City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, and welcome to this, the July 13th meeting of the Livermore City Council. I call the meeting to order. City Clerk, would you please call roll?

Council Member Berrientos? Council Member Branning?

Here.

Council Member Dunbar?

Here.

Vice Mayor Wong? Here. Mayor Marchand?

Here. 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 meeting under an indivisible, democratic, and just problem.

Thank you. We have no proclamations or presentations tonight. We have no advisory body appointments. I'll ask the city clerk to please explain how people can participate in the meeting tonight. This is our first hybrid meeting. So please be patient. We're sort of juggling the technology here.

To provide comment in person, please fill out and turn in a speaker card found at the entrance of the council chamber for each item. To submit a comment remotely, use the raise hand feature on Zoom when the item begins. To provide public comment over the phone, use the telephone number listed on the agenda and press star nine to raise your hand to speak when the item begins. For open forum, in-person speakers will have the opportunity to speak for up to 30 minutes. Additional in-person speakers or any speakers participating remotely will have the opportunity to speak at the end of the meeting. For consent calendar, public hearings, and matters of consideration, in-person speakers will be called upon first, followed by speakers participating remotely. After public comment opens, each participant's name will be announced, and their time will begin once at the lectern or remotely once unmuted. Please note, a speaker is not required to answer any questions from the city council, and the city council is not required to answer questions from the public. However, the mayor has the discretion to ask staff to address the speaker's comments when a council member believes it is relevant to a particular business item.

OK. Do we have anyone else to speak at open forum?

Mayor, there are two speakers for open forum. The first speaker is Kim Grisham, followed by Joe Lee.

And my name is Kim Grisham.

If you could speak into the microphone, please. I'm sorry? If you could speak into the microphone, please.

I'm not, okay. That sounds kind of loud.

There you go, thank you.

How's that?

That's we got it. Now I can hear you.

I'm here to express my concern about the safety issue of the kids on the electric bicycles and electric scooters. Twice recently, I've been spared the unfortunate contact of my car coming in contact with an unseen and an unexpected child on either an electric scooter in one incident and electric bicycle in the other. Last month, I was in the shopping center down at Safeway, already in the center and getting ready to make a right hand turn into a lane so I could park in a space. And as I went to make the right hand turn, in my blind spot, there was a child right on my bumper on a scooter. And I've been in a habit of stopping kids when I can and telling them to be Be be aware, I see kids riding in parking lots on the regular and I will stop them and tell them and let them know the cars don't know what you're doing in this case, I was shocked and did not stop the child, but kept on going completely oblivious to what it almost happened. In the second incident, this happened last week, I was turning off the freeway onto First Street. And there are three lanes. One is the far left-hand lane, which is the one that I was in. There were two lanes to the right of me. One had a pickup truck on my very right side. When my light turned green, I went to step on the gas when a child appeared at my right on an electric bicycle. He too looked at me and then kept on going. I've been very lucky to, in many cases, some reason I get a whisper, slow your roll or just don't go. And I'm afraid that this luck is going to run out. I see this as a threat to my own health and well-being. I don't want to get anybody's child. I don't want anyone to have that experience also. What I wanted to say, I think the kids are not paying attention. They're not aware. They ride past park driveways. They ride past bushes, across driveways. They keep on going. They're riding with passengers, sometimes with helmets, sometimes not. And I'm just, I'm concerned. And so I'm here to ask, I'm here to ask as parents, everybody, please be aware that your children may not be as aware and cautious and responsible as I think they are. With these bikes or with these scooters but i'm also asking the city, I spoke with officer lash police department, he told me that there are some very innovative things that are being done as far as trumps drone activity to kind of. Make the kids aware when they find them. violating traffic safety and then also the education. But I'm asking that you guys, aside from, I'm asking the city to come up with some ideas to make this safer for the community.

Thank you. We actually do. The police department is coming up. We have a training program and an education program. In fact, our next one, I believe, is August 25th. We have a training program for both children and their parents. But we also have a video program as well. So thank you for bringing it to our attention.

Our next speaker is Jolie.

So Microsoft has been busy laying off workers, 4,800 in July so far, which makes it more and more apparent that Microsoft is a failing company, unable to afford to retain its workers. The popular excuse of failing companies lately is to blame, quote, AI, unquote. Meanwhile, quote, AI, unquote, has proven to be a poor substitute for workers. Companies including Ford, IBM, and Commonwealth Bank of Australia have had to rehire their workers, which they fired because the upper ranks of those companies were duped by the, quote, AI, unquote, hype. So it's telling that so much of the quote AI unquote hype is about how quote AI unquote will make workers obsolete. Yet there's a conspicuous absence of any real stories about measurable productivity increases as a result of quote AI unquote adoption. So when the quote AI unquote bubble finally bursts, it won't be good for Microsoft and there will be a harmful transitive effect on any of us who continue to put dependence on the failing company software. So now, as ever, it is an excellent time to start making the transition to free software, software which respects the user's freedom to study the source code, use the program for any purpose, sell or give away exact copies, and the freedom to sell or give away our own modified versions if we wish. So next time I hope to begin sharing some case studies on government migrations away from proprietary software in favor of free software, the cost savings and the security benefits of moving to free software. And I remain eager to help the Livermore Public Library with the pilot program that I proposed previously of migrating a few of the public kiosks to free software and providing tutorials and workshops in person to library patrons. Thanks.

Thank you.

There are no additional speakers, Mayor.

Okay. In that case, I'm going to close the open forum. We'll move on next to the consent calendar. Is there anything that anyone wishes to pull for comment and consent? Council Member Barrientos? 6.8 and 6.9. Okay. Is there anyone else that wishes to pull anything for comment? Okay. Do we have any speakers for consent?

We have no speakers for consent.

No speakers. All right. In that case, I'm going to close the public comment period for consent. You had 6.8 and 6.9.

Any questions? What we're doing, I think it's good for them to know more about these two items.

Certainly. Honorable Mayor Marchand, members of the city council, this is your city manager, Mariana Birch. Almost went back to my maiden name. Oh my goodness. Hopefully my husband is not watching.

Council Member Mariana Birch.

Item 6.8 is renewal of the city's agreement with Zone 7 for us to purchase potable water from Zone 7. The current 30-year agreement is about to expire at the end of the current calendar year. And this new agreement is a new 30-year agreement for the city to continue purchasing water from Zone 7. If I may very quickly, item 6.9 is a revision to the city's meeting rules to formalize a procedure for remote speakers to be taken, to be allowed to speak under open forum at the end of the meeting and for in-person speakers to be taken in the beginning of the meeting as noted on the agenda. So hopefully that provides additional clarity as to what is proposed under those items and I'm available for any questions.

The contract, yes. Amazing how fast time flies. Just a 6.8 is what I do. A couple of questions, just some clarifications. So the water system in Livermore is an enterprise fund. So no general fund dollars go into this. This is all paid for by the users that are using the water system.

That is correct.

Okay. And Within the last couple of weeks, we've had some episodes where the water had kind of an off odor to it. And I heard from a number of people that were concerned about that. And it turned out that the State Water Project had to do some repairs and some maintenance on the South Bay Aqueduct. And that was the switching of the systems. But according to our agreement, at all times, the water that Zone 7 delivers must meet the primary drinking water standards, which are related to public health and safety. They're nodding yes.

That is correct, and that is happening, Mr. Mayor, yes.

Okay, great. There was a fair amount of language in here about the independent quota, which is something that – water agencies are allowed to pump a certain amount, but Livermore doesn't own any wells. So the independent quota was more important for Pleasanton, but it doesn't really impact Livermore.

That is correct. The city does not own any wells.

Okay. I was surprised to see it, but I imagine it's probably just the boilerplate that they produce. And similarly, for agencies that have their own wells, if they pump beyond their independent quota, they have to pay a recharge fee. that does not affect Livermore because we don't have a recharge fee or we don't have wells. Okay, great. This is always bothered me. 6.9. Anybody can talk to anything to the council as long as it's in the subject matter jurisdiction. We have a number of people here that speak on things that are beyond the subject matter jurisdiction of the city. But in order to encourage full transparency and public access, we allow them to speak even though it may be outside of the jurisdiction of what we have control over.

Mr. Mayor, yes, generally that is correct. Unless of course, in rare cases, there's meeting disruption that occurs. And in those cases, we can revisit rules when it comes to subject matter jurisdiction.

Okay, great. Thank you. So with that, if there's nobody that has any other comments on the consent calendar, I'll entertain a motion. Mayor Mrakas, i'll move consent okay Council member branding moves consent. Mayor Mrakas, Second second by Council member dunbar any discussion on the motion. Mayor Mrakas, If there's no opposition passage unanimously, thank you very much. Mayor Mrakas, Moving on to public hearings 7.1, this is the authorization to negotiate development agreement on a development agreement and stand.

Yes. As I'm an employee of Gillig and have been for 10 years, I will be recused from this item. Okay, very good. Thank you very much.

We inventory the snacks.

Mr. Potter. Good evening, Mayor, members of the City Council. My name is Jake Potter, Economic Development Manager for the City of Livermore. And yes, tonight we wanted to discuss the proposed Gillig campus expansion and an authorization to negotiate a development agreement. So by way of background, Gillig is an existing bus manufacturing company located out in the Oaks Business Park off of Jack London Boulevard. They've got about 40 acres of property identified by the red box on screen, several hundred thousand square feet of existing industrial manufacturing space, and they're routinely one of the city's top tax generators. Over a year ago, Gillig approached city staff regarding a potential campus expansion whereby they wanted to expand across Discovery Drive to the west in the area that's indicated in the yellow box on the screen. And there also is a concept site plan in the packet for council's consideration this evening. And the proposal is for about a 17 acre expansion to their existing campus that includes about 100,000 square feet of office and warehouse uses, in addition to future private zero emission vehicle infrastructure for their bus fleet. Staff does estimate that the proposed campus expansion would generate approximately $450,000 in new annual revenues to the city and an additional 240 jobs out in the area. So in order to facilitate such an expansion, Gillig has requested the closure or privatization of a portion of Discovery Drive, the area that's indicated in the red box on the screen. So staff has determined that a development agreement is the appropriate vehicle to effectuate such a project, and Gillig has submitted an application for development agreement at this time. And effectively, the development agreement would establish a deal framework for the proposed campus expansion and street closure. But there are several steps that are required in the development agreement process as required by state law and our local development code. First is the council authorization to negotiate. We'll talk about that on the next slide, but that's the first step in the process. Second is a planning commission recommendation where the planning commission would weigh the findings and make a recommendation to the city council on the development agreement. And then third is a final adoption hearing where the city council would make their final determination whether to approve or deny the development agreement. And so at that time, the council would make the findings of general plan consistency and determine if the development agreement would render public benefit. So zooming in on the authorization to negotiate component, that is the item for city council's consideration this evening. And again, this begins the formal development agreement process and staff is required by the code to bring forward to the city council, the general areas of potential negotiation. And we've included those in your packet as well. And we've summarized the areas on the screen. That would include street closure as requested by Gillig, potential reversion of the street back to public right-of-way if the campus expansion is not to occur. The actual campus expansion itself and a performance schedule requiring Gillig to meet certain milestones and deadlines. And then potential right-of-way dedication and trail construction, ensuring that pedestrians and cyclists can still get through the Oaks Business Park out to the surrounding trail network. And I wanted to confirm again, this item for the council this evening, if approved, would not approve the development agreement and would not approve campus expansion. It would only give staff the authorization to begin negotiations with Gillig. And so we wanted to highlight the next steps if the council does give staff authorization. You can see we're starting here on the left-hand side of the screen there, July 13th. And if given authorization, staff would then proceed with remaining steps in this process throughout the rest of this year. So staff would engage surrounding property owners and businesses in August for public engagement. The city council would consider in September a general vacation protest hearing where neighbors could formally protest the closure of Discovery Drive at a public hearing. The Planning Commission would consider the development agreement at a public hearing in October, make a recommendation to the City Council, and then the City Council's final determination would occur in November on the development agreement and the vacation. If the Council approved the item in November, then Gillig would return early 2027 to submit for their campus expansion entitlements, go through the design review and environmental review process as required, and up through Planning Commission and or City Council as required by the code. So given that there's no development proposed as part of this item for the council's consideration this evening, the DA authorization to negotiate is not a project under CEQA. In addition, given the potential for public benefits, staff does recommend that the city council adopt a resolution authorizing staff to begin negotiations with Gillig to include the principal terms that are on the screen. So that concludes staff's presentation. We welcome any questions you may have, but I believe first, Derek Monis from Gillig would like to say a few words.

Good, so.

Jake and team have been doing a great job at helping us navigate through some of the complexities to get here. So really what I want to do today was just to thank you guys for your consideration and thank the team for the hard work that they put into this to get us to this point thus far. Wanted to share a little bit with you the situation at Hanhead where that we're giving a little bit more color behind why we need to expand and why we need to see a partial closure to have that expansion happen. 13 years ago, Mayor, you and I sat down and you convinced me to move the business from Hayward to Livermore. I wish I had better foresight at that time to know how great that would go and that we were gonna continue to grow the business and then we were gonna, well, I wish I would have known that we would have built the bigger office space at the time, but we have run out of office space because we've been growing the business, the complexities associated with the products that we're developing now have required us to continue to hire. mostly in the in the office a lot of engineering service and support team but i would say a majority of his engineers that were bringing to the community and uh unfortunately we're out of space and we've been out of space for a little while and we've been uh we had to go lease 30 000 square feet in pleasanton so we have a called a short-term lease in pleasanton that we're slowly filling up so as i look over to the next 10 years for our business it's time to figure out where we're going to plan our routes for the additional office. My desire would be and my team's desire would be to create the campus in Livermore and utilize that other land that we have. The challenge, though, is if we bring For example, the aftermarket over, which is another business that we have out in Hayward, the aftermarket parts business, we bring that over. And we do some additional R&D space across the street. We do additional office space across the street. We will have a large number of employees all the time walking back and forth. And with open traffic, it's a non-starter for me because of the safety of my employees. That's where the challenges, but we've been working with your team and we've been talking about this as a possibility. And I know this is just the first step of the process, but I want to just come here and thank you guys for the opportunity and the consideration for this.

Okay. Is there anybody else that wishes to comment?

Yes, Mayor, we have two public speakers.

Okay, I'll open the public hearing then.

We have two speakers. The first speaker is Alan Marling, followed by John Franklin.

Mayor and Council, I hope we'll move forward with this GILIG expansion. I'm proud to think that Livermore is the home of public transit industry. Public transit is far more efficient than private vehicles and even ride shares and will be increasingly vital for cities. In short, the future rides on public transit. Thank you.

The next speaker is John Franklin.

I work for a company called FM Industries. We have two facilities in Livermore, one at 7100 National and one at 300 Discovery. I actually saw this via email from Livermore Patch. I was a little surprised that we hadn't heard about it before. We do a lot of business in Livermore, and that location that we have on Discovery is one of our larger campuses. We have two more in Fremont, four more in Arizona, and a couple in Southeast Asia. So we're a very large semiconductor manufacturing equipment company. The potential closure of Discovery Drive, while I understand the implications of it, and I am not against, and we're as a company not against Gillig's expansion think it's good for everybody we definitely have concerns about the impact of that to our business the ability to get product in and out to our employees and the reason I'm here tonight is just to voice that concern I understand there's going to be more public comment in a few months so that's good at the very least I we would like to be included in the conversation as someone who does a lot of business out of that facility and uses that road quite a bit. So thank you.

And thank you.

There are no additional speakers, Mayor.

Okay. In that case, I'm going to close the public hearing, bring it back to the council. Does the council have any questions? Council Member Brenning.

Just a couple of quick questions. points or questions concerns. First is just to address Mr. Franklin's concern. As this is moving forward, there will be outreach to the surrounding businesses and their input will be taken seriously as we're considering moving forward in this negotiation, correct?

That's correct.

All right. And second is I just want to say that as we're going through the negotiations, one of the city's priorities is making sure that we have a healthy and robust workforce. And so uh working with Gillig to try to make sure um they've always been a great employer in our city and making sure that as they're building they are also a great employer there and consider uh you know local trained skilled workforce with apprenticeship programs thank you any other comments variant us vice mayor

We may not know the answer to this yet, since we haven't actually started negotiating, but I'm just curious if we know whether they plan to still allow their employees' cars to go through, or will it just be completely closed to vehicles?

Mr. Monis sort of described some of the details, but the preliminary traffic study that we identified estimated that Gillig employees would still have access, but it explored different alternatives. So I don't know, Derek, if you'd like to add anything to that.

Part of the development is going to be bus parking, and part of the development will be our employee parking. We are out of employment today. So it would be probably a gated entryway in. We would have our employee parking, and they would come in at the start of the day, which is around 4.30, 5 o'clock in the morning, and they leave at 1.30 in the afternoon. Outside of that, the traffic won't be in and out because they'll be working.

Okay, so you're not expecting them to be driving through during the day. Okay. Okay. Thank you. And then just also thinking ahead, let's say at some point in the future, Gill excels off one side of the street. Does that street revert back to the city or is that still their street?

I think these are some of the terms to be negotiated. I think the original concept is as long as, you know, sort of Gillick is operating their campus that they would want sort of that access across, you know, if they were to sort of leave, then the street may revert. But again, you know, we have to sort of enter into these negotiations.

Okay.

All right. Thank you.

these negotiations are this is the beginning of the negotiations and there's additional studies and analyses uh that are going to be going ahead during those negotiations so uh we certainly welcome mr franklin's comments and uh additional input as this process uh is starting now and uh this this is a process that uh will continue so we certainly appreciate your comments and they will be heard. Certainly appreciate the partnership that we've had with Gillig for a number of years and it's been 13 years. That's astonishing. But again, looking forward to making this work for everybody. If there's no further comment, public hearing is closed. I'll entertain a motion. I will move staff's recommendations to open negotiations.

I'll second.

Seconded by the vice mayor. Any discussion on the motion? If there's no opposition, it passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Get Council Member Dunbar back. All right, matters for consideration, this is a resolution approving the executive management management confidential and confidential compensation plan.

Good evening mayor and city council, my name is Kristen Hilton and I am the acting administrative services director. And the item before you tonight is a resolution approving the executive management management confidential and confidential employee compensation plan. So effective January 1st of 2026, a state law requires that an oral summary before the city council takes final action on compensation for executive management employees. The proposed compensation plan consolidates the existing salaries, benefits, and employment provisions for the city's unrepresented executive management, management confidential, and confidential employees into a single comprehensive document. The compensation adjustments previously approved by the council that were implemented in July and November of 2025 are also reflected in this plan. The only new compensation changes are an increase to the monthly vehicle allowance for designated department heads, from $250 to $350 a month. And the plan also establishes the police chief's eligibility for post-certificate pay, recognizing the chief's continued maintenance of post-certification and aligning the benefit with the police department's management team. And this benefit would be retroactive to July 1 of 2025. As such, staff recommends that the City Council adopt a resolution approving the Executive Management, Management Confidential, and Confidential Employee Compensation Plan, and staff's available for any questions.

Any questions for staff? Do we have any public comment?

Yes, Mayor. We have no in-person speaker. We have one Oh, I'm sorry. We have no room. We have no speakers at this time.

Okay. We have no speakers. Okay. In that case, we're going to close the public hearing and bring it back to the council. Is there any questions or comments? I'll entertain a motion. Okay. Moved by council member Berrientos.

We have a second. I'll second with a note that thank you for all the work to put this into one document. Thank you very much.

Seconded by a council member Dunbar.

Yeah.

There's a discussion on emotion if there's no position that has to do nothing Thank you very much, thank you. Okay, bringing it back to the Council for. Matters initiated and Council. Oh, are there any online there were no. In the beginning okay.

Mayor, there are no additional in-person speakers and there are no remote speakers for open forum.

So there are no speakers online. In that case, I'm going to close the public comment period for the online portion of the open forum. With that, bringing it back to the council, council reports and matters initiated. Council Member Dunbar.

Nothing to initiate, and one I will highlight on the report was just how I felt like the traffic management at the airport went much better this year, in part thanks to the buses. I thank everybody for their patience to get out there. I know sometimes we were at a wait, but overall we had much better access for emergency response to the airport if anything were to happen, so I was really impressed with staff's work and coordination with LAFTA on that item, so thank you.

And we had eight buses all together. So it was quite a success.

I remember last year, the traffic backing up on airway all the way to 84 and that becoming a problem. So I was really happy to see this year.

Because we're running. Not too much to report. I was actually in Denver for the NERA, which is a gathering of about 6,000 educators. It's the largest democratic body in the world. And so we were discussing the NEA, which is the National Education Association's policies, procedures, goals, platform, all of those items for about 12 hours a day for an entire week. It was intense. It was exhausting, but it was also incredibly interesting, incredibly fun. So I've been back for a little bit. I have a few items I did get to go to during the interim timeframe, but I just thought that was a cool thing that people might want to hear about.

All right, very good.

Thank you.

Council Member Barrientos.

I forgot that. I did attend the Teen Academy graduation. And the other thing is on July 18th, we called the Vasco Summer Festival over on the north side of the tracks for 580. And the whole idea is to try to get more people to see more Livermore and to increase business over there in that side of town. I need to talk to Chief Lacey too. That's it.

Vice Mayor Wong.

I want to echo the appreciation for our city staff and for Wheels and all the community members who participated in putting on a Great Fourth of July celebration. And especially want to thank Wheels for having backup buses ready that they put right into service when the crowds got big and really reduced wait times. And I got so many texts from friends who rode Wheels for the first time and thought it was a great experience. And I was one of the people that waited 45 minutes last year just to turn from 84 onto the airport. So I thought it went really great this year. Saturday, I joined the mayor in celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Hindu Community and Cultural Center. It was really great and really appreciate everything they do for our community. And then just a last little quick plug on Friday night, I'm teaching Mahjong at Sakura Wineries. If anyone wants to learn, but you have to sign up in advance because there are a lot of people coming into small space. So it may already be full. I don't know, but check it out.

How fun. What year is that?

Friday.

Friday.

Friday, five to eight, I believe. But if you don't already know how to play, I'm teaching at 430. Okay. It really takes about 10 minutes to learn. It's very easy. The Hong Kong version, at least.

All right. Very good. Thank you. Again, I've got to give a shout out to the Fourth of July at the at the airport. What an amazing event. There were literally thousands of families, thousands of children. There were we had the Alameda County helicopter was out there. We had the sheriff's helicopter there. We had the Veterans First Program from Las Positas College. The police and fire departments were out there. We had the only flying Marine B-25 in the world was out there. It flew in. We had one of only six Japanese Zeros in the world fly in. We had the... uh, F six F Hellcat, which was actually the first plane that the blue angels, uh, used to fly. So it was really a very, very cool day. Uh, it was hot, but it was, uh, we got out of there before the heat really peaked, but it was an excellent day. It really was a wonderful day to celebrate, um, The warbirds that helped ensure our liberty during World War II. We had a couple of steermen out there, which is World War I. And it was just a great day for everybody. And I sincerely appreciate all the tremendous work that everybody collaborating, the police and fire and LAVTA and LAVTA board here that authorized that. So certainly appreciate all of that. As I do have a matter initiated, Kim Grisham brought this up. We've heard a lot of information, a lot of concern about e-bikes and not so much e-bikes, but e-motorcycles and e-motorcycles on sidewalks. You know, they're called sidewalks for a reason. They're on the side of a road where people walk. And I've personally had to get out of the way when somebody on an e-motorcycle was going down the sidewalk. So I ask that we have staff look at that and then bring something back to the council. I've got, okay, I've got five nods here, so we're good. Also, as to conclude the meeting, we lost one of our great champions recently over the 4th of July weekend. Supervisor Scott Haggerty passed away, a six-time supervisor, and he was a champion for transportation and a great friend of the Tri-Valley, and he passed away. And with that, my small world, I used to work with his wife, Patty, before they were married, before they actually had met. I worked with her at the Alameda County Water District. She was an engineer out there. So I'd actually known Patty longer than I'd known Supervisor Haggerty. But I counted them both as friends. So with that, he's going to be deeply missed. And I will join the meeting in his honor and memory. Thank you.

All right.