO CONSENT CALENDAR?

GO AHEAD.

YES? OKAY.

I was. Just for time. I'm good with not pulling that item.

Okay. So that being said, then can I get a first and second to adopt consent calendar items D through K, letter N, letter P, letter Q?

So moved.

SECOND?

SECOND.

MADAM MAYOR, WHAT ABOUT ITEM R?

ITEM R? OH, YOU'RE NOT PULLING R. I'M NOT, YEAH. OKAY, SO, AND ITEM R. THANK YOU. COULD WE HAVE THAT FIRST AND SECOND AGAIN?

OKAY. SO MOVED ON THE ITEMS THAT ARE NOT, WHERE COUNCIL MEMBERS ARE NOT REFUSING THEMSELVES. OKAY. SECOND.

ALL IN FAVOR? AYE. ANYONE OPPOSED? NO. ALL RIGHT. FIRST ITEM, COUNCIL MEMBER O'CONNELL ON ITEM M, CITY ATTORNEY, WOULD YOU PREFER THE COUNCIL MEMBER LEAVE THE CHAMBERS OR JUST NOT VOTE?

I would invite the council members to step down and leave the room.

Okay.

So I will recuse myself from item M because I serve on that board.

Okay. Thank you. So item M is approved co-sponsorship of Sierra Point Yacht Club's Regatta Day. Can I have a first and a second? I make a motion. And a second? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? No. All right. Then we will move on to item O and S. Council Member Lents.

Yes, I believe I need to leave the room as well. I serve on the Board of Excelsior and Emergency Services Council.

Okay, so items O and S. R, O, R, O, we already did R, never mind. Could I have a first and second to approve items O and S, please? So moved. Second.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. Anyone opposed? No. All right. If we could bring back Council Member Lentz. So again, reviewing our agenda, item T, which you may have seen previously published, will be discussed immediately following the council meeting where we will have the housing authority special meeting. The next item we have on our agenda tonight is item U, which is a presentation on public tree inventory and consider adoption of citywide canopy goal. Could we have a staff report, please? And it looks like Adrienne Etherton. Good evening.

Thank you for joining us. Yes, good evening, Mayor Mackin, council members. Adrienne Etherton, sustainability manager, and I'm joined by Bob Sage, our GIS manager, who's pulling up our presentation here. And tonight we're bringing you a comprehensive look at Brisbane's urban forest, which brings together work across sustainability, public works, GIS, buildings and grounds, and the Open Space and Ecology Committee. I want to thank them for all of their contributions. For many years, OSEC has raised concerns about tree loss, especially in central Brisbane, where some notable mature trees were removed. Our last street tree inventory dated back to 2007, so a modern, comprehensive update was overdue. As the Executive Director of Nonprofit Canopy recently noted in a Palo Alto online article, trees are not optional enhancements, but vital systems. Investments that protect public health, reduce climate risk, and improve quality of life. This effort was undertaken to be more intentional about this vital infrastructure. THE CITY PARTNERED WITH PLANET GEO TO CONDUCT A FULL INVENTORY OF CITY OWNED TREES AND A CITYWIDE ASSESSMENT OF TREE CANOPY USING SATELLITE DATA. TOGETHER, THESE GIVE US A CLEAR PICTURE OF OUR URBAN FOREST, WHAT SPECIES WE HAVE, HOW HEALTHY THEY ARE, AND WHERE WE'RE GAINING OR LOSING CANOPY. THE FIELD INVENTORY TOOK PLACE IN SPRING 2024 WITH CERTIFIED ARBORISTS COLLECTING DATA ON SPECIES, CONDITION, SIZE, MAINTENANCE NEEDS, RISK RATING AND MORE. BOB USED THE DATA TO DEVELOP THE TREE HUB SITE, WHICH HE'LL SHOW SHORTLY, TO AVOID THE ONGOING SUBSCRIPTION COST AND TO INCREASE TRANSPARENCY FOR THE COMMUNITY. IN ADDITION, WE WORKED WITH PUBLIC WORKS BUILDINGS AND GROUNDS TEAM TO EVALUATE THE DATA AND DEVELOP A MANAGEMENT PLAN, AND WITH OSEC, ESPECIALLY MARY ROGERS FROM THE TREE SUBCOMMITTEE, USING PLANET GEO'S CANOPY TOOL MODELLING TOOL TO DEVELOP A CITYWIDE CANOPY GOAL RECOMMENDATION. The good news is that Brisbane's tree population is largely healthy and diverse. Planet Geo counted 4,720 trees across 180 species with an average diameter of 12 inches. The ecosystem benefits these trees provide are substantial. Nearly 20,000 cubic feet of stormwater intercepted, 5,900 pounds of pollutants reserved, and over 9.6 million pounds of carbon stored. Fortunately, 90% of our trees are in excellent, good, or fair condition, which is a strong indicator of a resilient urban forest. The industry standard 10-20-30 rule evaluates diversity to guard against losses from pests and diseases. There is some concentration among the species. For example, we have nearly 1,000 blue gum eucalyptus trees, but those are more likely for removal than planting. and we are meeting the 20 and 30 percent thresholds for genus and family. This diversity data can help guide future planting choices. In terms of tree size distribution, we are again faring quite well. There are some gaps, notably in the 18 to 24 inch diameter category, but we can expect that trees planted by any new efforts would likely help close the gap you'll see on the zero to six inch diameter trees.

AND NOW I'D LIKE TO PASS IT TO BOB FOR AN OVERVIEW OF THE TREE HUB.

THERE YOU ARE. ALL RIGHT. SO PLANET GEO PROVIDED US WITH A GIS FILE THAT HAD NEARLY 5,000 TREES AND EACH OF THOSE TREES HAD 43 ATTRIBUTE FIELDS. NOT ALL OF THEM WERE POPULATED BUT WITH SUCH A COMPLEX DATA SET WE DECIDED TO BUILD AN INTERACTIVE WEBSITE called a hub site that contains multiple apps that each focus on a different aspect of the tree data. And so like any website, there are some text, there are a few links, but the magic happens inside of the apps, which are all interactive. And so when you're in the site, anything that says explore is an interactive app that you can dive into. The first app I'll discuss is the base map, which there's a standalone app in there. And this displays all the trees that were inventoried. And then there are other layers that appear as you zoom in, like aerial imagery, parcel lines, city-owned property. So once you're in the app, if you click on any of the trees, you'll see the information that was gathered during the inventory. And then you'll recognize this base map and the zoomable layers as you explore the downstream apps. The app I'm displaying right now is just the tree health dashboard. And there's instructions in every app of what the function of the app is for and how to use it. And just about everything's interactive. You can resize the windows, pop out certain frames. And if you want to pay attention to the pic on the left of the map, that shows all the trees. And then the graph on the right shows the distribution of those trees by their health. So then if you were to get interactive with it, if you were to click on just a slice of the pie in the map, the map on the left will update. So for example, the whole chart, you can see all the trees. And then if you want to see how many of the trees, you click on the pie and you get the reduced number. And if you zoom into the map without clicking anything on the chart, the chart will update. So if you want to like look at a certain neighborhood, you can see the health of the trees in that neighborhood just by scrolling the map and zooming in and out. And I'm not going to walk through every app, but all the apps have kind of interactive ability like that. So they're all focused on a different area. Now this one was inspired from Michelle Salmon's passion for tree health and her concern for our trees being choked by vines. And so we created a volunteer vine management app. And stopping vine growth by cutting the base of the vine is one of the easier tasks for solo volunteers or small teams to tackle. So this app will track which trees have been addressed. And on the first page, before volunteers go out, they can fill out and sign a liability waiver, which will save automatically to our files. And then once they're inside the app, they'll only see the trees that have vines on them, and the rest of the trees will be gone. And if they're using the app on the phone, they'll be a little blow dark so they know where they are on the map. It's quite modern. Once they click on a tree, a form pops up within the map that gives them details. So they'll know if there's been any work done on the tree or not, and then If they are going to do the vine work on the tree all they have to do is fill out the survey on the left and there's just a few short fields and then that'll auto populate. And so the map will update automatically in real time and then if anyone completes the vine work the symbology changes from bright green to gray and that happens right away. So if there's a few teams of volunteers out on a weekend they won't be going to the same tree that somebody else worked on. And so anyway, I'm not going to go through any of the other apps. I just wanted to show that it's quite interactive, and you can go down a few different roads once you're in there and explore the data whichever way you'd like. The only thing I need to mention is that it can get a little buggy at times if you're really clicking around in there. And I reached out to tech support, and the tech support said, hey, you're trying to process over 200,000 data points in real time. You might have to refresh your browser every once in a while. Anyway, I hope you guys want to check it out. I'm stoked on how it came out, and I think it's a pretty beneficial way for everyone to learn about Brisbane's trees.

I JUST WANT TO SAY THAT OUR BOB SAGE IS THE BIGGEST COMPETITION TO ONLINE GAMING BECAUSE THE THINGS HE CREATES ON OUR WEBSITE I CAN VOUCH ARE DEEP HOLES THAT YOU CAN GET ABSORBED IN FOR HOURS, AND THIS IS ABSOLUTELY PAR FOR THE COURSE, AN EXAMPLE. SO YOU ARE WAY TOO MUCH FUN, BOB.

THANK YOU. VERY KIND. I APPRECIATE HEARING THAT. AND I'M GOING TO PASS IT BACK TO ADRIENNE NOW. WE'RE NOT DONE WITH THE PRESENTATION.

THANK YOU. THANKS, BOB. So to make the inventory actionable, Public Works developed a tree management plan simplifying those thousands of data points into three practical phases of work that prioritize public safety and long-term tree health. Each phase identifies essential maintenance based on risk and need. Here you can see the breakdown of the number of trees and estimated cost by phase. The total estimated cost of about $510,000 does not actually include the replanting needs. Staff and OSEC recommend completing the plan in three years, and we thank the council for the budget allocation in fiscal years 26 and 27 to work towards that goal. We also recommend performing a new inventory every five to seven years in line with industry standards to stay abreast of the health of our urban forest. So then when we zoom out to look at the citywide canopy, we see a nuanced story. From 2010 to 2022, Brisbane's canopy increased from 9% to 13% overall. That's meaningful progress, but the averages hide significant variation. Some areas saw canopy gains of up to 20%, while other areas saw losses up to 13%. OSEC recommends and staff support a citywide canopy goal of 23% by 2040, which represents a 10% increase over 2022 levels. We reached this recommendation by modeling canopy levels by land use. So the lightest yellow areas that you see on the map in front of you were left unaltered from their current canopy status because they're water, they're already above desired thresholds, or they might be locations where native grasslands are desired, like Calippie Hill. The commercial areas that are in that kind of peach color were modeled at 20% canopy. The bay lands in orange was modeled at 25%. Central Brisbane in the darkest color was raised to 30%, a target often recommended for residential neighborhoods. Meeting this goal would require planting 13,000 trees over the next 15 years. Over 8,000 of those trees are in the Baylands and about 280 trees per year across public and private land throughout the rest of Brisbane. It is an ambitious goal to be sure, a stretch goal for us to aspire towards, and that creates opportunities for incentives, partnerships, and community involvement. Planet Geo has identified 240 potential planting sites throughout the city, and we know there are data points for 53 stumps, as well as a public works list of about 50 vacant street tree locations. Some of those sites may be on multiple lists, so we need to do a little on the ground verification, but it does offer us a good starting point for future planting campaigns. Tonight, we're asking council to accept the public tree inventory, the tree management plan and the hub site and adopt the recommended 2040 canopy goal. Moving forward, staff will complete integration of mobile MMS, the public works work order system with the tree hub which will help facilitate the implementation of that management plan, which we will continue to do using already budgeted funds and request additional funds to complete in fiscal year 28. We'll move forward with validating those planting sites, work with OSEC and Brisbane Cares to implement the volunteer vine removal work that Bob described. After field verification, send a list of utility wire conflicts to PG&E for them to address. Continue to work with OSEC and other stakeholders to develop policies, incentives, and programs to help meet these canopy goals and report annually on our progress. That concludes my presentation. We'd be happy to take any questions.

So before we go to questions, I just have to say that this was one of the most ambitious projects to tackle, and this report gave me renewed faith in the power of human capacity to do something good in the very dark times we live in, and to envision all of the trees that could be repopulated in Brisbane. This was the highlight of my reading all the agenda material, so thank you for that. OSEC, Bob, and Adrian. Let's start with Councilmember Kern, questions.

THANK YOU SO MUCH, ADRIENNE. GOOD TO SEE YOU. THIS IS THE SECOND TREE INVENTORY THAT I'VE HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO BE PART OF IN THE LAST TEN YEARS, SO I'M SUPER EXCITED. I KNOW JEREMY'S SO SICK OF HEARING ME TALK ABOUT THE TREE INVENTORY. SO I'M HAPPY THAT IT'S HERE. I WANT TO ECHO WHAT MAYOR MACKIN SAID. THIS WAS DEFINITELY THE HIGHLIGHT OF TONIGHT'S PACKET, WHICH YOU PROBABLY CAN SEE FROM THE BACK ROW HERE HOW HIGH IT IS. THIS IS GREAT. JUST SOME BASIC QUESTIONS THAT I HAVE HERE. ONE, I WENT THROUGH report and it was fantastic. There's no specific mention in the report about the ridge and is there is there a specific reason behind that? We really focus on central Brisbane and Crocker Park.

The ridge was covered by the plan so it was not specifically called out. One of the challenges with the data is that you might have noticed that in that kind of canopy mapping, we're going by little census tracks. And some census tracks don't neatly map to just the residential area. So if recollection serves me correctly, some of those parcels in the ridge were actually large areas of open space or parts of San Bruno Mountain. and not just those kind of residential neighborhoods at the ridge, which is why we did not specifically call them out. In fact, I don't know if we can pull that back up, but there's one like little tiny sliver that's kind of called out in the sea of the light yellow. We thought it best to probably be on the conservative side and keep those kind of as is. That doesn't necessarily mean that we would not endeavor to do any planting projects in that area.

Great, thank you. I just want to talk quickly or ask a question quickly about PG&E. So I have contacted PG&E where I will see a power line not close to a tree, not touching a tree, but going right through the center of the tree. And they've come out, they always come out, but their response is, that's a special kind of wiring with a special kind of covering and it's okay that it's in the middle of the tree. So my question is, That being said, in the experience that I've had with PG&E, when we're going to contact them, what direction or what authority do we have to give them specifics on what we want done?

Well, that's why we want to do some validation of this work in the field before we send it. One of the concerns that we raised on the staff side is that we're not clear if the identified wires that Planet Geo called out are even all PG&E wires. Some of them may be communications wires. So we've discussed the possibility of having a public works summer intern project to go out and field verify those. And so I think we'd really want to try to give PG&E a list that we feel more confident in being work that they would want to address. But good to note that we should also consider, do we note a difference between the types of wires? Is that something that we can kind of streamline the list further for them ahead of time?

Great job for an intern. So I'm looking at the chart that you guys have listed here. This is the chart. You have a mortality rate of 5%. I'm a tiny bit of a gardener, just tiny. I planted two rose bushes. I have a 50% mortality rate this year. 5% for a seedling tree seems, I don't know, IT SEEMS VERY OPTIMISTIC TO ME. SO I'M JUST ASKING.

I WILL CONFESS THAT I THINK THAT WAS A SYSTEM DEFAULT FROM PLANET GEO THAT WE JUST DIDN'T REALLY NOODLE WITH A WHOLE LOT. SO I THINK ONE OF THE THINGS with the canopy work overall is that we know that it's going to be a constant reevaluation of what did we plant? How is it doing? What does it look like from the latest aerial surveys that we can get? How close are we getting to that goal and where do we need to adjust?

Great, and then my final question tonight is, the costs were crystal clear for the prioritization packages, I'll call them, one, two, and three, that we need to proceed with, so thank you for putting all that work in. The part that is a little bit vague and a little bit murky is the 50 to $100,000 to replace the trees. I'M QUESTIONING HOW WE BUDGET THAT GOING FORWARD, SO WE'VE ALREADY DONE SOME BUDGETING WORK, HOW WE'RE GOING TO BUDGET FOR THAT GOING FORWARD, AND THEN IS $50,000 TO $100,000 REALLY ENOUGH MONEY TO DO THAT LEVEL OF REPLACEMENT?

YOU KNOW, I DON'T KNOW IF MAZ WOULD HAVE ANYTHING TO SAY ON THIS. I WILL CONFESS THAT NUMBER CAME FROM THE PRIOR PUBLIC WORKS EITHER DIRECTOR OR DEPUTY DIRECTOR THAT ARE NO LONGER WITH US, SO I CAN'T SPEAK TOO MUCH TO THAT GOAL, AND MAZ WASN'T HERE, SO I DON'T KNOW IF HE CAN EITHER.

Yeah, I can't speak specifically to it, but I think that number is realistic with, it's twofold. One is being realistic with the amount of staffing and ability that we have to get through that list. But I also think it was more of a starting point. And once we go through a cycle or two, a couple of fiscal years, then we can see how we're meeting those goals and whether we need to make those adjustments.

Great. Thank you. Awesome report. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Councilmember O'Connell.

Just for clarification for the public that's listening that may have come in and not really understood this, these are just sit trees that are on the city's property. This doesn't, the canopy and the canopy goals ARE FOR THE CITY OWNED TREES, NOT FOR PRIVATELY OWNED TREES NECESSARILY OTHER THAN WHEN WE'RE LOOKING AT BAYLANDS PLANTINGS THAT MAY BE A DEVELOPER INCURRED COST OR ONCE THAT HAPPENS.

SO THERE'S REALLY TWO COMPONENTS OF THIS WORK THAT ARE QUITE SEPARATE. THERE'S THE PUBLIC TREE INVENTORY, WHICH IS JUST TREES ON PROPERTIES THAT THE CITY OWNS. So that 4,720 trees that I mentioned, those are all, we believe, on city properties, with a tiny disclaimer about detail of lot lines not being surveyed. When we're talking about the canopy, that satellite data from 2010 and 2022, that is across the entirety of the jurisdiction. So it's public trees and private trees. And the goal would be increasing the canopy 10% across again, the entirety of the jurisdiction. So public trees wherever we can plant, but also programs that can encourage or incentivize private property owners to add canopy as well.

And do we have a program of such for helping residents to increase the canopy on their properties?

Not as of yet, but I understand that OSEC has started to discuss possibilities there, and I think that is likely something that you would have back in front of you at a future date. Great.

Thank you very much. It was a great report.

Thank you. Council Member Lentz.

Welcome back, Adrienne. Nice to see you. Good to be here. The 158 dead trees, so are those all on the city's property, or is that throughout the city that you were able to identify?

So those are, again, that's the public tree inventory. So those are on public property. I do want to call out of those 158, 53 of them were stumps. So we're not talking about, you know, trees that are a hazard anymore. I thought that was interesting that they went ahead and included them. Those are some sites we know we might be able to plant. Also want to note that a lot of these trees are actually up in the Brisbane acres. So we basically had a budget to do up to 5,000 trees and directed the arborists to do everything they could on all of our properties and end in the acres. And they did part of the acres, but not the entirety of the acres. So if there are dead trees in the Brisbane acres, we may not necessarily.

There's a lot of them up there.

There's a lot of trees up there. Yes. So they may not necessarily be a priority to remove at that point in time.

Okay. So, you know, just, I mean, obviously we would want to remove dead trees that are near homes.

Yes.

That are in the city right of way. Yes. So the amount of money that the city or that the council has budgeted for this program, do you feel confident that we would be able to remove those trees within this next year?

So I think we are looking at the majority of the removals are in phases one and two, which we are hoping to complete by the end of the next fiscal year. So, you know, July 1, 20 or June 30, 2027. So we're hoping to be able to complete all of that work by then. We prioritized the management plan based on a number of factors like LIKELIHOOD OF FAILURE, CONSEQUENCE OF FAILURE, YOU KNOW, THE HEALTH OF THE TREE. WE USED A COMBINATION OF ALL OF THOSE FACTORS TO SAY WHICH ONES OF THESE TREES ARE MOST AT RISK OF CAUSING HARM, AND LET'S MAKE SURE WE ADDRESS THOSE FIRST. AND THEN THINGS THAT ARE MORE, YOU KNOW, CROWN CLEANING OR PRUNING OR TREES THAT ARE LESS RISKY ARE THE ONES THAT HAPPEN IN THE LATER PHASE.

OKAY. AND THE LAST QUESTION IS, Have you considered getting saplings from private properties in Brisbane? You know, someone might have an oak tree. They can only handle one oak tree because they're pretty big. But the tree produces acorns and then saplings.

That's a great suggestion.

Right. So instead of buying them from a nursery, maybe folks can dig it up and call Public Works and they can give them a pot of an oak or a buckeye tree.

Yeah, that's a great suggestion.

Okay. Thank you.

okay thank you i have a mixed bag of questions for you on one of the pages it talks about city trees growing spaces and it says cut out what is cut out i believe that refers to um like a cut out in a sidewalk area where we have a tree plant that makes sense and what is planting strip

SIMILAR, BUT I BELIEVE THAT'S MORE WHERE YOU HAVE A ROW BETWEEN THE CURB AND THE MEDIAN OR THE CURB AND THE SIDEWALK. BOTH VERY SIMILAR LOCATIONS, YES.

OKAY. AND THEN POTENTIAL PLANTING SITES, VERY LARGE PERCENTAGE OF A PIE CHART, SMALL COMMERCIAL, 56.67%. AND I WAS TRYING TO VISUALIZE, WHAT ARE WE DEEMING SMALL COMMERCIAL? I believe. I'm not trying to put you on the spot. I'm just, I'm honestly very curious.

Yeah, I believe that is mostly looking at like some of the sites on visitation or, you know, kind of some of these more central Brisbane and less looking at, you know, Crocker Park kind of larger industrial, would be more the large commercial sites would be more of like Crocker Park.

Okay, because the large sites were less than, they're 0.42%. So that's where I was going, there's a lot of small commercial, it's very large. And then it said the potential planning sites will need to be investigated for viability. And I didn't see on next steps, when would that be done? Any idea or maybe you haven't gone that far with it?

You know, I think it's something that we want to try to do as soon as possible. We haven't gotten into detail about where we are in terms of timing of that. One of the first things that we would like to happen with the management plan is to make sure we get the GIS hub and the public works MMS system integrated so that we can make sure as changes are happening that those systems are coordinated. So I think we're probably going to try to do that first and then kind of move into some of these other steps. But I would hope within the next couple of months or so.

Okay. And then... I talked about areas within the San Bruno Mountain Habitat Conservation Plan boundary where a permit and biologist supervision is required, and that's removing vines from trees. How would we address that? Do we have anybody? I'm thinking of Michelle Salmon. Are you a certified biologist? Could we deem her a certified biologist to put together a volunteer crew?

So I will say that the Vine app that Bob put together specifically excludes the HCP, anything in the HCP boundaries. So those trees just won't show up on the map. In the past, a lot of our habitat restoration events that we do as a city, we partner with San Bruno Mountain Watch because they have that biological permit. So I think that would be probably the first place we would try to turn if we wanted to do a volunteer event within the HCP, if they were unable to participate with us on that for whatever reason. then we could look to get that permit ourselves or partner with someone else who does.

Okay. And I'm going to parlay off of Councilmember Kern, who was talking about lines running through trees. in that those lower lines, I've called PG&E to, and they tell me those are data lines, those are people that lease space on their poles. And the problem is, they don't trim the trees out. And so as the trees grow, and this is all over San Bruno, I have watched as the trees grow, the lines haven't been trimmed, and then they get a problem where the lines start getting pulled and tensioned, and they come out and they butcher the trees. because their lines are most important. So I would just plead with you, make this a priority. Don't let PG&E shove you off and say, yeah, it's not a problem, because it becomes a problem later if you don't trim the tree when it's young. And then it ruins the tree later. And they've done that for the last 10 years. It's really sad. On the citywide tree canopy and the shaded red, which is differences, on the upper streets, there's just a ton of trees that have apparently grown on the upper streets. And I'm on, this is labeled, maybe it's page 14. And I just wondered, all those trees on the upper streets, I'm thinking, where did they come from? Are these invasive eucalyptus trees?

Please say no. I am not certain if I can answer that off the top of my head right now, but I'd be happy to look into it and get back to you. I know when we're talking about the canopy data, it is. you know, aerial survey data. And it's not necessarily our trees from our inventory, so it's a little harder to say if we know what's what. But we can try to look into that and see if we can get you more detailed information on that.

Okay, and then looking at central Brisbane, what I call the pie between Visitation and San Bruno, very suitable for planting on your charts. And I would just ask, and this is going to our Director of Public Works specifically, can we also, as part of this, have a plan for regular maintenance? Trees used to be deep watered, they were fertilized, hasn't happened, and the trees are really stressed, a lot of them, where you look at the top of the canopy, it's all dead. because they're just being neglected. And bad trimming, where somebody from Public Works came out and just started chopping branches off, or the utilities. And then, parlaying off Councilmember Lentz, Maybe part of volunteering is if you have a species list of these are trees we would like to reforest Brisbane that people would volunteer to start raising some of those trees to defray part of the cost and maybe we could reforest a little bit faster because we don't have to go buy expensive trees. Because we've got Mission Blue Nursery is doing a great job. But if we could find a way that maybe we could help out in that regard. So, again, I have to thank you. This is one of the most impressive reports. I was really excited reading it. Great job. Thank you, OSAC, Bob, Adrian, Maz. It's wonderful. Thank you so much. And I want to open it up for public comment. Any members of the public? Michelle, come on up here.

We're even more glad than you are that Adrienne's back. Yes. But we have not just sat around while she was gone. And we've worked on this. Mary and I are on this subcommittee. And we have a whole entire plan that addresses many of the things that you asked about. Many of these things we have worked on for several years in the idea phase that we've gotten to this point is a miracle. and the support that we've had to get to this point with Bob and Adrian and the staff. A lot of the questions you have about trees that were being taken care of or not being taken care of, that work has already begun. Keegan is now a certified arborist. The city has been taking care of trees as we can. During the heavy-duty drought, we OSEC initiated the watering, the deep watering of street trees. So there's a lot of play in play, but it is very complex because you see the species list, there's a lot of different species. And then there's a lot of different areas. And one of the things about the Northeast Ridge, a lot of those trees are the responsibility of the homeowners association because It's not city property. It is homeowner association property from the development. So there's so many moving parts and so many nuances that you can't just snap your fingers and expect miracles. But we have been steadily, steadily, steadily pushing forward on this. And I can't wait till we get an updated canopy. Because I think we'll see that we have lost quite a few trees since the last overall survey. And I'm heartbroken because we lost a tree in our yard this week. A very mature plum tree finally went over. And that's happened all over the place with the high winds and the strange weathers that we've been having. We really appreciate the council's support for the tree initiative. We hope to have a cadre of volunteers. We've asked the city to look into writing up a document that people can sign that releases them from liability so that we can bring volunteers in to strip the ivy off of private trees that are very valuable, like old oak trees. And I'm thinking of upper, the canyon above Costanos. And so we've done a lot of work in the canyons. We've done a lot with the funds that we had. We've allocated those you know and have brought in professionals where the volunteers could not do the work Because it was just too steep or too dangerous. So we're very cognizant of all of the different things and So there's no one solution. There's no one There's no silver bullet but it's we're so happy for the support of the council and and and we have talked about different ways to the raise the trees having a little tree farm and you know, donating people, you know, cost sharing to buy a tree, various things. And we also have to be very careful with street trees to make sure that they do not pose a future danger. We've lost a lot of street trees because people didn't like them, you know, spitting on their cars or little nuts on the ground. So we really need to take care of the ones that we have and then choose wisely for each area. That's what we talked about in there where it said suitability of replacement tree. So, yeah, we're on it. Thank you.

Thank you. And I would just add an ask to all of this is come back to us in a while with a report so we can do more gushing. But also because homeowners are very concerned about wildfire. If we want to increase the canopy, we need to provide some guidance to homeowners about wildfire. where to locate the trees.

Yes, and how to prune them and take care of them. We've had articles in The Star. Perfect. And we're so grateful to having Bob Sage, who's brilliant with this stuff, and Adrian, who's just so dedicated. So we are really, really lucky. But trees are one of our most important assets in Brisbane.

Thank you. Any other members of the public?

No, Madam Mayor.

All right, thank you very, very much, appreciate it. Next item on the agenda, item V, Master Fee Study Results and Preliminary Master Fee, oh, before we go on, sorry, we need a first and second to accept. Let's not miss this one.

I'll make a motion to accept the Master Fee Study.

And I'll second.

I'll second.

All in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Anyone opposed?

Not that item. I'm sorry, it's not for the master fee study, but for the public tree inventory and management plan.

Oh.

Oh, okay, that's what it's... Okay, so that isn't... Sarah says make a recommendation or accept.

So this is a first and second to accept the public tree inventory and management plan. Receive a presentation of the hub site and adopt a citywide tree canopy goal.

So moved.

Second. All in favor? Aye. Anyone opposed? No. All right. Thank you. On this next item, I think... Oh, I'm sorry.

I had the wrong one. My fault. I apologize. I already had it teed up. My bad. It's all right.

It's all right. No problem. No problem. That's embarrassing. Don't worry about it. We'll all make mistakes. All right, Terry.

So I think on this, the staff has reprinted a document at the request of our mayor and is going to be handing out the document that's a little more comprehensive and a little easier to read, but probably smaller print.

That's okay.

Version two. Oh. It's the same information, just all on one page. Okay.

Instead of... Okay, yeah, it's thinner.

It makes it much more comprehensive. It's just stapled in the wrong corner.

Oh, I wrote on your stuff. Sorry. That's okay. It was right there. So this is replacing all of this? Yes. Okay.

Yes.

Oh, I don't even need this then.

You'll replace the other.

Okay, this one. Oh, we keep this first still, this first section. This is what size we had hoped it would be printed at.

Okay. Could we have a staff report, please?

Good evening, Madam Mayor, distinguished council members.

I'm just going to wait a

one of our consultants is gonna be made a panelist. I was ready to go home, thanks Cliff.

That's what I get for moving on to the next item. A little premature, so.

It's okay. We had lots of changes tonight. It's a lot to absorb.

So I'm here tonight to introduce the review of the results of the master fee study and the preliminary master fee schedule. During the review of the budget for fiscal year 24-25, council directed staff to conduct master fee study to review the existing... EXISTING SCHEDULE TO DETERMINE SUBSIDY RATIOS, SERVICE COSTS, MARKET TRENDS, COMPLIANCE, AND IF WE'RE OPTIMIZING THE METHODS AVAILABLE TO ASSESS OUR FEES FOR SERVICES. GIVEN THAT AT THE TIME OF PREPARING THAT BUDGET, WE WERE OPERATING WITH A DEFICIT. The city wanted to make sure that we review our revenue streams to determine if there are additional opportunities for growth or if we needed to restructure and bring some of those rates up to date. Just keep in mind the last major study was conducted in 2002. So staff engaged Matrix Consulting Group to conduct the Comprehensive User Fee Study, or what we call the Master Fee Study, and met with the Fiscal Policy Subcommittee twice, first on December 16, 2025, to review the results of the study and the updated schedule recommended by staff. AT THAT TIME, THE SUBCOMMITTEE MEMBERS REQUESTED MORE INFORMATION ON THE NEWER AND CONSOLIDATED RATES AND REASONS BEHIND SOME OF THE RECOMMENDATIONS AND MET AGAIN ON MARCH 2, 2026. SO STAFF WAS DIRECTED AT THAT TIME TO GO AHEAD AND PROCEED TO BRING THE STUDY RESULTS TO THE COUNCIL FOR A GENERAL REVIEW. I'D LIKE TO THANK THE FISCAL POLICY SUBCOMMITTEE BECAUSE IT WAS A VERY THOROUGH REVIEW AND LOTS OF GREAT QUESTIONS, AND I REALLY WANT TO THANK MATRIX AND ESPECIALLY KASHPU INGO WHO IS ON THE PANEL TONIGHT. SHE'S GOING TO BE PRESENTING THE STUDY RESULTS AND AVAILABLE FOR QUESTIONS, BUT BEFORE WE MOVE TO TO HER. JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW THAT AS FAR AS THE REST OF TONIGHT, STAFF REQUESTS THAT THE RECOMMENDATION TONIGHT AFTER WE'RE REVIEWING THE STUDY AND THE SCHEDULE IS TO REQUEST THE COUNCIL ACCEPT THE STUDY, REVIEW THE SCHEDULE TO DETERMINE if any additional steps are necessary before we bring for a public hearing. The public hearing is required because it is an increase in fees, so staff would like the council and stakeholders to have enough time to thoroughly review and properly implement. So with that, without further ado, Kishboo will be discussing the process of the study and the resources from staff and any other areas regarding the study. Thank you, Kishboo.

Great. Thanks, Carolina. Good evening, Council. Like Carolina mentioned, we're here just to give you a brief presentation on the study that we've been working with city staff over the last several months. Just a little bit of a background on what the purpose of the study was. It was to take a look at all of the city's fees that are kind of subject to these rules and regulations and determining are we capturing all of the services that are currently being provided, like Carolina mentioned. you know when we met with the fiscal subcommittee there's a lot of new fees modified fees things that have been removed all because it's all about modernizing the fee schedule since it's been such a long time over 20 years since the city lasted this type of comprehensive review The primary reason for doing these types of fee studies is that there are certain rules in the state of California that dictate what you can and can't charge for fees. And they require that those fees be based on the true cost of providing services. So these studies help justify what that true cost is. And the way we do that is by utilizing a bottom-up approach, which I'll spend some time explaining in a little bit. But that involves collecting time assumptions by staff, and calculating fully burdened rates. As part of this, we did look at what other agencies around you are charging for these types of services. We always like to caveat, though, that just because somebody has the exact same fee on their fee schedule doesn't always reflect the exact same level of service. Additionally, many jurisdictions may not have done a fee study, just like you all. their fees on the fee schedule may be outdated and not really reflective of the true cost of providing services. And then ultimately at the end of this, the goal was to have a comprehensive listing of all of the city services in one document. So talking a little bit about the methodology itself, there's two key components. There's the time assumption and the fully burdened rate. So the time assumption is for each individual feline item, we talked with staff on how long does it take to process individually each of those feline items. and we're talking about the time that it takes to process those items we're not talking about the hardest or most difficult application or difficult permit type we're also not talking about the simplest easiest we're really talking about what is that average what is that reasonable amount of time that it takes to do do these services we do these types of these studies all across northern california across california across the country so we have a lot of experience in listening to these time assumptions and so if something stands out to us we will always have that question and that discussion with staff on you know does it really make sense that it takes you this little time or this much time to process this so we always want to have that level of engagement and verification and checking to make sure that it's appropriate we take that time assumption and we multiply by what we call the fully burdened rate this fully burdened grade is not someone's take-home pay this is what it truly costs the city to have that person as an employee it's their budgeted salaries their budgeted benefits so again information has been adopted budgeted so not the most expensive position in the city but really what are the budgeted costs associated with that position. We take a look at the productive hours. There's things like vacations, holidays, sick leave, mandatory trainings for staff. So all of those hours get removed from the calculation because staff is unable to provide work or provide these services during those hours. We then layer in different levels of overhead. We take a look at the services and supplies that staff need to provide these fee-related services. So things like, you know, vehicles, the utilities, the computers, all of those things that they need to do their job. We also layer in any sort of supervisory or administrative support. So occasionally there are positions within the department that may not necessarily directly work on fees, but support staff who do. And then lastly, we layer in any sort of citywide overhead, so things like finance, HR, city council, those types of services. So we take that time estimate, we multiply it by that fully burdened rate, and essentially we come up with that full cost of the service. One caveat to this is that while for 95% of the fees on the fee schedule, that's the maximum justifiable fee, one exception is recreation-related fees. They are not subject to the same rules and regulation as all of the other fees on the fee schedule. So anything that is their rentals, so things like the marina or things like recreation facilities, the reason they're not subject to the same rule is because it's not a fee that's imposed upon anybody. It's a voluntary fee. So somebody chooses to participate in this program or chooses to rent that facility. And so therefore those fees can be set based on what the market can bear and don't have to necessarily be set based on the cost calculated through this study. So when we look at a big picture, we reviewed a little bit under 500 feline items. So pretty comprehensive listing of fees across all of the different city departments. Some key things that we did through this study is creating some new standalone flat fees for things like electrical permits, mechanical plumbing. So these are just your standard over-the-counter permits. So things that, you know, if somebody is replacing their water heater rather than having to go through a complicated calculation, it's very clearly transparently labeled. you know exactly what the fee is. We also created some flat fees for encroachment permits, again, to help create that level of transparency related to the full cost of services. And then one new fee that we looked at creating through this process was the general plan maintenance fee. And this is a very common fee. It's a fee that's allowed under California state statute, and it allows the city to help capture long range planning costs. So again, there is a cost associated with doing those general plan updates. Whenever new development occurs within a city, it has an impact on meeting those general plan update requirements. And so this fee helps kind of ensure that you keep setting aside those funds to help pay for this general plan update in the future. When we look at a big picture based on the two major fee-related service areas, building and planning, there's roughly about a $300,000 difference between kind of what you're currently charging for the different volume of activity compared to what it's costing you to provide that service, with the larger dollar value difference being at the building level, but a much lower cost recovery at planning's level. And to put that in context a little bit, when we compare that to the industry standard, building level at 76% is just below the typical standard of 80 to 100% that we see, but planning level at 23% is significantly below the 50 to 80% that we typically see. Now, this is not unexpected. Like Carolina mentioned, it's been such a long time since the city's comprehensively reviewed these fees that whenever we do come into jurisdictions and it's been, you know, 10 plus years since they've looked at things that we do see these types of massive differences and massive swings in cost for recovery. So it is important to keep that in context that this isn't an indication of the city has been doing something wrong or incorrect. It's just really something that's expected when these are not studied as frequently. as part of that i know that carolina said that you all have a proposed master fee schedule in front of you all but as part of that we always recommend that the council consider an annual escalation factor to continue maintaining that level of cost recovery so this study is important to establish a new baseline of cost recovery and so going forward whether you continue to subsidize certain services it's important to maintain that level of subsidy And then you would want to reevaluate these fees again in about five to seven years. Usually in that timeframe, we see that there's been enough organizational, technological process, staffing changes that you'd want to make sure, again, that the fees are set appropriately, capturing staff time appropriately, and are being right-sized to meet the needs of the community at the time. And with that, I will stop talking and open it up to your questions.

Before we go into questions, I just want to say as part of the subcommittee, when you haven't had a fee study since 2002, It is a massive undertaking. And I say that not to go, oh, poor me, as much as poor staff, poor kushboo, poor consultants who had to put up with us saying, we need more info. Go back to department heads. Go back to staff. We want more info. Because there were sometimes reasons why certain things hadn't been raised, certain reasons why we don't charge the full amount and before I go on I would like Councilmember O'Connell to offer some comments because you were a major part of this as well.

So this was really eye-opening to me and I think the biggest thing for us to understand and potentially for our public to understand is that fully burdened rate. and that you can't say that someone's making $50 an hour and they're spending two hours on a project, so that's $100. And then as we went through this, we looked at things and some things we assumed that the council would want to continue to subsidize. When it came to, and I'm going to pull a couple things out of my hat. When it came to swimming lessons, we're recovering, and I'm just saying, 20% of what it costs to provide a child swimming lessons. But every child should learn to swim. And so some of the recommendations that were coming out of the subcommittee were that If you're going to build a new home, you should pay what it costs to pull those permits, what it costs us. That's a reasonable expectation. When it comes to a lot of the park and rec swimming lessons, some of the senior programs, some of the things that we aren't going to get full cost recovery, we assume we're going to be subsidizing those. but we assumed that this was something that would be in the general goals of this council to subsidize. Another thing to keep in mind, there are some fees that cost us, say $500 to provide, but state law says we can only charge 25 bucks for it. And so there are some things in this fee study that we can't, by law, get our full cost recovery on. And some things that we just didn't want to get our full cost recovery. One of those things was a water heater. We'd rather someone pull a permit for a water heater and know that it's installed correctly than to have the fee be so high nobody's going to pull a permit for a water heater, and so we don't know that's being installed correctly. So as we go through this, you know, we had our reasonings on all these things, whether it should meet what the cost was or whether it should not meet what the cost was. And certainly that is something that's for council discussion on the whole and for the public discussion. But I think it's really important to know why some of the things match and why some of the things don't.

I think some of that comes under health safety and health is not just physical health. It's also mental health. So that was kind of the criteria we used and that department heads also seem to take into account. So that being said, Let's open up for questions.

Madam Mayor, before you jump in, just one additional minor point. Yes. Most of the department heads are here this evening, either in person or online, and they're available to answer any questions you might have about what they've contributed to this process. Oh, good.

Very good. Thank you for that. All right. Council Member Lentz, let's have you start. Okay.

Well, first off, I just want to thank the two of you for putting in the time and effort and also the staff. Obviously, this is something that we needed to update for a long time. I'm curious, even though it's been since 2002, we did have like things like whatever, I forgot. We did have an escalator. So it isn't like we're charging rates from whatever 20 years ago. It has increased, but still below. And I'm really glad that you pointed out, Terry, that there should be some things that are for the betterment of the community and that We're not in the for-profit shareholder, we gotta make sure that we deliver for them type of business. We're in the public business. And if we can't afford it, it makes sense to apply a subsidy for the community for the greater good. So just thank you for looking at it from that holistic perspective.

And one of the things that, we looked at in that respect was some of our government is funded by direct property taxes from people. And so there's some services, some subsidies that people expect. from good governance and from their city. And so that we also weighed in on some of the fees and schedules on what would be expected from a normal citizen to be provided or subsidized, so to speak, by those property taxes and by the other things that are going on, the businesses in the city. So.

Okay.

Okay. Council Member Kurt.

We're just asking questions at this point, correct?

Yes.

Okay. I'm not sure who I'm asking this question to, but it's a legit question, I think. So regarding the CPI increases, I understand why we do that so we don't have to do a master study every single year. With the onslaught of technology, and technology is moving fast and we're absorbing it very quickly, shouldn't a lot of these costs be going down at a very quick rate? Yes, no?

I can start to answer the question and then I'm sure staff can jump in. So yes and no, it depends. So there are certain things technology can make easier. So a lot of things that when they went to electronic plan review for building, for example, or electronic permitting, It made some of the permit intake process easier. But on the flip side, the building code has gotten more complicated over the last couple of years with the California building code changes, energy code changes. While there's been some time savings with the technological improvements in one area due to code changes and regulatory changes in other areas, that's causing some of that time savings to not necessarily result in true cost savings, if that makes sense.

And just to add to that, going to technology sometimes also adds a cost, because you have to support the technology that's going to be doing some of that, facilitate some of that work.

And I would also add, we no longer purchase technology, we rent technology. So the costs over time do go up.

I am super impressed that nobody used the word AI. So very good. We got through that without saying AI. So thank you for that. I don't, I just have discussion items. I don't have any other questions at this. Oh, I do have one other question. So how much was the master study, how much did we spend with the Matrix Consulting Group to do this master study?

It was a contract at 50,000. Thank you.

Okay.

Council Member O'Connell, I don't know if you have any questions. Do you have anything?

I don't have any real questions. I just did want to point out that while the new Paperwork that we got Lee leaves all the fees In one format the big one we have were the new fees that weren't addressed originally in any place where what we could charge for things and these were recommended by the consultant as usual and customary things mostly in the planning and building department that were usual and customary fees that have been added for clarity.

Yeah, we have pages and pages of building and planning fees. All right, do we have any members of the public wishing to ask questions at this time or make public comment?

No hands raised at this time, Madam Mayor.

Okay, then council discussion. Council Member Kern, you had something on your mind. Let's start with you. Let us know what's in there.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. So I just wanted to say great job on utilizing activity-based costing and looking at salaries as fully loaded. I think that's super important. Good call out, Council Member O'Connell. I think that that is the right approach. I already voiced a concern here on the CPI. Question for Noreen, who I do see is online here. We recently did a review of the park and rec and aquatic fees, somewhat recently, within the last four years, I believe, and made recommendations to council that were adopted. So we're, again, thinking about increases in addition to those. Is that what I'm reading here?

I'm sorry, Frank. Could you say that again? My audio cut out when I was being promoted to panelist.

Hey, no problem, Noreen. I KNOW WITHIN THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS THE PARK AND REC COMMISSION MADE A RECOMMENDATION TO COUNCIL TO ADJUST FEES, MOST OF THEM UPWARD, AND THAT WAS WITHIN THE LAST FOUR YEARS. AND SO WE'RE COMFORTABLE TAKING AN ADDITIONAL INCREASE AT THIS TIME?

YES. SO WHAT'S INCLUDED THERE ALSO INCLUDES FEEDBACK FROM THE COMMISSION. THEY LAST REVIEWED OUR FEE SCHEDULE IN THE SPRING OF 2025.

GREAT. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THAT. TWO COMMENTS ON THAT. ONE, THANK YOU AGAIN, COUNCILMEMBER O'CONNELL, FOR POINTING OUT THAT WE ARE IN THE BUSINESS OF SERVICE AND WE'RE NOT A FOR-PROFIT COMPANY. WE HAD A DEEPLY HEATED DISCUSSION IN THE PAST ABOUT SWIM LESSONS, AND IF ANYTHING, I WOULD LIKE TO SEE THOSE FEES COME DOWN BECAUSE YOU CANNOT PUT A PRICE ON A LIFE. SO I'M FULLY SUPPORTIVE OF THAT. AND THEN AS NOREEN KNOWS, WE SELL OUT ON OUR REC FACILITIES, ESPECIALLY THE COMMUNITY PARK. SO I THINK THAT WE PROBABLY CAN AFFORD, AND THERE'S ENOUGH SENSITIVITY HERE FOR US TO AFFORD TO ACTUALLY GO HIGHER ON THAT IF WE'RE TRYING TO DO SOME COST RECOVERY THERE. SO OVERALL, I THINK THIS IS SUPER IMPRESSIVE. AND YOU GUYS SAID IT WAS OVER 500 DIFFERENT FEES YOU LOOKED AT, BUT MY SPREADSHEET SAYS 700 LINE ITEMS HERE THAT I'M LOOKING AT, SO WELL DONE.

WE SAID OVER 500. OKAY. IT WAS A LOT OF THEM.

WELL DONE, THANK YOU.

AND WE ASKED A LOT OF QUESTIONS. WE DID. Council Member Lents.

So I guess this is for the subcommittee, also for staff. Are there any changes in here that are gonna make some people in town have heartburn over? And then, you know, and say, what the heck are you doing?

I think for me, looking at it and knowing how we came across the fee and having Kuspo do that really fabulous introduction on how the weighted, you know, the fully burdened cost comes out. I think most of the catch up that we've done have been in building types of fees. And I think that everyone who has a project, whether it be a water heater replacement or a full build, or a new subdivision, know that those fees cost more and they're fully prepared for that hit when it happens. It's going to be a small, small portion of what their overall cost of a project is. And I don't think that we're shocking anyone with what the fees are here. Okay. All right.

I would just add to that. I mean, there were also... things in planning that are new, that we weren't charging anything, but they were costing us money. And so some of those, obviously, false alarms, fire alarms, Fire department told us how many times, sometimes same people over and over, commercial establishments, do you know what that costs to send out a fire crew? So those are the kind of things maybe someone will go, oh my, now this is way more expensive. But we also use latitude, and they gave us feedback that they talk to people and say, you've gotta take care of this.

But we had – the fire department in particular said they had businesses that rather than have a reliable alarm company, they were relying on us to be their alarm. Right. And every time it went off and the fire department went out there, they were – And it's like there were bad actors. And I said, well, what about the person whose alarm goes off in the city? It's like those people don't want to be bothered with their alarm going off. You know, if it's a home, you're going to get your alarm company out there to fix it. Some of these people don't. And so they said, we don't charge if your alarm goes off four times before the alarm people get it fixed. But we want the ability to charge a company that has it go off every day for 90 days or whatever. So we did look at, we asked questions of the department heads on what they felt was fair and what was reasonable and what, You know, if they had the magic wand, what would they be charging for? So it was a very interesting conversation with the different department heads when we asked about those things.

And sometimes we had fees in planning where it might be hundreds of dollars that we're not recouping, and it's costing us this over and over. Right. And so we looked at, as Council Member O'Connell said, we want people to get a permit to replace a water heater so that it's a life safety issue. We don't want fires. We want things done right. A new homeowner wants things done right when they purchase a home in Brisbane. We want to ensure... conducive to someone pulling a permit. But when we get into larger permits and inspections, if you're going to build a house or do a major remodel, that should be a cost if you're doing that. And we feel that so many of those fees were so behind what it was really costing us. We needed to bring that up because it's city just losing money. When you see almost $300,000 annually, we can't do that. We just can't do that. So we tried to be very judicious and take the input from staff And from Cushboo as well, what are other cities doing? And be reasonable and look at what effect it would have on people. So some people may be shocked, you know, but generally I think it's pretty reasonable and to be anticipated because as has been pointed out, even with computers and software and AI, some things are just more complex.

And to Frank's point, other than the CPI increase, we can't substantially raise costs without doing another study because the study has to be within, I'm going to say five years, but Kushboo can probably tell me if I'm right or wrong with that. But to do an overhaul of this, you have to pay the $50,000 to get the study done or you can't legally raise those rates beyond what the normal CPI is.

Could you lower them?

You can. Okay. You can always lower them.

So... Council Member O'Connell, great question, Council Member Lentz. So Council Member O'Connell, you're talking about this false alarm in excess of three per calendar year accidental or equipment that we raise the fee from 180 to 310. We could potentially charge $310. We may or we may not, but we could. Okay, thank you so much.

Councilmember O'Connell, any other comments you want to offer? No. Okay.

I think I'm good.

So this is a discussion. We're not voting on it. It has to come back for a public hearing. We correct on that? Yes?

That's correct. We do need to accept the study.

Okay.

And then if there are any changes that you wanted to make to the proposed schedule, we'd like to know this tonight if possible. So when we come back, it'll be in the ready form.

Okay. So now I didn't hear any proposed changes in the discussion. So do we want to circle back on that? Anyone?

Well, is it possible, and I'm just going to throw this out, if If, because I think this is a much more readable format that we have here now, is it possible that if a council member has a concern about a particular fee, they could talk to you directly about it in the next short term so that it's ready to come back to us when it comes back?

Sure.

Just to give a lead way in case there's a member of the public that sees something that freaks them out or we get feedback, you know, of course, when we go to the public hearing, we'd get that feedback, but I think having the time to, when we had a 900 plus page agenda tonight for the rest of the council to have the opportunity to sort of look at this and go, well, this looks weird, or this doesn't look weird, to have a little bit of feedback available to staff. ON A ONE-TO-ONE BASIS.

THAT SOUNDS LIKE A REALLY GOOD IDEA.

YEAH, I JUST WOULD WANT TO ASK, I'M NOT SURE IF THE COUNCIL OR CITY MANAGER, AS FAR AS SCHEDULING, BECAUSE OF THE ADVANCED NOTICE NEEDED FOR PUBLIC HEARING AND JUST TO MAKE SURE THAT WE HAVE A PROPER DEADLINE FOR THE QUESTIONS.

SO CITY ATTORNEY TRANT, WE DON'T HAVE THIS ON HERE FOR A VOTE. We have this to give direction to staff. Would you prefer that we actually take a vote on it? Or is it sufficient to say we've discussed and given direction to staff on how to proceed?

I think the latter would be sufficient so long as staff feels comfortable with the direction that was given.

I think they would want us to accept the comprehensive user fee study.

Mm-hm.

and give direction to move forward with the fee schedule.

Okay. So you're saying that we don't need a formal vote, we just need to hear from staff that they are comfortable we have given direction?

Yes, direction can be established by consensus of the council and through discussion.

Okay.

I'm good with that.

Council Member Lentz? O'Connell?

I'm if that's what they I thought that they needed this user fee study report accepted But if we don't I'm I'm happy with it the way it is, okay I'm satisfied.

I'm satisfied as well staff. Are you okay with it?

Yes, and then City Manager will provide the deadline Well, we'll get to you early next week on a deadline Okay. And again, and I apologize, I want to make sure that we just, again, thank the staff that put in lots of hours to provide a lot of that cost information and very thoughtful in their approach with going along with all the other projects going on and then also for participating tonight. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Yes, and thank you to the consultants. It was a fabulous study and so much work that went into it.

Heroic. They really put a lot into it. I appreciate that. All right. We move on to staff reports, city manager's report, city updates and upcoming activities.

Just give me one moment as I pull up my notes. Thank you for your patience a Reminder that Monday is Memorial Day and City Hall will be closed The garden show is on May 30th at from 12 to 3 and that will be at the library Then moving into June On June 1st, at 11 a.m., we'll have a pride flag raising event that will be attended by the mayor. Thank you for attending. And on June 4th, I'm getting a little ahead of our next council meeting, but June 4th is our next compost giveaway, Thursday, June 4th. That's all day, and we'll have information in our accounts about the giveaway. Location's under Tunnel Road, as usual. Thank you.

All right. And now we go to any council member reports, subcommittee reports, council member O'Connell?

Nope.

Council Member Lentz?

No.

Council Member Kern?

Countywide assignments, is that what we're doing?

Yes, countywide or subcommittees.

Okay, countywide stuff, great. San Mateo County Libraries, we had our second meeting of the year. We're in a super strong financial position. The JPA approved balance recommended budget for fiscal year 26-27, totaling $77.8 million. We have plenty of money to ensure funding for all of our local branches. The libraries are fully restoring their pre-pandemic operating hours, introducing a new five year strategic plan. The system is aggressively expanding our early childhood literacy programs and upgrading digital technology across all the libraries right now. We have some massive capital improvements happening in the next year, which we're super excited about. We're putting in a secondary library vending machine over on the coast, which will be pretty fantastic. And then we're working towards our East Palo Alto library, or building the new library there and furnishing it. Next countywide assignment was the Caltrain Local Policymakers Group. Great news, ridership growth continues. It's been on a steady increase, and they believe that that is being driven by the rollout of the new electric train service. Lots of capital projects going on there as well, including much-needed regional grade separations, not affecting Brisbane, because we don't have any here, but throughout the entire network. And last but not least, San Mateo County Pre-Hospital Emergency Medical Services Group. We're happy to report from an operations standpoint, our support contract with American Medical Response, they operate the ambulances. They continue to far exceed the rest of the country in terms of their compliance standards. So if you're gonna be sick, this is a great county to be sick in. FROM A FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT PERSPECTIVE, THE BOARD APPROVED AN UPDATED AND VERY STABLE ANNUAL OPERATIONAL BUDGET TO FUND LOCAL PARAMEDIC SERVICES ACROSS ALL THE MEMBER CITIES. LAST BUT NOT LEAST AND NOT THAT EXCITING, BUT WE DID ADOPT LAST NIGHT OUR REVISED CODE OF CONFLICT OR CODE OF CONFLICT, CODE OF INTEREST FOR CONTINUED TRANSPARENCY. SO THAT WAS ADOPTED LAST NIGHT.

May I ask a question on Caltrain? Sure. You talked about at-grade crossings. Is there any further information, news, updates on City of Burlingame, all of those at-grade crossings? That came up a couple years ago, and I haven't heard anything since.

I know that they're being considered right now. I don't know what the project timeline is.

Okay. Is the City of Brisbane paying for them?

Is the city of Brisbane paying for that?

Or is someone else paying for their at-grade crossings, which has been the problem all along?

The last I heard that all the at-grade crossings were the city's responsibility. I know. Their own city's, not us.

Expensive, okay. Wow, thank you. All right, I had a CKEG meeting on May 14th, and we learned in our legislative report Pertaining to California that the governor proposed a balanced budget now, indicating a surplus now of 16 million attributed to activity in the tech sector, AI, AI. The number of allowances under cap and trade, if you're familiar with that, that can be sold is going to be reduced, and that will affect funding for affordable housing and sustainable communities. That fund will go down. THE END OF THIS MONTH IS THE LAST CHANCE FOR BILLS IN SACRAMENTO TO BE ON THE FLOOR OF THE ASSEMBLY AND THEREBY ADVANCED TO THE SENATE. SO IT WILL TELL US A LOT OF WHAT'S GOING TO PROCEED. ON THE AGENDA OF OUR MEETING WAS SB 63, THE TRANSIT TAX BILL, AND A LENGTHLY DISCUSSION ABOUT THE SURVEY THAT SAMTRANS DID. YOU MAY RECALL THAT. HAS TO DO WITH THE DRAFT LOCAL INVESTMENT PLAN. THE INVESTMENT PLAN OUTLINES WHAT ARE CALLED RETURN TO SOURCE FUNDS THAT SAMTRAN SAYS THEY THINK WILL BE AVAILABLE FOR EACH PENINSULA COMMUNITY TO USE TOWARD SAN MATEO COUNTY TRANSIT PURPOSES. SORRY, THAT'S MOUTHFUL. GINA PAPPEN, MTC COMMISSIONER. called into our meeting, has also sent out emails recommending that each city follow the City of San Mateo's lead and tell Samtrans and the Samtrans board what your city's priorities are. There's the estimated 50 million that would come back to San Mateo County if SB 63 passes. If cities don't speak up specifically what your city wants, Samtrans will likely use their survey, the results, to make the funding plan. The survey results were less than 2,000 returned surveys from a county over what, close to seven, eight million? So.

OR COUNTY?

WHAT DID I SAY?

SEVEN MILLION.

SORRY, THOUSAND. TOO MANY M'S IN THERE. SO WE HAD NUMEROUS BOARD MEMBERS EXPRESSING CONCERN THAT THE AMOUNT OF FUNDS DISTRIBUTED TO COMMUNITIES MAY BE HIGHLY OVERESTIMATED SINCE THEY SAY OPERATING EXPENSES FOR THREE YEARS ARE GOING TO BE IN THE HOLE. THEY MAY NEED THE WHOLE 50 MILLION EVERY YEAR FOR THREE YEARS. SO RETURN TO SOURCE, THEY DON'T KNOW. And that the feasibility of the draft local investment plan may be overstated. So we need to decide as a city if we want to send a letter directly to the SAMTRAN's board saying, look, this is our priority for Brisbane. We want to be very clear. So that's what I have to report. Moving on, do we have any council members wishing to propose future agenda items?

I'd just like to say that the Baylands Subcommittee wanted to do an overarching dive into water, sewer, all things water on the Baylands. And we're going to start, we hope to start with a light overview of what may be required. and look at what might be possible.

Oh, I'm very pleased to hear that. Very good. Thank you for thinking of that and proposing it. Anyone else?

Yeah, is this where I would propose a potential ad hoc subcommittee? Okay, I'd like to propose a potential ad hoc subcommittee to focus on child care. The reason I'm bringing that up at this point in time is because it would be ideal to align with the county road map Just this past week San Mateo County launched its final childcare blueprint. Meaning that the framework, resources, and implementation priorities for early childhood care, now that's ages zero through three, are moving forward right now. Number two, would be a good time for us to secure local representation. The county's actively filling multi-sector action round table seats and committee roles. They've got a deadline for early June, and I would like to have Brisbane have representation at those. I want to make sure this is, we're not talking about TK, which is transitional kindergarten, which is age four. This is age zero through three, and I think that this really needs to be looked at in the city of Brisbane. We had a local resident recently distribute a petition around having a childcare daycare available and we had a better response to that than we were expecting to see. So I think we should have an ad hoc committee look at this and put together a one to two year plan on what we can do in the city of Brisbane. Again, zero through three, not TK. We're going to get TK at BES in 27, I think it was. So, yeah.

Do you have a second sponsor for this?

I do. Yeah, right here.

Okay, okay, sorry, I didn't look that way.

So you said that the San Mateo is doing their blueprint and they're gonna start meetings in June? Yeah, the blueprint's done.

Council Member O'Connell is out.

At this time, could we as a council unofficially or officially appoint a member or two to attend that so that we do have representation? Or do we have to wait for this to come back at another meeting?

I actually don't know what the process is for a person to get on the round tables at this point. Or create an ad hoc, right? Yeah, we would have to create an ad hoc, I think.

Typically, we've created committees at the beginning of the year when we have a meeting to go over committee, subcommittee assignments. So this is something, an anomaly. If we could have city attorney weigh in

THANK YOU, MAYOR. I WOULD RECOMMEND AGENDIZING THIS ITEM AND STAFF CAN PROVIDE FURTHER INFORMATION IN THE STAFF REPORT AND PROVIDE A RECOMMENDATION FOR COUNCIL TO ENGAGE IN FURTHER DELIBERATION ABOUT THE APPOINTMENT OF A PERSON AND THE BALANCE OF THE COUNCIL PROVIDING THEIR SUPPORT BEHIND THAT PERSON FOR THAT APPOINTMENT TO AN EXTERNAL COMMITTEE AS WELL.

OKAY.

Meanwhile, we can we can look into the logistics. I'm getting on to the Seat at the table.

Yeah, I'm looking at all staff because I don't know which staff member to look at here But the deadline the deadline is sometime the first week of June What I would through the chair like I'd like to Immediately start working with council members Kern and Lentz on bringing in the item forward to the next meeting and addressing any issues that we need to address in the in the interim

THAT SEEMS REASONABLE TO HAVE THE INFORMATION FOR A STAFF REPORT. ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. WRITTEN COMMUNICATION. CITY CLERK?

WRITTEN COMMUNICATION WAS RECEIVED FROM KATIE SONDAGE, YOUR INVITED SLAGE LOCK SITE CENTENNIAL. MARK HEEBERT, PLEASE FUND A BRISBAY HIGH SCHOOL. BARBARA LEE, HENRY NUNG, AND MILA SCHMIDT. ABANDONED BOATS IN SIERRA POINT INLET NEAR PRATHENA BUILDINGS. Request action and timeline. Lori May, final community summary and request to reinstate Brisbane Preschool. Char Zamanpour, say no to the Baylands Project.

All right, thank you very much. Next item on the agenda is oral communications, number two. And I would... Move to that with the caveat that this is limited public forum. We'd like speakers to please stay on topic. On topic matters are those that are within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city of Brisbane. Speaker will have three minutes. And if a speaker fails to follow the rules, they're disrupting the meeting and you'll be warned. And the opportunity to speak will be ended or precluded from speaking on any other items. Do we have any members of the public wishing to make public comment? Items not on tonight's agenda. Michelle, please come up here.

Well, I think it was on tonight's agenda, but I don't know the outcome of San Bruno Mountain Watch's request for sponsorship because I couldn't be here at that time. And Ariel was scheduled to come two weeks ago, so he couldn't be here.

That's an item on the agenda we can't talk about. But we can tell you afterwards what the outcome was.

Okay. Well, I would just like to say about that, we submitted our request in January. And we submitted it right, or maybe it was February, early February, right after our annual board retreat. for September 26 for the Mission Blue Center because we were planning a very intense day that involved other organizations and other people and a big event for that day with a lot of moving parts and we did that right away because we felt we needed that amount of time to really line up the people and and promote this so that we have a very successful event. This is now mid-May. It is now less than four months out from our date. We have not been able to advertise this at all because we didn't feel that even though we were assured that we had that date and everything would be fine, we weren't able, we didn't feel it was respectful to move forward with making it public and advertising it to you know in our newsletter and lining up more people to attend at different things we've done a lot of work as much as we've been able to but i think that we need to reevaluate how we um the timing of of certain events and and that depend on the city for sponsorship because i i waiting for four months, where we were told, oh, it'll be in February, oh, it'll be in March, it'll be in April, it'll be in May. And now it's mid-May, and I'm hoping you approved it, but it really constricts the ability of the organization to be able to really produce an incredible event. And I did attend Lyrical Opposition's event that was in the park. They had two weeks prior to their event that they got approval even though they had submitted it quite a ways before that. And it really did impact their attendance because people didn't know. They couldn't promote it until they had permission. And so I think we need to evaluate, like, is it an event that takes a lot of planning and you get it into the city in a reasonable amount of time, but then to sit on it for four months really handicaps the organization to be able to do their very best planning. and make the most of the opportunity that's been given to them or co-sponsored for them to have a successful event. So I really think we need to reevaluate how we prioritize those and, you know, That's why we asked so early.

Okay.

Thank you.

Comments are noted.

Madam Mayor, if I may, Michelle, I'll be reaching out because there's some information that was shared tonight that I want to make sure is accurate. I have a little different read on some of the things that happened, but I'll be reaching out to you related to your comments tonight and making sure. Okay. Thank you.

Any other members of the public wishing to speak? City Clerk?

No more hands raised. Madam Mayor.

Okay. Okay. Thank you very much. This meeting, just to remind everyone, is going to be followed by a meeting of the Housing Authority. This is regarding Visitation Garden Senior Apartments. I'm going to adjourn the meeting now at 8.36 p.m., and I want to ask whether my colleagues would like a 10-minute break before we go into the next item. OR WHETHER YOU WOULD RATHER JUST KEEP GOING.

I THINK I'LL BE TAKING A VERY LONG BREAK, BECAUSE I HAVE TO RECUSE MYSELF FROM THIS PARTICULAR ITEM, BECAUSE I'M ON THE HARD BOARD. SO, I'LL LEAVE IT UP TO YOU.

HAVE A GOOD EVENING. THAT BEING SAID... LUCKY ME, YES.

YOU KNOW, AS LONG AS WE DON'T NEED TO BROW BEAT THE 800 PAGES IN THIS AGENDA, I'm happy to just keep going.

Okay. I am too. All right. Very good.

It was a pleasure.

Have a good evening.