City Council - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress.

Good evening and welcome to the meeting of the Hercules City Council. Today is Tuesday, June 23rd, 2026. It is now 7.03 p.m. My name is Chris Kelly. I'm the mayor and I'm calling this meeting to order. May we have the roll call, please?

Good evening. Council Member Grimsley is absent. Council Member Butteray?

Present.

Council Member Bailey?

Present.

Vice Mayor Walker-Griffin? Present. And Mayor Kelly?

Present. Thank you. Thank you. We had no closed session items this evening. Vice Mayor, could you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, please? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. We have no moment of silence tonight, but we do have a proclamation, which I would like to read now. And Mr. Roke, are you going to come up here and say a few words, I hope? Okay. This proclamation is designating July 2026 as Parks and Recreation Month in the city of Hercules. Whereas for over 40 years, the United States has celebrated Parks and Recreation Month in july to promote building strong vibrant and resilient communities through the power of parks and recreation whereas this year's theme the power of celebrates the work of park and recreation professionals part-time staff and volunteers involved in creating and maintaining essential community parks, facilities, and programs that bring people together through the power of what connects us. And whereas in 2025, the City of Hercules Parks and Recreation Department provided opportunities and safe spaces that engaged residents in the power of belonging, well-being, and play through. through 328 aquatics programs that brought in 2,390 attendees, 397 recreation programs and classes attended by over 3,700 participants, nine preschool grade school programs that served over 3,750 children, and provided 25 senior programs and served over 8,850 senior meals that enriched the lives of 21,000 seniors. whereas the City Council recognizes the lasting benefits derived from the Parks and Recreation Program and resources as an essential and adaptable city infrastructure that increases the city's economic prosperity and makes our community more resilient because of their work. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that I, Chris Kelly, Mayor of the City of Hercules, on behalf of the entire City Council, do hereby proclaim July 2026 as Parks and Recreation Month in the City of Hercules. I encourage all citizens to participate in our city's parks and recreation programs and take time to recognize and thank our parks and recreation professionals, staff, and volunteers for their tireless work in fostering a stronger, healthier, and more connected community. In witness thereof, I hereunto sit in my hand and cause the seal of the City of Hercules to be affixed this 23rd day of June 2026. Mr. Roque, thank you. Would you like to say a few words?

Thank you, Madam Mayor and members of the council. On behalf of the entire Hercules Park and Recreation team, I humbly accept this proclamation and say thank you for the recognition. There's a lot of people behind me that work tirelessly, as you mentioned. Sometimes we're on seven days a week, 365 days a year it seems at times. When there's events, it's usually on holidays and weekends. We have nights and early mornings, and so it's just a never-ending thing that we do. But I think there's a calling that a lot of people find, and they find it in park and recreation, whether you're doing it as a lifeguard or as a childcare staffer or setting up facilities or events. All of it is for the community that we serve, that we work for and serve. I appreciate the proclamation and I will graciously take it back to the staff.

Okay, would you like to come up and just accept it and then the council might like to say a few words. So I will just briefly turn to council and I think I will start with my vice mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, Director Rook, for accepting the proclamation. It's amazing what your team does every single day from just our summer camps, even our day camps, all year round. I mean, you said it best, seven days a week, 365 days, you guys are operating and doing amazing work with very limited resources. As someone who benefited from these programs when I was a child, even up until when I was in high school, thank you for everything that you do, and we're so excited for everything that this department will continue to do.

Council Member Bhattarai.

Thank you Madam Mayor. I just seek for our, like our Vice Mayor, thank you for your tireless work. You, your staffs and the volunteers making our park and space safer, not only safer but also healthier and more connected to the community. Keep the good work out there. Thank you again.

And Council Member Bailey.

Yes, Director Oak. Thank you, and to your team. Please thank them for us, for all the work that they do, all the programs that we're at, whether it be the Senior Center or the Swim Center or any of the other facilities around town. Your department's tasked with bringing us together, and we had a great time doing that after COVID because we hadn't done it for a long time. You guys put in a lot of events for us. Your department's challenged or charged with also generating revenue, which is hard, but you guys do both, and you guys do it well. with limited staff and limited facilities, because that office is tight over there. So we appreciate all of your employees, the full-time ones, the part-time, our lifeguards, all the other folks. And then some of our folks we partner with to provide classes over at the center as well. You guys manage all of that. We call it trash day. It's called community cleanup day. The first week in May, you guys coordinate that. You coordinate with all of our volunteers through our nonprofits. So there's lots of things that you do. We probably don't compensate you guys enough. but we are grateful to you for everything you guys do for our community. So thank you for all of those programs you guys put on for us.

And I couldn't say it any better. I think all of us really, really appreciate you, your staff. You've got some longtime staff that have been with you. You do an amazing job with very, very little resources and you're incredibly creative. So thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

Thank you. I really appreciate it as well.

Okay, so now moving on, we do have a presentation tonight. And tonight we're going to have a presentation on the Contra Costa Mosquito and Vector Control District. And Mariada Messenger, yes, please come up. And I will say that Ms. Messenger is our representative from the City of Hercules on the Mosquito and Vector Control District, welcome.

Can you hear me now? OK, good. Good evening, Mayor Kelly, council members, staff, and members of the public. My name is Mariotti Messenger, and I serve as the trustee representing the city of Hercules on the Contra Costa Mosquito and Vector Control District Board of Trustees. My background is in public health and infectious disease epidemiology. And as a newer trustee, I have really enjoyed learning more about the district's work and the many ways it helps protect the health and quality of life of Contra Costa County residents. Thank you for inviting me here this evening. Tonight I would like to provide a brief overview of the district, the services available to Hercules residents, and some recent activity relevant to our community.

Next slide, please.

The Contra Costa Mosquito and Vector Control District has been protecting public health since 1927. The district was created after Contra Costa County residents voted in 1926 to establish a mosquito abatement program district because mosquito problems have been so severe that they were affecting daily life, businesses, and even schools in some areas of the county. At the same time, people were beginning to understand that mosquitoes are far more than just a nuisance. They can also transmit diseases that affect both humans and animals. Because of this, the district was established as a public health agency. The next year, we will be celebrating the district's 100th anniversary. Next slide, please. In 1993, Contra Costa County transferred its rat, mouse, and rabies risk reduction programs to the district. As a result, the district's name changed to the Contra Costa Mosquito and Vector Control District. This change reflected essentially the district's broader public health role and expanded services beyond mosquito control alone. Next slide, please. One of the most common questions people ask is, what exactly is a vector? A vector is any insect or animal that can transmit disease or cause discomfort to people or other animals. Mosquitoes are one example, but they are certainly not the only one. Next slide, please. The district is a special district, which means it operates independently from county government. The district is funded through property taxes and benefits assessments. Importantly, there is no additional charge for residents who request district services. Next slide. The district is governed by a board of trustees. Each city in Contra Costa County appoints a representative to the board, along with three county-wide representatives. As the trustee representing Hercules, it's my role to represent the interests of our community while helping oversee district operations, finances, and public health programs. Our responsibility is to ensure that the district continues providing essential services while protecting public health throughout the county.

Next slide, please.

Most people think that the district only deals with mosquitoes, but the district actually provides a wide range of public health services. These services include mosquito control, mosquito fish distribution, rat and mouse services, rabies risk reduction services related to skunks, tick identification, ground nesting yellow jacket services, and limited bee services focused on identification and public education. These services help reduce risk to residents while improving quality of life throughout the county. This slide shows service requests received from Hercules residents over the last 12 months. One important thing I would like to make is that these numbers represent service requests received by the district. They are not, I repeat, they are not estimates of actual animal populations. During the past year, Hercules residents submitted four mosquito service requests, two mosquito fish requests, three reports of unmaintained swimming pools, six rat and mouse requests 16 skunk related requests 18 ground nesting yellow jackets 1b related requests and no tick identification requests the mayor specifically asked about skunks in the area so i wanted to briefly address this topic historically the district's involvement with skunks has been related to rabies risk reduction However, these service request numbers do not necessarily indicate an increase in the local skunk population. They simply reflect the number of residents who contacted the district. District staff explained that wildlife activity can sometimes increase following wetter winters because food sources become more abundant. However, service request data alone cannot be used to determine whether the overall skunk population is increasing or decreasing. For residents experiencing skunk activity around their homes, the most effective approach is prevention and exclusion. Residents should avoid leaving pet food outdoors, securing garbage containers, remove brush piles and potential shelter areas, and seal openings beneath sheds, decks, and other structures where skunks may attempt to den. Simple exclusion methods are often the most effective long-term solutions. I have also brought copies of the district's skunk brochures to the council members, and if anyone is interested, they're over here to pick up on your way home for additional information. Before I conclude, I wanted to highlight an important emerging public health issue. For the third consecutive year, the district has detected an invasive Aedes aegypti mosquito in Contra Costa County. This mosquito is not native to our area and is sometimes referred to as the yellow fever mosquito. As someone with a background in epidemiology, this is the type of issue that immediately gets my attention because this mosquito is capable of transmitting viruses that cause dengue fever, Zika, chingunya, and yellow fever. The district has previously detected and successfully controlled the mosquito in Martinez and has also detected a small number in Concord. Most recently, district staff has continued detecting this mosquito in Antioch, where significant surveillance and control efforts are ongoing. One reason this mosquito is particularly challenging is that it behaves differently from our native mosquitoes. It is active during daytime and tends to bite around the ankles and lower legs, and often bites people before they even realize it's there. So if residents experience aggressive daytime mosquito biting, I encourage them to contact the district so staff can investigate what's going on. Next slide. Before I finish, I would like to leave residents with a few simple mosquito prevention tips. The most important thing residents can do is eliminate standing water around their homes because mosquitoes only need a small amount of water to breed. Residents should regularly empty buckets, flower pots, saucers, toys, bird baths, wheelbarrows, any other containers that collect water. Swimming pools and hot tubs should be properly maintained even though when they're not being used. Residents should also make sure their window and door screens are in good condition and use insect repellent when spending outdoors during mosquito season. And finally, if you are experiencing mosquito problems, unusual daytime mosquito biting, or concerns about standing water, please contact the district. Our staff are available to investigate and provide assistance at no additional cost. I have also, I'm sorry, the district remains committed to protecting public health and providing services to residents throughout Contra Costa County. Thank you again for the opportunity to speak with you this evening. Be happy to answer any questions you have.

Thank you very much. And we'll go to council for questions. Yes, Vice Mayor.

Thank you for the presentation. Really interesting stuff. Just curious, like what is the abatement of like mosquitoes countywide look like?

Statistically or?

Like how do you control the population?

right so we have various different techniques and tools that we use a lot of it is surveillance and control measures include adding mosquito fish which are these small little fish that they actually grow in their district property and their main diet is eating mosquito larvae so that's a perfect natural solution to a lot of standing bodies of water laying around in the area, and that's a great way to control mosquito populations. Another one is mosquito repellents that they use. I don't know the details of that yet, but that's what I know.

Okay, and the same question for yellow jackets, and given that it's like, you know, it's barbecue season, picnic season, like what do people do to keep themselves safe?

Yeah, so I actually personally had that issue as well and I contacted the district actually about that. I had a concern near my home and they came by promptly and they investigated the matter and they were able to remove the yellow jackets. And yeah, we didn't have a problem after that, which is great. But another thing, too, it's kind of difficult to determine if they are yellow jackets or a different species of bees. So they will usually come and investigate and identify if it really is. And they'll just give you an educational advice and tips to how to deal with it.

Last question, I promise. Like, okay, if it's not a yellow jacket, like, what other species of, like, bees in that kind of range do we usually have out here? I know nothing about this other than what I see on, like, YouTube.

Well, I'm kind of new to this as well, so I know that just bees and yellow jackets, wasps, but I know that yellow jackets are their main point of identification and control. Thank you. Any other questions?

Oh, you'll get a few more questions, yes. Council Member Bailey?

Just, first of all, thank you. And I think it's the first time we've had one of our residents do the report, so thank you for that. Thank you. Very brave. The skunk issue, I agree with the mayor. As far as I'm concerned, they all have rabies. If that helps us get rid of them. We have a very big population of that. So we can tell folks on the serious side, though, they can reach out to this number if they do have an issue.

Someone will come out and help determine if there's a problem or if it's just yes So I do want to clarify that when you do contact the district for a skunk related issue. They will come into your To your home and they will Help identify what's going on and give you some educational tips and advice of what to do and how to prevent skunks from you know coming into your area However, they do not remove the skunk physically from your home. They do not do that. They don't want to harm the animal. And also, rabies is not a huge public health concern at this time. And we haven't had a rabies case since like 20 years ago. But it is still something that we want to watch out for. So we do want to ask you guys to request services from the district.

I appreciate that.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Yeah, Council Member Battarai.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. First of all, thank you for the great presentation and representing our city of Hercules. My question to you would be on the Egypti mosquitoes. You mentioned that in the three years in a row, it appears in the Antioch area, I believe. Yeah. Do you have any historical data or that we have in the city of Hercules as well, or how you confirm we don't have it? I just want to make sure that we are safe here.

No, so far we're okay in Hercules, but we do have surveillance data out there. If you would like, I can set up another briefing next time to have more statistics and data that we can go through, but this just serves as an introduction to the...

Yes, that would be helpful. And also, if any resident would have any question regarding the mosquito or skunk or any other reason, what number or point number or where would be the right point of contact for the residents?

Yes, of course well they can contact them through that number over here and the website and Or email me you can reach out to me if you have any other questions, and I can help set up another informational interview presentation for you guys

Thank you. Thank you again for the presentation and the information shared today. Hopefully our region would be empowered to make a contact with you guys or be assured that we are safe here. Thank you again.

Thank you, Ms. Messenger. And by the way, bees, I have bees in my backyard. I have honeybees, and then I have these big black bees. The honeybees might sting you, but the black bees don't.

They just go around and- I think those are carpenter bees. Oh, they're called carpenter bees? I believe so, but I'm not a bee expert.

Okay. I have another question. I have a bird bath in my backyard. I also have some solar fountains, and I change the water in the bird bath at least once a day. Is that okay? Because the birds like to use it. That's fine.

As long as you are actively changing the water, that's fine. But if there's standing bodies of water for a period of time, that is increasing the likelihood of mosquito breeding sites. So changing the water is fine. Water that's constantly moving is fine.

Okay, and then years ago I had a problem with skunks. Skunks are all around. I've got wildlife across and they're always coming into my yard. We can't keep them out. So I called somebody and a person from mosquito vector control came out and gave me some trips. And one tip is to put mothballs around areas because the skunks do not like the mothballs. And then the other tip he gave me, which was wonderful, which was to take something called hardware cloth. This is very fine mesh you can get, you know, like at Home Depot. And you have to put it two or three feet down and out about a couple of feet all around your house or your deck. And that will prevent the skunks from getting in. And the reason I mention this is because my neighbors, unfortunately, were not able to do that. And they had skunks die under their house. And it was a real deal to deal with the smell and cleaning up the house and so forth. So I know somebody can always give you advice. And I want to thank you for giving us this wonderful little brochure on dealing with pets and with skunks. And this is available online, I noticed, at your website.

Yes, it's available online. There's a lot of information available on their official website. So go ahead and take a look at that to learn more.

Okay, well, great. Well, thank you very much. Really appreciate you coming here. Thank you. Thanks. Okay, so now we are moving on. And the next item is public communications for items that are not on the agenda. Madam City Clerk, do we have any public speakers for items not on our agenda tonight? Not at this time. Not at this time, okay. So we will move ahead, and we have a couple of public hearings. One public hearing is for our landscaping and lighting assessment districts. We have one, two, three, four, five districts, and who will take this item?

Madam Mayor, let me go back briefly to item nine, agenda additions and deletions.

Oh yes, do we have additions or deletions?

We do have an addition to... The consent calendar, it's item 3.26-164. It's a clarification of the employment agreement that's part of that item, and it's been provided to you, and there's a copy in the record as well.

Okay, so we'll add that on to the consent calendar item. Appreciate that.

Okay. Thank you. As for the first public hearing, It's the Landscaping and Lighting Assessment District. Staff is asking that the City Council convene a public hearing and adopt resolutions confirming diagrams and assessments for various Landscaping and Lighting Assessment Districts, or LLADs. The first is a citywide LLAD, which is 83-2. In addition, you have resolutions regarding Victoria by the Bay, the Hercules Village LLAD, the Baywood LLAD, and the Bayside LLAD. Just by way of background, the city of Hercules does this annually. The city levies and collects special assessments to maintain certain improvements within the city's five landscaping and lighting assessment districts. Each LLAD provides continued maintenance, servicing, administration, and operations of various landscape and lighting improvements. It benefits parcels within each LLAD. Each property is assessed only for the cost of the improvements from which benefit is received. City Council has followed a multi-step council meeting process each year, including the preparation of annual engineer's reports to approve the levies of assessments on parcels within each respective LLAD. On February 24th of this year, the city council completed the first required council action in the multi-step LLAD process by adopting resolutions initiating the fiscal year 2026-27 annual approval for the city's five LLADs. On April 28th, the city council completed the second required council action by adopting resolutions approving the preliminary engineer's reports. declaring the city's intention to levy and collect assessments and scheduling a public hearing for June 23rd, 2026. This council agenda item, which consists of holding the public hearings and confirming the engineers' reports and assessments for the various LLADs, which I had mentioned earlier. Proper notice of the public hearing has been provided by publishing the notice in the newspaper at least 10 days prior to the scheduled public hearing. That concludes my introduction. We do have Public Works staff available to answer any more detailed questions regarding the operation of the LADs, and we also have our consultant Francisco and Associates available to answer any calls via Zoom.

I see it at Espinosa's online as well. Okay, so I will go ahead and open the public hearing. So the public hearing is now open for the landscaping and lighting assessment district. Do we have any public speakers? No public comment on this item. Okay, so not seeing any public hearing, then I can go ahead and close the public hearing and bring it to council. Council, do you have any questions regarding this item tonight?

I do.

Yes, please.

Thank you, Senator. This is to staff, and I think it's to our new interim works director. And forgive me if the questions, if you have to, they weren't given in advance, so I apologize. There were a couple questions asked during just sort of our discussion on these items. One of them was, I think by the Mayor, was about just giving accounting in the future packets that we receive on these. Has that been noted that we will do that going forward? To any member of staff that can answer the question. So again, the question was we allocate funding sort of as a estimate, but we don't see what we actually spent, right? So there was a discussion about trees. I think it was $15,000. And then do we spend $15,000? Do we spend $10,000? How do residents in that neighborhood know what was actually spent without reading our 100-plus page budget?

Let me jump in real quick. Council Member Bailey, I do recall that there was a request that there be a breakdown that would show, for instance, how much was spent on tree trimming in any particular district. I don't think we have that breakdown necessarily, but I can ask staff if they can give us an indication of what that might be in any particular LLID. And of course, our consultant may have more accurate numbers, so. Let me just clarify, if I can? I'm sorry?

This was for next year, so we understood that we're kind of where we are for this year. I just want to make sure that it's somewhere in our notes, so next year when it comes up, that request is there.

Thanks for that clarification. I think we can certainly do that for next year, but I think we also might be able to provide you some information on that breakdown now, if you like. It'd be more of an estimate, but...

Yeah, I'm not asking for that right now.

And then my other question was along those same lines for next year. This is for residents when they read this report, is some neighborhoods have loans from the general fund that they're paying back over time. If we can just include that in there, I think just because when I talk to residents, it's confusing to try and explain it. I'm not a financial expert, but I sometimes end up at the coffee shop doing that. And my other request was we often in the staff report talk about like the max COLA or cost of living versus what's actually needed. If that can sort of be relayed in the document as well. So a resident looking at it can just grab that one document for the neighborhood and understand those items. And that's my only question that I had, just for clarity.

Yeah, Council Member Bailey, I want to ask you a question. You're talking about COLAs. Do you mean the CPI increase?

Yeah, I'm sorry. I do labor things in my other job. Yes, CPI. Yeah, so it's not a COLA.

It's a CPI increase, which is based on, I don't know which item it is, but it's probably a...

Francisco Bay it's mentioned what we use but it's just for residents when they if they just grab their document they'd be able to clearly see it again these are questions for next year I think I understand them enough for this year we know what's here and we can move forward that was just my only ask of staff that we could just note it for next time okay

Yes, Madam Mayor, we can do that in next year's report. We can provide that additional level of information, including loan information and the breakdown of the cost to include, for instance, breaking out tree trimming costs specifically, and information on the CPI process.

And I will say for any residents who are interested, we generally have at least two or three meetings about this throughout the year. The engineer's reports are available, and you can go in and take a look at it, and you can contact staff and ask them about it for your particular area. Any other questions here from council? No? Then moving ahead, we have five resolutions before us, and the first one is for 83-2. Do I hear a motion?

Madam Mayor, may I make a motion? I make motion to resolution of the City Council of the City of Hercules confirming diagrams and assessments for fiscal year 2026-27 for the City of Hercules landscaping and lighting assessment district number 83-2% to the Landscaping and Lighting Act of 1972.

Okay, so motion by Bhattarai, seconded by Walker-Griffin. Any discussion? No. Roll call vote, please. Councilmember Bhattarai.

Aye.

Councilmember Bailey. Aye. Vice Mayor Walker-Griffin.

Aye.

And Mayor Kelly. Aye.

Passes 4-0. So our next one is Victoria-by-the-Bay. Do I hear a motion?

mayor yes i'd like to make a motion to adopt a resolution of the city council this awaits a resolution of the city council of city hercules confirming the diagram and assessments for fiscal year 26-27 for the victoria by the bay landscaping and lighting assessment district number 2002-1 pursuant to the landscaping and lighting act of 1972. is there a second I second.

Okay, so motion by Walker-Griffin, seconded by Battarai. Can we have a roll call vote, please? Councilmember Battarai.

Aye.

Councilmember Bailey. Aye. Vice Mayor Walker-Griffin.

Aye.

And Mayor Kelly. Aye. Again, passes 4-0. Our third resolution is for Hercules Village. Yes.

I'd like to make a motion to adopt resolution of the City Council of the City of Hercules confirming diagram and assessment for fiscal year 2026-2027 for the Hercules Village Landscaping and Lighting Assessment District number 2002-2 pursuant to the Landscaping and Lighting Act of 1972.

Okay, is there a second?

I second.

Okay, again, motion by Walker-Griven, second by Battarai. Roll call vote, please.

Quick discussion on that one?

Yes, please.

This is Promenade, is that correct?

Yes, Hercules Village is Promenade.

That's correct. And so we have some pending, just for the record, we have some pending issues, stuff we're going to work with the community on over the course of the next year, ultimately culminating in a 218 process.

More than likely. We do have a deficit in that district currently, and we will be addressing that the following year.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Yes, and we have discussed that before about getting information out earlier rather than later, and we'll be talking about that. So bringing it back regarding Promenade or Hercules Village, can we have a roll call vote, please? Council Member Butteray.

Aye.

Council Member Bailey.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Walker-Griffin. Aye. And Mayor Kelly. Aye.

Aye, thank you. The next one is for Bayside. Would someone like to make a motion?

Madam Mayor, may I make a motion? Yes. A resolution of the City Council of the City of Hercules confirming the diagrams and assessment for fiscal year 2026-27 for the Baywood Landscaping and Lighting Assessment District number 2004-1% to the Landscaping and Lighting Act of 1972.

Okay, is there a second?

Second.

Okay, motion by Bhattarai, seconded by Walker-Griffin. Any discussion? Roll call vote, please. Councilmember Bhattarai?

Aye.

Councilmember Bailey?

Aye.

Vice Mayor Walker-Griffin?

Aye. And Mayor Kelly?

Aye. Okay, one last one, and this time it is for Bayside.

Madam Mayor? Yes. I'd like to make a motion to adopt a resolution of the City Council to see Hercules confirming diagram and assessments for fiscal year 2026-2027 for the Bayside Landscaping and Lighting Assessment District number 2005-1 pursuant to the Landscaping and Lighting Act of 1972. Okay, second? I second.

Okay. Any discussion?

Roll call vote, please. Council Member Butter, aye.

Aye.

Council Member Bailey.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Walker-Griffin.

Aye.

And Mayor Kelly. Aye.

Again, passes 4-0. Thank you, everyone. Appreciate it. So now we're on to our second public hearing, and this is a continuation from last time. And this is approval of an addendum to Hercules Newtown Center Environmental Impact Report, Design Review Permit, Vesting Tentative Map, and Plan Development Plan for the emblem Hercules Apartments at 1601 Willow Avenue, also known as the Loop Site. So who on staff is going to take this?

Mayor, I'm gonna ask our Community Development Director to present this report, thank you.

Okay, Mr. Rood.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Tim Rood, your Community Development Director. This is the continued public hearing for the subject project, which consists of a 180-unit multifamily residential community on 5.09 acres. including a clubhouse, dog park, trash enclosure, parking, fencing, landscaping, and frontage improvements. Ten percent of the units will be restricted to very low-income households. Planning Commission considered the item and conducted a public hearing and recommended approval on May 4th, and the council opened the public hearing on May 26th. An updated resolution of approval has been provided for today's packet and the full agenda item from the last time is available at the link provided. The council voted to continue the hearing to June 23rd today and requested additional information about the project, including a clearer exhibit or exhibits from the applicant showing the design of the project's offsite improvements. which include a new mid-block pedestrian crossing and a new street walk and side lights. Council members also requested additional information regarding vehicular circulation at the project entry and the manner in which the project will address noise and air quality for project residents. As described in detail in the May 26th staff report, the project is subject to the Builder's Remedy Housing Crisis Act and Housing Accountability Act such that the city has little discretion to deny the project based on inconsistency with objective local zoning standards. For informational purposes, staff prepared analysis of the project's consistency with subjective goals, policies, and development regulations that would otherwise apply and found that in sum, the project is consistent with almost all applicable development objective standards and has requested waivers under state density bonus law for a one foot reduction in carport space width, the location of air conditioning condensers, a reduction in the required 50 foot surface parking setback, increased spacing between parking lot landscape islands. The council requested information about traffic operations at the project entry. The previous packet included a project transportation study as Appendix F. For this continued hearing, the applicant has provided an enlarged plan of the entry to the community, showing the location of the entry kiosk and vehicular gate, which is set back approximately 90 feet from the front property line. That's attachment two of your packet. This exhibit demonstrates that there is space for at least four cars to queue outside the entrance gate without encroaching on the sidewalk or backing up onto Willow Avenue. In addition, a pullout area adjacent to the sales office provides additional space for vehicles to pull out of the entry lane. The applicant has indicated to staff that project access will be managed through a variety of methods. Residents will have RFID tags or transponders that open the gate without using the call box for expedited entry. A call box intercom system will be provided so that prospective residents, deliveries, or guests will be able to enter the property. The call box systems typically have keypad access. Project management staff would provide a code to delivery vehicles with regular routes to the property, such as FedEx and UPS. These codes would be changed on a regular basis. Guest deliveries and vendors would use the pullout area and call box to contact the leasing office or resident for access, or they would use their pre-approved code. Less frequent deliveries such as food service or maintenance vendors would use the call box to notify the leasing office for access or after hours when the leasing office is closed then the vendors would use the call box to request gate access from the resident directly. With regard to pedestrian facilities, the project transportation study included in the prior packet as Appendix F further describes the pedestrian facilities to greatly reduce walking distance between the project and Hercules Transit Center. The applicant agreed to provide a new mid-block pedestrian crossing and a new sidewalk along the north side of Willow Avenue from the project entry west to Sycamore Avenue, thereby connecting the project to the Safeway site. Part of the city's review of the project the city's consulting traffic engineer evaluated the proposed sidewalk and crossing design and features for compliance with applicable regulatory standards from the Federal Highway Administration all on-site and off-site improvement plans must additionally be reviewed and approved by the city engineer when they are submitted following the planning approvals a Further condition of approval 56 requires that the design and features of this new pedestrian crossing be consistent with the preliminary plan line dated January 2026 Requiring various features as determined necessary by the public works director based on the city's traffic engineering review. I On June 6, 2026, the applicant provided additional exhibits clarifying the scope of the pedestrian improvements, including details of the crosswalk and sidewalk design and the schematic location of new streetlights in your packet as attachment two. These exhibits depict the mid block crossing in compliance with condition of approval 56, including high visibility striping, pedestrian warning signage, ADA compliant curb ramps, rectangular rapid flash beacons, refuge islands, and lighting. In addition, staff would like to point out that the large mound of earth that currently blocks sight lines for cars exiting Highway 80 on the loop ramp will be graded level as part of the project. So the sight lines will actually improve as you come off the off ramp. The applicant team and the city's consulting engineer will basically the city staff The city's consultants the applicant and the applicants consultant are all available either in the room or on zoom for questions on any of these topics Moving on to noise condition of approval 36 deals with the noise mitigation measures it notes that a Preliminary environmental noise study prepared by Salter was submitted with the project application this study confirmed that all residential units require sound transmission class rated windows and exterior doors that meant mechanical ventilation will be provided so that windows may remain closed and that upgraded exterior wall assemblies with a minimum STC rating of 50 are required at the Southern facades of buildings five and six to address single event railroad noise. Um, Some of the exhibits referenced in the environmental noise study in the prior packet were inadvertently omitted, and the complete version of that memo is included as attachment three to this report. The complete study provides recommendations to achieve interior and exterior noise levels in accordance with the city's general plan standards. And these include construction of sound walls at the clubhouse patio on Willow Avenue and at the dog run as shown in figure four of the memo. The project is subject to the Hercules Newtown Center Environmental Impact Report Mitigation Measures NOI 1 through NOI 4, which require a final acoustical analysis to be prepared prior to building permit issuance. This analysis must confirm that interior noise levels do not exceed 65 CNEL, exterior courtyard levels do not exceed 60 decibels DNL, and deck levels do not exceed 65 decibels DNL. Sound transmission class rated windows mechanical ventilation and upgraded wall assemblies are required on the most noise exposed facades. The applicant's architect and acoustical engineer and the city's environmental consultant are available for questions regarding noise mitigation measures. The council also asked for additional information about air quality impacts. The impacts of the project on the environment are due to grading construction and greenhouse gas emissions are addressed by mediation measures AQ1 through 8. As far as the impact of the environment on the project, while not a CEQA topic, the Bay Area Air District encourages CEQA analysis of a project's exposure to existing pollution sources, and BAAD recommends evaluating risks for residences within 500 feet of a major freeway for informational purposes. The Newtown Center EIR included a health risk assessment, which concluded that the health risk impact before mitigation was less than significant. The primary measures for controlling indoor air quality are the Cal Green Building Code, Title 24, and the California Mechanical Code. These require new homes to have continuous mechanical ventilation, minimum efficiency reporting value or MERV 13 or better filtration. Mechanical systems must be designed for high efficiency filters without compromising airflow. Kitchens and bathrooms must have local exhaust to remove moisture and pollutants. And duct work must be sealed and tested to ensure no leakage and adequate airflow for ventilation and filtration. Outdoor index intakes additionally must be filtered to Merv 13 standards before entering living spaces So these requirements specifically the Merv 13 filtration are the state's primary mechanisms for reducing exposure to freeway pollutants inside new residential buildings and staff also notes that the impacts of the existing environment on the project cannot be analyzed under CEQA pursuant to recent appellate rulings and This concludes the staff report. Again, we focused on the new information because the council discussed the project extensively. Staff and the applicant and our various consultants are all available for questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Rood. I appreciate that. And I'd first like to take one public comment that I have here. So, Javier Dominguez, you have three minutes, please. Thank you.

Good evening, Kelly, Major Kelly, and members of the council. My name is Javier Dominguez, and I'm a field representative with the North Coast States Carpentries Union Local 152, which covers Contra Costa County. I'm here to speak about the Correterra development. This project represents an important investment for the city of Hercules and the community, meaning good jobs and careers. that creates pathways to local workers. That's why it's critical that only responsible, qualified, high-skilled contractors are considered for this project. I want to ask an important question to the council. Will there be strong labor standards, meaning fair wages, health benefits, opportunities for apprentices from the state-accredited programs, local hire, and meaningful labor compliance. Without labor standards, we leave the door open for bad actors, meaning general contractors who misclassify workers to avoid paying benefits, in some cases engaged in wage theft. The City of Hercules has an opportunity here to set the stage to support responsible developments that uplift working families and protect the community. Just for the record, we spoke with Mr. Nathan Tuttle, who is the senior director of the development, and we're going to reach out to him. Thank you for your time and your consideration.

Thank you, so now I'll bring it back to council. Do we have questions here? Yes, Vice Mayor?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Not so much a question, just more of a comment. But thank you to the folks who have adapted to some of the concerns and the comments that my colleagues made a couple weeks ago. Really appreciate that. And I will still stand on the same pedestal that I said last time. If we're going to move forward with this, I think we do need to have strong labor standards. So that way folks, like a lot of my friends who grew up in the city, can work on these projects so they can actually live back in the community too. And at the same time, we protect those who are making sure that we have a good livelihood here in town. So thank you, Madam Mayor.

Other questions? Council Member Bailey?

Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor.

Can we talk about...

I don't know if we can we talk directly about this item or do we have to email HDC directly?

on these issues I don't know because I Okay, I'm gonna refer to the city attorney.

I'll set it aside I like the comments from the vice mayor and I like to support labor as we said here before I don't think this particular developer is concerned about that I've not heard addressing of our issues. I do appreciate the actual renderings that we can actually see so thank you to staff and who worked with us on that to get those renderings back. But I think the community's made lots of concerns that I don't think were heard. But I do have a question on parking, just so that I can understand the parking issue. Who should I pose that to, the developer, to staff? Just what's the overflow? So my understanding is that the law allows for parking

basically charging for parking unbundling I think it's a word that was used at the last meeting my question simply is if a resident can't afford to pay for the unbundled parking where do they park an environmental mitigation measure from the new town center EIR requires that the parking be rented separately from the unit so rather than paying a certain sum to rent both the apartment and the unit It's two separate transactions. I don't control how the pricing works. I'm sure the developer could speak to that model. As I understand it, they haven't been asked to do unbundled parking in other jurisdictions, so they may not have all the details worked out yet.

I would love to hear, again, if we can talk directly to the developer. There's lots of restrictions here. Just what the plan is for that. I'm not asking them to do our plan, just what is the plan if Jane moves in and cannot afford to pay for parking, what's the plan?

Are you referring to the below market rate tenants or the market rate tenants?

For all of the tenants in the building. So probably best to have the developer answer the question because I don't think you could do that.

Mr. Tuttle, would you like to come up?

Yeah.

Their pricing for parking.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, council members, city staff. I'm happy to answer any questions through the chair with regard to the parking. As staff stated, so the lease and the parking will be separate. They would know that going in. There'd be full transparency on the costs involved with living at the property. So I suppose everybody will make that economic decision when they take out a lease.

Okay, I guess what I'm asking is if there's some way that you guys, is there some subsidy that could be allowed? How do we address that? Because there's not off-site parking either. So if a person leases and can't afford to pay for parking, what is the plan for that tenant?

I guess my point is they wouldn't lease if they couldn't pay for the parking. They wouldn't lease a parking spot.

Again, so where does the car go? I'm worried about the car. What you do on your property is yours. I'm just worried about where the car goes.

Well, there's no lease. There's no car. So the person that would make the decision to live at this property and have a car would know going in what the cost of the lease on the car is, so they would know whether they could afford it or not.

For your affordable units, often for folks in that category, employment changes a lot for those folks. So if it changes in the course that they're in a lease, does that mean they get out of the lease because they can't afford the parking? I'm just trying to visualize how this works because often these items come back to the city. So again, on your property, you do what you're going to do. Do you guys allow for some sort of subsidy for them?

from the org or the affordable homes in particular the bmr units do have different rates for the leases and i'm assuming for the parking as well but we'll we have not done that yet so is that your question is just particular to the vm i'm sorry i need to speak over you please say again Is your question specific to the below market rate units or to the market rate units?

For both, I have special concern for the below market rate units because those are the most vulnerable among us. And so my question was just how do we do that? I think we're hearing you say you don't know, but that's a concern for the community. And concern for me just as a resident and also as someone who has to help keep those streets safe that they have no parking on them. I think that's all we have for you, so thank you from me. For residents that have called and emailed about this project, we have basically no say, and we're at largely the will of the developer who doesn't have the answers for most things, it seems. That's all. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

All right, Council Member Bhattarai, do you have questions?

Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor. I just wanted to reaffirm my commitment to the local labor GROUPS AND HOPEFULLY OUR DEVELOPER WORK WITH THEM AS WELL. MY QUESTION TOWARDS, I DON'T KNOW, MAYBE STAFF CAN GIVE ME ANSWER, BUT YOUR REPORT SAYS THAT THIS ANALYSIS MUST COME FROM INTERIOR NOISE LEVEL, DO NOT EXCEED THE 55 CNL AND EXTERIOR QUARTIER LEVEL DO NOT EXCEED THE and the deck level do not exceed the DNL 65 dB. Can you elaborate that and how we assure that is below the standard? I just wanted to understand.

Thank you. Councilmember, those standards are set by actually the open space element of the general plan, somewhat strangely includes those decibel standards for different types of areas. So the preliminary noise study prepared by a registered acoustician who was, I believe, available on Zoom, demonstrated that the measures included in the study and in the project plans would be adequate to mitigate the noise levels to that standard. In addition, a final noise study is required prior to the issuance of a building permit, which might take into account any additional data that became available over that time. And then the city will peer review that final acoustical study and need to approve it before a building permit is issued. So it's a multi-state process, but the standards are set by the city in the general plan.

So my understanding in my limit term is as of now city has a multi-layer permitting process and then we want to make sure that this yeah the DV label is below standard or below the threshold and we will review again during our process so what if that exceeds after the permit after the fact what is the

If the final noise study found that the standards were not being met, then additional noise mitigation measures would need to be developed and imposed.

And would there be any way that we can address that after the fact, after the permits approval process or not? How that works, I'm just trying to figure out.

Well, yeah, so what you're approving is the project and the conditions of approval. Many of the conditions of approval delegate to staff to make sure that the project conforms to the words in the condition of approval. And on the environmental side, there's a pretty lengthy list of environmental mitigation measures that are also imposed on the project as conditions of approval. So part of staff's job as a project moves through the permitting process is to ensure that all of these environmental mitigation measures are also being incorporated into the plans at the building stage. But it would not come back to council with the results of the final acoustical study.

OK, thank you. And then I just want to make sure that after the fact, after two years, three years, this building wouldn't be uninhabitable, I guess. My other question would be on the EMERV13 filtration. It looks like that is mandatory, and then how we monitor that the filtration is intact or working condition, and what is the cadence of monitoring, if there is any cadence?

So this is required for all new housing in California. So it's you know builders are familiar with it the county our partners at the Contra Costa County Department of Conservation and Development which acts as our building permitting agency would approve the system and then You know property management is responsible like in any other building for making sure that it's properly maintained. I

Is there any oversight of the city or our departments or any reporting agencies?

No, the environmental mitigation measures are regarding the project's impact on air quality, but the ambient air quality impact on the project is not a CEQA topic. It's not within the city's purview to further review that beyond imposing the conditions of approval related to. air quality. So the information that we provided on MERV 13 is not a mitigation measure. And actually I wanted to mention that we are correcting a Scrivener's error on page 18 of the addendum to the EIR, which incorrectly referenced mechanical ventilation as a noise mitigation measure. It's actually just a requirement of the building code.

Okay. Thank you for the clarification. That's all I had.

Thank you. Mr. Tuttle, could you come up, please? Thank you. And I want to thank you and your team for providing these exhibits on the traffic. You know, my concern here was the safety. And I think a lot of people here in Hercules, you know, we've gone around that loop many, many times. And cars come off it really fast. So that's what I've been concerned about, the ingress and the egress. And I'm glad that Mr. Rood mentioned that that large mound of dirt will be cut down so people will have better sight lines. Is it possible to pull up the exhibits on the ingress and egress? Is that doable, Madam City Clerk? And I just want to reference the one at the vehicular gate. So, yeah, Mr. Tuttle there. So four cars could pull in real quickly, say in the evening, to go in. So there's enough space. That's 90 feet. Is that correct?

That's correct.

Okay. And then if you're just a delivery or you're a guest coming by, you could pull in on the side, use the call box if you didn't have a code. What about the garbage trucks? How's that going to work?

So they're likely to get their own code on a regular basis to come into the property. That's pretty typical.

Okay, and so then they'll come in, they'll go in the gate, you'll have a designated place for people to pick up garbage and trucks to pick up garbage, go in and out. Okay, and then I noticed that on Willow Avenue coming off the loop, or say coming from the Hercules Transit Center, there's gonna be two lanes, so cars can pull off to the right. Other cars going through can just go straight over to Sycamore, so that works. and then coming in the other direction of Sycamore onto Willow to your property. Somebody who's turning in can turn in on the left turn lane. I noticed too on the drawings, there's another one that shows the sidewalk area and you're going to put in, are you a couple of streetlights there? Is it possible to bring that up? Yes, so there's one street light that's right next to the pedestrian crossing and then there's another proposed street light a little bit along Do you think that that will cover the sidewalk enough? So that people will be safe walking on that.

Yeah based on the preliminary photometric analysis that we've done That's where we think the street lights need to be but there will be additional analysis once we turn in the final plans to the city and they'll have to review that and make sure that it's correct

Okay, and you know I bring that up because you know the freeway does go over at one point and it's kind of dark So once again, I'm concerned about safety You know all of that kind of thing Okay. Um, yeah, I think that's that's pretty good. I do appreciate getting these drawings So that I can really see how things are going to work.

I'm glad we could provide a little bit clearer picture Sorry, we didn't do that the first time

Okay, thank you. So I want to bring it back here to Council. Council Member Bailey.

Madam Mayor, I think what you just said was important. I think that most of our comments last time were related to safety, but somehow that got heard differently.

I did let them know that we are concerned about safety. That's really the primary thing here.

And then, again, I think we heard from our carpenter friends on some issues about wages and benefits, and I think those are all important tasks. I encourage you to have those conversations. I don't think you'll get very far, but I encourage you to have those with the developer. And please let us know the outcome of those. We'd love just to be aware of it. Thank you.

Okay, any other comments here from council? And do we have any other public speakers? I just wanted to make sure.

I'll turn to my in-person audience. If anyone would like to make a public comment on this item, please come up to the podium. And we have no Zoom attendees. That will end public comment.

OK. Well, thank you. If there's no other questions, then Council, we do have a resolution before us. So do I hear a motion?

Yes, Madam Mayor.

Yes.

I'd like to make a motion to adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Hercules approving an addendum to the Hercules New Town Center Environmental Impact Report Design Review Permit, DRP, Number 25-04, Vesting Native Map, BTM, number 25-2, and Combined Initial and Final Plan Development, PDP, number 25-02, for 180-unit multifamily residential development, Emblem Hercules Apartments, located at 1601 Willow Avenue, the Loop Site, on the Assessor Parcel, 406-070-042-6.

Okay, motion by Walker-Griffin. Do I hear a second?

Second.

A second. Any discussion?

Just to confirm, council has no choice in this.

So the only way that the city council could disapprove this project is if it made specific findings that the project had adverse public health and safety impacts. And I think in our staff presentation this evening and in the staff report, we noted that we Staff have not found any such impacts to be present, but that would be the only way that the council could deny or reduce this project under the law.

Thank you for the explanation. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Okay, so if there's no other questions, may we have a roll call vote, please? Council Member Butter, aye. Aye. Council Member Bailey.

Aye.

It's Mayor Walker-Griffin. Aye. And Mayor Kelly. Aye. Passes 4-0.

Okay. Thank you, Mr. Tuttle and your team. Appreciate it. Okay, so our next public hearing tonight is on one of our favorite topics, which is the fiscal year 26-27 City of Hercules Annual Budget Plan and the first year of the 10-year Capital Improvement Plan. Mr. City Manager.

Madam Mayor, I will ask our Finance Director to give this presentation. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, members of the Council, staff. Edwin Gatto here, your Finance Director. As you recall, the City Council conducted Budget Workshop on March 24th and May 12th to discuss the 10-Year Capital Improvement Plan and the FY26-27 Annual Budget. This recommended budget aligns with the City Council's goals and emphasizes fiscal sustainability. It prioritizes using ongoing revenues for regular expenses and one-time revenue for one-time costs, ensuring the city's financial health. Additionally, the plan includes maintaining reserve funds to address unexpected challenges and manage long-term liabilities. The first public hearing for the budget was heard on June 9th, where the council members shared their input. Tonight, this will be a continuation of that public hearing, and we welcome further comments. During the public hearing on June 9th, the council has made the following addition. Allocate $250,000 for the traffic calming project on John Beaver Parkway. The staff recommends funding this project to SB1 Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation Account, which it will, eligible for that. And allocate $100,000 for the construction of Monument Sign, which will be funded from the general fund reserve. And then lastly is to designate and reserve $50,000 from the general fund for community benefit initiatives. The budget provides an overview of revenue estimates and expenditures across all city funds covering operations and capital investments. It includes financial summaries for each budget unit, reflecting actual results from the past two years, the adopted budget for fiscal year 25-26, and the proposed budget for fiscal year 26-27. This provides essential context to evaluate the city's financial health. It also shows long-term trends, assesses the impacts of past decision, and ensure ongoing fiscal sustainability. tonight is recommended the city council approve a resolution to adopt the budget recommended by the city manager. The budget resolution outlines key designations with upcoming annual audit and endorses several annual services contract enhancing transparency to city finances. In addition to proposed annual budget, the following related items are presented for council and board approval as well as describing detail in staff report and resolutions attached. This is the Hercules Public Financing Authority approving the debt service budget, the appropriation grant limit as well. Lastly, the city has received the Budget Excellence Award for the Government Finance Officer Association and the California Society of Municipal Finance Officers for seven consecutive years. The award highlights the city's commitment to transparency and accountability in financial management, demonstrating the dedication of its leadership and staff to maintaining high budgeting standards. That concludes our staff report, and I'm happy to answer questions.

Thank you, Mr. Gatto, as always. And it's okay with you, Council. I guess we have a public comment here, so I'd like to have the first one. Ronald Moraga? Montoya? Yes, please come up. Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. Thank you to staff and the Council for the work they have done into this budget. After reviewing the budget and capital improvement plans, I came away with three questions that I believe are important for residents to understand as well as some of the challenges the city may face in the years ahead. First, the budget appears financially stable, but it also projects a potential structure deficit beginning around 2028 and 2029, which indicates or what indicators should residents watch over the next several years to know whether the city financial position is improving or whether future obligations are outpacing available revenues. Second, the budget identifies approximately $7.6 million in unfunded facility needs. More broadly, is the city infrastructure backlog shrinking or growing? And what level of manual investment or annual investment is needed simply to keep from falling further behind? The third is the city long-term outlook appears to rely, sorry, on economic development to Hercules Hub grants and the future revenue growth. What assumptions must be true for the strategy to succeed and what contingency plans exist if those assumptions do not materialize? So as I reviewed the budget, these were the questions that stood out to me. I believe the answers would help residents better understand not only where the city stands today, but where it might be heading in years ahead. Thank you for your time and service.

Thank you. And do we have any, this is a continued public hearing, by the way, and do we have any other online public comment? None at this time. Okay, so I'll bring it to council. Council, do you have questions? Vice Mayor?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. If staff is comfortable, I think the public comment that was made I think would be appropriate to have answered if they deem necessary, but I think it would be a, appropriate to hear some of the responses about how we do things. I think it would be great to educate the community on how we do things here at City Hall.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Regarding the first comment made by Mr. Montoya, we are looking at a potential for a structural deficit starting 28-29, fiscal year 28-29. We believe it's manageable. We have sufficient reserves to cover that. Nevertheless, we want to manage this, and we have a couple of years to do that. So we will need to find a way to keep that deficit from growing if it comes to fruition, and we want to make sure that we have sufficient revenues to cover expenses going forward. There are a couple of ways to do that. One is to cut costs, and the other is to increase revenues. We're going to be looking at all manner of actions to try to increase our revenues to cover any potential shortfall. That said, we can't predict economic trends or occurrence. We think that this estimate you know, does indicate that we have some work to do as far as maintaining a stable budget going forward beyond, you know, five years and beyond. And I'd invite our finance director to comment as well after I finish, but we do currently have $5 million in reserves, and the amount of potential deficit under that analysis is around 80,000. So we're not concerned that we can't cover it. We simply want to find a way to keep that from being a recurring thing going forward. On the second point, regarding 26 million in unfunded needs, We don't think that that's growing. We do have issues with our roads, and we met with CCTA yesterday. We were talking about what funding sources we can expect to get, gas tax fund and so forth, that would cover our needs going forward. But we need to plan for that. Some cities have ignored their infrastructure needs, and it becomes a mounting bill, and I think that's the speaker's concern. We want to come up with a long-term plan to address those infrastructure needs going forward. I think the last comment was as to the long-term outlook. I think we are a low-tax city. Our current I would say that it's stable, but we could do more to broaden our tax base and bring in new businesses, do things that will allow us to provide the services that the citizens want. Right now, our staffing levels, they were cut 40% as a result of the Great Recession. If you look at comparable cities around us, Pinole, just as an example, they have about twice the staff we do. We try to do more with less, and we've been very frugal, and I think the reason we have a balanced budget is because of that effort.

Any other questions, Vice Mayor?

I meant to write it down and I went blank, sorry.

Okay, any other questions here? Council Member Battarai?

Well, thank you, Mayor. Not so much a question, but a comment. Yes, well, we all acknowledge that we have a structural deficit, and we really need to pay attention going forward, and I'm pretty sure we've been having OFFLINE DISCUSSION WITH THE STAFF AND THEN WHEN WE HAVE A FULL TIME CITY MANAGER PROBABLY HAVE A RETREAT AND THEN HAVE SOME PLANNING FOR THE LONG-TERM, YOU KNOW, DEFINITELY I THINK THAT'S SOMETHING THAT WE REALLY NEED TO WORK ON. JUST LIKE OUR STAFF REMINDED US THAT I THINK FOR THE TIME BEING, WELL, YOU KNOW, IT IS NOT A BALANCE. from 27, 28, and beyond, I guess, but still manageable. I'm hoping that, but what I really wanted to request our staff, please pay close attention. Let's find out some contracts that we can renegotiate or have some efficiency out there And also, look, any evidence that we can have, you know, improve the efficiency and then improve the productivity so that we can have some systematic solution down in the line, not to wait till last minute. Instead of being proactive, let's be, you know, reactive, let's be proactive and then... address those issues as we have, you know, it has been immersed, not well to the last minute. And then I think there is some plan for us down the line. So probably will come during the coming days, I believe. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Okay. Council Member Bailey, questions, comments?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I don't mind if you go first. I had a couple of questions. I think the comments from our resident are the same things we hear when we get e-mails from residents around town asking questions, so thank you for the answers to those. I've heard a number that sort of moves. So the resident mentioned 200 and something. I think it was 243,000. Then I heard 80,000. I may have misunderstood that. Because the number I saw was 243 as well. I just want to make sure that we understand where that's coming from.

Are you talking about the forecast?

It was the forecast, and I think, I don't want to put words in the city manager's mouth, but we mentioned the 243 number, and then I think I heard 80, and I just didn't know where the 80 was coming from.

If I can just say right now, as I look at the forecast, it's got years, you know, one through five, and so maybe one of you can explain how that changes.

On page 97 of... your budget, you'll see that for fiscal year 28-29, which are the years the speaker identified, you'll see 83,000 listed as the possible or likely deficit for that second year. That's very manageable, and I think we have time to address any structural issues to the extent there are any. That said, if you look at years three, four, and five, that figure grows. And I think the speaker might have been alluding to year five, where if nothing is done, the deficit might reach $236,000 or thereabouts. Again, this is a prediction. So the number would be growing from the tens of thousands to the hundreds of thousands, and we want to avoid that. And I think this council's been very prudent. I think we will find ways to make sure this doesn't happen. Again, we can't control everything. Costs are going up, landscaping, labor costs, all that. A lot of it is not within our control. But that said, I think we can manage this going forward.

And thank you. So thank you. Go ahead. Thank you. No, when I looked at that, I thought I saw, in the last version of this, I thought I saw 240 for three years in a row. So maybe it just was me misreading it. So thank you for that. It's the first year is 83, and then it goes on from there. I think that we continue to just look at how we generate revenue. City Manager made a comment that we're a low-tax city. I'm not sure he's saying that our property taxes are low. I think what he's saying is that we get to keep, as a city, a very small portion of those property taxes. I think we did an estimate a couple of years back. It may be a little bit low, but it was like $280 per parcel is what we keep on average of the many thousands, sometimes 10 or more, that's sent off to the county or to the school districts. So that's where that number comes from, I believe, as a low-tax city. We aren't the only ones. I think Moraga falls into that, Lafayette. There are several newer cities, I guess you could say, in the Bay Area that fall into that because of the way property taxes were distributed years ago. So there's something that we'll continue to watch. I keep an eye on it as well. Part of the reason I ran for office seven years ago was to keep track of this. I think the city has done the best that we can with it. Again, the staffing issues are critical. I'm going to mention that in a second, but the staffing issues are critical. We are very low staff, and so oftentimes our team works very hard. Irritated with the developer, but now with the team that does the development stuff for us in-house, they work very hard at that to comply with all the laws and to get the things to us in a timely manner. But we are short-staffed as well, so we have two things. Some staff that's overworked, and then a budget that we're fighting against as well. And Not that it matters here, but in Pinal, they're having some financial issues, some significant ones as well, and they have 18,000 residents compared to our 26,000, and they have lots of retail compared to our very few tax-generating retail establishments. So I think there's lots of issues there. I did have an issue that's in the contract that I wanted to talk about. I'm going to try and tiptoe around it because it's the way it was done, but there's a wage increase for a director And I wondered if the council would be willing to give that more as an acting pay into the new city managers on board so they can look at the distribution of staff. Part of the reason I have that is I had expressed to the previous city manager, I think we need, when we have the funding, an assistant city manager. The city manager is sometimes approving payroll and things, and I don't think that's the best use of that person's time. I think it's what overwhelms our city managers. That's a conversation, not a budget issue, but that's why I'm asking for the other issue. I think they need to look at the whole thing. In my day job, this is what Vallejo's new city manager, Harry Black, is working on. And I think that, again, this is one councilman's opinion, that that should be one of the tasks given to this person as soon as they get here, is to sort of look at the org and how do we... operate better with what we have and what are our actual needs. So the two are tied together in my opinion. Again, this is a budget conversation, but this was added into the budget, and I think we should try and work on that. I spoke with city manager today, and again, I'm not trying to give too many details here because it's a personnel issue, but there is an acting pay provision which would compensate the person that is doing extra duties until the future city manager can come in and assess and decide how he wants to divide departments up. And so that's an asset I have as an adjustment on the budget. But otherwise, that's all I have, and thank you for the comments. Let me make the comments.

Okay, thank you. I have to say, this is new to me. I haven't heard this. I would not be in favor of that. I'd like to keep the budget as it is. But let me go on to my questions, and that is, so just to summarize, we have a total budget of 45 million this year. The general fund, which is the operating fund, is 21 million. I know I've said this before. We primarily get our funding in the general fund from sales tax and utility tax. That constitutes 49% of that. Property tax is a very small portion, only 8% of our budget. And to put this so you can do the numbers if you wish, out of every dollar that we pay in property tax, the City of Hercules only gets back from the county Five and a half cents five and a half cents for every dollar that we pay So that's why we say we are a low property tax city as is Moraga and a few other cities One of our largest expenses is police. That's about half of the general fund and I think we do a remarkable job with really a what little we have. And particularly for Parks and Recreation, Mr. Roque has done an amazing job. So that's just a summary there, but I wanted to go through a couple of things. So Mr. Gatto, we do have a Section 115 trust that's at 2.7 million, and that's for our pension, is that correct? That kind of helps it?

Correct. It's the enforceable trust that you can only use for pension.

We can only use for pension. Are we spending any of that money now or?

No, not yet. It's accumulating there to subsidize. If we have a need to use it for pension in the future, yes, we can.

Okay. And I understand the reason that we have this is so that we get probably a better return than CalPERS does quite often?

Right. We have more control of the money than putting it to CalPERS because that will be the state, the one making decisions instead of us.

Okay, good. And we're funded in our pension at about 76%, which is considered adequate, right? Okay. We also have an OPEB account, other post-employment benefits. That's for like health insurance and things like that. And that we've got about $3.1 million in that. That's correct. And how are we doing on that?

We're well-funded on OPEB.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. And then in the budget, I've noticed now we haven't spent it yet, but we've got about a million dollars in the public benefit fund. That's fund number 249. I don't know what the council will use that for, but that's something we could pick a public benefit in the future. I want to talk about the Cal HFA loan. I went and took a look at that, and it seems to me that we... We've got that all in reserves right now. So we owe, correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Gatto, but a total of maybe 5.350 million in the CalHFA loan

$5.4 million.

$5.4 million, okay. And we have in the reserve funds a total of $5.9 million. So I'm wondering if we should just go ahead and pay the whole thing off right now rather than trying to stretch it out over five years. I know that the previous city manager had said, well, we'd pay $2.5 million this year and then maybe have five payments of $379,000. I think that's what you said. But if we paid it off right now, the whole thing, because we do have the money, how much might we save by not having to pay that interest?

If we pay off the entire loan balance now rather than extending it five years, at 1.5% interest rate, we will save approximately $166,000 in total interest.

Okay, 160,000 and there's be a little bit left over to at least 500,000 in the reserves there. So I would like to suggest to council that we just go ahead and pay that off. I don't see a reason for keeping all of that money. I'll bring that back in a moment. And then the other thing, Mr. Gatto, I wanted to say, because we are talking about the capital budget, and that is, and maybe Mr. Borris wants to weigh in on this, so for capital projects, we're gonna be spending about 5.1 million this year, and the major projects are the Refugio Lake dredging, which is complicated, the Beech Nut Park, hopefully that can get going, paving on foxborough which is perhaps the oldest neighborhood in the city of hercules and then we do have just a little bit here 190 000 um for the gateway monument sign and i think councilmember bailey you asked that that be made 190 000 which is wonderful that would be a place making thing So any comments on that from there or from, yeah, Council Member Bailey?

There were two things. So I had initially asked about the college FAA loan at the first public hearing. I don't think, though, looking at our balances, that we should do it. I know it would save you $100,000, but if we don't find a way to generate additional revenue, I'm concerned. And so I'm almost, my opinion has changed since the last meeting. I think that you're absolutely correct. There is money there. for residents we got about eight million dollar um grant we could call it right i know years ago skinner's office uh back in 2022 um but i'm concerned i i guess we could pay it off at any time but we need to wait and see what happens with our revenue generation stuff i i suspect so that's why i would give feedback that we probably should wait we could do it Six months from now if we have the revenue coming in but I think I feel comfortable if we I feel more comfortable if we Didn't which is a different opinion than I had last meeting. I acknowledge that And then so that that's just when to share that the council, you know, it's the discretion to decide and and then um to the comment about not having heard about the the payroll issue we discussed that at the last meeting as well so i had made that that issue known what i'm trying to do is still compensate the employee but not have it permanent to the new to the new city manager arrives but we did discuss that at that time i think you indicated you talked to the former city manager about it i had not had that conversation with him to be clear but again i'm trying to preserve that if the employee is doing extra work they should be compensated for it that's not my issue i just think staff reports to the city manager, not to the council, but I think my opinion is we need an assessment of just what's the proper place to have people and then where do we need new positions and how do we fund those? There are departments that we're burning out. And I mentioned one earlier, we gave an acknowledgement to the Parks and Rec, housing, our community development team, and the fairness of that, I'm concerned about all those things, but again, I'm not trying to not compensate the person for work they're doing, which is why I recommended the, in most contracts, and that's what I do for a living today job, it's called acting pay, but we do have provision for that, and that person would receive compensation for the work they're doing until the new CM can make a decision. I just want to point out that I have mentioned it before, doesn't mean everybody has to agree with it, but I have mentioned it before, and it's in line with what I said at the previous meeting, that's all.

Okay, we might have a couple of proposals for amendments then here. So Mr. City Manager or City Attorney, do you want to weigh in on anything here? Are we within our guidelines to do all of this?

Let me just add on to what Council Member Bailey stated. What he's proposing is rather than have this a permanent adjustment, to the director's salary, have it as additional duties pay. So that would be in place for the entire fiscal year. And I think the thinking there is that the new city manager, once he or she is brought in, might likely do a full review of staffing levels and might determine Some of those duties, for instance, IT duties might be housed somewhere else. I mean, there's a potential for some change and some efficiencies in the process. So I think that is basically what this proposal entails. The director would still receive compensation in addition to the current rate, but it would be for that limited duration until other budget decisions might be made by a future city manager.

I understand. Okay, so I'm gonna bring it back here to council, and we do have some resolutions before us. The first resolution is to approve. Excuse me, Mayor Kelly? Could you close the public hearing? Oh, I'm sorry. I don't think I did. I'm closing the public hearing. Thank you very much. Okay, so I'm gonna bring it back here to council, and we do have three resolutions before us. The first resolution would be for approving the 2627 City of Hercules budget plan. So do I hear a motion?

Yes I would like to make a motion There we go. I'd like to make a motion that we adopt the resolution of the City of Hercules City Council approving the fiscal year 2026-2027 City of Hercules budget plan, which includes the first year 2026-2027 fiscal year of the 10-year 2026-2036 fiscal year's capital improvement budget. and making certain designations, confirmations, excuse me, confirming the city manager contract authority and approving annual contracts for services in the total amount of $7,933,656. Second, you got a good eyesight. And let me just make sure, this one does not have the actual...

This is the approving the budget.

Yes, so I would make the amendment, if we need to, that we allow staff to, HR to compensate the employee that's referenced in the document. I'm being careful not to say the classification, but to compensate the employee for the work they're doing outside of classification, and then allowing the city manager to make a determination. The benefit of that also being the money is set there, so if the city manager chooses to do that, the money's already aside, there's no need for future budget approvals.

Okay, so that's an amendment that you are making to your motion.

Well, that's the motion that I'm making.

That is the motion that you're making? Yes. Okay. So then is there a second to that motion?

And I do have a question for you. I recommend that we hold off on paying the second, but you made the statement. Do you want that in here? I'm open to that.

Actually, I don't want that in there. I would like to just continue with the budget as is.

You don't want to do the college FAA?

Oh, well, actually, yes, I would like to do the Cal HFA.

Okay, so then there would be the issue for the director position as well as paying the Cal HFA off early.

Okay, so you're going to make two amendments.

Yeah, both included in the motion.

Okay, so is there a second to that? Second. All right, so then let's have some discussion about the amendments then. So the first amendment, council, as far as making the pay acting pay and not permanent pay, Mr. City Manager, am I doing this correctly? I want to poll the council to see are you willing to support this particular amendment? So I will ask. So Council Member Bailey, you're... Yes. The rest of the council? You're okay with that? Council Member Bhattarai?

I prefer not to discuss these personal issues in the public forum, but if council goes, I'm fine with that.

Okay, and I do not approve that. So, Mr. City Manager, how do we deal with this?

There's a motion on the table here, and there was a second, and the motion included adjusting the additional budget request. Currently, it's providing for a permanent increase from step 056 to 057, the alternative that's being proposed would to make that effective as an additional duty pay, which is 5%, that'd be effective for the fiscal year. So it would not be a permanent adjustment. So that is what's contained in the motion. I think what I heard was Three ayes and one nay on that. On that particular motion. Right. So the motion should pass with the change as proposed by the moving party.

Okay, so that would pass then? Yes. Okay, so.

Still need a roll call vote for that though, but yeah, I think you're just doing that.

Do we do this all together or Madam City Attorney, do we do it separately? What's the cleanest way to do this?

It sounds like we should do this one separately just because we have. we have amendments to specific resolutions, if I'm understanding correctly.

I think it would be easiest to make this a separate amendment, a separate motion, if we can do that. So do we do the main budget first, or do we do these?

We can have a roll call vote on what we just discussed, and then we can have a separate vote on the issue of the CalHFA payment.

Got it, okay. So then this is the issue regarding the pay. So is there any further discussion?

I just want to add that I agree with Council Member Bottura. That's why this is unusual to have it here. It should not be discussed in the open session. But because it's in the budget, we have to have that, well, my understanding is to have that conversation. But I agree 100% we should not be doing this here. That's the problem with putting it on where it is. And I know staff didn't do that necessarily, but that's the challenge with this.

And I think it's also the problem of bringing it up here at this last moment.

Let me be clear about the last moment comment. You've made it twice. I brought this up two weeks ago. It's not last moment. That's two weeks ago. So it's not last moment.

We have a roll call vote on this particular item.

And just to clarify, that includes both the amendment related to the duty pay and the Cal.

We're going to take the Cal HFA separately.

So the resolution is one resolution to adopt the budget. So if you're making amendments to the budget resolution, I sort of need one motion, or you can have some more discussion and perhaps ask for an amendment.

I think maybe with the Cal HFA, we could just make that a separate motion and make it second, separate from that. Would it make it cleaner?

No, because there's a motion on the floor and it's been seconded, so we have to vote on that motion.

Council Member Bailey, can you repeat the portion of your motion regarding the Cal HFA loan?

Yes, it was, I had a discussion on it, but it was basically what Council Member Kelly said, which is to pay the loan in full. I do have a discussion item that I wanted to say about that, but it was to pay the Cal HFA at one payment versus doing one payment plus...

payment plan on the back end understanding that we would save a hundred and something thousand dollars by doing the same so your motion is to pass a budget with the personnel change and not to pay off the college fa and to pay off the correct okay yes so we have a motion on the floor you're voting on those two changes if you're not in favor of one or both those changes then you may want to make a substitute motion

Okay, so could I make a substitute motion? And that would be to remove the Cal HFA vote and make that a separate motion. Or is that too difficult? Madam City Attorney, what is the cleanest way to do this?

So it's not a matter of difficulty. It's just if you look at your attachment one, it's the budget resolution. And so the budget resolution includes the budget that you're proposing to adopt. So if you have changes to the proposed budget, which it sounds like there was in that first motion, there was two changes that Council Member Bailey desired to be made to what was being approved in that resolution. If you those two changes are to Attachment one to that resolution with the budget if if so the entire budget item needs to go as one package I think that maybe some additional discussion to come to a different understanding or a different approach to the CalHFA item might be helpful here. Or we could try a substitute motion if you have a difference of opinion on just that second part. It sounds like you're all unified on the first one.

Yeah, I'm a little confused now. So maybe if we restate what the motion is and then have a roll call vote, if it passes, then we, you know.

Okay.

But I want to make sure everyone's clear on what the motion is. So, Council Member Bailey, do you mind repeating what your motion is? And then we'll have a roll call.

Yes, the motion is... as outlined in the budget resolution, the changes being two changes. It is the staff position change to acting pay for the year, allowing the city manager to make a future decision, which is fine. And then Council Member Kelly's inclusion, which is Cal FHA loan to pay it in full versus paying payments over time. And then that was the one that was seconded already.

Okay, and so we have a motion, and there was a second? Oh, okay. Madam Clerk, can we have a little call?

Wait, wait, wait. Can you please repeat one more time? What is the second option, your Cal FHA?

What is the motion? What is the amendment? I just want to make sure. Sure. The motion is the standard language in the contract.

Which is basically up front.

Okay. No, let me try and answer your question. If the question is the Kelly Fitch Hill loan, what staff had recommended was initial payment and then a payment over time for the last portion of the payment. It was over time. Mayor Kelly pointed out that we would save about $100,000 or so by doing that, so I'm including that in the total package. So it would be lump sum payment for the $5 million and change at one time as opposed to paying the second portion over time.

Okay, so your proposal or your amendment was to pay lump sum correct that's what the mayor recommended i was including that in the resolution and that is so basically the same thing is that right that's correct it's what it's what the mayor said correct so mayor wants to i'm sorry i just want to clarify madam mayor is that okay i i just want to be clear here that would be my motion uh and i would prefer it to be separate from what the uh the motion as the motion now stands the council member bailey is making

Yes, Madam Mayor, we do have a motion on the floor. It's been seconded.

Yes, so we have to go and have a vote, right?

Yeah, correct.

Okay.

Council Member Badaraya, do you understand the motion?

I'm still not clear. Sorry for that. I'm still not clear on the second part of the Cal FHA. Cal FHA, what is the initial motion and what is the amendment? Can you please clarify?

The motion is to pay off the loan in its entirety.

That is the initial motion.

That is the motion on the floor.

No, what was the amendment? Oh, the first part was to adjust the salary increase.

No, no, I'm clear on that part.

We are good on that. I just wanted to confirm what was the mayor's proposal versus what was the council member Bailey's amendment. It's one and the same.

So there's the original resolution plus these two amendments that council member Bailey has made.

Council Member Bottura, if I may, to the mayor, if you turn to page 97. of the budget? If you look at the under 2026-27 fiscal year and 27-28 fiscal year, there is red there for the CalHFA loan. $3,750,000 and then $1 million. The mayor's proposing we put both of those. I'm sorry, I'm talking. You don't have it up. I apologize.

It does not come here. But I think I get what you mean by I think it's a one point.

It's those two combined.

Yeah. So the proposal is to pay off combined this year versus the mayor's original proposal was pay as is. That's the mayor's proposal. The staff's recommendation.

My suggestion was to pay the whole thing off at this time because we have the funds to do it.

We have $160,000 saving. Is that correct? That was my understanding. Council Member Bailey, your proposal is just to pay as is in the statement.

No, no, my proposal is to keep just exactly, what's on the floor is to do what the mayor asked, which is to combine those two payments. Okay, thank you.

All right, so if we are all, we all have an understanding right now, then we will have a roll call vote on this first resolution. Second one.

Council Member Butteray.

Aye.

Councilmember Bailey? Aye. Vice Mayor Walker-Griffin? Aye. And Mayor Kelly? Nay.

So motion passes 3-1. So now we have a second resolution before us. And this is regarding the Hercules Public Financing Authority budget. Do I hear a motion?

Madam Mayor?

Yes.

I'd like to make a motion to adopt a... A resolution of the Public Finance Authority approving the fiscal year 2026-2027 Hercules Public Financing Authority budget plan consisting of debt service in the amount of $2,025,144. Okay, is there a second to that? I'll second. You'll second it? Sorry.

Go ahead, you can have it.

I thought the motion was to pay up front.

Is that correct? what you know this what instrument we already voted on that so now we're on to the uh the hercules public finance authority budget plan yes so then there's a motion by walker griffin seconded by bailey any discussion can we have a roll call vote please

Council Member Butter, aye. Aye. Council Member Bailey.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Walker-Griffin. Aye. And Mayor Kelly.

Aye. So that passes 4-0. And then the last resolution will be on the appropriations limit or the GAN limit. Do I hear a motion?

Madam Mayor?

Yes.

In all prefaces, I do not know Roman numerals. I'd like to make a motion to adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Hercules establishing the appropriation limits for the 2026-2027 fiscal year in accordance with Proposition 111 and Article XIIIB.

Okay, motion by Walker Griffin. Is there a second for this?

I or R, like a pirate, but yes, I, same thing.

And seconded by Bailey. Any discussion?

Roll call vote, please. Council Member Butter, aye. Aye. Council Member Bailey.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Walker-Griffin? Aye.

And Mayor Kelly? Aye. Thank you. That passes 4-0, so we are now done with the budget. Thank you, everyone. So the next item that we have tonight is the consent calendar, and we have seven items on consent. Would anyone care to pull an item?

Madam Mayor?

Yes.

I would.

Okay.

And I'm looking for it, because we're done before I... I would like just to have the staff report on item... The item, sorry, I don't have the name of it. The item that is discussing our future market, we call them markings at the airport. I think they're called striping plan. If we could just get the staff report on that. I think it's important to the community here that what we're spending money on.

It's the CRISP restriping plan? Correct. Okay, so maybe our interim public works director could discuss that.

Yeah, the restriping annual contract? Yes. The recommend action is adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute a maintenance contract with Crisp Company in the amount of $340,887.65, for the 2026 restriping contract and authorize an additional expenditure of up to $34,088.77 for a 10% contingency on said maintenance contract for a total not to exceed contract amount of the $374,976.42. OK.

Council member Bailey, comments?

Yes, that was very well done. If you can tell us what striping is and what you're going to be doing, like in layman's terms, I understand it, but it'd be great. Because there's a lot of streets included in that.

Yeah, so it's a safety, it's safety, traffic calming. So you see all the stop, all the marks on the streets, crosswalks, the medians, the yellow lines, the white lines, all the safety measures included. It's a big safety component to that for driving and for pedestrians.

Thank you very much, Madam Mayor. That's all that I have. No one else has comments? You can go back on that.

You want to put that back onto the...

Yes, if no one else has comments, of course. Since it's already out, I just wanted to make a comment here. My understanding is it also includes the uneven sidewalk maintenance as well, or does it cover under that or not? uneven sidewalk I don't know you call maintenance for the lack of better I'm just using the maintenance but you know the does this contract covers the sidewalk uneven sidewalks on a different neighborhoods as well.

I believe this is just for restriping which it doesn't affect sidewalks so it and I can look into that but I don't think it's does anything with sidewalks.

and I concur with that. This is a restriping project. It will cover crosswalks, red curbs, limit lines, and center lines.

But it is not sidewalk repair?

Yeah, okay, thank you for the clarification, but I really wanted to make that comment to the staff that we really wanted to look into that side, especially on the hillside. There are a lot of, the sidewalks are uneven, and then I have a potential, the health hazard or the safety hazard for the community and residents. Thank you.

And Council Member Batra, it's a totally separate issue.

Right, and council should know that the city did conduct a sidewalk survey thousands of defects were identified and the city is working towards finding the funding to address those issues. Of course, we'll tackle the worst issues first. Thank you, yes.

Okay, so this has been put back onto the consent calendar. Does anybody want to make a motion?

Mayor since that item was pulled we're going to vote on it separately and you've got to say we're just putting it back onto the consent calendar um so in my view once an item is pulled from consent we take a separate vote and then you can vote on the rest of this consent calendar separately okay so we can we'll go ahead and do that so um any discussion on this item

Any public comment on this item, the restriping? No public comment at this time. Okay, so can we have a roll call vote on the restriping contract?

Council Member Butteray.

Do you want to make, do you want to make, officially make the motion?

Thank you.

Okay, so there is a resolution here, so we should go ahead and make the resolution.

and I'm gonna get the right one because I turned the page I think this is the one for crisp is that right that's correct okay perfect okay I'd like to make a motion madam mayor that we adopt a resolution of their City Council of the city of Hercules authorizing the city manager to execute a maintenance contract with Chris company and the amount of three hundred forty thousand eight hundred eighty seven dollars and eighty and 65 cents of the 2026 citywide street restriping project and authorizing an additional expenditure of up to $34,088.77 for a 10% contingency on said maintenance contract for a total not to exceed amount of $374,976.42.

Okay, there's a motion here. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, so a motion by Bailey, seconded by Walker-Griffin. Any discussion on the restriping? No. Let's have a roll to call vote.

Council Member Butter, aye.

Aye.

Council Member Bailey.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Walker-Griffin.

Aye.

And Mayor Kelly.

Aye. Thank you. Passes 4-0. So now we'll go back to the consent calendar, and we have six remaining items. Does anyone else want to pull an item from that? Mr. City Manager.

Madam Mayor, I'd just like to remind the Council that we do have an amendment that was provided on the floor to the item related to the appointment of the Interim Public Works Director. When you make your motion to approve these items, please include that amendment to the contract.

Okay, thank you. Well, we do have a copy of that. So would someone like to make a motion to approve the consent calendar with this amendment on the employment agreement?

Madam Mayor? Yes. May I make a motion to approve the consent calendar as approved and excluding the one we just approved and including the amendment attached for consent calendar as in the item number three, 26-164?

Okay, motion by Bhattarai, seconded by Walker-Griffin. Any discussion? No, roll call vote please.

Council Member Butter, aye.

Aye.

Council Member Bailey. Aye. Vice Mayor Walker-Griffin. Aye. And Mayor Kelly.

Aye. So it passes 4-0. So that concludes the consent calendar. We're on to the discussion or action items, and we only have one tonight, and that is installation of stop signs at intersections on John Muir Parkway to increase traffic and pedestrian safety. And Mr. City Manager, who will handle this?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. You have before you a report. regarding the installation of stop signs at various intersections on John Muir Parkway. The reason we are recommending these stop signs at the noted locations is to increase traffic and pedestrian safety. The related issues of pedestrian safety and the mitigation of traffic speed have been a concern for the residents of Hercules who live in the vicinity of the John Muir Parkway. As a response, staff consulted with Kim Lee Horn, an independent traffic engineering firm, to study the data and make recommendations, particularly in regard to the intersection of John Muir Parkway and Tsushima Street at Yosemite Way. The study concluded that the conditions at the intersection of John Muir Parkway and Tsushima did not meet the strict warrant requirements for the placement of the proposed stop signs. Kimberly Horne did recommend other traffic calming measures, which involved significant construction costs. Kimberly Horne's memorandum and recommended improvements were presented to the City Traffic Safety Subcommittee at their April 2, 2025 meeting. The Subcommittee recommended the installation of the proposed improvements, including new striping, pavement markings, and speed feedback signs. as described and shown in Attachment 1. The anticipated work has been postponed due to the cost of the project. Now, regarding the warrant issue, the result of not receiving a warrant pursuant to an independent traffic study is that a citation issued for failure to stop might be subject to challenge and could be dismissed at the discretion of the traffic court. Despite this, city staff believes that placement of the proposed four-way stop at this location is prudent and justified by local knowledge of site-specific conditions. Furthermore, staff's research into similar practices in other Bay Area cities indicates that other cities have installed all-way stops without engineering studies because they have made the same determination that increased pedestrian and vehicular safety is of greater importance. In addition to the intersection of John Muir Parkway and Sussema Street at Yosemite Way, Staff has identified two other locations that were not part of the Kimberley Horn study, but which, in the opinion of staff, require single stop signs to increase pedestrian and vehicular safety. These two additional locations are discussed in your report. On page 334 and 335, the first location is John Muir Parkway, the left turn onto Bayfront Boulevard. The other location is on Bayfront Boulevard, right turn onto John Muir Parkway. What staff has concluded based on observations both from the Public Works Department and from the Police Department is that this is a very crowded intersection. There is a pedestrian crosswalk that is often obscured by delivery trucks. folks who are driving onto Bayfront from John Muir can go around that 90 degree turn with not being able to see the pedestrians who might be halfway out in a crosswalk due to the crosswalk being partially blocked by delivery trucks. We think it's a safety issue and we're recommending that stop signs be placed both on Bayfront Boulevard where it terminates at John Muir Parkway and at the terminus of John Muir Parkway itself. That concludes my staff report. Happy to answer any questions. And we also have Public Works here able to answer questions as well.

Okay, thank you. And Mr. Morris, do you want to weigh in on this at all?

Yeah, just that I spent some time out there and understand I could tell that it regardless of the study, that cars are flying through there. Just the one stop, four-way stop further south or further down for that whole street. As a resident, if I were there and for pedestrian safety, I certainly agree that I think a stop sign is needed there for safety. And if we want to promote pedestrian access, and a lot of people walk towards the bay there, the bay front. And then the same with the end of John Muir Parkway, the two, the stop signs he's talking about, where that's a significant safety issue that I'm surprised hasn't, accidents haven't happened yet, because there's no stop signs, and it's a blind turn kind of, and especially if we want to promote safety, more pedestrian and bike activity in that area. You know, there's a lot of cars that double park there. A lot of delivery trucks, like you said. It's a simple fix, I think. It's not a lot to put a few stop signs in, you know. And I would agree that it's a simple measure that can, it's just a safe thing. There's not a lot of stop signs there, just the one at the beginning. And then it's, I was there and cars were flying, so I can understand.

Okay, thank you. So I'm going to bring it here to council. Council Member Bailey.

Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor, and I saw your hand too. I just wanted to say, this started with community, so Mr. Morris, and I called you by your first name last time, we used to go by last name, so I'm sorry, Interim Director. This is important to the community. The folks over at Muir Point have been asking for this pretty much since they kind of got settled as they moved in. There were lots of adjustments due to the curves in the streets. So you see we have a huge red zone in front of like four or five homes trying to accommodate for this. And I think that it's great to hear that we were able to get the stop signs in. We've also heard here on public comment and at the Traffic Public Safety Committee that folks over at the Exchange slash the Dillon have had similar issues that they've asked about. So I think it's a great way to just hear the community and then give that answer back. I did notify the HOA in the area. They're present who say he's going to post this to maybe some folks online about it. They may check into it tomorrow. but they just said to express their appreciation and that the city was able to find a solution um because many of those homes faced that street which was supposed to be retail so it shouldn't have been homes on that street initially and as a result the kids on the curb or the parents feel are a little bit in danger so i think the slowing down will help us and grateful for the report so thank you very much thank you uh vice mayor i think you wanted to say something

Yes, thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, Director Morris, for this. This is really exciting. John Muir Parkway is actually the street that I live on, and so to see the staff report is really great. As a resident who's lived on John Muir Parkway for several years now, I will say it was really frustrating to hear that if we were to follow the street by the T, we wouldn't meet the numbers that were warranted to have a stop sign. And I get there's a spirit of the law, there's a letter of the law, but sometimes we have to ask ourselves, is a spirit truly being followed, or is a letter meeting up to the spirit, and I think this is addressing the spirit, because we all know what it's like to be on the ground. We've seen our police officers really try to address this with Officer Scholl on his motorcycle, but really, it's often missed, especially in the evening, just earlier today when I was driving over here to City Hall, I was behind three cyclists who were coming. This would be northbound going towards Highway 4 down John Muir. And it was a tight little squeeze. And I thought about all the people who were trying to ride their bikes in the evening who were going around that corner onto Bayfront Boulevard where they have to look, like myself, five, six times to make sure that person isn't flying around, whipping around that corner. So I think, as my colleague mentioned, this is a great way to show the residents that we're listening to what they have to say, and at the same time, really trying to make sure that people are safe. I think this is absolutely exciting, so thank you to staff for putting this together.

Council Member Bhattarai, do you have any comments, questions?

Yes, Madam Mayor, thank you. I just echo my colleague, Council, just said as our community members, public safety is a top priority for me as well, and we decided to put this together. Hopefully it will help to come and then improve the safety as well as the quality of life out there. Thank you for putting this together, staffs.

And I will just add that it's probably at least five years ago that I talked to Public Works about having a stop sign at John Muir Parkway in Tsushima and was told the warrants wouldn't work and I said, well, what does it matter? Most people will stop. And I think that this absolutely makes sense because people coming off the freeway and going on to John Muir Parkway down toward the Bayfront, quite often they're in freeway mode psychologically. And so they just go way, way, way too fast. So this is a simple solution. As I've said, most people will stop. Mr. City Manager, Mr. Morris at the Bayfront and John Muir Parkway. I have heard people talk about that, have real issues. I felt kind of scared sometimes just coming around that curve. Because as you said, there are delivery vans there. So I think this makes a heck of a lot of sense. Do we have any public comment on this item?

I'll turn to my audience. If you'd like to make a public comment on this item, please come up to the podium.

Yes, and you can fill out a speaker card afterwards. Thank you. Mr. Montoya.

I'd like to thank you for bringing up the stop signs. It's really needed. But I also just wanted to ask, is there a way of at least putting a speed bump near the Dillon to slow down traffic also? Because like you said, they're in race mode, it seems, when they come off the freeway. I walk there with my dog all the time, come in around the corner, and they do speed around, but even with a stop sign in between where the Dillon is with the storefronts, they really go fast there also. And you have the Dillon where the parking's coming out from the parking structure from both sides, and you see accidents happen there almost all the time because people are speeding back and forth, and they don't consider that traffic can come on besides pedestrians with the stop signs. I just wanted to know if you can do an addition with the speed bumps on the other side.

Yeah, thank you for your comments. And I'm just going to say the issue of speed bumps, speed humps, speed tables, and raised intersections is a complicated one. And for anybody who is interested, I'm sure that the Public Safety and Traffic Subcommittee will be discussing those items in the future regarding different places in the city.

yes yes please so I didn't think council so so in the budget that we just approved was two hundred and fifty thousand dollars that the council allocated to give to staff to solve the problem so the stop signs are a small piece of that if you look at the agenda if you have a copy of it if you click on the actual report you will see a large to the gentleman that asked the question there's a large diagram there that shows you some very expensive options, some of which staff will be looking at to see which pieces we can afford out of the $250,000, what's left of $250,000, to try and make some more enhancements on that street. As the mayor said, speed tables, the problem with those is they make noise. And so a lot of times residents adjacent to them don't like that. And the community did chime in on that. So at one of our meetings, Traffic and Public Safety Committee meeting, after being explained about the sound that they make, because they do make noise at midnight and one o'clock in the morning and four o'clock in the morning, those residents ask that we look at other options as a result. So we do have some traffic calming measures. We, the city, because it's all of us that takes to vote on something, as you saw, are working to try and find the best solutions for that street. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you. So any other comment online or elsewhere? Okay, so I'll bring it back here to council. We do have a resolution before us.

Madam Mayor?

Yes.

I'd like to make a motion to adopt a resolution of the City Council of the City of Hercules approving the installation of stop signs as follows. Change the intersection of Tashima Street slash Yosemite Way and John Muir Parkway from a two-way stop to a four-way stop. Place a stop sign at the end of John Muir Parkway before the left turn on the Bayfront Boulevard and place a stop sign at the end of Bayfront Boulevard before the right turn on a John Muir Parkway. Second.

Okay, so a motion by Walker-Griffin, seconded by Bailey. Any discussion? No. Roll call vote, please.

Council Member Butter, aye.

Aye.

Council Member Bailey.

Aye.

Vice Mayor Walker-Griffin.

Aye.

And Mayor Kelly.

Aye. Thank you. Passes 4-0. So that concludes our discussion and our action items. Any public communications?

I will turn to my in-person audience one last time. If you'd like to make a public comment on an item not on the agenda, please come up to the podium. Seeing none, that will end public comment.

Okay. So now we're on to reports. Mr. City Manager, do you have anything to report today?

yes madam mayor i do have a few announcements from parks and rec the west contra costa unified school district is hosting free summer meal programs here in hercules through august 7. it's via a mobile food truck that is providing lunch for youth 18 and under at the following locations monday through friday frog pad park at 11 o'clock to 12 o'clock the Community Swim Center from 12.15 to 1.15 p.m., and at Foxboro Park from 1.30 to 2.30. They'll also be providing lunches at the Hercules Library on Friday as well. There will be a ribbon-cutting event on June 25th for the improvements at Foxboro Park. This relates to the new playground and the refurbished basketball courts. Again, that's at 2 p.m. on June 25th. Friday, June 26th, will be our first movie night. The movie nights have returned to Refugio Valley Park. Parks and Rec will be showing Goat. This is an animated action comedy set in an all-animal world about a goat who gets to play basketball this is all new to me so there you have it with that also the Refugio Valley Park shade structure project is coming along as you might have seen the structure frames are up the concrete is poured there's still a handful full of items that need to be finished including adding the picnic tables and barbecue pits There's some additional landscaping and slurry seal that needs to be done as well. There will be another ribbon cutting ceremony set for that in the near future. And finally, from the police department, they have received a award of monies. I can't recall the exact amount, but it's a significant amount of money that will go to funding a new patrol car and also to pay for overtime for police officers. And then, Commander, I believe it's around $150,000 or so? $136,000, so that's a good outcome. That concludes my...

That's wonderful, thank you.

Madam City Attorney, anything to announce, report? Nothing for me. I have seen goats several times, though, and I highly recommend it.

Okay, so I'll bring it here to Council. Council Member Battarai.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just wanted to report that I was able to participate in the ABAG General Assembly last week and with along with my fellow Vice Mayor Alex Graven. It was wonderful event and then we look forward to collaborate more in the regional issues, I guess. Thank you. That's all for me now.

Okay, Council Member Bailey.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just tomorrow, there'll be a special meeting over at MCE, special board meeting. So I'll be attending that. MCE has a new board chair, Vicken, whose last name I cannot pronounce easily. Our former chief operating officer is the interim CEO over there. And for rate payers, they should have seen a rate reduction on their last statement, and that will carry forward for a year. That was rate smoothing, so we didn't buy energy for less, unfortunately, but we have a fund for rate smoothing, so MCE customers should see that in the near future. That's all I have.

Okay, Vice Mayor Walker-Griffin?

I will be seeing Toy Story 5, because apparently there's another one, but I, too, was at the ABAG meeting. What did you say? I don't know, 30 years since the first one, older than me. I, too, was at the ABAG meeting. Earlier today, I had a great conversation with Supervisor Rabbit of Sonoma County, and and Councilman Candell of Lafayette to talk about the possibility of Contra Costa being a sub-region. So why we met with Supervisor Rabbitt was because he led ABAC and just wanted to get his perspective on it. Basically so that way us around here can kind of share the numbers when it comes to RHNA and our housing development. So stay tuned for what might possibly come out of that in the near future. I too attended the Hercules High School graduation. It was pretty cool. It was pretty full circle moment, I should say. I used to be the student vice president at CCC after I left Hercules High School, and I was able to hand the diploma to my little cousin who graduated, who's like a little brother to me. I will attend the mayor's conference. I forgot what city it's in already, but whenever that comes up, and tomorrow I'll be speaking at a panel for the Contra Costa County Clerk's Office about running for office and just what my experience has been. If you are an elected official and you just happen to be watching this or a member of the public, it's not too late to sign up for the East Bay Division's Cornhole Tournament that's coming up this Thursday in Arenda. Should be a lot of fun. And I will also be in attendance at the Foxboro Park Ground Opening.

Thank you. And Councilmember Grimsley and I attended the Juneteenth celebration at the library and out here on front on June 13th. On June 17th, Contra Costa Transportation Authority had a board meeting, approved its budget, also approved going ahead with some, I guess we call it traffic calming measures in El Cerrito on Richmond Street. It's called the Richmond Street project. We approved a possible fund exchange for the San Pablo Dam Road Interstate 80 Phase 2 project. And we had a discussion of OBAG 4, that's the One Bay Area Grant 4. Call for projects coming up, which is being combined with a couple of Measure J calls for projects. It was pretty confusing, but I will be having a meeting with the planning director there and I've got some ideas about what we in Hercules could submit for all of that. I also attended the community open house here on Saturday, June 20th, regarding the housing asset funds. Three of the developers gave their presentations, and afterwards residents were able to ask a lot of questions. That was good. And Mr. City Manager, will that recording of the presentations, will that be available? Because some people could not attend.

Yes, IT was in the process of getting that uploaded to our website this afternoon. It's probably already been done.

Okay, and then can we add it somewhere on the front of the website so that people can go and have a look?

I believe it's going to be on the calendar, so when you look at that event, they'll be able to click on it, but I'm not exactly sure. There may be several places where it can be accessed on our website.

Okay, I'd appreciate that. And I will also, with the vice mayor, be at the Foxboro ribbon-cutting tomorrow. There's new play equipment and new basketball court resurfacing, so that's pretty exciting. okay so that concludes this portion are there any future agenda items here from council no well then going ahead we will uh end this meeting at about 9 19 and our next meeting will be on july 14th thank you everyone

Thank you.