City Council - Regular Meeting

Let the record show that all council members are present. I have a motion for adoption of the agenda.

So moved. I second.

All in favor? Aye. 5-0, unanimous. We're now on to item 5, the closed session. Is there any public comment on any item, either of the two items that are on our closed session agenda?

Mayor Anduri, I have no speakers in the Donkatson Community Hall, and I have one hand raised in our virtual audience, Dan Mueller, and he will have three minutes to speak.

Okay, welcome, Mr. Mueller.

There we go. Okay, can you hear me?

Yes, welcome.

Okay, thank you very much. Dear Honorable Mayor and Council Members, my name is Dan Mueller. I'm counsel for the large group of citizens known as Save the Dips. I'm sorry I'm not here tonight or there tonight. I'm out of town in depositions tonight. I'm piggybacking here on my prior July 13th input and our client representative Colby Powell's emails earlier today to you. I've been representing the Save the Dips group, tracking this case, and dialoguing with the Vesci's council for four to five years now. We've been seeking efficient solutions that entire time. And I'm going to summarize our ask to the council as concisely as possible, and I'm happy to explain anything I fail to cover. Now, if the city is going to settle with the veggies, then we are respectfully asking that you please just change the proposed settlement language. To ensure that the veggies dismiss their entire action, including as to my clients save the dips, not just the city. This may sound weird or odd to ask that my clients be dismissed after all the work that the city has done. and what my clients have done, but there's a reason. And that is that only in the last several months, excuse me, several weeks, have the Veshi's told many of my clients that they are willing to leave the status quo the way it is. And we want the status quo to be as it is. But we are a little bit concerned, actually very concerned that There's a loophole. And the loophole is that if the Veshi's only dismiss the city, which is how the settlement agreement is worded currently, which we do not want, we want the case dismissed as to all the parties, including my clients. And that will prevent any interesting little twists where my clients get defaulted after the city is dismissed. And we have asked and we've proposed that the city dismisses. have this settlement agreement include dismissal by the Veshes of the entire action, including as to my clients. I have asked the Veshes attorney if they would do that, and they have been hedging. And so with that kind of hedging, we're concerned that some kind of interesting little twist could happen. And that's the summary. If anybody has any questions, I'm happy to answer those questions.

Okay, thank you. Other questions?

Council Member Cervantes. I do. Thank you, Mr. Muller. Jim Cervantes in the City Council. I didn't quite catch what you said. You asked the Vesey's attorney if they would do this, and then I didn't hear what you said. They were hedging. They were hedging. Is that the answer?

Yes, yes. Yeah, I've asked, I've directly asked the CETO's attorney, excuse me, the Veshi's attorney, Mr. CETO, will you be dismissing the case as to my clients as well as the city? And he has said, unless you divulge all the names of your clients, which could be thousands of people at this time, I am not going to talk with you any further. I'm not authorized to talk to you. And so I'm just saying, look, if that doesn't give me breed confidence or it doesn't give me confidence in sort of dealing with this in a way that resolves everything peaceably. So that's the concern I have. If this thing is dismissed as to everybody, if the case is dismissed as to everybody, including my clients, then everything should go smoothly.

Could you clarify exactly what the vestiges have been saying to the residents in the Glen?

Absolutely. My understanding, because I've not been part of these discussions as an attorney, but my understanding is that the Veshi's have said, look, and I don't know if they've said this literally or this is the gist of it, but they've said, we're tired of all this. We are willing to let the status quo be as it is with people walking through as they have historically for decades. We do not want, however, anything further recorded against our property that might encumber it. So we're willing to just leave the status quo be. And we, my clients, are willing to leave the status quo be. We're just afraid that somebody's going to do something interesting. And what I've heard is that at least dozens of my clients who live in the Glen have been saying this is what the Vechies have represented to them, that they're willing to let the status quo be. As soon as they get this resolved, the S3 condition resolved with the city. So we would like that, too. We want to put an end to this litigation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay. Any other questions? Okay. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Mayor Anduri, there are no additional speakers at this time.

Okay. We'll go into closed session, and we will be back at 7 o'clock.

We're back from closed session.

There was no reportable action. I apologize for being late coming back. Please join 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,

As we meet this evening, we acknowledge that Lafayette is part of the unceded ancestral homeland of the Bay Miwok people. The Bay Miwok and neighboring Ohlone people have lived in and moved through this place for thousands of years. They stewarded and shaped this land for hundreds of generations. We express our appreciation and gratitude for this profound legacy, which enhances and contributes to our lives to this day. We will strive to honor this land and strengthen our ties with indigenous communities that continue to live and work in our East Bay region as our neighbors and community members. We acknowledge and honor them and their ancestors, elders, and next seven generations. It's now time for public comment. Any member of the public may comment on an item that is not on tonight's agenda but is within the purview of the city council for up to three minutes each. City Clerk Robbins.

The Mayor and City Council will take comments from persons in the Don Tatson Community Hall first, and then we'll go to our virtual audience. I have two Girl Scouts here with me tonight, Lana and Clara. Give me your last names when you come up. And Patrick is going to help you with your presentation. And Kyle, can you let Patrick share his screen?

OK, welcome. You will have six minutes.

Please speak up, too, into the mic. You have to lower that mic.

Aim the mic right at you.

Yeah, just aim it right there.

Good evening. We are Girl Scouts currently working on our Silver Award. I am Lana Wahidi. And I am Clara Brennan.

And the main focus of our project in the whole is domestic violence, as well as a more specific branch, teen dating violence. Next slide.

After careful research, we learned that organizations such as the La Miranda Care Collective, who help people in need, don't even have a full complete list of resources for them to use to help survivors of domestic violence. So for our project, we were able to make one. We also realized, aside from assisting those in this awful situation, the best thing to do is educate others on what is happening in our own community so people are able to help recognize and prevent more violence. And that is exactly what our presentation is about. Next slide.

Moreover, domestic violence is a real issue. On average, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States. For one year, this equates to more than 10 million women and men. Domestic violence and teen dating violence is not talked about nearly enough for the serious issue that it is. because both are a real problem, even here in Lafayette. The fact that most people don't know of this disturbing but extremely important information we are sharing with you is unknown to many people goes to show how much we can do to educate others. Next slide. The next slide after that. One more. Okay, there's animations on it, so it only shows. Click next one more. Thank you. Forward.

Domestic violence is defined as a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner. Domestic violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic, digital, or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person. This includes any behavior that intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, isolate, threaten, terrorize, coerce, threaten, blame, hurt, injure, or wound someone. Next slide, please.

Domestic violence is a problem because of the severe mental and emotional damage that is done to victims of domestic violence, which also includes teen dating violence. Many victims experience feelings such as emotional numbness, low self-esteem, and constant fear and anxiety, and weakened overall health. These consequences also relate to teens experiencing dating violence. Domestic violence also affects the children and community because children are more likely to get into a similar situation in adulthood. It breaks a sense of safety and security in the community. Children who experience domestic abuse in their homes have a high risk of chronic mental health disorders, physical illness, and behavioral struggles as an adult. A consequence of growing up in a domestic abusive household means that a child's brain is now in a permanent state of toxic stress. We strive to make a world where no one goes through the horrors of domestic violence or teen dating violence. Next slide.

Not only this, but the full scale of this issue is colossal. Did you know roughly 43.5 million experience some form of sexual, physical, or mental abuse in their lifetime? One in seven women and one in 25 men have been injured by an intimate partner. One in four women and one in seven men have been victims of severe physical violence by an intimate partner in their lifetime. And some of the statistics for teen dating violence are over 28.1% of teens in a past romantic relationship over this year have reported being a victim of digital dating abuse. CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Survey in 2021 indicated that among US high school students who reported dating during the 12 months before the survey, about one in 10 experienced sexual dating violence. One in nine female and one in 36 male high school students report having experienced sexual dating violence in the last year. 26% of women and 15% of men who were victims of contact sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime first experienced these or other forms of violence by that partner before the age of 18.

And for me personally, I never learned about these statistics or anything of the sort in school or anywhere, and they completely shocked me, especially the fact that my friends are dating and they're already being recommended by their teachers' books and media that glamorize this, and the fact that they're going into situations in their life without preparation and knowledge of these statistics is something I question why the leaders of our community aren't doing, making this a top priority. And I'd love to see that happen. Next slide. So after hearing this, someone might wonder, what can you do as a person? Well, that's a great question. Some things you can do are, if you know anyone going through this, you can listen and communicate that the abuse they're experiencing is not their fault. Refer them to resources such as the National Domestic Violence Hotline. And if they're in immediate danger and feel comfortable potentially involving law enforcement, call 911. You can donate to or volunteer to places like La Miranda Care Collective, STAND, and many more places that help people in situations like the ones we're discussing. Lastly, you can educate yourself on domestic violence and how to recognize it and prevent it from happening to yourself as well as teaching those skills to others, especially youth, so we can prevent domestic violence from spreading to the next generation.

Next slide, please. Finally, we are respectfully asking the Lafayette City Council for supporting domestic violence. One, put up posters around town during October, which is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and during February, which is National Teen Dating Violence Month. Two, please put a mention of domestic violence and teen dating violence awareness on any accessible media platforms, such as Greet Lafayette, to spread awareness within our community. And finally, three, and most importantly, please connect with organizations like STAND to learn about how the city can offer more support to community members experiencing domestic violence. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. Are there questions for the speakers?

No questions, but just bravo. Really, you've done a great job as a Girl Scout mom. I am so proud of you. And I know the Silver Award is really a middle school award. So once you get to ninth grade, you're done with doing the Silver Award. So you guys are going for gold, I can tell. And you're just going to do amazing things. So thank you. Thank you for raising awareness to this incredibly important Important issue and for bringing us action items that we can that we can take up.

Thank you Absolutely, I am that this was just the right form you can see how how much Exposure just tonight is gonna bring to this topic and it does. Yeah, it's very emotional.

Thank you Okay, thank you very much Okay, are there any other public comments I No, okay, we're on to the city manager's update.

Thank you, Mayor Endurian. Members of the council, here are updates from the city departments. From Parks, Trails, and Recreation, summer camp is officially in the books. It's been a busy summer. We had more than 3,800 camp enrollments, with Camp Awesome connecting over 300 campers to afternoon adventures ranging from robotics to cooking to archery and pickleball and even video game design. Fall programs are off to a flying start with 500 enrollments in the first 24 hours. And staff had just one day between the 10 week summer camp and the start of school to transform our community center campus for after school care. And daily care will be offered as usual at the community center, but also at Lafayette Elementary School and new to the daycare arena, we will be offering it at Burton Valley as well. engineering and public works. Work continues on 28 residential streets. If you want to know where the status of the paving project on your street, please sign up for our Friday paving updates by visiting the city's web page. And meanwhile, it's not only the city that's out there. We have PG&E and East Bay Mud working in the downtown on Moraga Road and Brook Street. and with school back in session, those work hours have been shortened to 9 a.m. to 2.30 p.m. From public art, there's a new way to explore art in Lafayette. We've launched the Public Art Walking Tour Guide, which is on the website. which takes you on a half mile journey through our downtown, highlighting the art that makes our community so special. And for younger explorers, we also have a public art scavenger hunt. Again, details can be found on our website. And finally, from police, a big thank you to all who joined us for National Night Out last week. The evening brought residents, police, firefighters, and city staff for conversation, community, and even a drone demonstration. And looking ahead, La Marinda CERT has its basic training beginning September the 15th at the Lafayette Community Center. It's a great opportunity to learn how to be better prepared for an extended outage or emergency and how to support your community during a disaster. And you can learn more at La Marinda CERT. And finally, finally, a very important alert. On Wednesday, August the 12th, the Lafayette, Orinda, and Danville PD will be conducting a coordinated patrol saturation from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., which means they will be out in the streets watching us all drive and behave ourselves. So please slow down, stay alert, and follow the rules of the road. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there questions for the city manager? I just want to confirm that is taking place in Lafayette this time. All the agencies will be watching our streets on the 12th.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, is there any public comment?

No comments at this time.

Okay, we're on to item 10a, presentations. During 2026 and 2027, we are beginning the first council meeting of each month with a presentation by an organization that either offers lifelong learning opportunities, promotes the arts, or both. We're doing this to strengthen two of Lafayette's core civic values. The first is the city's commitment to lifelong learning, which is specifically called out in our city mission statement. The second is the city's goal of embedding the arts in our civic life and in the fabric of our community, making visual and performing arts part of our surroundings and everyday lives. so far this year we have heard from seven wonderful organizations that promote these civic values and today we hear from another the la marinda arts alliance its purpose is to promote and increase knowledge appreciation and practice of the arts and to enhance the cultural development of lafayette moraga and orinda and the surrounding communities today we will hear from its president lori larks and board members Donna Argenbright, Sharon Tama, Mark Coffey, and Jennifer Granat. I invite you to come up to the podium if you want to do it one at a time. Okay. And while you're on the way, I just mentioned Donna is one of the artists who's exhibiting in the library. So check out the display case in the foyer in the library for the ceramics. They're wonderful.

Well, thank you, Mayor on Dory and city council and also everyone else is here. Great presentation also girl scouts as a former girl scout and also former county. Child protective services manager and adult protective services manager now retired. Really appreciate your presentation. okay so uh i'm the newcomer to la marinda arts alliance and i was asked to serve in this way from donna argenbright who really i would like to hand the podium to because she shepherded this group for over 15 years and just has an enormous contribution to the community so i'm gonna hand it off to donna

Well, Mayor Anduri already shared a couple of the things that I was going to. I'll just repeat them briefly. I work in clay, and as Mayor Anduri mentioned, my work is in the display exhibit across the way there, and it's part of the wonderful new exhibit. The rest are the paintings you'll see in the hallways here. which are part of the exhibit, embodied figurative works in clay and paint. So I went and looked at all of the paintings, and they're all wonderful, so please make sure that you do take the time to see those. And so for 15 years, I had the pleasure of serving as president of the La Mirinda Arts Alliance. I always had a very supportive board and capable board of directors, And so it was a happy way to give to the community. And this past year, I turned the reins over to Lori Lark, and I'm grateful that she accepted that. And she's doing a wonderful role in that. Currently, I serve as a board member at large, and I act in an advisory capacity and support where needed. So the history of LAA La Mirinda Arts is 32 years ago in 1994, a group of artists from La Mirinda who wanted to promote the arts in our area and give artists a chance to exhibit their work joined together to form the La Mirinda Arts Alliance. It is a nonprofit organization that, as Mayor Nduri mentioned, seeks to foster a better appreciation and understanding of art within our community. We have artists from La Mirinda, the wider Contra Costa area, the East Bay and San Francisco, and they have several opportunities a year to exhibit and sell their work. At the time LAA was founded, there were two cooperative art galleries formed with the encouragement and support of LAA. They were the Lafayette Art Gallery and the Moraga Art Gallery. The former closed, but the Moraga Art Gallery is located in the Reem Shopping Center and is vibrant and ongoing, with many former Lafayette Art Gallery members now showing there. And it continues to be a cooperative, so we all have to pitch in and do the work and make a go of it. So the La Mirinda Arts Alliance has become an important part of the culture of the La Mirinda East Bay through our newsletter, our exhibits, and our educational events. And Sharon Tama, who is our Vice President of Education, will describe what LAA does for outreach. And we have these pamphlets, and we'll have them out for you if you'd like to pick one up after.

Thank you, Donna, and good evening, everyone. As Donna mentioned, I am Sharon Tama. I am an artist in the area, and I'm quite privileged to serve as Vice President of Outreach and Education for La Mirinda Arts Alliance. We take art education at any age to be a crucial element of individual growth and the expansion of horizons. In my role as educator, I've enabled members of three different Brownie troops qualify for and earn their painting badges. The girls were exposed to a slice of art history and learned about composition, technique, paint mixing, and the color wheel. Additionally, I served as docent as I guided a Brownie troop through an art exhibit of works by LAA member artists in the Orinda Library Art Gallery. As a component of art education, we established an online library of informational and illustrative videos for LAA members on various topics such as matting and framing artwork, using social media to showcase art, enhancing and abstracting the human figure, and the vast world of medium products for artists. But my main role is to expose LAA members at large of any age to the various museums, galleries, and special exhibit opportunities available to us in the Greater Bay Area. We've toured the conservation department of SF MoMA, visited many local museum exhibits, and have traveled beyond our local art gallery treasures to museums such as the UC Davis Art Museum, the DeRosa Center for Art in Napa, and most recently, the beautiful Hesse-Pesson Art Gallery at the Hesse Winery in Napa. We've also been introduced to the wonderful public art in downtown Walnut Creek as we walk the city streets led by a Bedford Art Gallery docent. Our next field trip opportunity is in September and it will be a unique tour of the conservation lab of the Oakland Museum of Art. We're fortunate to live in a community that not only values art in all its forms, but promotes it in numerous ways. And therein lies the special function of education and outreach within the realm of LAA. It is now my honor to introduce Mark Coffey, a very talented and dedicated member of our board.

I'm Mark Coffey. Nice words said about me, thank you. I'm a board member at large. I'm charged with special projects, which means I do some things that other people don't want to do. But generally it's graphic work. So I do a lot of the promotional stuff, the brochures, postcards for the shows, that sort of thing. I've been a member of LA for over 12 years now, and for several of those years I served as editor of their news magazine. I create digital artwork using computer, various software programs, and specialized graphic devices. In its ongoing commitment to serve not only its members but the community in general, La Mirinda Arts Alliance is sponsoring the annual La Mirinda Arts Council La Merida High School Visual Art Competition. That competition encourages students in the Arenda, Lafayette, and Moraga high schools to submit their artwork to show at the Arenda Library. If you haven't been, please go. It's tremendous. The categories are 2D, including painting, drawing, printmaking, and mixed media. 3D, including ceramics, sculpture, jewelry, and construction. photography, including traditional film as well as digital photography, and digital art, including artwork produced and manipulated on a computer platform and then printed. LAA is proud to provide the funding for the monetary awards in the digital art category. Our members also volunteer as judges for all categories of the competition. I've been a judge for digital art category for several years, and every year I've been impressed by the quality and skill shown by the students' art. In addition to the LAC competition, I and other LAA members have participated in the Lafayette Partners in Education Project, or LPIE as it's referred to, a project-based competition featuring 15 categories designed to showcase student talent. I have served as a judge of that digital competition category. I particularly like the format of the competition because it specifically asks the judges to critique and comment on the artwork and whose comments are conveyed back to the students. Several of our members also led workshops with student groups to convey their knowledge and support of the arts. LA is always looking for opportunity to serve our community as a whole, and particularly to promote the arts in our educational community. We invite anyone who may have suggestions on how we might additionally serve our community to convey those and let us know their suggestions. And I'll turn it over to Jennifer. Thank you.

Hello.

Thank you for having us. My name is Jennifer Granat, and I serve as editor of the La Miranda Arts Alliance bi-monthly newsletter. Mark recruited me. He was fabulous, and I'm still using his template to this day. And I'm also the general art news liaison. As such, I keep our members and subscribers informed about the many cultural opportunities we offer. As an artist I paint with pastels acrylics oils and watercolors I also sculpt play music right plays songs poetry fiction and pros I use all of my artistic abilities to keep the soul of art alive in our publications. A key part of my role is connecting our artists with exhibition opportunities throughout the year by sharing calls for art. This serves to keep our members deeply engaged as they exhibit, teach, travel, and participate in other art-related activities locally. regionally and beyond. There is never a shortage of exciting content to share. Over the years, we've built strong relationships with galleries and other Bay Area arts organizations. Thus, our newsletter highlights a wide range of opportunities that have sprung from those relationships. including fun museum tours, classes, studio visits, online learning, and collaborations with partners such as the La Mirinda Arts Council. Each issue also celebrates our members' achievements, often in their own words, showcasing awards and recognitions received from across the arts community. When events of interest come up between newsletter publications, I send out short e-blasts. Together, our newsletter, targeted e-blasts, art exhibits, and coordinated events serve to connect artists, patrons, and organizations, creating a vibrant cultural network. These efforts directly support the La Mirinda Arts Alliance mission to promote a diverse community of artists, foster meaningful connections, and encourage greater public engagement with the arts in Lafayette, Mirinda, Orinda, and the neighboring communities. Thank you.

So we wanted to just ask if you had any questions.

Okay, any questions from the council? Yeah. Any public comment?

Okay, well.

All right.

Go ahead.

I just want to thank you very much. Thank you for coming and telling us about what you're doing, and thank you very much for all you are doing.

Well, and thank you for having us. It was really a pleasure. Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

We are on to 10B, and Tracy Robinson, Assistant City Manager, has an introduction.

Thank you, Mayor and the Council. I want to introduce you to our newest employee. Parker Stone is our new Construction Inspector. Parker started his career with the city of livermore as a traffic signal technician he went to the city of San Ramon as a traffic signal maintenance lead. And, most recently, he was employed as a project manager for Columbia electric he has education and construction inspection occupational safety and health fiber optics and coursework in project management. He says he's always enjoyed the community of Lafayette because his children have competed in sports here throughout the years. We asked him if you could have a superpower that's only useful at work, what would it be? And he said, slow down time. There seems like there's always a lot of work to do and never enough time to get it all done in a day. So welcome, Parker.

Welcome to Lafayette.

Thank you very much for the opportunity.

If there's anything you'd like to say.

Thank you, Tracy. Yeah, as she mentioned, my kids have competed in sports in the area. So we've grown to enjoy and love the community. So I figured maybe this is a great opportunity to give back to a community that's been generous to us.

Great. All right. Welcome.

Thank you.

Okay, we are on to the consent calendar. Would anyone like to remove an item from the consent calendar?

Yes, I'd like to remove item D, 10D. Oh, I'm sorry, 11D. Thank you, I corrected.

So I'm just looking on the agenda for the item where we take up items that are taken off the consent calendar. Well, if we all agreed to change the date, do we need to remove it?

That is what I was going to bring up. So that's right. Yeah.

OK. We won't remove it.

We'll change the date.

Okay, is there any member of the public that would like to request an item be removed?

I have received no request to remove an item from the consent calendar, Mayor Endury.

Okay, I have a motion for adoption of the consent calendar. So moved.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. It's unanimous. So we are on to Ellen. And thank you for all the work that went into all the items here, quarterly financial report, all the engineering public works items. Thank you so much. OK, we're on to item 12A, Patrick Golier. And we'll be talking about the parking management changes.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. So the item tonight is a follow-up to the June 22nd discussion regarding the proposed parking management changes at the city-owned Gazebo parking lot and the city-owned parking lot adjacent to Ace Hardware. At the June meeting, the council directed staff to conduct additional research regarding the historical parking agreements associated with the property at 3435 Mount Diablo Boulevard to determine whether those agreements created any continuing obligations that would affect the city's ability to terminate the existing lease arrangements. Since that meeting, staff has located and reviewed the complete history of the agreements associated with the property, including the 1986, 1999, and 2011 agreements, as well as the historical planning approvals. And the city attorney has reviewed these agreements as well. The historical record shows that the original 1986 agreement was entered into in exchange for improvements constructed by the property owner to the gazebo parking lot, including paving and related state improvements. In exchange, the agreement provided for 22 parking spaces under a rent-free lease with renewal options. In 1999, the parties voluntarily entered into a new agreement that expressly terminated the 1986 agreement and established a new lease arrangement with different terms, including monthly rent and a provision allowing either party to terminate the agreement upon 60 days written notice. In 2011, the parties entered into the current lease arrangement which likewise provides for termination upon 60 days written notice. That agreement expired in 2014 and has continued on a month-to-month basis under the same terms and conditions. So based on staff review of the historical agreements and the city attorney's review of those documents, staff believes the current lease relationship is governed by the 2011 agreement. Accordingly, staff's recommendation remains unchanged. So that brings us back to the parking management proposal before you tonight. Following the final lease extension through December 31st, the gazebo lot would transition from reserve parking serving three private businesses to longer-term paid public parking available to employees, customers, and visitors. The intent is to make this city-owned parking resource available more broadly, with a particular emphasis on accommodating all-day employee parking. Staff intends to monitor utilization after implementation and adjust pricing or operational practices as needed with the goal of making all day parking affordable for employees while maintaining enough availability that employees can reasonably expect to find a space. proposed changes at the gazebo and ace lots are are one of a broader effort to expand and better distribute employee parking opportunities throughout downtown since the june meeting bart has announced that parking within the lafayette station the south lot will be available to downtown employees while commuter parking capacity remains available So together with the changes proposed tonight, this would provide longer-term employee parking opportunities at the BART South lot on the west side of downtown, the Gazebo lot in central downtown, and the city-owned lot adjacent to Ace Hardware on the east side. And these public parking opportunities also complement the existing employee permit parking program, which provides employee parking and participating private lots. Staff will continue working with the Chamber of Commerce and Park Smart so that these various resources function as a more coordinated network of employee parking opportunities throughout our downtown. And finally, the overall approach described in the staff report is consistent with longstanding city council direction regarding publicly owned parking. In 2014, the council directed development of a program to phase out private leases and publicly owned parking lots. And in 2016, approved implementation of that policy. so the recommendation before you tonight implements that prior direction while also advancing the recommendations of the 2026 downtown parking management study staff therefore therefore recommends that the city council adopt resolution 2026-36 and i'm happy to answer any questions okay thank you very much questions

So in your report, you said, at the beginning of the report, you said that BART had agreed that it could be for employee parking just on the south lot, but then later, I guess they say it's now open to anybody and employees.

yeah and there they've we i put them in contact with the chamber of commerce who's promoting the employee parking among uh some businesses in that part of the downtown so so is there is there in it but there's no enforcement right that do we have the ability to create enforcement that it is just for employees i don't believe so bart will still manage that south lot yeah not the city thank you

Thank you, and no great report very easy to understand and your that your conclusions make a lot of sense But just to confirm I think just following up on councilmember Kandel's Question question because the what we're really doing just to confirm is where we're doing these kind of these all-day parking Lots and we're not we're not nobody's keeping a roster of employees or no employers have to register employees The expectation is that who's ever parking at 8 or 9 a.m. Or something is probably an all-day employee, right? That's kind of how It's effectively kind of a self-policing thing because you're assuming that anybody was parking at that time and then those lots fill up because a member of the public could park there at 2 o'clock in the afternoon if there's a space available, right?

Correct.

Yep. But the assumption would be that the difference would be, just to kind of clarify, would be that there's no two-hour meter that people have to keep going back and filling, right? Because I think that's a challenge for a lot of employees. The meters will allow up to eight hours. Got it. And there will still be meters. Is that the plan, too? Because I know we talked about this last time. I think we weren't exactly sure. We're going to have

eight-hour meters at those spots is that the plan I believe what Kathy surges that the police department wants to do is is some stations where you scan a QR code and pay that way okay it'll be through an app or whatever yeah okay great it better be different with Bart the bar one would they'll be managing it that themselves they will not be no it will not be managed by Park smart that's right I'll be back to my part so what however who's managing the BART parking lot parking the PD okay I'm sorry, which parking lot the BART parking lot BART parking lot BART is managing. It's continuing to manage that parking lot So previously if you wanted to park in any of their parking you'd have to pay you'd have to pay for the parking and prove that you're a customer right through your You can go in you have to go in through the gates, but today on the south lot They're opening up that lot. You still have to pay through the BART app and But you don't have to be a BART rider.

Good. Okay.

So I think there probably will be some education I guess a chamber can do and the city can do on how this is gonna work because it's I mean Art created some a flyer for the chamber to help distribute to local businesses.

Thank you So the parking would then be daily not monthly there would be no permit system Correct. Okay. And when do you think you'll have pricing defined?

City Council Chambers, i'm going to work with Kathy on that after the resolution is is determined, however, in my last staff report, I had proposed five day for $5 for all day and Kathy seemed happy with that.

City Council Chambers, Okay, is that the same as what we have right now on. City Council Chambers, happy valley road and oh kill road under the freeway.

Currently those are those are without meters right now So Kathy's intending to install the same types of meters on on those roads as well at the same time

Okay, and then you mentioned park smart would be Managing the city lots. No. No. Okay.

No park smart separately is managing They've got an employee existing employee parking program Through private lots.

Oh, I see. Okay. Yeah, I saw that in your in your memo. Okay, right. Mm-hmm. Okay. Great.

Thank you Okay, any other questions You received the letter today from Mr. Bowie? Yes. Do you want to comment on that at all?

Regarding the question about whether or not the spaces can be credited, and I believe they would need to go through a parking variance through our planning department. Apply for a parking variance.

Yes, I'll concur. That's not before the council today. That would be a separate action that would need to go through the planning department to request if they need any modifications to previous conditions of approval.

Okay, thank you. Okay, is there any public comment?

Yes, we have public comments on this item. We're going to take members in the Don Tatson Community Hall first, and if anyone in our virtual audience would like to speak, Please raise your hand now. Matt Pease followed by Ken Kosich. Each person will have three minutes to speak.

Good evening. Welcome. I'm representing the Chamber of Commerce. I'm on their Board of Directors. We've been working with Patrick and the staff on the parking study really for quite a while. and realize that there's a real balancing act between enough parking in the right place with the right turnover. It's a fairly complicated equation. One part of that has been employee parking. A lot of our members have been concerned about being able to find parking near their business. This is particularly important for the restaurants and the bars. Many of their workers get out late at night and they don't want to be walking a long distance to go to a different parking. So the idea of having employee parking spread throughout the city is really important. So it's located near the businesses. And they don't want to be plugging the meters every couple of hours. So the idea of being able to pay once and be there for their entire shift is really important. So we think this is a step in the right direction. We think the gazebo is a good fill-in location for where parking is available. The BART parking lot is going to be great. Because that's located by a lot of the restaurants So we're very pleased with this and we're very supportive of the changes that are being proposed for the gazebo parking lot Any questions?

Okay.

Thank you questions Thank you very much Ken Kossage followed by Kyle peacock

Welcome As you probably City Council Prime remembers, I'm the person who owns 3435 Mount Diablo Boulevard and there's a reminder back in 1986 I made agreement with the City Council at that time negotiated they agreed upon and me paying to have that parking lot developed into parking so that my building would qualify to have adequate parking which is required by the city so that i can lease out the space and have my tenants with parking so they made an agreement and a commitment to me uh that this parking was there If you look at it, I'm not sure I would have spent the money if I knew the city council of the future or the city would make changes and take things like that away from me. In addition, I'm kind of disappointed in the city because through this whole discussion and things, not one time has anybody from the city called me and said, we're going to change this, take your lease. what can we do to help what can we negotiate something to do some i have leases in place that i have to provide parking all of a sudden you're going to take it away what do i do with my leases that puts me in a terrible position on that we talk about the restaurants and things there's two restaurants in our area uh... they're not heavy wait for waitress type restaurants uh... i know they have a large lot of parking on the property that they have and i know we share the parking in the evening time with both of those it's not an issue we talk about employee parking i can tell you that employees are not going to pay for parking if they don't have to, and especially at the gazebo parking lot, because there's parking right on the street that basically is free. Now, that area is not monitored on a regular basis. And we kind of monitor the parking lot ourselves. If there is somebody in there that's not supposed to or parking overnight for several nights or something, we call the police. They come and take care of it. We don't have an issue. the parking lot currently has several vacant parking places for six seven eight years and i know that people have asked to to lease that and for some reason the city wouldn't lease it to them so i don't know why there's an issue with that also you're going to change the parking lot and put meters on it you're not adding any parking places you're making it more difficult for the employees to park there because Two of the businesses have the major part of it. We pay for those spaces for an employee. And I know if I tell them, hey, I lost it, and you're going to have to go on the street and park, I don't think they would leave their job. But maybe they would. But they may not. I also sent all of you a letter with several of my concerns on the making this thing. And again, it's a longstanding agreement that we've had, and it's my understanding that that was something that stayed with the building.

Okay, thank you. Other questions?

A quick one. So you say that you have leases that you have signed to people who are leasing your property that say they have a parking spot.

I give them parking spaces when they lease space for me.

And that's part of your lease agreement.

It's written into my lease agreement.

It's written into your lease agreements. Okay, thank you, that was my.

Let me ask, in your view, are any of the facts in the staff report incorrect about the history of the parking lot and the lease agreements?

The lease agreements were all discussed and talked about and rearranged and we changed pricing and did things and that's a lot of times when the different leases came up because even at one time we negotiated what the price was. We were at 25 or so and we ended up at 40 and things like that. So no, those are all signed. I guess it could have been my fault that I didn't push to have them continued. The city didn't push to say let's renew the lease or do anything like that, and I just.

Okay, well the staff report says that the last lease agreement was terminable by either party without any reason at any time. Is that not correct?

Oh, it's written in there. I guess I'll say it wasn't my understanding that we would lose parking places. It's just like, no, I don't understand why we can't sit and negotiate. If you're going to have parking places, why can't my building be allowed so many parking places from the new one? We'll pay for the parking places. We're not just arguing that. It's losing the parking places and then in an area that we don't have, it's not a parking problem.

Okay, thank you very much.

People downtown here are not going to park in the gazebo parking lot and walk over here.

Yeah, thank you. Council Members, just one question.

So the The prior agreement was 2011, expired in 2014, and it had these termination features built in. So after the last council meeting when this came up, did you approach the city to renegotiate a lease?

I asked the city, I wrote to the city to ask if we could have a meeting to discuss this. My thought was maybe we could discuss it before it came in front of the city council and say, come to an agreement. I did not receive a response from anyone from the city to have a meeting. I mean, that was after the last council meeting, which I thought for sure someone would call and say, let's talk.

Okay, thank you very much.

Next speaker, Kyle Peacock, followed by David Bowie.

good evening i'm kyle peacock i'm ceo of peacock construction we're at 3421 golden gateway across the street from ken also a part owner in 3421 golden gateway we've been operating at that property since 1984. we've been leasing spaces at the lot for as long as i can remember My two concerns, which I outlined in my letter, are one, if it's parking meters, it's a public lot. It's not an employee lot. You guys have a parking study that says you need more long-term employee parking, yet you're opening a lot up to everyone. and if that's the case it's a public lot we do need employee parking we need long-term employee parking that is a struggle for our company even with the amount of spaces we lease in the lot the second issue is since it's reducing these guaranteed parking spaces we have and we just discussed it earlier you guys did is you know now we're gonna have to apply for a parking variance Well, what's the guarantee that the parking variance is gonna get passed? That sounds like a one-off thing at the whim of the planning department. And so if you guys are gonna take this away, why can't you just, when you take it away, eliminate the parking variance issue? That would make it a lot easier to operate and we'd have a little bit more certainty when we do plan a building renovation or building owners try and put new tenants in. Anyways, I appreciate your consideration and thank you for your time tonight Are there questions?

I've got a quick question, just to clarify. So the staff report talks about the agreement with Mr. Cossage. So do you have leased parking spaces from the city also? Yes. And just out of curiosity, how many do you have?

Seven. And so we've asked multiple times. We stopped asking in 2020 about leasing more spaces. And we were told, no, we're not going to lease you any more spaces.

um and i guess there's empty spaces in the lot but anyways yeah we could use more space and this is the gazebo lot we're talking about yes sir questions and how much are you how much do you pay now monthly for a spot i believe it is 40 a month per spot right so it'll be a little more expensive but your your tenants could pay it or you could pay it for your tenants right going forward

Yes, as Ken said, none of our employees would pay for that parking on their own. They're not gonna pay for that. They're gonna park on the street or find somewhere to pay. And I mean, that's understandable. We're not gonna make them pay. We would be paying for that or reimbursing them in some form or another. Okay, thank you.

One more. So you have seven spots. Is that out of the total 21 that are leased? Or is that in addition to the 21 spots that Mr. Kosick has?

Those are separate from Ken's spots.

Oh, so we have a total of 28 spots that are leased right now. Is that what I'm hearing?

There are 24 spaces currently being paid for between three companies.

okay total 24 total right okay thank you and then question i guess for staff and so and all of those three companies are all now month to month parking leases as far as yes you if we terminate all the for all three of those companies it's all just month to month correct okay okay thank you very much thank you uh

Question for the city attorney. If this resolution passes and we move forward with this, does this immediately cause any of the businesses to be out of compliance?

If I'm not mistaken, Patrick, this would go into effect by the end of the year. They would have access to these spaces through the end of 2026 so they can proceed to review and process any applications that they may or may not need regarding additional parking spaces or seek parking spaces elsewhere.

But their existing uses, they would not need to, it would only impact future applications?

No, sorry. If there is an issue, they would need to apply, but they would have time because they would have access to these spaces through the end of the year. Alternatively, they could try to seek access to other spaces that aren't city-owned from other property owners.

Okay, thank you.

All right. David Bowie.

Good evening. My name is David Bowie. I'm an attorney, and I'm here on behalf of Tilden Prep School. I've got with me Dr. Karen Hobbs, who is the owner and principal of the school. I want to simply introduce her. I wanted to let you know that I filled out the application to speak this evening, and when it came to whether I was for it or against it, I said other. And that's because we really are an other participant in this entire matter. Tilden Prep is looking to purchase the property at 3435. It's very important to get a conditional use permit for the use. Thankfully, city staff has been wonderful. We've enjoyed working with staff. It looks like we have an affirmative recommendation. We expect in a meeting to be held shortly to receive that permit. But I have a deep concern about the school in the future and what might happen. And that's because obviously we have a situation here where the city policy, which I understand, is intended to avoid having this long term private dedicated use to a particular property owner. And the problem with that is is that that means that we're subject to the vicissitudes of parking requirements and uses. And it was suggested that we would be able to perhaps make an application for a variance of some sort if there was a change in use and parking was required. But a variance normally turns on the issue of physical circumstances, not something that's not related to physical circumstances. And we, as well as many of the other property owners, are faced with a typical situation. These are existing buildings, existing parcels, and they either have or do not have parking. And there's no way to supplement parking on those same sites. So you need to locate an available parking site. What struck me as being a fair compromise here is that Mr. Cussage paid monies to improve the lot years ago. you may have a city policy that suggests it should be changed. This does not appear to be an area where there's a parking problem, especially with BART participating. It now looks as though this is a wonderful situation where parking is not really a problem, but we don't want to make parking as not a problem be the defining issue of what uses might be able to operate for a particular property. We could have very desirable uses such as Tilden Repairatory, which might be forbade from actually operating at that location because parking is not a problem and yet we'd not be able to point to available parking. And we might or might not be able to qualify for a variance at some future time. So what I've suggested in the letter that I assume you've all received is that a credit be given to the cottage property because it paid for all the improvements for the number of spaces it's historically occupied. We as the next owner would inherit that credit. We could use that in addressing use and parking issues. I think that's a good compromise to deal with a problem that may not really be a problem, but we could address it in the future to the extent it might become so. Anyway, I appreciate your time. As I say, we're not for or against it. We understand the policy. We don't oppose the policy. It's probably a good policy, but we do need some relief here if we're to go ahead and buy that property. Thank you.

Thank you. Other questions?

I do. I was listening, but it went so fast. You are interested in purchasing exactly which property?

The Kosich property, that's 30.

Oh, the entire building, the 34, okay, sorry, I heard 34, 35, I'm like, I think he means Kosich, okay, sorry, it is this actual property.

And the actual CUP will be considered, I think, by the Planning Commission another week or so.

Okay, soon. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. I'm sorry, just to clarify. So I'm sorry, it's the same building we're talking about, your use of it and the existing use? Okay, so. My hearing is terrible. I kind of missed that part. I'm sorry, I'm just confirming because this is, so it's the same building we're talking about that our first speaker spoke about.

is you're you're purchasing yes and so the concerns we have over the current tenants are not that materially more because you're going to be no no they miss kosey's has real concerns over the fact that his leases to his existing tenants include clauses which obligate him to provide parking and that ability to provide the parking may disappear because of the city's action that's a problem that needs to be addressed by somebody Our issue is a little different. Our issue is that we're potentially making a major investment in Lafayette with the anticipation of being there for a great many years. And parking changes from time to time as uses change. It's a major investment. And we can't add to onsite parking because it's an existing situation. So the question is, how do we solve parking issues in an economic fashion? The way Mr. Kosich did is he developed the parking lot for the city's benefit. And that's worked out great for him. But now what do we do? And if this was a major area with downtown parking and like Walnut Creek or something, I wouldn't be here advocating this because it wouldn't be possible. But thanks to the good work done with BART and to the existing circumstances, parking does not appear to be a real problem here. So you can kind of go a little bit beyond the main issue and look at it in a more holistic fashion. How do we solve all the problems? well a problem for us is we might be very constrained in terms of future uses because of parking issues but you can help us apply on that by giving us credit for the spaces for what that we our predecessors interest actually developed and then we've got some recourse in some way to meet parking requirements that otherwise is not available and i i do understand the comment about waivers and variances but I am very concerned that technically those apply to physical conditions and that is not necessarily what we're talking about here because our situation is similar to that of other property owners so I'm suggesting at a city level you could adopt a policy that would help everybody make life really really good for everybody great thank you very much thank you

I'm familiar with the Tilden. It's a private school for kids, right? Okay, it's the same Tilden as I heard about. That was my question.

Great, thank you. Currently, we're in Walnut Creek. In Walnut Creek, yes. And we're planning to move. And when we were planning to move, the parking was available, and then all of a sudden, we've gone this far into the process.

Just one more question. So if you proceed with this purchase of the property, do you intend to occupy the whole building?

We do almost. There's a salon in there right now that we intend to allow to stay. And they do have a lease that includes parking. And yeah, we're going to mostly operate out of the first floor and the lower floor. And we're going to provide transportation. We're going to provide bike parking. so that we can encourage bicycling to work and e-bikes can go in there and be safe because you know how often they get stolen so we're really a lot of our teachers do use public transit but we don't want to be we're making a big investment and if it has four parking places you know luckily i think our use will work there but any time if we ever want to sell the building you know 15 years from now or whatever

it wouldn't have the value i don't know who could use it with the amount of parking we need it's going to work but with another business i don't know and for that matter the school evolves as things go along i think we can currently work within the parking limitations and staff has agreed with that but that can change as the school develops further

And then we would potentially have to limit enrollment if that happened. And we're currently trying to get certification as a non-public school, which we did in Albany at our other location, which is a huge boon for the community. I can't even tell you how happy the districts are. So we don't know what will happen with that. Our USME is likely to go up. We have seven families in Albany who are waiting to come to Lafayette. because it's, if we get the non-public school certification.

Yeah, okay, thank you. I guess a follow-up question for Mr. Kosich. So is there just one lease current right now, the salon?

One is going to be leaving by the time we would move in, I think, the meditation guy. Okay, yeah.

Yeah, I don't wanna get in the weeds on this, but it sounds like a salon has got a claim on some of these parking spaces. You might have a few, but if you're successful, which I expect you will be, you're gonna be coming to the city for parking various anyway, I would think, down the line. Because if you take out the spaces for the salon, you've got a smaller number than I thought we were talking about even. So I kind of think that's, it's not a change in physical attribute, but it's a change in use. It seems to me that you've got a good argument for a parking variance, but that's just me speaking.

Unfortunately, everything is sort of complicated.

Any other questions? Okay, thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay, so a question for the city attorney. That is not an issue for this evening is that correct.

that's correct it's not on the agenda and just to clarify we have parking standards and rules and so if people do not comply with those rules they would either need to seek a variance or in this case they could also obtain parking from other property private property owners they may not need a variance or if a variance is not granted we are not the only entity that can provide the parking they can seek parking elsewhere it was not required that the city provide the parking But again, that is not on the agenda for council to take action. There would be a process that would need to go through the planning department.

Okay, and then a question either for Patrick or for Mike. When is the last time that parking lot was resurfaced? Is that the original surface from 1984? Okay, thank you. Is there anyone else?

Mayor Anduri and council members, I have no additional speakers at this time.

OK, we'll bring it back to the council. And well, are there any additional questions for the staff?

I do have a comment, Arc. I guess I have, yes, but the one thing I just, when you were talking about the, we have those spots along underneath Oak Hill and whatever that are kind of non-metered that we're going to make metered It sounds like, and make them consistent with the BART parking lot? Or those are going to be kind of long-term metered employee parking also, right? Is that what I'm going to understand?

I'm trying to talk with Kathy about the Oak Hill spots, yes. And Happy Valley, that would be for, I believe, shorter term, for BART. Okay.

That would not necessarily be for employees. I see, but the Oak Hill one would be?

Yes.

I just think we should add that to the overall mix that you're talking about. That's huge, actually. That's quite, you know, that's more spots even than we were thinking. So I can start the conversation by just saying I support the measure. I think this is, the city has been asked to, you know, do more employee parking. And it seems like we are following the past council recommendations about not getting into individual leases with individual companies. Because it's hard to know, I think, are we preferencing one company over another, one business over another? And this feels like a way to keep it relatively fair that who needs it and who's willing to pay for it gets the parking. And I appreciate that we have some areas that are not as impacted in others. as others, but it will be probably. We know, I mean, Brown Ave, that whole area is kind of growing. We expect it will probably be more. If we get Tilden, that's great. There'll be more actually demand in there, which may drive more demand for the barbecue place or more demand for all the other businesses in that area. So I actually think it's a good thing that we're kind of getting, we are disentangling ourselves from long-term leases and kind of getting a more equitable kind of way to allocate the parking. I'm not really sure, you know, it could be painful, but it seems like a reasonably fair approach.

And I'm also inclined to support this as well. I guess I look at this, the parking study that was that big long process the staff went through some months ago indicated that overall within Lafayette there was adequate parking but the one issue I do recall being highlighted was the need to address employee parking and I'm really happy to see the staffs were working on that the work with Bart is terrific these other alternatives around Bartwick are great but sort of rationalizing this system we have which is to me kind of a hodgepodge um makes sense to sort of like give us something we can work with and i think if there is um an employer that has a need i mean there is a process we've got to address that whether it's children or some other entity um and i think my inclination is that we want to support businesses and operations in town so parking variance process ought to be fair and reasonable but we've got to start with a fair and reasonable template to work from which to me is what staff has proposed here so i'm leaning on supporting this

so uh one question who was the one who decided to reach out to bart for the south lot i did that was a great idea that was that was probably the best things i've heard in a really long time so congratulations nice nice job um i am sympathetic to the owners of the businesses there and i know that the city put this you know we made the we required them to do this as part of their condition of approval and i is as long as we can somehow make sure that that is not we didn't violate that and i think our city attorney has said that we are not going to be in violation of those conditions of approval um that means that I sympathize with you guys and I get it. And the new tenant, the good news is that the parking isn't that busy there. And I think the number of students that come in and out of there, your Golden Gateway is pretty safe to cross the street there and everything. So I hope that when we transition or if we transition to this, You guys will just be as successful as you can possibly be and this won't be a problem for you in the future. I think where it is now, I think that's gonna be the case. So I can support it and I think this is a step in the right direction for all of our employees.

I agree with fellow council members. I think that that this policy will definitely help employees across the whole city and I think it'll also Probably yield more full Occupancy of the spaces when there are more parties that are they're getting access to them so I definitely sympathize with the property owner, but I think at this point I support staffs recommendation

One minor question. Will these meters stop at 6 p.m., 5 p.m.?

They would stop when the city time limits stop across the city.

Okay. All right. I have a motion for approval of the resolution.

So moved. And I'll second that.

Okay.

All in favor? Aye.

It's unanimous 5-0. Okay. Thank you very much. OK, so we're on to item 12b, the settlement agreement between the city of Lafayette and the Bryan and Allison Viss.

Thank you, Mayor and members of the council. What is before you for consideration is a settlement agreement between the city and the Vesey's regarding their property located at 3654 Happy Valley Road. The prior property owners moved to subdivide the property in 2000. In the approval resolution, the city provided for an access condition that is the heart of the litigation and the settlement agreement that is before you for consideration. the vestiges acquired the property in 2016 and sued the city in 2020. the concern is again the access easement and they claim in their lawsuit that the city claimed a public right-of-way for pedestrians between happy valley road and glen road by way of that access condition in 2020 we brought before you a similarly situated settlement agreement to avoid litigation costs and to remove the city from the lawsuit. At that time, the public asked the city not to execute the settlement agreement. They wanted to participate in the lawsuit and they asked us to not enter into the settlement agreement to allow them to participate in the lawsuit. The council considered those requests and did not enter into the settlement agreement at that time. In 2024, the public was named as part of the lawsuit. And since that time, the public has had an opportunity to participate in the lawsuit. We are now requesting that you consider the settlement agreement to allow the city to exit the lawsuit, limit its litigation costs. This will not have any, result for the public and that the public can continue to participate in the lawsuit should it so desire. It could also enter into a separate settlement agreement with the Vesey's should the parties agree to do such. I'm happy to answer any questions, but before you is the settlement agreement we're requesting your authorization for the city manager to execute it.

Okay, are there questions? Let me, I've got a few questions based on the materials we have. Is it correct that the city considered entering into a settlement agreement with the Bessies in December of 2020?

That is correct.

And what is your understanding of why the city didn't go ahead and enter into that settlement agreement?

City Council Chambers, The public at the time, wanted to argue or intervene in the lawsuit and and allege a public easement, this is something that the city cannot argue or obtain for the public, the public would have to make those claims on their own. City Council Chambers, And they did not want the city to settle because they wanted to participate in the lawsuit and make the argument that there was a public easement. City Council Chambers, That existed on the vestiges property, so they requested that the city not enter into the settlement agreement, so they could make those claims.

Okay, so rather than enter into the settlement agreement, the city decided not to do it because the public asked for an opportunity to intervene in the litigation and become a party to the litigation.

That is correct.

The city did not ask the public to be a party to the litigation. Correct. It was the city that asked. It was the public that asked. Okay. And is it correct that if the city enters into the settlement agreement, that doesn't have any impact at all on whether or not the Vesey's can move for a default judgment against the public?

That is correct. If the Vesey's so choose, they could choose to seek a default judgment against the public for failure to answer.

Could the Vesey's do that tomorrow? They could. Could they do that a month from now?

Yes, in theory, as long as the public continues not to answer.

OK. Could they do that if the city continued to be a party and didn't enter into the settlement agreement?

Yes, they could do that.

So again, what the city does is irrelevant to what the Vesey's would do with respect to the public.

Correct. Mayor, if I could, just as I'm not a lawyer, could we clarify what a default judgment is here? Just in plain English, what we're talking about.

Sure. And I'm going to bring my colleague on, Scott Ditforth. He handles litigation for the city and has handled this litigation in particular. And he's participating via Zoom. Scott, can you explain to the council and the members of the public what a default judgment is?

Yes, I can. And can you hear me? Yes. A default judgment is when a party is named in a lawsuit but elects not to answer that lawsuit or respond to that lawsuit. So in this particular situation, the public was named in the lawsuit almost two years ago, in November, I believe, of 2024. They have not yet responded to that lawsuit. You have 30 days after you were served with the lawsuit to provide a response. If you don't provide a response, then the plaintiff in that particular action can take a default against that party. In other words, the litigation doesn't have to go on if the defendant just elects not to answer. In this particular situation, the public has been named for some period of time, but they have not responded to the lawsuit. And so I understand that the public and the plaintiffs have worked out informal arrangements so as not to have a default taken at certain points in time. But at a certain point in time, the Veses could decide to take a default against the public. That could happen regardless of what the city does. If the city settles its action, it could take a default or not. If the city decides not to settle, the Veses could take a default against the public or not. The claims by the plaintiffs against the Veses are separate from that of the city in the sense that they are two separate parties. each party has the ability to respond to a complaint, make its particular arguments or defenses or not. So the city's involvement in this particular situation is separate from that of the public. And we were very careful to put into the settlement agreement, although legally it wouldn't matter, we were very careful to put into the settlement agreement that nothing contained in the settlement agreement affects the rights of the public to assert any claim or property interest that they may have or want to assert in the litigation. And so the public could, if it so desires, participate in the litigation at any time it wants.

OK, I just want to emphasize a point that you made there. Because I believe you said that the case between the matter of dispute between the Vesey's and the city is different from the matter between the Vesey's and the public. Because I know that some members of the public believe that if the City settles and is out of it that I'll just quote from one of the emails we received that the Public would be burdened by being left to litigate the matter on the city's behalf My understanding from what you were saying is that's not accurate because they would not be litigating The city they wouldn't be living any more or less than they would be if the city were in is that correct?

That's a correct statement, yes. What is being litigated against the city is what the meaning of the S3 access condition was. In other words, did the city establish an easement on its behalf when it did this subdivision in 2000? That is not what the public believes to be on the DIPS area. The public believes that there is a public easement for the benefit of the public and not the city. The city can, under all and any circumstances here, only indicate that it has an easement for itself or not. It would never be able to indicate that there is an easement on behalf of another party, i.e. the public. The public believes that there is a public easement on that property that should be open to the entirety of the public. So they can make that argument in this particular case, which is separate from what the city would be involved with in this particular litigation. So if the city resolves its matters with the Vesey's, The public would not be taking on a defense as to whether or not the city had an easement by way of the S3 access condition. That's not something that they would be arguing or could argue.

OK. And then last question, at least for now. my understanding is that the city has no mechanism or ability to force the vesey's to dismiss the litigation against the public is that correct

That's correct. They are separate parties, so we don't have the ability to force the vestiges to dismiss a separate party in the lawsuit. That would be by way of a resolution or an adjudication of the claim as between the public and the vestiges, but the city can't have any mechanism or enforcement activity in order to force the vestiges to do that.

Okay, thank you. Are there other questions?

I do, so thank you. So the default judgment, because the public has not put forth an argument in this case, and they could get, quote unquote, defaulted, in your opinion, what happens to the public's case?

All that the plaintiffs can get is a default judgment by what's set forth in their complaint, the S3 access condition. There wouldn't be any sort of adjudication as to a public easement because that's something that the public would be making in their particular argument. So likely what would occur in this case, and I cannot and am not speaking for the public, but what would likely I assume to be occurring in this case is that the public would answer the complaint and file a cross-complaint for the public easement. If they choose not to do that and a default is taken, the only thing that a default can be taken on is what's complained of in the complaint as alleged against the public. And that only relates to the S3 access condition. So there'd be no foreclosure of the public going forward in any claim that they may have against the Vesey's if they believe that there's some sort of public claim. easement there. But that would be the default that could be attained against the public if they decide not to participate in the lawsuit.

Okay, so now, sorry, that was not super clear. Sure. The... that we're getting letters asking about if we do this and they do get defaulted against the public, the public is saying that that really hurts any of their future ability to get a public easement. Is that the case, do you believe? Or is it just the same? The default judgment makes no difference if the public does try to seek it later.

We haven't done that analysis, but let me kind of say in this framework, let me use one example and then apply it to ours. If you have a very simple breach of contract complaint and the plaintiff sues a defendant and says, you owe me $100,000. And that defendant does not.

That's too different than this case.

No, no, I understand. My point being is that the plaintiff in that particular regard, if it wanted to get a default judgment, could only get the $100,000. So here, because the plaintiffs have only asked for a clarification of the S3 access condition, the only thing that they're allowed to get by way of a default judgment is that judgment from the court there's no mention in the complaint currently provided of a public access easement it does really hurt their chances to get a public easement no i'm saying that they don't have that set forth in their current complaint so a default judgment would not be a judgment that would affect any sort of or have a saying as to a public easement just the s3 access condition

Oh, OK. Thank you.

Yeah. And I apologize if I said that in a confusing way.

Sorry. The other description actually did turn out to be helpful. Thank you.

OK. Any other questions before we? OK. So public comment.

We have no speakers in the Don Tatson Community Hall, but I do have two speakers from our virtual audience. The first speaker is Colby.

You may have.

Well, nobody has turned in a speaker slip yet, yes. Well, let's see what we've got. Okay, we'll take people in the Community Hall first. So Martha Clark, to be followed by Peter Clark. Three minutes each.

Thank you. Martha Clark, 4103 Happy Valley Road. I've been a resident for 33 years. Why is it beeping? I know.

Joanne's working on it.

Okay. And our daughter, who is now 40 years old, used to walk the dips to visit friends in Happy Valley Road. This has been a community highway for kids to connect for many years. I have not gone through the details of uh all the discussions that you've had and all of the legal things that you've gone through i do know that i sat here for the last half hour and listened to legal wobbly book about the distinction between a settlement agreement with the city and with the public Are you not here for the public? I don't understand this distinction. It seems like you're drawing legal distinctions that are convenient to get out of this and leaving the people who have an issue with this, that by the way, as my understanding is that you've bumbled several times over the years. So sorry, but it is your fault that we're in this mess. And you're taking away something that's pretty precious to the community. So as a member of the public, not sure who that is, but the public who hasn't answered a call to the public, I just think this is crap. Excuse me.

I have a question. Could you please explain what it is you think the council would be taking away?

I don't think you're addressing the real problem. You're addressing a legal mess that you've gotten yourself into.

Could you explain what you think the real problem is?

There's a prescriptive easement. It's pretty clear to everybody else in the community that for many, many years was very clear. And along the way, in whatever documentation of transactions that has taken place, the city failed to document that.

Let me ask the city attorney, would a prescriptive easement be in favor of the city?

No, it would not.

No. So I'm sorry these are legal details, but this is a legal matter. And there's a huge amount of misinformation out there, obviously. The city has nothing to do with a prescriptive easement. So are there any other questions?

to take a kinder tone to this. We do believe that there is a lot of confusion with the public, and I feel it, at least, and I hear you, I hear what you're saying. We'll get through this evening, and I hope that you understand better at the end, and we'll do our best to make a decision.

Yeah, I apologize for my tone, but we have spent hours Working on this. We have spent days working on this.

Then the one thing I would say is you have not told the public that it is their responsibility to get this prescriptive easement. The public doesn't seem to know that.

I think that would it be fair to say the public's lawyer is aware of that?

Yes. Well, then my apologies, but it is very frustrating for us as well as for you.

No, I understand. It's very frustrating for us because this is such an important passage from the Glen to Happy Valley. We do not want to see this disappear. This is extremely frustrating for every member of the council. And we're trying to do what we can to preserve it. But there's only so much we can do, and we're trying to, it is a legal matter, so we apologize for the legal gobbledygook, but that's what we have to deal with in order to move this forward. I'm sorry, it's just very frustrating. We do not want this to go away. We would do anything we could to preserve this. We'll do everything we can do to preserve it.

Well, thank you. I do appreciate that.

Thanks. Peter Clark.

Good evening. I'm Peter Clark and from the same house on Happy Valley Road. Lived there the same amount of time. Love Lafayette. I think that the Happy Valley Glen and Happy Valley Road should be connected with this cut-through. Kids aren't really damaging anything. It's gone on for years. In fact, it's my understanding that the reason Happy Valley Glen and Happy Valley Proper are in the same homeowners association is because when Happy Valley was constituted, that the dips was the only entrance to Happy Valley Glen, that the incorporation of the whole setup was any lot that was accessed through the corner of Happy Valley Road and Deer Hill Road. So it's been there a long time. Everybody thought it's been there. I disagree a little bit about your characterization that Martha's uninformed. I think that the reason that the city got out of the, didn't get out of the litigation business in the first place is they put in the condition S3 saying that if they allowed that partition of the lot, the path would stay open. And I think that sort of, I think you've, participated in this lawsuit because that was an encouragement. It was Lafayette saying, we want this path. And I think it helps the Happy Valley's case here. So I'm on the board of the Happy Valley Improvement Association. The Happy Valley Improvement Association really thinks that we should keep that path open. And we beg you to do what you can to do that. And it seems like bailing out on this isn't the right thing. Thank you.

OK. Thank you. Are there questions? OK. Thank you very much.

we will now turn to our speakers in our virtual audience and i'll just go down the list here colby powell to be followed by ben douglas good evening council this is colby powell can you hear me okay yes welcome great thanks um 11 10 71 glenn road and as we've all talked about this case has been going on for a very long time for the first time however what's different now is we're at a place where we could actually collectively resolve the dispute I do wanna clarify something I heard from the city attorney that was not accurate. The public never asked to be added to this lawsuit or the complaint. The public never asked to have an opportunity to enter the lawsuit. The public asked that the city not execute the settlement agreement because doing so at the time the public thought would terminate access through the depths. That was the reason and the only reason. And to use the calendar as an example, that was in 2020. It took until the end of 2024 for the court to finally require that the Veshes add the general public to the dispute. So nobody asked for that, that I'm aware of, but it happened. And what we're asking for now is for the city to simply exercise the settlement agreement that they posed originally in June. And the settlement agreement said in item four, dismiss the action in its entirety. And instead that's been changed to say, dismiss the city. Dismissing the action in its entirety allows what's been recently offered by Mr. Vesce, which is to leave things status quo and stop the lawsuits and stop the complaint filing and get this resolved once and for all. But by narrowing the scope of the dismissal, the city is forcing the general public to make the decision to litigate. And we're at the doorstep of being able to resolve this amicably and have it be dismissed for all parties. And that's the direction we'd like to see it go. I also heard Mr. Dipfer's clarification about the parsing of things. And I would also like to say that while I understand we're not actually being asked to litigate what the city had previously been doing by removing themselves, the city is leaving the public as the only entity left to deal with this challenge and this issue. And again, we have the opportunity right now to settle and resolve this amicably with a dismissal instead of further litigation. And that's the direction the public would like to see this go. Thank you.

A question for the attorney based on his comment. Do we have the capability or authority to remove the public from this lawsuit?

No.

So what he's asking for, we just cannot do? I appreciate the sentiment, but we don't have the authority to do that, do we?

No, the Vesey's would need to dismiss the public from the lawsuit.

Okay, thank you. To clarify on that, that would have to be the counterparty of the Vesey's to agree to that kind of term. Correct. Because it takes two to make a settlement. If they agreed to that, then it could be dismissed, but we cannot force it unilaterally. Correct.

But are we allowed to ask to change it? Is it possible to have the agreement dismiss it for both parties in one agreement? If the Vesey's agreed to that. Right. If they do. OK.

I have a question for Mr. Powell. Has your attorney asked the Vesey's to dismiss the public?

Yes, he did, and my understanding I believe he spoke to this before closed session, my understanding is the response from the vestiges attorney was. To provide a list of all the people that would be represented and, as you know, as a general public that's virtually impossible task, how do you, how do you identify who those people are.

Okay clarification so is. Is that, actually to our city attorney, is that typically required, if you have the public named, that you would have to get a list of the public?

Scott, if you're able to answer that, I will defer to you.

Sure. It's not typical or not typical. The only party that is named is anyone making a claim for that. So I think, if I'm reading between the lines correctly, that Mr. Cito is asking for whoever is making that claim. Because the way that the complaint is written is that any member of the public that has an interest or a stated interest. And so I think that's what Mr. Sito or the Vesey's attorney is asking for is that who are those people that are making the claim? but i don't know for sure it's not uncommon to ask for that if there's going to be some form of settlement so that you can get signatures and releases and things like that i do understand mr powell's comment in in response to that is is that depending on the number of people at a certain point it becomes maybe unwieldy but i don't know what those numbers are in this particular circumstance so i wouldn't be able to speculate as to that thank you

Do we, can I just ask, do we know if a representative of the Vesey's is participating in this meeting virtually or otherwise?

I don't see anyone.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, that concludes the comments from Mr. Powell. We'll move on to Ben Douglas.

Thank you. Can you hear me?

Yes, welcome.

Thank you. Ben Douglas, 1070 Glen Road. Just to kind of follow up on a couple of the points that were made. There are potentially hundreds of people who would be considered the quote public who have an interest here. So it's sort of an impossible task to gather a proper list of them. So that request from the Vesey's is just an impossible task. And Ms. Campbell really hit on exactly the point before. While the city does not have the authority to unilaterally force or cause the public to be dismissed. The city does have, at this point, where we are asking you not to give this up, the leverage to make the Veseys do that and not force this disparate group of citizens, of taxpayers, of people who have an interest in this to sort of flounder on their own and be at the mercy of of the vesey's and their lawyers who can then seek a default which they could then use to their advantage to ultimately close the path which in the past has clearly been their goal is to have the ability to close the path notwithstanding their assurances the fact that they are refusing to dismiss the public i think is tipping their hand as to what they would like to keep their options open to do so ultimately the city represents the public i understand there is a distinction But looking out for the public interest, the city now has a point of leverage that can say, we will agree to dismiss this case, but also dismiss the public so that the public's interests are not unfairly prejudiced. There's really no reason for the city not to do that. You are holding the cards right now. This is the moment when you can look out for the public interest.

Brett KenCairn, Is there a question, I have a question, what do you see as the city leverage.

John Potter, To say we, the city will not go forward with this settlement, unless the public is also dismissed.

Brett KenCairn, And you see that as leverage.

John Potter, Well, yes, because. that clearly the vestiges would like to have this like to have the city dismissed but not have the public dismissed because they know that the city is a unified entity that has council in place that would that would resist their desire to get themselves into a legal position where they could cut off this very important access point for the broader community the city is one entity the public is a diffuse group of hundreds of individuals, some of whom are quite aware of what the besties have been trying to pull over the last few years and some of which have no idea. Most people are blissfully ignorant of all of this. So this is the point where the city has a point of leverage and all it needs to do is say, we will enter into this settlement, just literally add a few words to the agreement and the public, that's it. Again, Ms. Candell really hit on that point. It's, it's, it's sensibly the city cannot force this is not the right thing. Can the city influence it? Can the city withhold its acquiescence to this settlement until the public is dismissed? Yes, it can. As Mr. Detford conceded.

And because the question I would have is if if it's well, I think we've addressed the fact that we don't have the power to compel the vestiges. We have a you know, we can express a desire. But if the if the public was dismissed from the lawsuit, would that stop the vestiges? How would that would that stop the vestiges from closing at some point in the future?

They would have to take additional legal action rather than try to seek a default now.

So it wouldn't really prevent them from doing it.

Well, no, it would it would mean that they would they wouldn't be able to do it in a sort of sudden sort of backdoor way by this rushing to the courthouse, getting a default and then saying, great, now there's no easement. We're closing it off. I mean, you understand the history of this. They had when they initially bought the property, they closed it off. The only reason they opened it up is because they realized they did they at that point, they didn't have the proper legal standing to do so. And their their continued resistance to a settlement makes a lot of people gives a lot of people plenty of suspicion that they are simply going to wait there, you know, buy their time, wait for the city to step out, then seek a default against the quote public. And then they will have a free reign to do that. Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much.

Our final virtual speaker is Eric Peterson. You will have three minutes.

Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, welcome.

Thank you. Sorry, my voice is a little hoarse. My son got married last night.

Congratulations.

Thank you. Thank you. So I just want to also remind you a little bit of a history here. I mean, the fundamental issue, and I'm not, you know, you guys weren't involved, but the city fumbled the ball on this. S3, they made a mess of it. They didn't record it properly. And as Ben pointed out, Mr. Vesce did put up a fence. He blocked it with a fence. People could not get past it. It's not like he put up do not trespass signs, which he did. He went to the point of actually putting up physical eight by eight posts with fencing. So there's a history there. People show you what they're going to do. Right. Then through lawsuits and so forth, he he said, my my rights have been harmed. So he went out and he sued. He got a seven figure settlement. And so now he has a large war chest to fight us. And we are the public and we don't have the funds necessarily to fight him. We've been raising funds. It's been difficult. And Mayor, you express frustration because you've been working on this for hours. We've been at this for six years and we feel defenseless and we need the city to step up and do the right thing. I know you can't make them do it, but you can fight them on our behalf. And that's what you should do to do the right thing.

Mr. Peterson, were you one of the people we've been hearing lately that the vestiges did reach out to homeowners in the area? And were you reached out to by the vestiges? And what did they say to you?

They said they don't want any encumbrances on their property. That they said that they would, oh, yeah, we're going to keep it open. And, you know, fine. It's nice that he came over and met with us and, you know, so forth. And we fed, you know, coffee and, you know, pastries and whatnot. But the fact remains he's demonstrated what he ultimately wants to do. He does not want any encumbrances on his property. He felt that he was harmed because there was this unexpected encumbrance on his property. He got a settlement for that. He was paid for the harm that was done to him. And now he's going to get his cake and eat it too, potentially, because he's going to be able to use that war chest to fight us. And you, the city, are the only ones that can stand up and do the right thing to make up for the error that was done in the past with not correctly recording S3. Plain and simple. Do the right thing. Stand up to it. Do the right thing. You can sense my frustration. We've been at this a long time.

Yes, thank you for your explanation.

Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions for the speaker? Okay, no, thank you.

Mayor Enduri and council, there are no additional speakers at this time.

Okay, so we'll bring it back to the council. Does anyone have any further questions for city attorney or staff? Okay. We have before us the settlement agreement.

Think we're I'd a few thoughts on this One of which is kind of falling on The idea that councilmember Kendall raised is that you know Does it hurt us to ask the vestige to include the public in the settlement agreement? They can say yes in which case the as I understand of the concerns expressed by several parties is resolved and they can say no and if they say no then we've got the settlement agreement drafted if they're still willing to accept it which is a risk for us um but i guess i'd say i'd be willing to take their risk to reach out for the city to reach out to the best you see if they'd be willing to to modify the settlement because it takes two to settle we cannot do this unilaterally we can't force them but as a counterparty maybe they'd be willing to consider that i think it would be

absolutely awful if we didn't at least try and get an answer for the questions that have been posed to us. Why can't we do this? Why can't we do this? If we don't even try, how can we know that we did the right thing? And so I think we're compelled as an entity to take that step however However our city attorney says that we're supposed to do this and do the right thing because if we don't I mean I I am I have felt this from many different people not just the people who spoke here tonight that They're blaming going to blame us for not doing our job on that on this one point by not even asking and it's you know fortunate unfortunate whatever that nobody from the vestiges is here tonight so we can't ask them directly ourselves and so for me I think the best thing to do is to explain to the vestiges that yeah we feel compelled that we need to ask this question and give us you know some time to make that happen and and be clear with it and be open with it be transparent with it to everyone

And I would be open to that. I mean, I understand the frustration. And Martha, I want to especially your thing, because I'm not a lawyer. And it's really frustrating when we're talking about public. And who's the public? Aren't we the public? I mean, we are all the public. We all have a best interest. We are your elected representatives. I hear your pain, but I do think we have to acknowledge there's only so much a city can do, so I am willing to support asking the Vichys to include the public. That being said, I think we do have a negotiated agreement that's been percolating for six years, and we also have responsibility to taxpayers and whatever to kind of get our part wrapped up in whatever manner is possible and if we have to turn over to the public in that term we have to do it so i'm willing to do it but it is we have to resolve this thing fairly quickly because it's you know it's in nobody's best interest to drag this out any further that'd be my only thought so i'm willing to support um doing a final ask on behalf of behalf of everybody

I agree. Okay.

Well, I think it's fair to say that the outcome that every one of the council members and city staff wants is for the public to be able to use the DIPS. It's just so important as a way for kids to get to school without having to go down to Deer Hill Road is just important for people to be able to get to friends and neighbors easily. And in the last few years, it's become even more important as a possible evacuation route. So having that closed off is really unthinkable. and although we've been talking about uh... to extent we well we've been i'll show the city attorney we have not been discussing this among council members except in public settings uh... but as we've been discussing it uh... in the the closed sessions that's been made the goals is how can we achieve this because not having that as a point is truly unthinkable. So yeah, I support this effort. It wouldn't, well, all I can say is in the public session we have been advised by council that this path is not without risks. And Yeah, that's all I can say about that at this point. So I understand. Do we need a formal motion on this? Or should we just move this to the September 14th council meeting?

That's what I wanted to clarify. I think we have direction to follow up with the Vesey's. we will be bringing it back either to indicate that they are amenable and if they are amenable we would revise the agreement if they're not amenable then you would be considering the same agreement that is before you okay what i'd like to suggest is that before you do that that maybe you and scott and council member candell and i okay that and and is this it i

I'm thinking that it shouldn't just be limited to the attorneys talking to their attorney. That's exactly. And so if it's okay with the rest of the people, the mayor and I can be the council members that are working on this together.

I'll heartily support that.

Okay. Agreed.

Yeah, that's generous. Thank you.

Okay, so maybe we can talk after the meeting or get on a call tomorrow. Okay. All right, so I have a motion to move this to the September 14th, actually, Would it be possible to hold a special, if we move, set it for the September 14th council meeting, can we come back and get it on a special meeting if we need to?

Maybe we just don't set a date for it to come back. It'll obviously have to be agendized for a public meeting. So if for some reason it can be done sooner, then we'll bring that back.

Okay, so we'll just move to defer to a future meeting, recognizing that the next scheduled meeting is September 14th. So moved a second all in favor aye Okay, that's the action we'll take and we'll take a five-minute break before coming back for the remainder of the session We're back in session. Thank you for waiting. We're on item 13A. So we'll turn it over to who's going to?

And maybe, Mayor, we can convene the successor agency?

Oh, that's right. Yep. We're convening the successor agency. And yes, for this item.

And Mayor, a jury if I could? Oh, yes, please. Thank you. So as much as I would love to stay for this item, uh i will have to recuse myself as i still own stock in one of the companies the underwriting firms that bid on this not the one that's actually being recommended so i just i will step out of the room i do want to say two things one of which is i really appreciate our finance manager for bringing this item to the council because saving money is always a good thing and i'm really pleased to see ken deaker as his wingman who i've worked with for many many years over decades so i will step out of the room and leave it to you all to make it work

With that endorsement and to keep things quick, I'm just going to turn it over to Ken Deeker, who will give a great presentation, and he'll minimize the legal languages.

Yeah, I promise, no gobbledygook. My name's Ken Deeker, municipal advisor to the successor agency on this particular transaction. The redevelopment agency was founded, formed in 1974, a few years after incorporation. Over the years, tax increment grew in the project area and allowed the redevelopment agency at the time to issue bonds in 2002, 2005, and 2008. Then dissolution came along in 2012, thanks to the government, took redevelopment away and formed Successor Agency. In 2014 and 2015, the Successor Agency refunded those previous bonds, I'm assuming for significant savings. There's now 12 years remaining on the existing bonds that were issued in 2014 and 15, and we're proposing tonight to refund those bonds one last time. This is probably the last bite of the apple since there's only 12 years remaining. From a technical standpoint, there's 22.9 million of bonds outstanding, ranging in interest rates from three and an eighth to 5%. Right now, the savings are about $1.9 million over the remaining term, which equates to about $172,000 a year. I do want to point out that $172,000 a year is spread amongst all the taxing entities that receive money through the RPTTF, or the Redevelopment Property Tax Trust Fund. Unfortunately, the city share is only 6%, 6.13%, so you're only getting about $10,500 under the current market conditions. But there is an administrative fee of $50,000 to manage the transaction. We did go out and reach out to form a team at Mr. Prisbilla's request. I included copies of the potential agreements and give a summary of each one of those proposals The recommendation is to hire Ramirez and Company as a low bid for ACT as service underwriter on the transaction. HDL, Korn and Cohn to ask ACT as fiscal consultant. The fiscal consultant will prepare the fiscal consultant's report. That's a lot of the primary tables and documents that are part of the official statement that the bonds are used to market. and Jones Hall as the Bond and Disclosure Council. And like I said, unfortunately there isn't a bigger share. There is one of the fees that is non-contingent. Everybody else is working contingent. If the transaction doesn't work, we'll pull the plug on it, but the fiscal consultants do not. Their fee is $22,500 plus expenses, and I think the resolution may have that incorrect. In addition to that, if the transaction does not go forward, the fee is reduced to $17,000 plus expenses. I don't expect the fiscal consultant to have a lot of expenses. That would primarily be travel, meals, anything like that. They're not being asked to travel to attend any of the meetings. They'll simply be attending the calls and preparing a report. With the other thing I wanted to mention is I've talked to Mr. Prisbilla, and we would like to set a minimum threshold savings for this. So under current market conditions, the net present value savings are about 6.5%. CDAC has guidelines that savings in the 3% to 5% threshold are significant. For a redevelopment project like this, I think the 5% threshold would be a really good number to use. That is about a 25 basis point increase over the rates that are currently in the report. Luckily, over the last few weeks since the report was drafted, the market has stayed in there pretty solid. a little bit of rally in the mini market even though treasuries are all over the place with all the iraq war iran war and all the other stuff going on with oil prices and inflation so it's a day-to-day thing but we will continue to monitor it so my recommendation is that if the savings were to drop below five percent we would simply freeze on the refunding and not move forward until the savings return back to that number so with that i'm happy to answer any questions you might have

Great. Thank you. That was great. I mean, the report was very good. Now, you actually answered one of my questions was, you know, the market, the geopolitical markets being what they are, I was just kind of wondering how you were going to handle that. But I very much like we have a trigger that kind of stops basically, you know, if it's looking like we're not going to get the rates that we believe we can get, we're just basically going to freeze. It sounds like, right, that we could revisit later, I suppose.

We can revisit later if the savings come back. And like I said, it could happen in one week and then come back. I mean, that's how volatile things are, so we're just going to continue to monitor it.

And how long does this process take in aggregate?

Well, we're looking to sell the bonds sometime in November and be done before the end of the year. So it could happen relatively quickly. I will say that it could accelerate a little bit only because DOF, the Department of Finance, has to approve the refunding under the successor agency rules. So we've got to go back to you guys as successor agency with the bond documents that's scheduled for September. Then we have to go to the County Oversight Board to get their approval. Then we have to go to DOF to get their approval. But it used to take them like 60 days. They would spend the full 60-day period to approve it. They're doing it in a few days now because they don't have a lot of these refundings that are coming before them. So we do think that we could accelerate this and maybe close as early as October.

Okay, yeah, that was my quote. Perfect. Thank you very much.

I have just a quick question. So this is gonna save us, but it costs us. And we have 12 years to recoup what it's costing us. But based on the savings we're gonna have, how quickly do we actually recoup

So the only potential cost is the $17,000 that the fiscal consultant would pay if the deal does not move forward. Everything else is already built in. So the numbers reflected here in this report include paying all of those costs. Those are the true savings. So you're not having to recover anything. And I will say, if the transaction does not go forward, the fiscal consultant's fee is a ROPS available item. So you could put it on the next ROPS to get reimbursed for those dollars. So it's really no risk to the city of moving forward, and you could benefit from these savings.

Can you clarify on the, you mentioned the fiscal consultant fee is not correct in the resolution?

The fee is correct in the resolution, but I think I wrote it including expenses, but it's $17,000 plus expenses.

Okay. Well, it's actually several different ways here. In the staff report, well, in the report it says the fiscal consultant is charging 22.5 plus expenses. Correct. And then if it doesn't go forward, it's reduced to 17.

Okay. Plus expenses. Right.

Yes. OK. Charging 22 plus expenses. But in the resolution, it says we'll pay in an amount not to exceed 22.5. So that should add plus expenses. Plus expenses, correct.

And like I said, I do not expect them to incur any expenses or minimal expenses at best.

OK. And then in the whereases, It says for the fiscal agent not to exceed fee of $22,500 including standard expenses, but that would be plus standard. It should be plus. That's correct.

And that's where the error took place. And that's my fault when I drafted the resolution. Okay. No problem. I wanted to clarify that.

Got that.

Okay. Any other questions?

Oh, just thanks. I asked the question about the minimum savings threshold. I appreciate your response. Thank you.

You bet. Okay. Is there any public comment?

Mayor Anduri and council, I have no speakers in the community hall and I have no hands raised in our virtual audience for this item.

Okay, any further discussion before we, okay, so the resolution before us has those two corrections. All right, so we have a motion for adoption of the resolution.

Yeah, so moved and adopted resolution with the edits as clarified by Mayor Anduri.

Second. Okay, so this is an action of the successor agency. All in favor? Aye. It's 4-0-1 recusal. Okay, thank you very much. Thanks for sticking with us here. Okay, so we're on to council commission reports. We'll start with 14A, appointment of seven members to the Multimodal Mobility Advisory.

The report on activities.

Oh, that's not on here this time. Oh, I see, but it doesn't, oh, okay, it doesn't have a letter. Okay, so the pre-A item, report on activities. Okay, anyone want to?

Super quickly, I would love to make October Violence Prevention Month as suggested by our Silver Scouts.

I didn't ask the city clerk. We have adopted similar resolutions in the past for domestic violence.

So we'll bring that back. Anything else?

A couple things. I know several of us attended National Night Out, which was a tremendous activity, and the weather gods smiled favorably on us. It wasn't too hot, so we appreciate that. I know, I'll let the mayor talk about, we also had our second, part two of Hello Lafayette, second Hello Lafayette event in this room, which I would just clarify is a very big success. The final one, I just wanna do a quick little report on MCE. I don't talk about MCE a lot, but there's a lot been going on. You guys saw the, we had the, the consent item about responding to a grand jury report from Marin County. Generally speaking, I thought the grand jury report was a little sensationalized, but generally speaking, it identified a lot of issues that MCE as a board and organization has discovered. We have 38 cities and counties, collectively 34 members that work together as a board. The board is not as collegial as our board. There's a lot of different kind of factions and things going on. And we recently asked our CEO. There is no CEO anymore. And so there's been a lot of churn, spending a fair bit of time on it. I believe we are on the right direction. We are responding to the grand jury. And we also have started a CEO search. I've been asked to chair that committee for the CEO search. So I am working with... Staff in MCE quite a bit on that because there's a anyway so there's so we're have not a committee working on that that'll probably be Consume me for the next six months or so as we move through that it is though. I will say just The people Marin and we're in an independent journal is spending a lot of time talking about MC, but is definitely much improved over the last six twelve months and i can i continue to hope it continues to get better and um i'm happy to be part of it part of the solution and making it a better a better organization so i just want to share that that uh we're making a progress but obviously we all want electricity that's as cheap as possible and as green as possible and having mce in the picture um along with pg e is i think in our best interest to do that

They are so lucky to have you. I don't know. It's a lot to say. We've got to invoke our no volunteering rule.

Oh, my gosh. Anyway, I just wanted to share that. And if you want, feel free to look up some RIN IJ articles about MCE if you want some interesting reading.

Just real quick, relating to emergency preparedness, there is a new emergency preparedness guide in the works. which will be, I think, more concise, with more images, and more to the point, perhaps, than the existing one, which has served us very, very well over the years. The hope is to get that out in time for the Art and Wine Festival. There's been several people on the emergency preparedness commission involved with that. I want to highlight Stephanie Bontoms and Jean Fulmer for work on this new presentation of how we can all better protect ourselves and prepare for what could happen in our community. So stay tuned.

OK, well, as John previewed, Hello Lafayette was in this room last week, I guess. Or maybe it was week before last. But it was good. The room was full. We had 30-plus newcomers, a real mix of younger families, older. There was one couple who had moved here from Pacific Palisades. because not entirely because they wanted to. A lot of new people from a lot of different places. It was really interesting to meet them. The Lafayette Juniors did a great job of organizing it in collaboration with the city and with the library foundation. So we have had one debriefing meeting and the Hello Lafayette sessions, we were planning on two of them in 2027 on February 1st and July 29th. They will be in this room again.

Okay, anything else?

Okay, so we're on to item 14 a and I'll ask the city manager you have the resolution Two names filled in there and that's the city to talk about the

Thank you, Mayor. The M3, I'm going to call it M3 just to keep it short, committee, we requested applicants and we received 14 applications, which is quite a record. And I know that the Vice Mayor and Mayor have interviewed the candidates and will make their recommendations also on the m3 mobility committee with was a member of the planning commission or drc or drc and a member from the transportation and circulation commission as far as the planning commission drc goes chair anna radinich with the planning commission expressed interest to serve on the committee she has deep expertise in environmental issues and really would be a good addition in staff's opinion and unfortunately them there was a last minute quorum lack of quorum last week so it did not go to the planning commission for uh endorsement but she has stepped up and asked to be uh appointed And with transportation and circulation, the chair has recommended Mark Drager. Mark is a project manager with the San Francisco MTA and also has the relevant experience. And so with that, those are the two commission appointees to M3.

Oops, sorry, so I'll take the next part. So as the manager mentioned, we had 14 applicants that we did a half hour each interviewing them plus discussions afterwards. This was over three days, three in-person meetings, one Zoom meeting to get through everybody. It was a tremendous turnout, super highly qualified people. I mean, all the commissions should have this problem. It was phenomenal. We actually deliberated significantly to figure out the right mix of the three community members that would add the right lived experience, time in Lafayette, and working with each other. And it was not easy. And to say that several worthwhile candidates were excluded is an understatement. We had many, many qualified candidates. But the three that... we are putting forth for your consideration are Thomas Chastain, Jen Ricksheim, and Amy Boudan. They are all in this, I can't really see. Sure, Thomas Chastain, Jennifer Ricksheim, and Amy Boudan, B-U-D-A-H-N. All three have extensive experience. All three have extensive experience in urban design, environmental management, traffic management. It's phenomenal. I mean, I was just like, the three of them were just completely blew us away with what they're gonna add. to the committee and what the service they'll give to Lafayette. All three are long-time Lafayette residents. They are, I think, have a really good mix of wanting the best for Lafayette but having a good practical side. So those are three that, after a long deliberation, we settled on.

OK, any questions?

I went through these applications also. What a great. It's unbelievable. Yeah, I think every commission should have this kind of problem because phenomenal backgrounds here.

Okay, is there any public comment?

I have no public comment on this item, Mayor Enduri.

Okay, any further discussion? And we have a motion for adoption of resolution 2026-48 with the seven names as discussed.

So moved. I'll second that.

All in favor? Aye. OK, 5-0. Thank you very much. OK, on to item B. Council members Witherspoon and Cervantes.

Yeah, so Councilmember Cervantes and I had the pleasure of interviewing six students for the Youth Commission. I speak for myself, but I think they were all exceptional, just really dedicated to their community, lots of volunteer activities that they're involved in, but a real interest and commitment to joining the Youth Commission and undertaking all of the amazing programs that they sponsor. So Councilmember Cervantes, do you want to add anything and then I'll read the names?

Yeah, I was just so impressed with these young people. They're all going places. I feel like so proud of this community where we have a whole cohort coming up of people who will hopefully some of them end up here. but really terrific, love the energy. I was listening to them talk about how they organize their days because they're all super busy and they all have Google Calendar and the stuff. I'm thinking, wow, you guys are so way ahead of me. But it was really a great afternoon.

Yeah, it was. So we would like to present our recommendations to you for consideration to appoint Lindsey Foster, Sean Garrity, Joshua Lockard, Savannah Martinez, Drew Megbo, and Kayden Parkin as commissioners to the Youth Commission.

Exciting.

A quick question. So what ages are these commissioners? Are they all seniors and juniors, or do we have some young people as well, or younger students coming up?

They're mixed, yeah. No, they can start even as early as, I think, sixth grade, seventh grade, yeah. Exciting. Yeah. So any other questions about that?

Any questions? All right, any public comment?

No public comment on this item.

OK, we have a motion for adoption of resolution 202649 with the six names mentioned.

So moved.

Second.

All in favor? Aye. 5-0. Okay on to the legislation.

Yes okay so we had a nice meeting last week and I got updates from Casey who's just so knowledgeable on these things and the two that we discussed were SB 1167 by Blake Spear and that's on e-bikes and then AB 1370 on stern and that was covered wildfire mitigation projects So the first one, out of the slew of e-bike things that we're doing, this is the one that people, it's a broad bill that folks are coalescing over. And it better defines what is or isn't an e-bike, limits on power increases over limits, limits on speeds, rules for manufacturers, policing powers, labeling rules, and many aspects about rules for new bike sales. It still does not address all the ones that are already out there, but definitely a step in the right direction. Only one group is against this bill because they have all their broad support among bike supporters across the state as well You know as people groups so that this is this is a bill that that definitely should pass and so we're Where's recommendation is to support this bill?

I have a quick question on this one. Does this mean they're getting rid of the class one, class two, class three designation?

Pretty much.

I hope so. I mean, because that, I think, it does not help.

Right. This is intending to make it much more clear.

So then we just talk about e-bikes.

Yeah. OK. Because everything is an e-bike, right? Right, right. Now we have e-bikes.

Perfect, great.

So great.

And I'll add on that vein, I looked at the Assembly Transportation Committee report. They made a comment that's like, I think in Marin County, where there's a study underway, something like 80% of the bikes, if you will, called e-bikes really weren't, didn't fit the definition. They were like, really, e-motorcycles or e-motos. So there's just a lot of confusion there. This builds a step to get there. And it seemed to be that what a lot of the energy around the e-bike issues coalesced into this.

Yeah, I mean, I'm really very supportive of this bill. I hope that these provisions will make it easier for parents to understand what it is they're buying. This is almost like a truth in labeling. Bill, that's so important because if you don't know what you're getting and your kid really wants it and it's not the right thing for them, we have to get around that. I do want to do this here.

One at a time. OK. So we'll see. Is there any public comment on this item?

No comments.

OK. So we have a motion to support.

So moved.

And I'll second that.

All in favor? Aye. OK. On to 1370.

Great. 1370 is a little more controversial if you look at the people supporting and opposing it. But it's very important for us here in La Mirinda because what it does is it provides a fast track for fire mitigation projects that we need to maintain to get through the CEQA process, the approval process that they need. And they have to get these every time they go out for the shaded fuel breaks. And we heard at one of the Grayson meetings I did last year about how tricky it was to navigate the timing, because by the time you're allowed to submit to get approvals for it, by the time they get it back to you, you're almost at the end of the window where you can do the work. And so it's really, we really need to address this. And so that was kind of our thought process is like, we understand that there are some environmental you know, aspects of that the people would oppose. But if you're talking about fuel breaks, and especially for our city, this is actually a really important bill for us to support. So we are recommending support.

And I'll add that this seemed like a real no-brainer in that expediting the process to create shaded fuel breaks just makes a ton of sense, especially for communities like ours. Really, what it takes is a governor's executive order makes it into law. So it's, in that regard, straightforward, but nonetheless, it's gotta go through the process.

Okay, any questions? Public comment?

No comments.

A motion for support? So moved. And I'll second that. All in favor? Aye. Okay, thank you.

So did you guys want me to go through these state and federal, or did you guys? There's a lot of stuff in there, but. Okay, we can just.

Only if you think there's something that should be highlighted.

No, it's just, we only have about, the legislature will be in until the end of August. That's about it, right? Yep, 31st. Right.

Okay, and same with four. We just, we'll read that. Same thing. Yep. Okay, so we're on to 15A, League of California Cities. Now, Susan, you've been the voting delegate for the last few years.

And I'm not going this year. Okay. So we do need a backup. If anybody was going to head down there and go anyway.

Is anyone planning to go?

I was looking at it, but I hadn't decided one way or the other, actually.

And I'm in the same boat that the Vice Mayor is in.

What's our deadline for submitting?

I think September 1, that's why I have it on this agenda because we don't have another regular meeting until the 14th of September.

Do we know, do we have a preview of what is actually on the agenda for the delegates to vote on?

Interesting that I about 645 tonight. I got the packet the voting, you know your resolution packet Well, so I haven't had a chance to look at it But I can provide that to the council tomorrow morning and we would you know ask bring it back to you in September because you can take a tell your delegate What stance to take on these resolutions at September that doesn't change this deadline tonight, though Okay

Well, who's the most likely to eventually go? Maybe you?

I don't know. I mean, yeah, why don't we put Council Member Cervantes and I as alternate. Okay, but somebody's got to be number one. So somebody's got to be. I'm looking at the other end here.

Oh, yeah, no, I have a conflict the 25th through 27th, and so.

Oh, no, but the big, but no, I did check the agenda. The big action happens on the 23rd and 24th. The 25th is like just like a half a day.

Yeah, this talks about Friday only being the. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, no, I'm out of town. Okay. Sorry.

I may have a conflict. All right, that's fine. Put me down.

OK, so.

So we could put. Yeah, put me down. I'll be the primary, and Jim can be the alternate.

OK, so we have a motion to make John the primary and Jim the alternate. So moved. I'll second that.

All in favor? Aye.

OK, it's unanimous. Well, if you do go, it's a boondoggle at public expense. If you don't go, you're shirking your public duty. I mean, that's...

Thank you for framing it.

No, I'm just saying, generally, no matter who it is, that's the way it is. We've had that both ways.

Yes, you're right.

You kind of can't win or you can't lose, depending on how you look at it.

Okay, so we're on... Okay, resignation. Sherry Hoover from the Emergency Preparedness Commission after 32 years of service. Really amazing service with either of the

Yeah, and I'll make a note. 32 years, I mean, I am struck by individuals in this community that really are willing to devote decades of their time to serve the common good. And Sherry certainly is one of those. She was one of these people when emergency preparedness would have a booth at Art & Wine, she'd be there. She was sort of a stalwart in that. really gave of her time very generously, and served this community well. So I want to thank her for her service on the Reach Preparedness Commission, and we'll try to find a suitable replacement when that comes up.

And all I can say is that commission is just rocking and rolling. They are energized, and they have got a fire lit under them, so to speak. So yeah, we thank Sherry for her service, and look forward to further great things.

Yeah, I mean, just say it's actually very difficult to imagine 32 years of service on a commission where she's been an active member. I mean, it really is an amazing contribution to the city. And we're lucky to have had people who are willing to do that. And she's been just an outstanding commissioner. So thank her for her really outstanding service. All right. And with that, we will adjourn.

Question. Do we need to formally accept the resignation? No. No. Okay. Thank you.

So we'll adjourn with thanks to Sherry Hoover. Yes.

Thank you. Well said.