Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Meeting to order.

Do it all over again.

Sorry. Recording in progress.

good evening it is monday august 3rd 2026 at 7 pm i will now call the regular planning commission meeting to order this meeting is being televised by a zoom video conference platform miss mattenpore please conduct the roll call good evening

Chair Rubio, Vice Chair Mostwalker? Present. Commissioner Morrison?

Present.

Commissioner Jimenez? Present. Commissioner Esselstago?

Present.

Thank you. Chair Rubio is not present.

We will now have the Pledge of Allegiance. Commissioner Esselstago, would you please lead the Pledge of Allegiance?

Yes.

Thank you. We will now have the public communication. Persons wishing to address the Planning Commission on any subject not on the agenda may do so now. Please note, however, the Commission is not able to undertake discussion or action tonight on items not on the agenda. Items may be referred to staff for appropriate action, which may include placement on the next available agenda. Public comments will be limited to three minutes per speaker. For members of the public attending the virtual Zoom meeting that wish to make a comment on any item, please use the raise hand feature or dialing star nine if connecting via phone audio only. After you have indicated you wish to make a comment, when it is your turn to speak, staff will bring you into the meeting so that you may provide your comment or concern. Public comments are also accepted by email to smattenpoor at herculesca.gov prior to and during the meeting. Prior to the close of the public comment period on an item listed on the agenda and will be posted to the city's website and available to view after the meeting. Written public comments will be provided to the Planning Commission and posted to the city's website as supplemental documents, but staff will not read aloud written comments during the meeting. Individuals wishing to address the commission in writing are asked to provide the following information. Subject line to contain the words public comments. Name, address, and contact information of person providing comments, optional. General topic or agenda item you wish to comment on. Ms. Mattenpour, have we received public comments on items not on the agenda?

I don't have any speaker card, but our Zoom attendees, if you would like to speak, please click on the raised hand button. Or if you have joined us via phone, please dial star nine. I do not see any hand raised.

we will now move to the wait i'm sorry no hands raised correct perfect thank you thank you We will now move to the consent calendar. All items under this heading are considered to be routine by the planning commission and will be enacted by one motion. There will be no separate discussion of these items unless a member of the commission staff or a member of the public requests that a specific item be removed for separate action and placed as a discussion item on our agenda. Included in our consent calendar is item one, minutes from the July 20th, 2026 meeting. Are there any requests to remove an item from the consent calendar? Hearing none, I will accept a motion to approve the consent calendar as presented.

Motion to approve.

Do I have a second?

I'll second the motion.

All in favor, Ms. Mattenpour, please conduct the roll call vote.

Mayor Rubio is not present. Vice Chair Mostwalker? Aye. Commissioner Esasago?

Aye.

Commissioner Morrison? Aye. Commissioner Jimenez? Aye.

Thank you.

Motion passed.

All in favor? I'm sorry. Motion is passed, I'm sorry. We will now move to the public hearing portions of our agenda. We have a public hearing that is continued from the July 20th, 2026 meeting. A conditional use permit 2602 for a retail store at 1560 Sycamore Avenue. We will now reopen the public hearing The applicant may now provide a presentation or statement.

Chair, if you wouldn't mind, I can just briefly introduce the item before we call up the applicant.

Okay.

Okay, thank you. So as the chair, good evening, commissioners, Tim Reed, your community development director. As the vice chair noted, the hearing for this item was opened on July 20th, and at that hearing, the commission received the staff report, so we are not proposing to deliver it again tonight. It is, however, in your packet, and the presentation is available if needed. Also, our contract senior planner, Larissa Alchin, is available via Zoom if there are detailed questions. At the July 20th hearing, the commission heard public testimony and continued the item to tonight in order to allow a representative of Dollar Tree Stores to respond to the commission's questions. Questions included Dollar Tree's operational model, compatibility with the Sycamore Avenue corridor, security and safety concerns, proposed site improvements, the plan for other Dollar Tree stores in close proximity to Hercules, and how the merchandise mix is determined for individual stores. The applicant has provided a response letter dated July 30th, which is in your packet and included as attachment five. I would also note that in that letter, subsequent to the staff report being prepared, the applicant has requested a change to condition of approval number five, which currently reads that deliveries shall occur no more than once weekly by the existing rear delivery door and loading area shown. They have requested that that be revised to allow deliveries up to twice weekly. Apparently there are certain times of year, particularly around the holidays, when more than one delivery might be needed. No other changes to the project description analysis or recommended conditions of approval have been made since the last meeting. The full details are in your packet. And that concludes the staff report. So the applicant now has a presentation that they'd like to make.

The applicant may now provide a presentation or statement

I think they're on Zoom, so we're just going to get that set up.

Good evening, Planning Commissioners. Can everyone hear me? Yes. Okay. So, Lee Prince with Fox Rothschild Land Use Council. I will just briefly introduce, since I spoke last time, I had the privilege of being with you on July 20th. In the room, we have a group of Dollar Tree representatives. We also have some of us online. Ken is there in person. He'll come up to the podium now and walk you through the slideshow we have for you this evening and help answer the questions. But we do have lots of folks here that we can call on to answer the questions you have. And rather than list off all the names of folks that are on the slide, you can see everyone, the first four or five folks are there in person with you in the room. There's a handful of us on Zoom as well. And then we also have the property owner and his leasing manager present as well. So thank you again for having us and I will turn it over to Ken.

Good evening. Good evening, everyone. My name is Ken Choi, and thank you again for allowing us to speak on this behalf. My name is Ken Choi. I'm the director for Dollar Tree Stores for leasing on the West Coast. There's a couple people that I'd like to introduce. First off, we have Sandeep. He's here as well. He's one of our district managers. And we also have Saul. And here's another one. I say Clemente, but it's Saul. We also have one of my analysts. here as as well sorry i'm a little nervous it's tough speaking on mic all right thank you um yeah sorry about that and then we also have jim who's our one of our councils here at uh jim fox rockchild so um thank you again for allowing us to speak on this behalf we'll run through some of the slides here um and we also have alex and felicit felicita she's our rd that manages This northern cow part of the market as well. Alex is our architectural project manager Scott Kipnis As you've heard with them last week. He's our outside Council and Lee who you just heard as well. So Thank you again for letting us speak. Let's go to the next slide And so here's the opportunity that we were looking to go forward. It's a former Rite Aid, obviously, on 1560 Sycamore. We are not doing any exterior modifications. This will just be interior. So we're just moving forward. Next slide, please. And so this is some of our examples of some of our stores that we've opened up, obviously. This is some of our new stores. And so go to the next slide. You'll see that we provide a lot of value to the community with a lot of... food in some of our stores as well. You'll see that snack zone and a lot of variety for a lot of the families in the area as well. Thank you. And then sometimes we see ourselves as a glorified party store. You know, as you think about things, what Dollar Tree sells, we sell a lot of balloons. We sell a lot of party favors. We also sell a lot of party supplies. And so as a community, we also feel that need for something that if you're like, hey, I have a small birthday party to go to. I need to get some plates. Where am I going to get them? So we see ourselves as a party supply store as well. And you'll see that this is some of our seasonal, right? This is an Easter, one of our big holidays throughout the year. It's a big push for our holiday right through springtime as well. Thank you. And then this is just kind of a picture of everything that we have. You'll see on the left side, you'll see a lot of health and beauty. You'll see a lot of food in the middle, balloons like we are for our party stores. And then you'll see a lot of household and party supplies towards the back as well. Some of our associates at some of our stores are happy. We like them. And obviously some of our customers that come out, the thrill of the hunt is like we like to say. At Dollar Tree, when you go in there, you come out with a lot of things that you didn't think you needed. Because when you walk in there, you're thinking like, hey, I came in there for a couple things for party supplies. And we like to delight our customers. And the thrill of the hunt is one of the things that we like to pride ourselves as a company is to make sure that WE KEEP HAVING NEW PRODUCTS AND NEW THINGS TO ENLIGHTEN OUR CUSTOMERS. AND MOVING FORWARD, THIS IS SOME OF THE PEOPLE, SOME OF OUR REVIEWS, RIGHT? OBVIOUSLY YELP REVIEW, BRIGHT, CLEAN, NEAT AND SPACIOUS STORES. THANK YOU DOLLAR TREE FOR MAKING THIS CRAFTER'S LIFE FULFILLED WITH ALL THE KNICK-KNACKS THAT YOU HAVE PROVIDED ME OVER THE DECADES. And one of our biggest questions that we wanted to address is obviously safety and security. It was one of the things that we wanted to address, obviously. It's very important for us to ensure that our customers and associates feel safe and secure while in our stores and outside of our stores as well. We continue to enhance our in-store with technologies, with cameras, and we're committed to our customer and employee safety as well. And that was a quick presentation. Thank you. but I'm here to answer any questions.

Go ahead.

is the applicant done with their presentation yes okay but i'm available for any questions if you okay so if you have questions of the applicant that would be the right time to do that right now will you receive miss matt or have we received

Sure. I've got a couple questions. Thank you, Kent. Great meeting you. Thank you for flying out. I guess my first question is with the... The delivery, so it's, I think it was once per week now, it's, what is it, it's going up to twice per week, I think is what you're proposing. So I guess the question is that if the commission holds firm on one delivery per week, is Dollar Tree still willing to operate under that condition, or what would be the impact, should we not do two?

Very good question, and I'd like to address that. Every business owner would want their business to succeed. And doing more as a restaurant would be like, I would like to have more tables and more customers come in. Same with the stores. And what we have is we're prepared to have one delivery a week and a little bit more of a secret sauce. 50% of our sales come from back to school to New Year's. So if you can imagine a store having to have all that freight come through the back and having to ship, sometimes we might need to have two trucks. And I'm not asking for two trucks, but I can't have a conditional use that I'm going to be in violation if I take two trucks for that week. And that's where it really comes into it. We really hope it's successful in the community and the community embraces us. And at that point, we'd love to have more trucks. I understand the concerns for the community, but it's merely a suggestion and an ask, but I understand what you're asking for is you don't want to have the nuisance of the truck and the delivery, but we would like to be successful as well too. We would like to make sure our shelves are full of product and we don't want to make sure that we have a store that is empty with shelves because the community loves to shop us and we just are only stuck to one truck a week.

Thank you for that. Yeah, I think personally, I don't have, I mean, I think twice a week is fine, as long as the goal is for you or for Dollar Tree to be successful, so what it takes, right, within reason. So thank you for that answer. The other question... I think it said that based on the letter on attachment five, be no more than that of a single family residence regarding the dumpster in the back. So what is that comparison based on? I guess I'm trying to understand actual waste generation data from comparable sized existing Dollar Tree store.

Absolutely. I'd love to take that on. With 9,500 stores across the country, some larger, some smaller, typically our standard prototype is somewhere between 10,000 to 14,000 square feet. And we don't generate any bag trash more than what's usually our associates and their lunch meals and supple things, sweeping and stuff like that. All of our trash, or I guess you would say all of our recyclables, are usually from box and pallets that we are breaking down. And that actually just goes to our balers, or it goes back to the recycling facilities. And so our trash, our physical bag trash, is really minimal. We don't have a lot of restaurant trash. We're not generating that much trash to begin with, because we only have so many associates in the building.

Thank you. One last question. I guess so there's, so like CBS News and some media data, I guess the question is that, and you can tell me if it's not a fair question, but Dollar Tree has closed hundreds of underperforming stores nationally, and this is from CBS, in recent years as part of a portfolio review. So what specific sales threshold or performance metric will put the store at risk of closure within like, I don't know, two to three years.

Well, let me address kind of how the perception of closing stores is. Believe me, it's... Every retailer is going through it, right? You have to look at your business and seeing if it's profitable to run that store or if it's not, or if the rent is too high, right? And if you're not making money, it's a business that we're in, right? You kind of have to think about other factors where, like, you have, like, Target and Walmart, they're closing stores. Chipotle, Starbucks, they close their cafes and stuff like that. And something like Dollar Tree, sometimes we make mistakes, too. And... You know, there really isn't a secret sauce on the reason why we close stores. And sometimes we look to communities and we want to be there. And sometimes if the sales aren't there and, you know, we can't operate, we can't make a profit, and the landlord wants to re-tenant with another user, then so be it. Then we just have to take our business somewhere else. Unfortunately, that's what it is sometimes. But we're not out there aggressively trying to close stores. We want to make sure that we're here for the community, we're invested. and we want to be here for the long term. Absolutely.

I just had a few questions and it's just more technical. Are there any plans and I think this question was raised last time but also I didn't have a lot of confidence that the applicant team in the last round had a full understanding of the geography or the regional map here because I know they misspoke in saying that we don't have nearby Dollar Trees and we actually have two locations in Pinal, which is just adjacent to Hercules. Yeah, that technically I think is Richmond, the third one. In any case, so that gave me pause, right? That maybe someone didn't do their homework. So I'll ask this question again, or I think one of my fellow commissioners may have already asked it in the last time. Are there any plans to close any of those stores? Because it seems like an excess number of stores in a short radius, don't you think?

You know, our stores are merely for a lot of convenience, right? If you think about it, well, we want to be the convenient player. We want to thrill the hunt, and we want to... basically embrace the community. And so we sell food because we want people to have options instead of having to go to the big boxes, instead of having to travel far away. We want to sell homewares because we want to have people to go and organize their homes. And they want to be able to find organizations and clothing and whatnot. So we have options for those people. And essentially, every community, every neighborhood needs a small store. It's like if you could only have one big box store in every community, well, You'd have a Walmart down in Pinole and that's it But you know how to give other people some options and convenient play and so we're not planning on closing those other ones We're actually trying to invest in New York community And this is just maybe from experience and if you don't know the answer that's completely fine but is it is it fair to say that in in

you know, hypothetically, if dollar two were to come in, does this in some ways discourage other discount retailers from coming in as a competitor? Or, like, does this monopolize that market, do you think?

I mean, if you think about it, we're not a... what other people like to call us a discount. We don't discount any merchandise. We're not close out. All of our merchandise is made for us, like General Mills, P&G. They all make smaller sizes for us. And so we're not out there to kind of be the lowest common denominator for any community. What we always want to do is we want to make it fast and easy for anyone to shop. We always like to give our options. That's why we're open at 8. We're closed at 10, right? We want to make sure that we service the community. If somebody's late and they don't want to go all the way down to go to CVS and you're like, oh, I just need Advil. I'll go to the Dollar Tree, right? So we want to make sure that we're available for everyone. I hope that answered your question.

I think so. And then last one. And this, I know signage is not in front of us. It's not part of the programming that we're being asked to weigh in on. But just out of curiosity, I know typically Dollar Tree has the illuminated large lettered signs. I've driven across, you know, by a few, and in some cases I see lights on at all hours, and I don't know if that's just during, like, custodial hours, but they're on kind of all night, and it's pretty fluorescent. Or, like, what's the plan in this scenario?

You're talking about exterior signage lighting? I've seen both.

So I've seen the store... Lighting, you know, glaring out the storefront. And I've seen the, you know, the signage on the marquee or not marquee, but the letters, which is, you know, understandable. Curious about the lighting in the store itself. Is that?

That's more of a security concern.

So is that an all-night program?

Sometimes in certain communities, you'd like to have it all bright and lit up so there's not any dark corners and people aren't hiding and stuff like that. So that's why it's lit up in certain communities. In certain safer communities, we probably don't need it. To be honest with you, we don't want to waste electricity.

Have you determined what the programming is going to be in Hercules?

I think we're going to turn off the lights. Go ahead. Thank you. Yeah, it's pretty safe here.

That's it for me.

Mr. Morrison, any questions?

I have a couple. Thank you. I'll just put out there, and correct me if I'm wrong, I did a little research amount, and the public knows that Dollar Tree is corporate. They are the corporation. There is no parent companies who are dealing directly with Dollar Tree, and Dollar Tree owns all the stores. So we're not dealing with any franchises, which then, of course, can make different decisions on operations and openings and closings. So that I wasn't the pinhole store in fact today because I haven't I'm not a shopper there I haven't been there in a while, but I swung through it was neat and clean I'm sure nice to hear that about the management staff over there. Is that done? Is that about the same size as this store is?

I believe pinholes 10 and this is just 14. Is that right? I

I think so.

That's a 12. I'm sorry about that.

No, no, no. In the shopping center.

Is that 3178? Bigger. It might be a thousand. The store is a little bigger.

Plus or minus. I will say I... I'm reading the letter that was sent to us that was the first I guess I overlooked it about concerning the deliveries yeah I have no problem I don't understand why there's any restriction whatsoever because deliveries at that store I live right up the street shop there regularly when deliveries were made for Rite Aid they have a long side entrance to the back where their deliveries are taken the truck semis pulled in there they weren't in the parking lot or blocking anything so I don't understand why there's any concern about you getting your delivery so Thank you. I certainly have no objections to. I don't even know why that restriction was in there at all. But that store has plenty of siding for that to afford the deliveries when they are made. Let me just see what I got here. So on that, let's see if we need to discuss. And I guess, yeah, I mean, my basic concern is just overall that Dollar Tree is going to make efforts to make sure everything runs safely in the store and to all precautions for shoplifting. Shoplifting does go on here. It went on at Rite Aid. It goes on at Home Depot. Home Depot was very slow to take a lot of precautions. I finally put more. I used to work there, too. And it was pretty bad. But hopefully they're down. I know Rite Aid kept on theirs. And I think it's a good thing to know that when the public knows that anything happens, that you're going to respond to it and take action. I think that gets the word out that it's not a simple place to walk in and pick up whatever you want and walk out the door.

Appreciate that. Thank you.

So hopefully they're going to continue to make sure of that and do any precautions necessary for that. I guess my only concern is the building itself. I understand you're doing all your interior work, getting everything set up, but I hope that you do have it in there that they're going to have the outside of the building refurbished. It doesn't need remodeling. It just needs refreshing. There's the old signage that was up there. Of course, that marked the building. You've got trellising that was removed years ago, never replaced, never done changing the color of the outside. The color scheme isn't even fine. It just needs to be freshened up, and I hope you're going to have that done so that your nice new inside also looks nice on the outside.

You understand that? And I'm going to save that question for the landlord, obviously, as we're just leasing the building, right? And so everything on the interior is basically what we say is our shtick. And on the exterior, we'll leave that up for that.

If you haven't looked at the outside closely, take a look. I don't think you want to start off here new, because it seems buildings are here for some time. It's a slow process to get things spruced up once they're here. As you can look in our shopping center. So otherwise, everything else we covered in the last time, that pretty much does everything for me. So thank you very much. I'm glad you were here this evening. I appreciate you taking the time to come in and speak to us in person. Thank you very much. Absolutely. Thank you.

Thank you.

So I have one question, something I don't quite understand and it's regarding the security issue with loitering Um and I I guess you said in your you talk right into your microphone so that we can thank you. I guess you said in your letter that um because I don't really understand what this is um that Dollar Tree is willing to designate a community point of contact so the city and residents can raise concerns directly with Dollar Tree. Should we have them? And I don't know if we've done that before in Hercules or have you done it in other stores or can you explain that?

Yes, absolutely. Across the country with 9,500 stores, you can only imagine in certain communities there needs to be attention more than others, right? And so... I was responsible for a lot of the Alderman communication in Milwaukee and in Chicago as well too. And so a lot of stores across the country may not get the attention because obviously we have our store managers and our operations team that are doing everything they can to keep the store running, right? And if there's something that... outside of their their norm of their control that maybe is a little bit more of a community issue that we can't control obviously what we like to do is also just like to extend our number and our personal phone to you guys as you just call us because we're in this together and so that's what it is it's like we have Scott Kipnis who's been our third party attorney for 25 years he's been our attorney for so many deals and so many communities and stuff. So if there's something that's, needs to be addressed happy to pick up the phone i give you my cards and so like look if there's something that you know that needs to be addressed we're here for you we just don't want to be this corporation that it seems like okay as soon as we're one and done we're not here and you can't get to us and then you're trying to talk to the store manager the store manager might not be here it might not be the right person to talk to regardless we're here and we're investing in the community we want to be able to communicate with you as well and vice versa That's what we're trying to go for Okay.

Thank you. So it's somebody in your office. That would be the point of you. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you No further questions Miss Matt and poured have we received any comments from the public or common cards to speak tonight?

I don't see any Speaker card, but let me ask any Our zoom attendees would like to speak please click on the we need to or if you want to open the public. I'm sorry.

Open the public hearing.

No, I don't see any raised hands.

If I may, this is Lee Prince again online. I believe the landlord is there in person and also was intending to speak as well to address some of the questions the commission had regarding the exterior and the leasing process.

OK, the landlord.

Like to OK, hang on one second. It's it's my understanding that the applicants presentation is over. Is that correct? Yes, OK, so if we have public comment and the applicant has a landlord here to speak, you know on their behalf, they're welcome to do that as part of public comment. So we'll look to our first in person attendees for public comment and then we'll go to anybody on zoom. If that's OK with you, Madam chair.

excellent okay so the public hearing has been opened and we'll invite the applicant to take a seat and we'll open public comment you now open the public comment good evening uh commissioners uh city staff uh city residents are here in person and online my name is seven angulian i'm joined here tonight by my father something angulian just my family online and andy armstrong the senior leasing manager with crosspoint realty my family developed the neighboring senior apartments at 1550 sycamore ave from an undeveloped uh an unimproved lot that we've continuously operated for 20 years here in the city that's been home for 100 senior citizens last year two things happened the owner of the 1560 Sycamore Ave property listed the property for sale and Rite Aid filed for bankruptcy for the second time in just as many years. We've seen, you know, we're here in the city every day. We see what's happened with some of the other vacant properties around. We've seen the duration of some of those vacancies. We've seen the condition of some of those properties and how that has changed over time. And so operating the adjacent property, we saw that. And so with an eye towards serving the residents of our apartment building and the greater Hercules community, purchased that vacant property with the intent of doing something good that would be helpful for our residents at the adjacent apartment building and for the city as a whole. That property has been vacant for Friday's last day of operation was towards the end of July of last year. The building's been vacant the entire time, and as soon as we were able, the property was listed with the same leasing agent, Andy Armstrong, online, was listed for tenancy. These buildings are tough to lease. Big Lots went bankrupt. Joanne's Fabrics, Rite Aid, Walgreens itself has downsized. They're required by private equity. There were other pharmacies that had the opportunity to lease. I think there was a question about that in the last commission meeting. So CVS was approached. They purchased the prescription list instead. Dollar Tree is really the only reputable applicant who's come in with a serious proposal to lease the space. Based on our experience, having a leased building with activity right nearby is much better than a vacant property at all. I mean, just earlier this year, the Sycamore Place uh commercial center just i guess it's technically north uh right near sycamore ave um had a major break-in there were uh hp i could see it from the apartment building that we operate there were hpac units stolen uh electrical piping significant damage to the interior of that of that uh of that space and that's continued to remain vacant um you know they are putting a lot of work into you know improving that but um you know again these these can be be tough to lease um we take maintenance of our property seriously uh this isn't my usual outfit uh so you may not recognize me but i was one of the people with the scrub brush and a can of paint remover removing graffiti from the block wall at the corner of Turquoise and Sycamore. I was one of the people up on a scissor lift removing lettering from the side of the Rite Aid building. We've had several, we've had cleanups of illegal dumping at the 1560 property, just two that we've cleaned up this year, all at our cost. We've added cameras and a monitored security system to the building interior since. We believe that having Dollar Tree as a tenant that will have an active store will be a real benefit to the community. community and our residents. As a last thing, our residents, there's a weekly bingo game every week. What they've decided to do with their weekly budget for the last several years is spend it at Dollar Tree. Our manager goes, purchases items at the stores in Pinole, and bring them over. So my timer hasn't gone, and so I used it up and more.

Thank you. Do we have any more questions from our commissioners?

This is public comment, so we're not asking questions. Thank you.

quite understand why that was public comment. I don't think it should have been, because we do have questions of the landlord of the building.

Not part of the applicant team, so he's a member of the public, but if you want to ask the potential lessee questions, you're welcome to do that.

Do you have any more questions from the commissioners?

No, we're looking for additional public comment at this point.

Ms. Mattenpour, do we have any additional public comments?

I don't see any hand raised on my attendees. Pardon me?

Through the chair. So we have a three-minute time limit for public comment, and we keep it at three minutes to make it fair so that everybody in attendance has the same amount of time. I understand it doesn't look like we timed the gentleman before. He did have three minutes. If somebody else from the landlord team would like to speak, they're welcome to do that. But it's up to the chair if you'd like to let him finish anything that he's stated. That's that's at the chair's discretion. So if you'd like to invite him back to finish his statement, you're welcome to do that.

If you would like to finish your comments, but it can be no more than three minutes, because the comments are limited to three minutes.

I'm sorry. To address the question about the exterior refresh, yes. An exterior refresh is part of, would be part of a leasing agreement with Dollar Tree. There are, you know, without, you know, until, for example, a use permit is approved and any potential other changes are made, There are some things that we would likely not repaint if not allowed or if there was another color that was going to be required. But definitely an exterior refresh would be part of leasing agreement. So roof repairs, exterior trim, repaint, things like that. Yes, definitely.

Any further questions? Seeing no further speakers or questions, I will close the public hearing.

Can we check Zoom first? Shiva, can you confirm that we have no one left on Zoom in the public that wants to speak?

I don't see any raised hands in the attendees.

Seeing no further speakers or comments, I will close the public hearing.

Okay.

Do we have a, I'm sorry.

I do, I have a question for staff, for our legal counsel. So could you, so for the attachment five for the letter, I'm trying to understand what record evidence is in terms of our voting tonight.

Sure, that's a great question, Commissioner. Record evidence is everything that's in your packet before you and everything from the prior meetings packet, also all public testimony, both from the applicant team as well as any members of the public that spoke at our last meeting and at this meeting tonight. It's everything that you've considered as part of your decision-making process tonight.

Thank you.

Any further questions?

I don't have questions, but I have comments. Now would be the time, I'm assuming. First of all, I just wanted to thank the applicants team for showing up tonight. I know it wasn't a short way to get here. But as hopefully was translated to you in our last hearing, and obviously it's the reason why you came in today, my concern was that Hercules wasn't looked at as a bedroom community, just sleepy town we can just move in whenever we want we don't have to show full commitment they need us we don't need them kind of thing um and hopefully that translated to you in having those residents share their concerns at the last hearing hearing the commissioners share some of our concerns but i also do see your commitment not only in being here tonight but also um in the letter that ms price prepared i really appreciated you know every section that was addressed um particularly the one about the liaison the potential liaison it sounds like um you mr say would be the one to call should something go astray or um and hopefully it is your commitment to respond to that and not put the burden on our local police department to have to answer those calls But overall it does sound like you have a track record of being a good partner You know as our city manager said in our last City Council meeting Hercules is facing some challenges and while no single business is going to repair the tax revenue issues that we may currently have I think that having a big commercial vacancy finally filled would be a step in the right direction. I appreciate the commitment from the owners. I personally drive by it every day, and I do have to say it's one of the most well-maintained vacant spaces. And it sounds like you yourself are doing most of that, so I really appreciate that, and it has not gone unnoticed. unlike other vacancies that we've seen that have, you know, unfortunately not remain in a tidy way. So overall, you know, while I did have a lot of concerns, I will say, candidly, initially, you know, I do support this project tonight.

Mr. Morrison.

Yes, I do have a question of staff. The item concerning deliveries, is that, I had not noticed that until that came up, and so I don't know if that's in the agreement, so we need, in making a motion, do we need to then put in to make a change there?

That's correct, Commissioner. That request came in after the packet had been prepared, so we didn't modify the packet as a result, but wanted to present that for your consideration.

Yes, okay.

Any further discussion?

I'm just amongst us.

We do have a little discussion concerning, my question being is a motion concerning deliveries, whether there should be a to limit, any limit, or whatever to change it. I don't think, yes, I agree with the applicant that one delivery a week is, I don't understand why we would need to restrict and control what deliveries a business is receiving here, because I'm sure, right, certain times of year, you get a lot more deliveries, and sometimes deliveries don't go as expected. You probably sometimes get small deliveries. I don't know your operation that well, so I definitely want to change that. Definitely not to leave it at one. I'm not sure what the rest of the Commission feels.

I'm okay with that.

And support as proposed by staff in the report. I'm not asking to change the suggestion, right? Two loading, or two deliveries?

One delivery is what's in the packet. So we would need to change it from one.

It's a change from a minimum of one, max of one to two or more, all right?

don't see any issues with two deliveries a week from the staff perspective.

I don't have any other questions.

Any other questions? So do I have a motion to adopt a resolution of the Planning Commission of the City of Hercules approving conditional use permit 26-02 for retail store Dollar Tree at 1560 Sycamore Avenue?

Motion to approve.

Do I have a second?

No, we need an amendment. I wanna make the amendment to it that they have two deliveries a week from changing it from one.

Okay, so does our motion maker, Commissioner, or Vice Commissioner, I just want to confirm, you were the motion maker, and there's been a request for a friendly amendment to confirm that you want to change condition number five to read no more than twice weekly, rather than no more than once weekly. Are you comfortable with that change?

Yes, I'm comfortable.

Okay, and how about our seconder? Commissioner Vanez, yes? Okay, so we have a motion and a second on the table.

Who was the second? Who was the first? Vice Chair.

Do I have a motion? Oh, I'm sorry. Excuse me. Ms. Mattenpoor, can you please conduct the roll call?

Yes. Chair Rubio is not present. Commissioner Morrison?

Aye.

Commissioner Jimenez? Aye. Vice Chair Mostwalker? Aye. Commissioner Eszle-Sago?

Aye.

The motion now passes. Congratulations and welcome to Hercules. So are there any action or discussion items? Planning Director Rood, do you have any reports or announcements?

Point out for any interested members of the public that should the City Council desire to call up the Commission's approval it may do so on the September 8th meeting and the Council hearing would be conducted on September 22nd No other announcements

I'll move to Commissioner reports and announcements. Commissioner Morrison, do you have any announcements?

No, I just could. Director Reed, do we have any updates on any of our new businesses coming to town? Any dates, maybe?

Tonight, Commissioner. Do you have a particular question about one?

None yet. Okay, thank you. I don't have any other comments.

Commissioner Jimenez? Nothing from me. Commissioner Essofego? No.

Nothing for me, thank you.

And I don't have any announcements. So this concludes the Planning Commission meeting of August 3rd, 2026. The meeting is adjourned to the next regularly scheduled Planning Commission meeting on August 17th, 2026.