City Council - Regular Meeting

Mayor, I think we are ready. Oh, okay. My apologies.

We can hear them, hear the kids. They can smell fear.

Good evening and welcome to this, the conclusion of the Summer Reading Awards and City Council meeting. This is September 14th. I call the meeting to order. Roll call, please.

Council Member Ben Berrientos. Council Member Evan Branning.

Here.

Council Member Stephen Dunbar.

Here.

Vice Mayor Christy Wong. Here. Mayor John Marchand.

Here.

Thank you.

So as I said, this is the Summer Learning Awards. This is the Summer Reading Program. I think this is the 19th year that I've done this. And this is the fun stuff because some of you may know that I started my career in public service working for the Hayward Library. So having the kids coming in and uh, being recognized for the summer reading program is always, uh, it's a joy for me. Uh, and I believe that we have a, uh, presentation from our library director and one Baker, Mr. Baker.

Good evening, mayor Marshawn and council members. I'm here tonight to present the super readers for the libraries, 2026 summer learning program, 5,800 residents participated in our summer learning program this year. and 1,189 of the children who participated completed the full program to become super readers. As a community, we read 6.1 million minutes a summer. It's wonderful that you're taking the time here to congratulate all the readers tonight. However, before we begin, I would like to thank a few of our sponsors whose donations made the summer learning program possible. I'd like to give a big thank you to LARPD, East Bay Regional Parks, the Quest Science Center, Chick-fil-A, Panda Express, Open Heart Kitchen, Sunrise Mountain Sports, Alden Lane Nursery, Meadowlark Dairy, UC Master Gardener Program, and the Friends of the Livermore Public Library. Assistant Library Director Nathan Brumley will lead us through the rest of the ceremony. Mr. Brumley, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Director Baker and Honorable Mayor and City Council members. If you join me down here, we can get started. All right, looks like we're just right here. Yeah, you can. Let's have the mayor first. That's great. This way. This way. That's right. Perfect. Thank you. All right. Come on down. We're ready for you, super readers. Hello. All right. Thank you very much. And we have Esme Lockhart. Congratulations, Esme. And Scott. Connor Young. Congratulations, Connor. Great job reading this summer. Alex Bodie. Thank you, Alex. We have Dylan Modry. David Petra. Congratulations, David. All right, look at all those medals. Nice job. We have Aiden Harris. Congratulations, Aiden. All right. And Riley Mandel. Congratulations, Riley. Mohamed Shirzai. Congratulations, Mohamed. Great job reading. Safa Shirzai. And Aisha Shirzai. Congratulations. Hasna Shirzai. Great job reading. And we have Lima Shirzai. Great job reading, Lima. All right. We have Shreehan Bhattacharjee. Great job, Shreehan.

Shreehan, over this way. Right this. Right this way.

And Siddharth Bhattacharjee. Thanks, Siddharth. Sawyer Becker. Zuri Patel. I'll take your card.

Thank you.

Will Anderson. Good job, Will. Alexander Voronov.

All right.

And Andrew Voronov.

Hi.

Samantha Mullane. Good job, Samantha. Aman Sharma. Great job reading, Aman. Dimitar Rakhov. Dimitar, right this way. And Arya Vishal. Samantha Lee. Good job reading, Samantha. Brandon Lee. Hayden Campbell. Good job reading, Hayden. Ryan Mohammed. Thank you. Xavier Laurel. AJ Jones. Good job reading, AJ. Here, I'll take your card. Iris Tran, followed by Hannah Tran. Just a second.

Go ahead. Follow your sister. Follow your sister's eyes.

Juliana Don. Good job reading, Juliana. Berkey Ethan Gurkhan. Matthew Gurkhan.

All right.

Great job reading. Acer Todd. Aylin Cesar. Selma Cesar.

Right that way.

All right. Alexander Hong. Good job reading, Alexander. Sienna Krauss.

All right.

I'm just going to slow it down for a minute.

Zachary Carney. Good job reading, Zachary. Take your card. Thank you. Dylan Ogabian. Georgia Taylor. Congratulations, Georgia. All right. Emma James. Nice job reading, Emma. Jay Madali. Good job, Jay.

Here, I'll take your card. Thank you.

And then we have Adian Atsui. Sorry. Alice Agatep. Good job reading, Alice. Adia Jah. Good job, Adia. Hi. We have Dalia Renteria-Toscano. Great job reading. Benjamin Loza. Great job reading. Brunta Veluvolu. Pernov Veluvovu. Zenia Rizvi. Good job reading, Zenia. Navisha Sinha. Navan Sinha. Mikhail Qureshi. Good job reading, guys. Arish Bilal. Right this way, Arish. Hi. We're going to wait just a bit for our catch it up. Just a little bit, just a little bit. All right, so Emilie Weisman. All right, Emilie, good job reading. We have Arthur Mattoon. Good job reading, Arthur.

Hi.

Camila Ramirez. Good job, Camila. We're just going to pause for just a second. Well, thank you. Isabella Ramirez. Good job, Isabella. Hi. Did you enjoy reading over the summer? Oh, good. Adia Romero. Good job reading. All right. Thank you. Amelia Mopas. Right this way. Good job reading. Hi. We have Eleanor Krakora. And I have a feeling you know each other. Madeline Krakora. Good job reading. Alexine Fleer. James Gaylert. Nathan Sen. Great first name, Nathan. Akshara Vishwak. Great job reading. All right. Ana Cristina Davila Garcia. Right this way. Hi.

Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Diana Rasuli. Good job reading her, Diana. Sarayu Vempadu.

I need your card here for just like, hi, can I have your card? Thank you.

Sartaj Singh. Hi, Hunter. Just a minute here. Hunter Rubio. Good job reading, Hunter. Timothy Ling. Right this way, Timothy. Good job reading. Lakshmi Sakai Vankadari. Good job reading. Hi. Did you enjoy reading this? Good. Juliana Brown. Congratulations, Juliana.

And I'm her brother.

All right. Jayden Brown. Right this way.

Oh, just a minute. Just a minute.

Kunal Shingade. All right, Kunal. Thank you.

I can see you right now.

You're up there. You're on TV. Pretty cool, right? Allegra Padilla. Good job reading, Allegra. That's right. Great job reading. Aiden Murashige. All right, Aiden. Congratulations. Charlie Sukasiam. Good job reading, Charlie. Hi. I'll take your card. Thank you. I'm going to announce it. Brady Soptic. Good job reading, Brady. Right this way to the mayor. Hi. Oh, nice. Thanks for coming in, Leah. Leah Overton. Great job reading. Hi. Natalia Garcia. Manuel Garcia. Great job reading, Manuel. Right. And Grayson Barker. Good job reading, Grayson.

Hi. Hi. Thank you.

Lyra Lopez. Good job reading, Lyra. Thank you. Eloise Weber. Thank you. Serena Lee. Good job reading, Serena. Hi there. Yeah. Here, we're just going to wait just a minute here. Liana Koja. Good job reading, Liana.

Hi.

I'll take this. We have Arav Mishra. Great job reading, Arav. All right. Nitila Enshazian Kadai. Great job reading. Hi.

Thanks, Juliet.

Juliet Castillo. Good job reading, Juliet. Hi, I'll take your card. Yeah, thank you. Navia Praveen. Hi. Here, I'll take your card. Thank you. Liam Araya. Good job reading, Liam. Hi there. I'll take your card. Thank you. Jules Whitney. Great job reading, Jules.

Hi.

And then Rhythm Alamseti. Great job reading, Rhythm. Hi. Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. Neil Malhotra. Great job reading. Malcolm Fernando. Good job reading, Malcolm. Hi there. We've got Catherine Latoric. Good job reading, Catherine. Hi. And we have Manvi Mayor. Hi. Here, we'll hold it for just a second here, just so your parents get a chance to get a little further in. And Orion Pryor. Good job reading, Orion.

All right, thank you.

Chinoy Mitra, good job reading.

Oh, right there, right over here, you gotta shake hands.

There we go, perfect.

Hi.

Ganeve Sandhu, good job reading, Ganeve. I'll take your card, thank you. And then Ekes Sandhu, right this way. Hello.

All right, thanks.

Did you enjoy reading this summer?

Yeah, awesome.

Bridget Fitzpatrick. Good job reading, Bridget. And followed by Thomas Fitzpatrick. Great job reading, Thomas. Hello. Siddhant Belakati. Good job reading, Siddhant. Right this way. Hi. I'll take your card. Yeah. I'll shake your hand too. Right there. Alma Williams. Good job reading, Alma. I'm just going to hang out. Is that a second? All right. Jane Halsey. Right through here, Jane. And Clarissa Martinez-Favella. Hi there. Cassandra Martinez-Favella. Great job reading, Cassandra. Navraj Singh. Great job reading, Navraj. Right this way. Mahakdeep Kaur. Great job reading. And then Samria Verma. Great job. All right, one second, Emily. We're just going to wait a second. And all right, Emily Arias-Ponce. Good job reading. And then we have Samantha Arias-Ponce. All right. And then Avian Chetan. Hi. We have Aditi Menon. Congratulations, Aditi.

Right there.

And followed by Ray Lee. Is that you, Ray? And Jacob Morris. Nice job reading, Jacob. Hi. We're going to hang out. Just a second. Make sure everybody's good. OK. Kisav Vedanch Bachu. Great job reading. Hi. Just a second. Roshan Mukherjee. Hi. Oh, thank you. Vee Mare, great job reading Vee. Hi there. Moose Mare, nice. Great job reading over the summer. All right, let me see here. And then Maya Prayabulaji. And Lucy Martinez, great job reading Lucy. Hi there. Lily Martinez.

Hi. I've got your card here. Can I have that? Thank you. All right.

We've got Aaliyah Krieg. Right this way, Aaliyah. All right. And Kavan, let's just hold one second here. And then Kavan Anand. Thank you. Shreyan Venkatesh Reddyvala. Right this way.

I'll take this. Thank you.

Srishta Venkat Reddyvala. Right over here. Oh, right there.

There we go. Very nice.

Dhruv Dorbala. Great job reading Dhruv. Right through here. Hi. Irvi Dorbala. Good job reading Irvi. And then Avani Kafle. Did I say it wrong? I don't know how to say it. Ivani Kafle. Nova Kafle. Karthika Karna. Right this way. Adita Gupta. Good job reading. Hi. I'll take your card. Twisha Gupta. Congratulations. Satvik Khatna. Congratulations, Satvik. Sanvi Khatna, great job reading Sanvi. Catherine Fetterman, great job reading Catherine. Mohika Lohia, great job reading. Finally, we have Akira Goyal. Great job reading, Kira. Wow, look at all those medals. That's pretty good. All right.

I've been here before.

That's right. Plenty of times. Yeah. And with that, that concludes our... How many did we have come through? Well, we had 1,100 kids qualify for this year, so we'll have to do the count, but it'll be exciting to see.

We've got a stack of papers.

We do. We've got a big stack of cards. That's right.

Yeah. All of our super readers.

That's right. And thank you everybody for participating. We'll see you all next year.

Thanks for running this show. Thank you so much.

Thank you. They get to be on the count behind. Great name. No, that's not their name. Got me out of the rhythm. It's all good. All right. I guess we'll take a break and then come back out for.

public comment before the closed session and then come back after the closed session.

Thank you. Thank you.

Are we counting in again? Let's see. Are we counting back in for the television? Okay, so we're going to be a journey into closed session. Is there anybody that wishes to speak on an item before closed session? Okay, very good. We are going to be, it's a conference with legal counsel, anticipated litigation, government code section 54956.9D2. And then 1.2 is conference with real property negotiators to meet with Andy Ross, our principal planner, and Brandon Cardwell and Brent Smith. Okay, we're going to close session.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hello.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Thank you.

okay so um they will so what you wanted to do was uh i was gonna set them up there and then you could just hand you could uh i guess announce them and uh hand it to me well you know what um

Can I hand it to you if you want to see it?

I can probably do that. Oh, but they're alphabetized by first name.

Yeah, let's do it by last name.

We got three minutes. Take your time. We got three minutes. All right.

How are you doing?

How exciting? I know, so exciting.

So, Bill and I have a class for you guys to present, and we have swag, of course.

Okay.

And after you do the proclamation, will the council come down to take a photo?

What we're going to do is we're going to, we don't, I think we did the proclamation already. We sent that, but we've got certificates for all the kids.

Okay.

So what we're going to do is I'm going to come down and present the certificates to each of the kids. And then we're going to stay here. We're going to invite the rest of the council down, and we'll get a group shot with all the council members and the team.

Okay. And then where do you want Bill and I to go? I'm going to invite the coaches to speak or the managers.

Okay. Whenever you guys want to say something, after you recognize the team, if you want your go-to-speak, I'll invite you guys up. Okay, sounds good. Thank you.

Okay, I'm trying.

Are we all going up?

Hmm? Are we all going up? Yeah.

Well, what I'm going to do is I'll present the certificates and then for the group shot, we'll have everybody gather for the group shot. Perfect.

Good evening and welcome to this part two of the September 14th Livermore City Council meeting. We just got through the summer reading program and now we're moving on to the general meeting. I call the meeting to order. Roll call, please.

Council Member Ben Berriantos. Council Member Evan Branning.

Here.

Council Member Stephen Dunbar.

Here.

Vice Mayor Christy Wong.

Here.

Mayor John Marchand.

Here. If you'll join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Here.

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.

OK, question for the city attorney. Was there any action taken in the closed session?

Kim Seeley, your city attorney, there is no reportable action.

Okay, very good. Thank you very much. So now is the fun stuff. So one of the fun things about Livermore is Livermore was founded by William Mendenhall in 1869. In 1869 is the same year that Major League Baseball started. It was the Cincinnati Red Stockings were the first professional team. So Livermore and professional Major League Baseball are the same age. So we've got the Granada Livermore Little League here tonight, and these are the champions. These are the guys that won the U.S. championship. So, yeah, let's hear it. So they took on all comers, and you're looking at the best in the country here. So congratulations for – I was there. I was there for the game, and it was that one sort of bobble at second, and you guys dug in, and you weren't going to give up, and you won. That's what it's all about. It's about... teamwork and bringing it together and uh digging deep and making that happen so uh congratulations to the granada little league uh then the the little league intermediate 50 70 uh champions here in the u.s so thank you very much we've got certificates for each of you i'm going to come on down uh and then we'll get a photo op and bring the rest of the council uh so

We have Chase Bavona. Hayden Chee. Trevor Long. You know.

In the one.

Paul and Katie?

Paul and Mark? It's working.

It's a feeling. It's a feeling. Give yourself a little hug. And then Junior.

DG.

Mike Sabella.

Did the council come on down?

Why don't you raise your hand? Raise your hand if you like each other. You can do it. So I'm just going to make this really, really quick.

Is this okay? Can everybody hear me? You know, obviously we're super proud of these boys for the achievements that they did throughout the tournament to represent the city of Livermore, but we're also extremely thankful for the support that we got from the city. We had record-breaking crowds of individuals from our town that came out and supported our boys, and it was just an awesome memory to have our city support us. So we want to thank the city of Livermore for coming out and supporting us.

And also, I'd like to offer some thanks as well to the people that helped bring this to Livermore 12, 13 years ago, Kathleen Mincer and Bill Boomerod. So if you'd come up and just acknowledge this event, certainly appreciate it. Bill's the guy that you see out there with the scissors cutting the grass around. He's very, very precise and also working the grill. But Kathleen and Bill are the ones that brought, along with Dave, you guys brought it here. And it's been a tremendous success. And the community absolutely loves it. As you said, record-breaking crowds every single day. So it was terrific. So thank you very much for serving the community and for bringing this in.

Well, thank you guys. Um, and again, thank you for your support from day one. This was an amazing year. I mean, this is probably in the history of this event, the most exciting year we've ever had. And there's and since you started bringing up some historical perspectives, Mr Mayor, I'm gonna give you a little bit more history. So this is the first year that we've had actually two teams from the same district playing in a U.S. championship game. And that's not an easy feat because the Livermore-Granada team had to, they not only represented Livermore, they represented the entire western region. They won the regional. So they didn't win our district tournament, and then they went on to go through and win the entire western region. So, yeah, it was very, very huge. And to have a championship game with two teams from the same district playing that night on Saturday, we had over 6,000 people at Max Bear Park that night. Wow. And the word that I keep hearing from all the fans that were there and even my wife who came out, who doesn't always come out a lot, said, This place is electric tonight. And it was electric. And it had to be one of the most exciting games that we've had for a U.S. championship in the history of the event. So there was a lot of firsts this year. And we were very, very appreciative. I think the crowds for the week probably exceeded over 60,000 for the week due to the fact that we had two teams from District 57 playing this in tournament the entire week. This council has, and the city has supported this event from the outset, starting in 2013. We can't thank you enough for that. We hope that this event is going to continue on here. In the future, we're still waiting to hear that. We'll probably announce that in November. We do know that the dates have been set, but none of the cities have been named yet. But I can't thank you guys enough for all your support. And we really, really appreciate it. And congratulations again to the Livermore Granada team for the U.S. championship. So it was great.

All right.

I want to say, well, thank you for all my first pitch throwers this year. And Stephen came out and sang the national anthem for us. Yeah. That was awesome. I always come with fun, so I have a plaque to present that says, to the city of Livermore, thank you. And I always bring swag, so we have some fun.

Oh, that's beautiful. Yeah, there it is.

Oh, wow. I'll let you guys wear the California Little League World Series shirts in here. There's empty space down there. We'll fight over it later.

I'll let you come up here and we can stand here and you guys can just stand down here and we can stand here and you got the city logo right in front of you.

There we go.

All right. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

We'll be back.

That's great. One more hand for Granada, Livermore, Little League. Champions of the West, champions of the United States. Okay, now back to business here. All the mundane stuff. Yeah, the fun's over. Okay, advisory body appointments. We don't have any. Open forum. This is if the city clerk will advise people how they can participate in the open forum.

Thank you, Mayor. 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 9 to raise your hand to speak when the item begins. For open forum, in-person speakers will collectively have the opportunity to speak for up to 30 minutes. Any additional in-person speakers who wish to speak at the conclusion of the 30-minute period or any speakers participating remotely will have the opportunity to speak at the end of the meeting. For consent calendar, public hearings, and matters for 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 and 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 a speaker's comments when a council member believes it is relevant to a particular business item.

Okay. Do we have any speakers? I suppose I should ask you that first.

Yes, we do. Okay. So the first speaker for open forum is Jolie.

Just a quick update, hopefully, on the effort to make a couple of case studies. Still no luck yet getting in contact with the current IT director of City of Largo, Tim Kuhl. Mainly my fault. After Tim Kuhl didn't return my calls, I was instructed to email and I dropped the ball on that. But now that I've kind of publicly ashamed myself, that will be done tonight. Slightly more positive news. I finally heard back from a worker in the Danish parliament. Denmark, two Junes ago, started its migration to LibreOffice, canceling its Microsoft Office licenses. A response is a response. It was mainly just to tell me that I had the wrong department, so I will be emailing the correct department. Well, actually, I've emailed. I'm waiting to hear back. And then this past weekend, related to free software is the right to repair movement. Just wanted to report that I went to an event in San Jose, which was one of the speakers was Rohit Chopra, who was... worked with lena khan at the ftc and um one of the one of the notable um speakers all after rohit uh uh chopra introduced him was uh it was a recorded message from a farmer in colorado and this is related to free software he said he repaired his John Deere tractor. And when he was done with the repair, the tractor didn't work until he called John Deere to have an authorized repair person enter a code into his tractor for $900. And it was just to enter a code and nothing else. He had already repaired his tractor. And he said when the authorized repair person arrived on his farm and punched in the code, he took a picture of his own tractor. And to the authorized person, John Deere rep's chagrin, kind of upset the guy, and the farmer said, well, too bad. It's my tractor. I can take a picture of my tractor if I want to. And ever since, he's been using that code to authorize his own repairs on his own tractor. And the reason this is related to free software is because it's a matter of control. When the manufacturer or vendor pushes software that is not under the control of, for example, this farmer, he can't remove what one of the speakers at the event called ransomware. Official ransomware from john Deere and because the farmer doesn't have control over software. He wasn't able to remove it himself and he relied on someone to come Travel long distance to his farm to punch in a code just to authorize him to repair his own tractor and so free software is related to the right to repair.

Mayor, our next in person speaker is Antonio.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor. I'm Antonio. I'm an Army veteran, also a student at Las Positas. And I came here today to talk about our 2.2 for 22 that's on September 26 at our Las Positas track starting at 9 a.m. Just want to read a little something. I just want everybody to... honoring the veterans we have lost to suicide and supporting those who have been struggling today. The number 22 has become a powerful symbol of veteran suicide awareness. This event reminds every veteran that they are not alone, that asking for help is a sign of strength and their lives matter. Let's all come together. and complete the challenges that we have, check on our fellow veterans, and help our veterans suicide one conversation, one connection at a time. We hope to see everybody there. And that's all I have. Mr. Mary.

Thank you. I think the Veterans First Program at Las Positas College is remarkable. And this is one of the reasons why we're fighting so hard to keep the VA hospital here in Livermore open to continue to serve our veterans that have served this nation. So thank you for what you do. Appreciate it. And one more time with the particulars on the 2.2 for 22. So what's the date and time on that?

September 26 at Las Positas track and field at 9 a.m. Saturday morning. We have about 25 challenges. It can go from 22 seconds to 22 push-ups. Numerous people in clubs have their own stations. We're going to have food. We're going to have a DJ, music. We're going to have a T-shirt, a medal once you complete. So it's going to be a fun time, and it's free to the public. So free parking, free entry. You can come out with a medal and a T-shirt and have a good time with family and the community.

Come out and support our veterans.

Awesome, and we'll see you there. Thank you. Thank you.

Mayor, that's all the comment cards I have. You're welcome to open it up if there are any others. I also have two speakers who are remote, and we can have those speakers speak at the end of the meeting or right now.

We can take them since we've got plenty of time. So we'll take the remote speakers.

So the first remote speaker we have is Carrie. Carrie, can you hear me? Yeah, I can hear you. Okay. Can you guys hear me? Yes, go ahead and start.

I mostly just wanted to speak about your, here, let me, one second.

Carrie, are you still there? Carrie, are you still there? Okay, Mayor, we can go ahead and go to the next commenter. Give me just one second. Judy Stroyer?

Judy?

All right. Shall we give that another shot after the meeting? Yes.

Okay.

All right. In that case, I'm going to close the open forum and bring it back to the council for the consent calendar. Is there anybody that wishes to have anything pulled for consent? Okay, seeing none, do we have any public comment for consent?

We do. The first public comment I have is for 6.6. For Alan Marling.

Mayor and council members, I'm pleased to see investment in active transportation along East Avenue, which has been a dangerous choke point for bicyclists in the past. Reinforcing a bicycle boulevard north of that avenue sounds a promising and sensible option. The more people feel safe to take active transit through the area, the more we can reduce car use and congestion along East Avenue itself. It's all right. I would like to proceed to other items on the consent calendar. 6.7, the trail bridge over Isabel. I appreciate your extending bikeable areas in Livermore. Currently, the nearby intersection of Discovery Drive and Isabelle Ave has no crosswalk and no access point from the nearby trail. And while it may be a cheaper solution to create such a crosswalk, Perhaps that interruption of traffic along Highway 84 is insupportable, necessitating the trail bridge. The dedicated bridge would also be a far more comfortable traverse point for bicycles. City Council Chambers, concerning 6.11 which I believe is spending a million dollars to pay a collection firm to try to squeeze money out of people who may well be struggling to make utility payments and such I should hope the city has done a calculation suggesting they could collect more than.

Do good.

You're going more than a million dollar price tag that collection agency would charge. But even so, I would prefer the city not pay a collection agency big bucks to harass citizens for small change. Thank you.

Mayor, the only other public comment in person for consent is on item 6.9, Jeff Caskey.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I am, of course, Jeff Caskey, your city historian, and I will admit that as your city historian, I was not aware that baseball started the same year that Livermore was founded, but I think we've added a new historic element to our story with this victory. I also happen to be the chair of the Midway School Museum Project, which is what 6.9 is working on. And what we're really looking to do here is to bring a historic one-room school into the city that we can program both for residents and for in particular for all of the elementary school kids in Livermore. We have another opportunity, an awesome opportunity to educate all of Livermore's kids about local history with a real hands-on kind of a project that I think that they're really going to enjoy. I'm not here to talk really about any of the technical details of the item. You've got the paperwork in front of you. I really just wanted to say thank you very much to City Council for your support on this. And in particular, I want to let you know, as you know already, that you have an awesome staff that has been working very hard with us for the last number of years, but in particular, a lot this year to make this project come to fruition. Really, all throughout the different departments, we've had great interactions. And so I want to thank them for that. I want to note, by the way, that we've also had great cooperation from LARPD, who is also obviously there They're responsible for the park and they've been working with us very well. So this has been a great, well-supported project. I appreciate the support that I've had individually from some of the members here at council. You guys have been great support and I'm looking forward to bringing this program to our schools. Thank you very much.

Well, thank you. This was a long, circuitous route, and we've been working on this for a while. Because not only the Surplus Land Act, you've got the state, the county, LERPD has been working on this. So everybody's been coming together, and it's really been remarkable to make all that happen. So thanks for the vision to make this happen, and we're going to bring Midway School back into Livermore. Thank you.

Mayor, before you proceed, I do have four hands raised on Zoom. I just want to make sure that they're not for consent. So I'm just going to quickly call on each one. And if it's for consent, we can have them speak on the consent calendar item. Judy S. You are muted. I just wanted to let you know. Okay.

Donna? Yes, I want to speak on consent items.

Which consent item would you like to speak on?

6.20 through 6.23.

Okay. Did you want to present a public comment for each item or just one comment for all items?

I just have prepared one comment for all of the items.

Perfect. Go ahead and start.

Good evening, city council members. I respectfully ask that you revise consent items 6.20 through 6.23 concerning FAA grant applications for Livermore's airport layout plan, infrastructure grants, and the Aviation Innovation Center implementation. The supporting documents for the grants need to be corrected and resubmitted and will require more work outside of tonight's meeting. I am especially concerned about the incomplete environmental baselines for the airport layout plan. Please refer to the letter from the Water Board to the city manager dated September 2nd. On page two, the Water Board states and above ground storage tank leak from the Hangar S-1 fire suppression system caused PFAS contamination to be detected at maximum concentrations in the soil and in the groundwater. As a result, the water board is requiring further testing and remediation to prevent the PFAS in the soil from continuing to migrate into the groundwater. Moreover, remediation should be conducted while the additional site investigation is ongoing. This is no longer an abstract need for a future study. According to the Water Board, the airport has a known PFAS source area. Livermore has ongoing testing obligations and a regulatory finding that remediation is needed. The current capital improvement plan describes biological resources, and baselines, but does not identify hazardous materials, the pieces contaminated soil and groundwater, or the water board's investigation and directives. The airport layout plan application should add the aforementioned emissions, the regional water board's September 2nd letter, the water board's investigation, and the remediation directives. In summary, the Regional Water Board PFAS findings must be integrated into the airport layout plan. In conclusion, please direct staff to revise all items 620, 621, 622, 623 for accuracy and completeness. Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter.

Thank you, Donna. And the next comment, the next public commenter I have is Anne Marks.

Hello, good evening.

Hello, Anne. Did you want to speak on a consent calendar item?

Yes, ma'am.

Okay, go ahead and start.

Thank you. Ann Marks with PG&E. I am reaching out because I wanted to comment on item 616, which relates to the zoning plan for the city of Baltimore. This is an exciting plan and it does many things for this community, the community that we are very proud to serve and do so humbly. We have a service center located at 3797 First Street. That service center was in a zoning area that's being rezoned for residential, which is wonderful. We are excited to provide power to those residents. What was not clear to us on First Blush was that this rezoning didn't allow us to do some needed repairs and upgrades on our existing property. repairs and upgrades that don't impact traffic or otherwise impact the community, but in terms of how they are at the site, but in fact will impact the community in terms of our ability to provide power and maintain our systems and our grid reliably. Particularly in light of seeing that we are looking at the future of the airport and the expansion of what the electrical plant will be there, we think it's really important to have a first-class service center. That's why we were considering doing some updates And that's when we discovered that this was going to be an issue. So I would ask that this item be pulled from consent, that there be a minor amendment to the proposed development code that would just list light industrial as a land use type that's permitted only if it's already existing at the time that the code was adopted, which was quite a long time ago. I'm happy to provide this in writing as well. And again, I'm just really thankful for the communities that we are able to serve with power through PG&E and hopeful that we can resolve this in a way that will make sure that doesn't have any unintended consequences for anyone who gets power in your community. Thank you.

Thank you, Anne. And then the last hand that I have raised is from Sarah Callahan. Sarah, did you want to comment on a consent calendar item?

Yes, please. On item 617 on the Las Colinas Road property. Thank you. Go ahead. My name is Sarah Callahan with Northern California Residents for Responsible Growth, speaking in support of the plan for the development agreement on Las Colinas Road property. This is an example of how the kind of positive cooperation and development can grow Livermore when the community really works together and we work together with the town or with the community. With partnership and oversight, there will be appropriate environmental review and this type of project can contribute to the economic vitality of Livermore by working together Local construction workers can live and work and raise their families and their wages go back into the local economy. And local apprentices from the building trades right here in Livermore will have the opportunity both to train but build their own community. So I wanted to thank you for your work and facilitating the partnerships and be able to make sure we can grow together. Thank you.

Thank you, Sarah. Jim Bridger. Did you wanna speak on a consent calendar item?

Is this the general public comment?

It is not. General public comment will be at the end of the meeting right now. We are on consent calendar.

Okay. I'll just wait then. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Mayor, I am going to try destroyer one last time. Judy?

Yes. Thank you. And I'm sorry for the technical difficulty here. I am not speaking on consent. I was going to speak on general Jewish supremacy issues during non-agenda items.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. Mayor, that's all the remote public commenters for consent calendar.

Okay. bring the calendar back to the council. Is there anyone that has any discussion or questions about the items on consent? Council Member Dunbar.

I'll start with the PG&E item on the zoning ordinance. I'm looking at the old zoning. It looked like it was RS to me before. Does the staff have the same information available? Do we know what's going on there? At least I think that's the property we're talking about on

So this is a property that's in the First Street transition area, which is just to the east of downtown on First Street. It's in an area that had a dual designation previously and now has simply a standalone residential designation. So the use is grandfathered. It can continue indefinitely. They can do repairs to existing facilities, but they couldn't add new square footage or buildings to the property.

Okay. We have a number of projects that are in plan right now that require these things to be in sync between our general plan and our zoning code. Do you think it's reasonable to approve the zoning code to keep those projects moving and come back and reanalyze if there really is a specific need for a change in this location that is essential to PG&E services?

Is that fair? Staff would suggest you continue this evening and we can have some additional conversations with PG&E to get more information on What they're proposing to do and see how that can fit to be clear by continue you mean we would suggest that you go ahead and approve the item before you this evening okay.

With regards to items 6.2. All the airport ones, with the exception of the. move with the exception of the movement transponder so 6.2122. And sorry 6.2021 and 22. Those are all planning documents, largely speaking. Is that correct? New faces.

Good evening. Brandon Cardwell, Director of Innovation and Economic Development, under which the airport falls departmentally. That is correct. The items before you tonight are simply to accept grant, approve grant agreements to accept funding from the FAA for planning exercises.

Right. And the grant agreements, all the There's this highlighted section on them that says, this is the final, do not touch the wording of this grant agreement. Is that correct?

That is correct. The FAA is very particular about that and does not allow modifications to their standard grant documents.

Right. And to the degree that there is an environmental impact to do, that will be analyzed as part of the plan documentation for plan approval when it comes back to us and would include anything the water boards is telling us. Is that fair?

That's correct. And all of the planning exercises will be coordinated very closely with ongoing PFAS investigations. All the teams that are involved in these planning exercises are also participating in that.

Thank you.

So these grants, they're not equal, they're not even. One of the things I noticed is that the FAA is contributing on one of the grants, 6.23, $35,000, and we're putting up $1,800. I do that every day of the week. I mean, that's quite a bargain. And it just shows the great partnership that we have. And these are funds to improve the airport. And that certainly is a tremendous asset that we have for not just for the city, but for the entire region. And there are businesses that have moved here because we have an airport. So, great. Well, thank you. There being no further comment and no questions on the consent calendar, I'll entertain a motion.

I'll move approval with appreciation for staff and all the work that was in this large consent calendar.

And I'll second.

Okay. Motion is made by Councilmember Dunbar, seconded by Vice Mayor Wong. Any discussion on the motion? All in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed, any objections? It passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Okay, moving on to hearings. 7.1, this is the CDBG caper.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. My name is Amy Walker and I'm the management analyst for the Housing and Human Services Division. The item before you tonight is a public hearing on the fiscal year 2526 Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation, also known as CAPER report for the CDBG grant. The caper measures the city's progress towards goals and objectives in the 5 year consolidated plan and in the annual action plan it also outlines how federal funds were leveraged by local funds to support affordable housing. Community development in human services activities for the time period of July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2026. In fiscal year 2526, the city used federal funding while also leveraging local funding to allocate $1.2 million to the Housing and Human Services Grant Program. This investment supported 21 projects across 14 nonprofit agencies and supported more than 7,500 low-income residents throughout the fiscal year. The primary focus of the CAPER is to report the annual results of the Community Development Block Grant. In fiscal year 25-26, $413,820 were spent on the following projects. Two tenant-based rental assistance programs with abode services in Tri-Valley Haven that supported 16 households with housing services and rental assistance. two section 108 loan payments for access community health services and hangman farms a public service project for spectrum community services meals on wheels and they delivered meals and wellness checks to 255 seniors We did administration costs for staff time to administer the grant. And then we also did $101,846 of funding. That was actually fiscal year 23-24 funded project for the Tri-Valley Havens construction of their new emergency shelter. So even though the facility is under construction, Tri-Valley Havens still sheltered 171 Livermore residents at confidential off-site locations during the construction. Any unspent fiscal year 25-26 entitlement funds will be reprogrammed in the next grant cycle that's coming up. In front of you is the timeline for the CAPER. And it's culminating with the public hearing tonight. We did receive one comment on the caper from Spectrum Community Services. They wanted to thank the city for the continued investment in human services and for recognizing senior nutrition as a core public service. So tonight, the Human Services Commission and city staff recommend that the city council adopt a resolution approving the fiscal year 2526 caper for submission to Alameda County and HUD and also authorizing the city manager to take whatever actions are necessary and appropriate to carry out the intent of this resolution. Are there any questions?

Any questions for council? Okay. Do we have any public comment?

Mayor, we don't have any cards or remote speakers.

Okay, then I'm going to close the public comment period and bring it back to the council. Council Member Brenning.

Yeah, I just want to thank you once again. I know it's a lot of work to put this all together. I really appreciate the work that the city continues to do for our human services, our residents, making sure that we're able to actually provide housing to be able to provide services to them at home. think one of the things i want to remind people of is that for a lot of the uh a lot of the money that we spend on uh a lot of the federal money we get is earmarked specifically for housing um and so we have a very small budget for services and i want to thank city staff um and everyone who worked together to try to find other funds and other funding mechanisms that we can use to increase the amount we have for services and when i talk about services i mean food, medical, sanitation, things like that, that really can make a huge difference in someone being able to find work and being able to find, to ultimately move into permanent unsupported housing. So I want to thank staff for all the work. I want to particularly thank our human services department for everything they do. I know it's a lot. I know it's very difficult with all the paperwork. So thank you.

Spirit. Okay. Again, a tremendous amount of work. Thank you so much for what you're doing. We receive less than $400,000 in CDBG funds from the feds, and you're helping over 440 families here in Livermore. We don't receive any state funding for the programs that we're doing. So thanks for the great work that you're doing. These are our neighbors. And since housing has always been a critical issue, had Eden Housing been built by now, it would have housed 130 families right here in our community. And that's been delayed for years. And I'm very happy to say that they have received approval from the state, the community, I'm sorry, the tax credit financing. Is that correct? Yeah. Okay. Excellent. Well, so when we get back here, probably in another two years, we'll have additional services that will be available for our residents. So great. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Good report. And a tremendous thank you. Thank you for the work. With that, bring it back to the council. Do we have a motion? I'll move staff's recommendation. Motion made by council member Branning. Seconded by Vice Mayor Long. Any discussion on the motion? All in favor? Aye. Any abstentions? Passed unanimously. Thank you. Okay, moving on to 7.2. Everybody's favorite subject, weed abatement. And we have Ryan Rucker.

Good evening, Honorable Mayor and Council. The council has adopted resolution 2026 slash 56, declaring, sorry, yeah. Declaring existing conditions of growing weeds on private property are a public nuisance and should be abated and declared that the abatement costs, including administrative costs incurred by the city are the responsibility of the property owner. Starting June 1st, 266 parcels were inspected, and a notice of intent to abate hazardous vegetations was posted on 24 parcels. A final notice was sent by certified mail to the owner of record or the current occupant of three parcels which remained noncompliant. The fire department has concluded hazardous vegetation abatement at a total cost of $9,339. Owners have been advised to pay abatement fees up to 5 p.m. today or protest at this hearing. Staff recommends that the city council consider any and all protests, adopt a resolution overruling protests, confirm the 2026 weed abatement assessments, and direct staff to forward a certified copy of the report to the county auditor. Staff's available for questions.

Any questions?

Thank you. Do we have any public comment? No.

Okay. In that case, I'm going to close the public comment period, bring it back to the council. If there's no discussion, I'll entertain a motion.

I'll move staff's recommendation. And I'll second.

Okay. Motion made by Council Member Branning, seconded by Council Member Dunbar. Any discussion on the motion? All in favor, signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any abstentions or no? Okay. It passed unanimously. Moving on to matters for consideration. Resolution adopting a 180-day wait period exception to hire a retired annuitant. This would be Christina Olson, former Administrative Services Director. Hello.

is a resolution approving 180 day wait period exception to hire retired annuitant, Tina Olson. So state law requires that the city council approve approval to hire a retired annuitant before the 180 day waiting period. Tina Olson recently retired as the city's administrative services director and the finance manager also recently retired. Both positions have since been filled. Both positions have significant budget responsibilities and the city is beginning the development of its fiscal year 2027-29 two-year budget. Ms. Olson's appointment would provide timely training and knowledge transfer related to the city's financial operations, budget process, systems and organizational practice to facilitate an effective transition. As such, staff recommends that the City Council adopt a resolution approving a 180-day wait period exception to hire retired annuitant Tina Olson in accordance with the government code. I'm available for questions.

Okay, any questions? Do we have any public comment? Okay, in that case, I'm going to close the comment period and break back to the council. I'll entertain a motion.

I'll move staff recommendation.

And welcome to our new staffers as well. So motion made by Council Member Dunbar. I'll second. Seconded by Vice Mayor Wong. Any discussion on the motion? All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Passed unanimously. And could we introduce our new administrative services?

Yes, absolutely. Mr. Mayor, members of the City Council, this is your City Manager, Mariana Birch. We have with us today our new Director of Administrative Services, Dustin Clausen. He started with us a couple of weeks ago, came with a wealth of experience, and we look forward to him and his team continuing to build on the legacy left by his predecessors and focusing on the financial development, IT, as well as human resource matters. If you'd like to say a few words.

Say a few words. Welcome.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks, Mayor and Council. Very excited to be here with the city to join an incredibly collaborative and effective team and continue some of the great work that I know that my predecessor So looking forward to working together with all of you and continuing to do the great work that we do as a city organization for our community.

Great. Well, thank you very much. Asset management is extraordinarily important. So it's a well-run city, and we need to keep it that way. Thank you. Welcome aboard.

Thank you.

Okay. Moving to, so we just finished 8.1. We've got a request for a break.

Is it okay if we take a 15-minute break?

15-minute break, anybody? Okay. All right. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be back in 15 minutes.

Seems like it's only been 54 minutes, but it's actually been two hours. Yes.

All right. Good evening and welcome back to the September 14th meeting of the Livermore City Council. We're back. We are going to be considering 8.2. And this is the appointing a voting delegate and an alternate voting delegate to represent the city of Livermore at the California cities. So with that, I would ask Dr. I think everybody else is going. I would ask the Vice Mayor and Council Member Branning, the Vice Mayor to be our voting delegate and the Vice Mayor to be the alternate. Council Member Dunbar, are you going?

I am going. And as I understand it, there can be two alternates.

Okay, well, would you be the second alternate then?

Happy to be the second alternate.

Okay, very good, because we need a voting delegate, and I know timing of flights can be somewhat tricky. So we have our voting delegate would be the vice mayor, and then Council Member Dunbar and Council Member Branning would be our alternates. Does that work for everybody? Do we need to take a formal motion on that? Okay. I will so move then that we move that we have Vice Mayor Wong as the voting delegate and Council Members Branning and Dunbar as the alternates. I'll second and then. Okay. Second, do we have any public comment? Okay, no public comment. I will call the question. All in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? Passes unanimously. On to, we go to open forum and then we go to the matters initiated report out. Okay, open forum. Do we have anyone on the open forum?

Mayor, we did have two raised hands earlier, so I am going to call just the first name to see if they're still interested in submitting a public comment. Jim? Jim, did you still want to provide public comment? Okay. Then I will go to Judy.

uh yes hello can you hear me this is uh non-agenda items yes okay great um and how much time will i have three minutes okay um and i would like to ask you guys you've been running a professional meeting i'd like to ask you to please remember the first amendment um and remember that we also have the brown act and and there is diversity of thought and opinions that are important And it's not a challenge for you guys to decide what I'm speaking about is out of your purview and cut my speech. You should try to be accommodating and allow people's diversity of thought. And when you don't, you show your intolerance of a viewpoint, which you say is what you're supposed to be against. And it is under your purview because boards like yours are constantly pressured by groups like the Anti-Defamation League to silence free speech. That's been exposed in countless public records requests, including in Sonoma County, where it was shown that the Board of Supervisors were communicating closely with advisors from the Anti-Defamation League and the emails exposed this cooperation from a non-government group telling government bodies to silence local citizens of their free speech. At the time, the citizens were speaking out against Jewish supremacy and genocide in Israel, in Gaza. And that's their right to do that. People are allowed to question the involvement of whatever ethnicity or religious group or whatever. That's a fundamental First Amendment right. So because people are because like a certain generation was trained that they get their most valuable virtue points for silencing hateful opinions. When you think about it, you should it should be surface level for you if it's an intellectual thing. It's a perspective and you have to allow people's perspectives. And during the time when the Jews were genociding their enemies, women and children in soup lines, bodies like yours were silencing free speech, calling people white supremacists and Nazis and things like that. And there seems to be this double standard where when you call someone a Nazi or a white supremacist, you're given this right and standard that you could just shut down anything to protect who to protect some group from criticism. The First Amendment is very clear about that, and that's been challenged in Supreme Court. Your bodies and others, when you shut down people's free speech that are bringing up things like Jewish supremacy, you need to be penalized with stiff civil penalties because it's the only thing that are going to protect people's rights. People and citizens like I. shouldn't have to spend our time fighting for our time to speak and explaining how we are allowed to say things. We're allowed to spend our time talking about the overwhelming over-representation of of Jews in politics versus this boogeyman white supremacy that we keep hearing about. And it feels good for your boards to talk about white people and having to hold Nazis back and, oh, I feel so sorry for this guy's opinion that you had to listen to that. You show your intolerance. I would encourage you to allow real diversity

Thank you, sir. That was your three minutes. And then I'm just going to call one last time for any raised hands for non-agenda public, or sorry, non-agendized items, public comment. Okay. Mayor, with that, that concludes all public comment.

Very good. I'm going to bring it back to the council. We'll close the open forum and, uh, Council reports and matters initiated. Council Member Dunbar.

Just wanted to highlight the report on the Livermore-Albany-Aminor Valley Water Management Agency. I'm now the chair of that body. I'm having a good time there. We are still working on a problem with the San Leandro outflow station. We are moving towards resolution, but the project became a lot more complicated than necessary and still waiting on reimbursement from the feds regarding the sewer pipeline from earlier. Otherwise, not a whole lot to report. It's been a good little break to take some time.

All right. Council Member Brenning. I, uh, nothing specific I wanted to highlight right now. Um, it's been a busy time at work, but managed to go to a number of really exciting events over the last few weeks. Um, the one that I wish I was able to spend a little bit more time at, but was really great was the Tri-Valley Reach, uh, gala, um, you know, supporting housing for, uh, individuals in need. It was, you know, a lot of fun, good theme, good times. Uh, other than that, uh, It has been a lot of, yeah, a lot of work. Vice Mayor.

I just want to report on one thing. Councilmember Franning and I serve on the board of LAFTA, which is the wheels bus system. And we have placed a portable bathroom at the Dublin BART station for just for our wheels bus drivers. They have to have and use the app to open the door. And because they have a very short break there before continuing on the route. and it's just not enough time for them to walk all the way to the station to the very back where the bathrooms are, hope that there's a stall available, and then walk all the way back out. So this is going to be great for their health and comfort and also for our on-time performance. So very pleased to see that happen and grateful to our general manager, Christy Wagner, for really championing this. And then just to mention that Friday will be my third time teaching Mahjong at Sakura Winery, which has become a force. It's sold out every time. And when I go around town, that's now the thing I get asked about the most, which is really crazy. So come join us on Friday if there's still room. You have to register in advance because they really do sell out.

Well, excellent. Great. Three things I want to highlight. And again, They're kind of strange, but it's Livermore after all. So I attended the world premiere of a symphonic piece called The Green and the Golden. It was written by Robert Huntington. And it was a composition celebrating the 150th anniversary of the incorporation of Livermore. And there's some Western themes in it. It was performed by the Livermore Amador Youth Symphony Orchestra. And it was remarkable. And in talking with the composer, it turned out that he was in my wife's class at Jackson Elementary. So, yeah. Again, continuing to contribute and continuing to inspire the young people in this community. I was at the Scottish Games. And similarly, there was the Scottish country dancing. There were a couple of dancers that composed and choreographed a dance to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the incorporation of Livermore and Livermorium. And you think, how can you possibly do a Scottish dance on Livermorium? Well, it was really cool because they had this nucleus doing an Alamond in the middle. And then there were electrons on the outside. And, you know, dancers don't do chaos. So they were like... And they did. It was wonderful. It was a really remarkable dance. And then on Saturday, I attended a bed build. This is an organization called Sleep in Heavenly Peace. And what they do is they build and donate beds to children that do not have them. They have donated over 96 beds to children here in Livermore. And they've built and donated over 1,500 beds throughout Alameda County. And there were over 400 people that showed up on a Saturday morning to Former Vice Mayor Bob Carling was there. And I ran into a lady that I used to work with at the Water District. But it was remarkable to see the community coming together at Crosswinds Church to build these beds for children. And I think that's That's why we're Livermore, and that's why we're different, and I think that's what's remarkable. As far as a matter initiated, I've talked with the city manager about this, but I would propose an ad hoc limited duration subcommittee on the downtown development. This would be to help guide city staff as they navigate. implement the existing downtown development agreements, and any recommended tweaks to those. Again, it's gonna be an ad hoc committee, and I would ask that Vice Mayor Wong and Council Member Branning would be the head of that. I see nods, yes, we got it. Okay, I will so move, do I have a second?

All second.

Okay. Council Member Dunbar seconds. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposition? Abstentions? It passes unanimously. Seeing no further business coming before the council. Pardon me?

If you haven't signed up for Community Service Day, there's still time. Oh, yes.

Community Service Day. Right. That's the 19th.