City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, and welcome to this May 11 meeting at the Litmore City Council. I called the meeting to order. Roll call, please.

Councilmember Variantos?

Aye.

Councilmember Branning?

Here.

Councilmember Dunbar?

Here.

Vice Mayor Wong? Here. Mayor Mershon?

Here. If you'll please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? Okay. Moving on to, proclamations and presentations. This is, Public Works Week, May 17 to the twenty third, is coming up.

And I'd like to present this to Carl Brown, our Public Works Director and Joe Prime, our Maintenance and Golf Operations Manager. Although we don't have golf operations anymore, but still the manager. Okay. So, with that, whereas public works professionals focus on stewardship of the city's vital assets, including infrastructure, facilities, and other services that prioritize public health and safety, a high quality of life and well-being for the residents of Livermore. Whereas this year's theme, Rooted in Service, Powered by Community, acknowledges that the roots of service run deep and that the efforts of the public works professionals, whether visible or behind the scenes, helps the community thrive.

And whereas it is in the public's interest for the residents and civic leaders of the City Of Livermore to gain knowledge of and maintain an ongoing going understanding of the importance of public works and public works programs. And whereas the Public Works Department provides essential services to the community, including streets, lighting, landscaping, fleet, facilities, sewer, water, water reclamation, and asset management. And whereas these services could not be provided without the dedicated efforts of public works professionals who operate with the highest standards to maintain the city's roads, water systems, water reclamation and solid waste handling, public buildings, fleet landscaping, streets, pedestrian ramps, sidewalks, traffic signals, street lighting facilities, and structures essential for our residents. Now, therefore, the City Council of the City of Livermore proclaims May 17 to the twenty third, twenty twenty six, to be Public Works Week in the City Of Livermore and encourages residents to recognize the important contributions that Public Works staff make every day to help maintain their comfort and quality of life. With that, spread.

City Livermore Public Works Director,

I wanna thank mayor and council for their support. We are honored to accept this proclamation for National Public Works Week on behalf of the dedicated and skilled staff that we have. So once again, thank you for all the support. We appreciate it.

Thank you again. When it comes to asset management, one of my favorite pieces of trivia is that in Livermore, there are 8,000 wheelchair ramps, the curb cuts in the city, 8,000. And those are valued at $42,000,000 So, as people start talking about maintaining the assets a community, that's no small thing. So, certainly appreciate the tremendous effort that our public works folks do because what they do, a lot of people don't notice it. And that's the great thing about doing a good job is people don't notice when you're doing a good job.

They only notice when things are failing. It's kind of like housework. Know, only notice it when it's not being done. So, Thank you. We also have the Commission for the Arts annual update with Chair Natalia Custodio. Ms. Custodio, welcome.

Good evening, everyone. Mayor Marshawn, council members, and everyone in the audience. My name is Natalia Custodio. I'm a Livermore resident. I have been on the Commission for the Arts for about two to three years now, and it's very fun for me to say that this is a full circle moment as I am a graduate of elementary through high school in the Livermore School System, along with being a part of the Livermore Music, specifically the violin program from fourth to twelfth grade. I'm very happy to be here. I'm very happy to speak on behalf of the Commission for the Arts. So we'll go ahead and get going. The first slide here is just an overview of who we look like and who we are. We're actually at full capacity here, all nine of us on the commission.

We represent a large, diverse audience, ranging from folks from the lab, retired from the lab, from religious communities, from different areas of Livermore. And so, we have a lot of great input from all sorts of backgrounds there.

You're small but mighty.

Yes, exactly. And just a little bit about the Commission for the Arts. So we are here to enhance the cultural programs and enrichment of the arts in the city. We make a lot of recommendations for our grants and programs that are going on around the city as well. We receive different input from the community on the events that happen in the related to art policies and programs, and we also develop and recommend the five- ten year cultural arts plan that is part of the city as well, including all the different goals and strategies, along with financing as well.

So we review and approve public art on a fairly regular basis, according with the different established procedures. We, of course, review and approve public art fund grant and support the goals and priorities adopted by the City Council as well. So just some accomplishments in the last year. We've made some changes, which we'll get to, but we've reviewed and approved more than $5,000 in the mini grant funding, along with $80,000 in the project and program grants. That's continuing to grow each year.

And thanks to a lot of the different outreach efforts that we have there. We also are judges of the Livermore Art Association Spring Art Show and awarded seven $100 awards to those winners. And we also helped again judge the library's Teen Art Expo competition as well. Starting in 2026, we added juniors, high school juniors, the and along with the high school seniors to the high school art awards, awarding five six juniors receiving $500 and seven seniors receiving $1,200 and just some artwork there of some of the different advertisements that we have to get the word out about these programs. Some of these are the new things that we've added in the last year.

We have, as part of being under the library, I think we're celebrating two years this year being under the library, there's been some additional outreach that we've been able to get the word out, especially to our students in the Livermore areas, being on campus, actually having a table to answer questions about participating in these programs, as well as creating pamphlets, flyers around the city that we, as commissioners, can share with others and also leave behind for other local city nonprofits that are in the arts as well to participate and gather more interest in the program and project grants. Here are some of the just listed. This is a very high level, actually. We've participated with so many other local nonprofits and other arts organizations. You can see some of those are much Many of the returning faces and organizations that we work with, but we're very glad to be participating with a wide range of art, including visual and performing arts, as well as sculptural and poetic as well.

And so, as we're looking forward, some items that we're looking to do are some new or improved art spaces. As the city is growing, as our downtown is growing, there's obviously opportunities for new public art spaces for art to be displayed. With along that, there's going to be some updating of the current arts policies and procedures. Again, with everything that's changing and happening in our city boundaries, there's a lot of different opinions, and there's also a lot of different ideas that are out there, and we wanna make sure that we hear everybody and that there's a proper application process and input and feedback process when art is recommended in certain areas. We also have developer initiated art.

As new developers come in, they can We are providing our own input and feedback to developer initiated art, and of course, we oversee the process of recommending a poet laureate interviewing and the recommendation to city council, which we just completed this last month. So, and I think you will be tentatively scheduled in June to meet our new poet laureate that we are hoping to recommend to you. So I think that is about all. Thank you.

Okay. Any questions regarding public art? Art contributes to our quality of life. As I've said before, Picasso said, Art washes from my soul the dust of everyday life, and it certainly does contribute to our quality of life. Mr. McFarland, thank you for being the liaison for the Art Commission. Sincerely appreciate the great work that all of you are doing. Great. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Moving on to the open forum, do we have anybody who wishes to speak at open forum? If we do,

Yes, then I will ask ma'am. You We have four speakers for open forum.

Okay, then I will

explain to them how

they can participate in the open forum.

Certainly. To provide comment, please fill out and turn in a speaker card found at the entrance of the council chamber. Speakers will be announced in the order received. Once public comment opens, each participant's name will be announced, and their three minutes will begin once at the lectern. Please note, a speaker is not required to answer any questions from the city council, and the city council is not required to answer questions from the public. However, the Mayor has the discretion to ask staff to address the speaker's comments when a council member believes it is relevant to a particular business item. The Mayor will announce the conclusion of the public comment period after all comments have been voiced into the record.

Okay, which we'll call the speakers.

Our first speaker is Bob Carling.

The name again, please, sir.

What's that? Good evening. So, as many of you are aware, I serve on the board of directors of Goodness Village located at the Crosswinds Church property near the airport, the golf course, and the outlets. Goodness Village consists of 28 tiny homes providing permanent housing and supportive services for formerly homeless in Livermore, Pleasanton, and Dublin. Goodness Village is a five zero one c three nonprofit financed through grants and donations.

The grants and donations provide this support to permanent staff providing the and providing the supportive services to the 28 individuals calling Goodness Village Home, as well as the upkeep of the tiny homes. I want to call your attention to our upcoming annual fundraiser on 06/20/2026, held at to be held at the Robert Livermore Community Center. I'm inviting all city council, city of Livermore staff, and any of the public to join us that evening in celebrating the success of Goodness Village while looking to the future. You may purchase tickets at this is a little long gvlivermore.org/celebratinggoodnessvillage. That's gvlivermore.org/celebratinggoodnessvillage.

I also have a flyer with a QR code that I will leave with all. And I hope to see you all there and ask for your help in supporting the continued success of Goodness Village. Thank you for your attention and your time.

Thanks for the great work that you do there.

Our next speaker is Archismita Mukherjee.

Good evening board members. My name is Archismita McCurgy, and I'm a high school student from Livermore High School. I'm a student speaking today because I believe the youth safety and the awareness around human trafficking and sexual exploitation are are not being discussed enough in our communities. Over recent data and recent stats, there's 1,800 registered offenders in Alameda County and over 30 plus registered in Livermore alone, and some being not publicly listed as well. Based on my own address, there is 20 registered offenders within just 20 within just two to five mile radius.

And as a teenage girl, that is quite alarming to me. And as my own experience from being a student at Livermore High Schools and other schools, schools are often not covering topics like human trafficking or sexual assault. And from my experience, many students still don't know how to identify grooming, recognize manipulative online behavior, or understand warning signs. And most of the teenagers are active on social media, including ones who use social media appropriately and still yet do not know how to identify these risks and do not know how to under talk about these things. As in youth, what concerns me the most is that these conversations are often treated as too uncomfortable or too sensitive.

And when in reality, the student safety and awareness and prevention should not begin before something happens. As a student, I believe we need to be more direct in our education in schools and community spaces, especially for middle and high school students, even short workshops or presentations or monthly check ins. And some of these topics could help students better recognize these risks, protect themselves, and support each other for the harm that's happening in the Tri Cities, including here as well. I also believe that the funds should we should allocate the funds toward programming and awareness for both the parents and the students. And that's it. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Joe Lee.

An update for a little bit of inspiration. Francis Digital Agency, the Inter Ministerial Directorate for Digital Affairs, announced last month that it is in the process of replacing the Windows operating system on French government computers with the free software operating system, GNULINIX. So it began with the migration of the digital agency's own three fifty workstations, and the migrations for the other government agencies in France will follow nationwide. France has an estimated 2,500,000 workstations, so it'll be exciting to watch as that effort progresses. Denmark's migration to free software has been underway for nearly a year.

The goal there was to complete the migration by next month. So entire nations can do it, and we can do it too. So I also wanted to reiterate that I remain eager to help the city install GNU Linux on a subset of the Livermore Public Library's kiosk computers for public use.

So

a bit of good news. Livermore is no longer alone as the only city in California to hold a Free Software Foundation anniversary event this year. We've been joined by San Francisco. The event in Livermore is one week before the one in San Francisco, and Livermore is going to have a keynote speech. It'll have presentations. I'll have the GNULenix system set up on demo computers for everyone to try out, and it's just six days away. It'll be held at the Civic Center branch of the Livermore Public Library on May 17 from noon to six p. M.

Our next speaker is Alan Marling.

Mayor and counsel, I appreciate the law banning signs on public property. Driving through adjacent cities, it's such an eyesore seeing campaign signs every block or even more frequently. Our law reduces waste while still allowing citizens to proudly display signs on their private property. Other residents have mentioned this law constrains some forms of advertising for business. I believe that's a worthwhile cost for our city to make it more beautiful and attractive to visitors.

And I also believe there are workarounds for that kind of business promotion. So in short, the law is effective. It does make live more better. If you wish to improve it, perhaps by modeling it off laws such as in Oakland or other similar laws, I hope the law will be remain effective in preventing campaign signs from pockmarking our city during any every campaign season. Thank you.

Any more speakers?

No additional speakers for open forum.

Okay. I'm doing good to close the open forum and bring the consent calendar to the council. Does the council wish to pull any items for consent? Do we have any speakers on consent?

Yes, Mayor. We have three speakers.

Okay, I'll open the public comment period for consent.

Our first speaker is Tom Soules.

Mayor Machant and council persons, I feel like I know all of you quite well. And it's no secret that I have been hoping that Livermore would put Eden Housing in a little different place. The current four story Eden Housing units are planned, and that they might possibly be you might possibly be able to combine Quest and Black Box Theater and move them all next to the bank head, thus making the current Stockman Park contiguous with the Veterans Park and extending all the way between Livermore and L Street. I've talked about this several times, so it's nothing new. The low income housing then would have to be moved North of Livermore.

This is is late in the game. I fully understand that. But having seen the traffic and pedestrian congestion that already exists only strengthens my feeling that this would be a good space for respite and relaxation as well as to beautify this our city. The currently planned four story low income housing for this space, in my opinion, is even not as beautiful as the original, the tentative plan back in 2021 and going on for a long time. And my understanding is that the map has been changed.

So I am asking the council to first amend the earlier tentative plan if they're gonna go forward. And so I'm I'm urging the city to refrain from opposing this final the final parcel map, which is numbered 11186. Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Vasco Yorkov, and will be followed by Ellen Marling.

Honorable mayor and council, thank you so much. My name is Vasco Yorgov, and I'm a project developer with Eden Housing. I have been working on Eden's Downtown Livermore Apartments project since 2023, but Eden was actually selected to build this affordable housing community in 2018. I'm here to urge the council to follow staff's recommendation and approve the final parcel map 11186 and its associated subdivision improvements agreement. Unlike previous meetings where dozens of community members came to speak in support of the project, I'm here alone because this is a simple administrative approval that was originally listed on the consent calendar.

Unfortunately, opponents of affordable housing have once again seized on a council meeting to attempt to stop this project. Staff have made clear parcel map 1100186 is substantially in conformance with the latest vesting tentative parcel map. Our opponents have selectively referenced outdated vesting parcel maps, but the latest version from July 2022 contains all elements of the final parcel map. The lots are identical. The error rights are contemplated in both.

And furthermore, section 4.9 of the amended and restated disposition development and loan agreement, quite a mouthful, for this project requires the error rights found in the adoption of this map. I think what is really clear, though, is that this is just the latest in a long line of thinly veiled attempts to stop affordable housing being built downtown. First, was Sequa, then it was the park, now it's the final map. But since the beginning, affordable housing has been the real target. And I do wanna address the point that the gentleman before me made about moving affordable housing.

That's not something that can be done. As I think we've discussed at previous meetings, moving a project invalidates the project. The tens of millions of dollars awarded by the state, the county, and not least of all, the city would be lost. The project was funded and ready to build in 2021. If it wasn't for our opponents, 130 Livermore families would have safe and affordable homes today. Those are the consequences of their actions, but Eden Housing is still here. We remain committed to Livermore and to building this affordable housing. We thank the council for its steadfast support over the years of this project, End Of Eden, and we urge you to approve Item 6.3. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Alan Marley.

Mayor and council, I intended to just briefly speak on 06:11, which has to do with traffic safety. The I spoke at length at this last weekend. A little mistyne there. In brief, I'll just say that 25 miles per hour saves lives, and I would like to see all the residential streets have consistent signage for 25 miles per hour. I hope that'll be considered.

I suppose I'll say a few more words about Eden Housing, which, again, much has been said. The reason why it's important to have this affordable housing downtown, well, the the reasons are many. Number one, it allows for walkable communities, downtown and supermarkets, and also to the Livermore Transit Station that will reduce congestion and be important for long term sustainability in Livermore. And second, it continues to be deplorable that so many so much money was spent by Joan Seplow, who owns independent in Gene King is in the audience to suppress this housing development like the motivations. Don't care to speculate on, but it has for our community and let's see.

It continues to be a shame that it's not the bill yet, and, also, it's cost to see many millions of dollars in defending the spurious lawsuits and cost our workers a lot of relief. We have to commute, in some cases, hours to get to live more, provide essential services, or live more citizens. Thank you.

Mayor, we have one additional speaker for the consent calendar, Greg Scott.

Good evening. I'm Greg Scott. I'm speaking on 6.6 on your water capital improvement. Yay for water capital improvement management. We should realize that we're in a water crisis.

Livermore gets 80% of its water from the California State Water Project. California State Water Project ships 5,000,000 acre feet of water south through Southern California every year. That's more than 1,600,000,000,000 gallons. 1,000,000 acre feet of that goes to Kern County. Another 1,500,000 acre feet goes to Western Kern County and Santa Barbara County and San Luis Obispo County, and 2,500,000 acre feet or over more than 800,000,000 gallons of water goes to the Edmonton Pumping Station that pumps at 2,000 feet in elevation to Los Angeles.

We got a problem because Mead Reservoir is at 33% of capacity and dropping fast upstream with that is the Powell Reservoir, which is 24% of capacity and dropping fast. That watershed 40,000,000 people depend on the water from that watershed. Southern California takes 4,700,000 acre feet out of the California, out of the Colorado River. That's down in recent years 300,000 acre feet, and there isn't enough water for everyone. What do we think is going to happen here?

Is Northern California going to let Los Angeles dry up and blow away? I don't think so. We're going have to ship much more water to Southern California. We got a little problem there because our snowpack is what? 18% of normal. It's the lowest since 1950. We're getting lower water into the San Joaquin Aquifer. The San Joaquin Aquifer is collapsing, which is collapsing underneath the California aqueduct. It is estimated that the California Aqueduct needs $3,000,000,000 in repair. Its flow has dropped to Southern California over 40%.

So we're in a wider crisis. We need to do something about that, and we're going to have to do drastic conservation plans here in Livermore. It's going to affect us drastically to meet that, but glad to see you're doing some capital improvements. More money is going have to be allotted for improving the California Aqueduct system. Thank you.

There are no additional speakers.

Wait, no more speakers?

No additional speakers.

Okay. I'm going to close the public comment period on consent. Is there any further discussion on consent, or is there a motion? Okay, certainly. Six, six, seventeen and six, 22. Okay. Your comments on 06/17.

The reason I phoned is for the public to understand our budget works and what we've done with the budget, and we lost a very valuable person Tina who retired and I was always pleased with her report on our standing. I'd like to staff to kind of get explain a little more and show up why our city is doing so well with our budget and taxpayers' money.

Honorable Mayor Marshawn, members of the City Council, this is your city manager, Mariana Birch. I will just provide a really high level overview of item six seventeen. And this is an update on the city's budget. The city has a two year budget. And so we're about to enter the second year of the two year budget on July 1 And the staff periodically reviews revenues and expenditures and provides an update to council on the second year of the two year budget.

And this update before you indicates that we have made some adjustments on the revenue side. Most notably, our sales tax numbers are down as they are in the region. But thankfully, we also had adjustments on the expenditure side that allow us to stay balanced. Not only we continue to be balanced on a year to year basis, but we also maintain strong general fund reserves at 30% as required by council policy. So I think that probably summarizes the item quite well and available for any questions.

So, other words, we're not running a deficit like many of the cities around us are?

Not only we're balanced, but we also have very strong reserves, and of course, that's before we discuss reserves that are outside of the general fund that have to do with infrastructure and asset management and so on. So very solid.

Yeah, read recently that one of our neighboring cities was expecting to burn through their reserves in three years, and then they didn't know what they were going to do. So my kudos to the staff for the excellent work that they're doing on the budget and ensuring that we continue to meet the needs of our constituents.

Thank you for your leadership, Mayor and City Clause.

And six '22, comments?

Same idea. The city is not in the business of housing people that we make an effort. And I wanna use it extrapolate on the on the six twenty two in our efforts for the below market rate.

I can very briefly speak on that item as well, Mr. Mayor. As you can see from the title of the item, this item consolidates various policies and procedures and practices that we already have in place that we employ to ensure maintenance of below market rate rental units. And so the document before you basically consolidates those various requirements in one document that is easy for both staff as well as developers and property owners and renters to use.

I'm done.

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

Councilor, a couple of comments on and a quick question. I just wanted to inform my staff on item 6.3 since it was brought up The final parcel map, is it consistent with the vested tentative map from 2022?

Yes, Kim Sealy, city attorney. The vesting tentative map that was approved as a minor amendment in 2022 is consistent with the final map. And just to reiterate, the amendment that was done in 2022 was in compliance with our city code, as well as the subdivision map act. And it was also done in accordance with the DDLA from 2022. Specifically, there were two provisions in the DDLA section 4.9, as was mentioned previously, and section 8.1.

In addition, further giving notice in the DDLA is a schedule of performance, which specifically stated it was item 11 of the schedule of performance, which specifically stated that the developer shall submit an application for a minor amendment to the tentative map by 06/01/2022. So that information was in the schedule of performance of the DDLA. It was also submitted to the council in a supplemental packet.

All

right, thank you. Just wanted to clarify on that. And I wanted to thank Mr. Yorub and Eden Housing again for sticking with the city. I really appreciate the efforts to build affordable housing for some of our most needy residents.

And hopefully, the spurious lawsuits that have been brought against the city and have delayed housing are done. We appreciate your work. We appreciate everything you've done. It's been several headwinds, but we finally can see the light and I look forward to the groundbreaking. With that, I also wanna just mention item six eleven really quickly was brought up, The Vision Zero Plan for those who aren't familiar, I recommend, this is actually one that I recommend for anyone in the audience, anyone listening to actually look up and read.

The idea being that no one should ever be afraid to walk the street, walking the streets, to be afraid of cars, to be afraid to bike. The goal is to have zero traffic fatalities in Livermore. This is a challenging goal, but it's an achievable goal, and I appreciate staff bringing this to us as something that I think is very important for the city to maintain and go forward with. And lastly, our next meeting will be during Pride Month. And I just wanted to thank staff for bringing forward the resolution to fly the Pride flag in June, as well as the Powell MI flag in November.

I think it's very important that we recognize different communities in our city, and I appreciate staff's work of being an inclusive welcoming place. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Dunbar.

I know this is a very long consent packet, so I want to thank staff for all the work that went into the very many items that are on this consent packet, including asset maintenance for our streets and roads, what was mentioned in water by a public commenter, change of property for conservation purposes, and I'll add that to Councilmember Brayning's point that there is a city in New Jersey that hasn't had a traffic death in nine years now, Hoboken, and it takes a lot of effort and takes time to get there, but it is possible. So lots of good stuff on here. Thanks for all the work.

Okay. Vice Mayor, any comments?

I just am dittoing what the two previous council members just said. Big thanks for all the work on the Vision Zero Plan. I really enjoyed reading it, and I know so much work went into it, especially the community outreach, and the work at the high schools. I really appreciate the work on that. Yeah, I'll just leave it there, I just, agreement with what the previous council member said.

Okay, so with that, if there's no further comment on the consent calendar, do I have a motion?

So moved.

Okay, motion made by Councilmember Branning. I'll second. Seconded by Councilmember Dunbar. Any discussion of the motion? All in favor say

aye. Aye.

Any opposed? Any abstentions? It passes unanimously. Thank you very much. Oh, I'm sorry. Let the record show that Councilmember Barrientos, I believe, is going to has asked to recuse himself on six point three. Comment was before before the meeting. So, is that still correct Mr. Barrientos? You just just you you were you're recusing yourself so that you're not voting on 6.3. Okay, very good. Just to clarify the record there. Okay, with that, moving on to public hearings 7.1.

Good evening, mayor and council. My name is Amy Walker, and I'm the management analyst for the Human for the Human Housing and Human Services Division. The item before you tonight is a public hearing on the fiscal year twenty twenty six twenty seven annual action plan. So the annual action plan covers a one year period and describes what projects are gonna be funded with our federal grants. That includes the Community Development Block Grant, which we refer to as CDBG, and our Home Investment Partnership Grant, which we refer to as HOME.

This year's action plan covered the period beginning 07/01/2026, and will go through 07/30/2027. The projects being funded in the action plan help achieve goals that the city identified in our five year consolidated plan. These goals are providing affordable housing and rental assistance, supporting core public services and improving infrastructure and facilities. So the projects that are included in the action plan for fiscal year twenty six-twenty seven are the following. Two tenant based rental assistance programs with abode services in Tri Valley Haven, a section 108 repayment for access community health.

And we have funding for a construction capital project for the emergency shelter rebuild, a public service project for Spectrum Meals on Wheels, and then administrative costs to manage the grants. As a reminder, we are in the first two year grant cycle that we've done, so this will be the second year of that grant process. And the projects included in this year's action plan had their grant funding approved last year when we were doing the grant process. But HUD, we have to submit every year a public hearing in an annual action plan that submits these projects to HUD on an annual basis, even if we approve them every two years. So for the twenty six-twenty seven timeline on 04/04/2026, HUD announced our grant allocations for the year.

And then from April 10 to May 11, we've been in a thirty day public review and comment period. And then May 11, which is today, we're doing our public hearing. And then June 3, the county will submit our action plan to the HUD for us. And as of tonight, we've received no comments on the action plan. Okay.

So in conclusion, the Human Services Commission and staff are recommending that City Council adopt a resolution that approves the fiscal year twenty six-twenty seven annual action plan for submission to Alameda County and HUD, and that we authorize the city manager to negotiate and execute all documents and agreements with HUD in any sub grantees. And we also authorize the city manager to make whatever actions are necessary and appropriate to carry out the intent of the resolution. Are there any questions?

Okay. Are there any questions from the council? Do we have any public comment?

We have no public comment there.

Okay. In that case, I'm going to close the public comment period. Just I'd like to highlight there are a couple of items here for the Tri Valley Haven, literally, the Tri Valley Haven has helped thousands of women and children who are victims of domestic abuse. And when you look at the amount of money that we get from the Community Development Block grants and from the Home Campaign, these really are small amounts, but they can make a tremendous impact and make a big difference in our community. So, I sincerely appreciate the efforts that staff does, spreading out these small dollar amounts, but making a tremendous impact in people's lives.

So, thank you very much for that. If there's no comment and no questions, I'll entertain a motion.

Move staff's recommendation.

Okay. Motion made by Councilmember Branning. Is there a second?

I'll second.

Okay. Seconded by Vice Mayor Wong. Any discussion on the motion? All in favor? Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any abstentions? It passed unanimously. Thank you very much. Okay. 7.2, a public hearing to consider a resolution authorizing Livermore Sanitation for a rate adjustment. We have Marissa

Good evening, Mayor Marshawn and members of the City Council. I am Marissa Gann, the Interim Public Works Manager. The item before you tonight requests that City Council consider the annual adjustment to Livermore Sanitation rates for the upcoming rate year 'seventeen, which coincides with fiscal year 'twenty six-'twenty seven. Livermore Sanitation began serving the City Of Livermore in July 2010 after a competitive selection process. In April 2020, the City Council approved the updated franchise agreement with Livermore Sanitation, extending the contract term by a minimum of ten years, at least through 2030.

The franchise agreement states that LSI proposes rates, and it is the City Council's responsibility to authorize rates by determining if the proposed adjustment complies with the methodology described in the franchise agreement. LSI is required to provide at least 30 notice to rate payers when rates are adjusted. Rate adjustments occur annually using either an index based methodology or a cost based review. For this upcoming rate year 'seventeen, an index based methodology was used. The index based methodology utilizes various cost adjustment factors, such as the percent change in consumer price index, compressed natural gas fuel pricing index, and Motor Vehicle Maintenance and Repair Index.

These indices are applied to specific categories of LSI's costs. A 1.65% increase is proposed for rate year 'seventeen. You may recall there was a significant decrease last year of 8.67 to the rates. This table is a comparison of current rates and proposed rates and the number of cart subscriptions in each size. Approximately 80% of residents subscribe to the two smaller cart sizes.

Staff has confirmed that the rate adjustment calculations comply with the franchise agreement methodology and is therefore recommending that the City Council authorize an increase of 1.65% to rates for all customers as reflected by the updated Exhibit H to the franchise agreement. Thank you, and staff is available for questions.

Okay. Thank you very much. Any questions from the Council? Do we have any speakers?

We have no public comment for this item there.

Okay. In that case, I'm going to close the public comment period. Just a quick question. If going back over the last two years, what has been the adjustment to the rate?

With the decrease last year added to the increase for this year, it's still a decrease of 7.02%.

Over the last two years, the rates have gone down over 7%.

That's correct.

Okay. That's great news. We'd love to hear that. Okay. In that case, I'll bring it back to the Council. We've closed the public comment period. Is there a motion? Okay, motion made by Councilmember Variantos, seconded by Councilmember Dunbar. Any discussion? All in favor?

Aye.

Any opposed? Any abstentions? It passed unanimously. Thank you very much. Okay. Moving on to matters for consideration. This is 8.1, the comprehensive general plan update, draft general plan twenty twenty two thousand and forty five.

Good evening, Mayor Marshawn and members of the City Council. I'm Andy Ross, principal planner in your community development department, and I'm joined by Steve Riley, our planning manager. Also in attendance with us this evening is members from our consultant team. I can hear them shuffling behind me. We're really excited to be here with you this evening at this milestone in our general plan update process.

This represents numerous meetings of your general plan advisory committee planning commission sessions and ultimately check ins with the council to receive your direction on pieces and parts of the draft general plan. Now we've put it all into one comprehensive document. Tonight, we're not recommending any action from the council. We're simply seeking direction from you whether we should make any moderate moderate modifications or adjustments

Easy for you to say.

Thank you. The general plan, now that you've seen it in its full context. So this is our general plan vision. It, remains the same since, it was created at the beginning of the process and ultimately articulates that the general plan is seeking a high quality of life for the Livermore community. It's supported by a variety of guiding principles that you'll see distributed throughout each of the elements of the general plan as listed on the screen.

The housing element is called out because it's adopted under separate cover on its own time horizons. Also of note, we'd like to point out the implementation plan. Currently, your 2003 general plan has goals, objectives, policies and actions in each one of the elements. The draft general plan creates an implementation chapter that takes the actions and puts it into that chapter so that we can monitor and track over time. And each of the elements are simplified to just state goals and policies.

Previously, city council provided direction that policy should remain higher level, that they should be directional and provide guidance, not be overly prescriptive, and that that should be reserved for more detailed strategies as part of our implementation documents. Our draft general plan carries forward important themes and topics, important to the Livermore community, things like maintaining and strengthening our downtown, facilitating infill development, protecting and preserving our open space and our ag lands in South Livermore, and also supporting a multimodal transportation system. The draft plan also adds areas of additional emphasis, including climate resilience and environmental justice. These policies are distributed throughout each of the elements and identified by their own graphical icon. We have also introduced the concept of healthy communities where topics are covered, such as childcare, senior services and access to food.

Not all of it, which is the responsible responsibility of the city, but there are policies that guide how the city would interact with those service providers. This is your draft general plan land use map. This is the same map that was reviewed and authorized by council about a year ago. Has since been integrated into the land use element of the draft general plan. Just as a reminder, it reflects some targeted naming updates to better reflect the allowed uses on-site and also some rebranding coming out of our focus area discussions, merges some of our existing designations that allows similar uses and similar geographies.

The general plan has a variety of maps and exhibits and graphics, one of which is this transitional or study area exhibit. So the general plan identifies several areas for additional study and more granular planning. So for example, the Midtown area shown on the exhibit outlined in purple is identified for a future specific plan contemplating that area transitioning into a complete neighborhood over the lifespan of the general plan. Also shown on this exhibit is the East Of Greenville area. It's not shown on the land use map, but it is shown in this exhibit identified for a potential future study.

It's supported by some policies that identify conditions under which it may be studied. It doesn't require the area to be studied, but based on monitoring and tracking of certain conditions, the council may elect or direct staff to study the area. The general plan also includes some high level policy language around scenic resources, balanced with policies about high quality architecture and landscape design to balance those views with inviting entryways into the community. Staff at this time is recommending keeping existing more regulatory policies under a separate cover until such time as we can incorporate them into the development code or specific plans. And we do anticipate bringing development code amendments before the council, along with the general plan for adoption to apply specific development standards to certain areas that would both protect views and help achieve the city's economic development goals.

So since the release of the draft general plan in February, we've provided several channels to provide feedback. We received quite a bit of feedback. Some of the themes include maintaining our non residential, retail and industrial areas, providing a range of housing, different affordability levels, and planning for a multimodal transportation system. Those are all consistent with the themes and feedback we've heard throughout the process. In addition, we've received some questions about population and growth.

So the draft general plan environmental impact report has population figures, but they're not considered forecasts or targets or goals. They reflect a maximum theoretical build out under the land use map. And that maximum build out illustrates housing capacity needed to plan for multiple future regional housing needs allocation cycles. Actual population growth is expected to be lower and occur based on market conditions and again, not a full zoning capacity. Your draft general plan was reviewed by your advisory committee as well as your planning commission.

The general plan advisory committee did recommend adoption of the draft general plan. Planning Commission supported the document and had some recommendations, including clarifying floor area ratios and the land use element, adding a new policy about open space and Duluth Canyon. They also recommended minor land use adjustments to reflect current conditions and also support existing businesses. And they also support existing businesses. And they recommend clarifying the East to Greenville study area language, specifically that the study would not be required under any circumstances.

The city retains that discretion to study that area and that neither the policies in the general plan nor a future study could alter the urban growth boundary without the approval of Livermore voters. So for next steps, we anticipate publishing the final environmental impact report this June and then shortly after bringing back the general plan and the EIR for adoption hearings, both the Planning Commission City Council this summer. And we are seeking the council's direction this evening. We're recommending Council provide any direction to us on revisions that we'd like to see incorporated into the draft general plan based on community feedback, the advisory committee feedback and Planning Commission recommendations, and staff would incorporate that into the draft general plan and bring that back to council for adoption. That concludes staff's presentation, and we're available for any questions you might have and to receive your direction.

Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Do we have public comment?

Yes, mayor, we do. We have eight speakers. Our first speaker will be Bob Carling, followed by Greg Scott, followed by Julie. Our first speaker is Bob Carling.

Hello again. I was on City Council in the 2022 when we formed a Residence Committee to update the general plan. That plan is now complete, and I want to thank the public and city staff for the high quality product that has been generated. I also want to call out Planning Commission for their attention to the details and for some of the comments that they made. No plan is completely accurate in predicting what will happen in the future.

The plan does provide, however, the context for our thinking today with the expectation that adjustments and changes may be realized in the future. Again, thanks to all those who had a part in producing such a fine document. Gina Bonanno wasn't able to be here this evening has asked me to read a message from her. These are Gina's words. I was on City Council when the effort to update the general plan was launched in the 2022.

One of our first tasks was to appoint a committee that would broadly represent our community and help guide this process through completion. So, I'd like to first thank the members of the committee and the city staff for their time and the commitment to this important work. The high quality of this plan reflects the rigor, thoughtfulness, and expertise you all have brought to this effort. Livermore is thriving. Our downtown is the envy of our neighbors.

Our businesses are doing well. We're building affordable housing. We're becoming a technology and innovation hub, and our culture and nonprofit organizations are well supported. This general plan update provides the policy framework for building on this success and for realizing our vision for Livermore's future. While no general plan can anticipate or forecast all of the changes or control, all of the variables that will affect us, it is designed to reflect our values and priorities and allow us to adapt over time.

Tonight, I encourage you to hear from the community, consider the Planning Commission's recommendations, and provide staff direction for finalizing the plan. I look forward to celebrating its approval at your July meeting. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Greg Scott.

Good evening, Greg Scott. First question on transportation. What are the proposed BART closures in phase one, which would be it would include West Dublin and Castro Valley? What with the even the current building and future building, what would the effects of those closures be in phase one closures of BART stations? Phase two closure would include the Dublin Pleasanton station that would affect the I-eighty Corridor.

Considerably with the building now and the building in the future in this plan. Next is we need the land. Outside of the urban. Services boundary not to be developed. We this is April 18. Financial Times. The article is the food crisis to come. Actually, the food crisis is already here and it's here. We think we're buffered in The United States and here in this community. Go look at the demand at the food pantries.

It's increased considerably. 3,500,000 Americans just lost their snap. That is their food stamps, and this is nothing new with the Iraq War. 59% of our fruits sold in The United States are imported. 35% of our vegetables are imported in from 2024 to 2025.

The increase in bankruptcies in farming is 46%. We're in a food crisis. Okay, the other thing is, with the plan, and I discovered this in the GPAC meeting I attended, we haven't considered generative artificial intelligence effects, and I use it as an example in growth. And it's been around for years. The GPT was introduced in 2022.

It's going to have major effects, and also it's going to have major effects because what we should do is make it clear in the general plan that we are not going to break the urban growth boundary. We should also make it clear that we're not going to convert any of our industrial land into residential. We need that land because the general type artificial intelligence technology is going to leapfrog considerably, especially since over at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab, we have the El Capitan computer, which is an exascale computer, which means it's doing a billion billion floating point operations per second, and it's running generative artificial intelligence. And it's running it on a floating point 64, which is the double precision. The problem with current models and generative artificial intelligence is their precision problem.

That introduced technology is going to leapfrog the current technology we already have, and that's going to do follow-up businesses. Why should Livermore not be a hub for that technology? It's going to need the industrial land it has and then maybe more. So we should not be converting industrial land into residential land. Once again, we need the land outside of the urban growth boundary not to be developed. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Julie, followed by Jane King, followed by Katie Marcel.

So our next speaker I'll

the mayor and council. And thank you to all for the work that's been done on the general plan. It's been a lot of great work, so thank you all. My point tonight is that the wording of the General Plan 2045 is critically important. We must be wary of projections, as big developers often exaggerate numbers to show demand for projects that ultimately serve their financial needs, not the public good.

Given that Livermore is a community of scientists, mathematicians, and a highly educated population, we must ensure the math in our city documents is correct. To include inaccurate numbers is a disservice to our residents. The 2045 general plan update clearly states that the Livermore's population will increase by 50% by 2045. This prediction is contradicted by both recent trends and historical data. Livermore's total population decreased by almost 2,000 residents over the past five years.

During this recent decline, the city's draft Environmental Impact Report, DEIR, assumes an increase of 43,820 new residents from 2025 to 2045, a more than 50% increase over Livermore's current population of 83,363. So that got me a little curious. I thought so here they're coming up with big numbers for where our projection will be for population, but I thought, well, where have we been? Where would have been the numbers for the past twenty years? So historically, Livermore's population grew by only about 8,000 residents over the last twenty years.

8,000 residents over twenty years. Even at its highest growth peak in the early '90s, it was still only about 14,000 residents, not almost 50,000 residents, as the city's DEIR report states. This projected growth is completely unrealistic. How could Livermore, with just 5.2 of the county's population, account for 28% of its future growth in the next twenty years? It's not realistic. So let's please ensure the math in our city's documents is correct on the final EIR. Thank you very much.

Our next speaker is Jean King, followed by Katie Marcel, followed by Jeremy Troutmasi.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. I am Jean King. The citizens of Livermore have supported our open spaces, scenic corridors, vineyards, ranchland, and the urban growth boundary that protects them. We have not had the urban sprawl of other cities, but developed within our boundaries with a wonderful downtown with its many community amenities. 82% voted for Livermore's South growth boundary.

More than 10,000 citizens signed the petition to qualify the North boundary. 72% voted against the Power D breaking the North UGB. The citizens of Livermore have over the years supported the urban growth boundary to keep our city lively. The General Plan 2045 should not now propose breaking this UGB. It is rather ambiguous and confusing the language that's been used there.

Change the wording in the general plan from focus growth within the UGB to say limit growth to within the urban growth boundary to show the support for the urban boundary. We do need to be aware of future RENA numbers. Livermore and the Bay Area have grown rapidly in the past, but will not necessarily in the future. Livermore's population, as Julie said, has actually decreased in the last five years. The General Plan 2045 makes the assumption, as Julie said, that Livermore's population in the next twenty years will increase by 50% with 43,000 additional residents.

Do we want the rapid growth with its traffic and pollution problems and water needs? And again, reiterate what Julie said. If Livermore's population would grow by the estimates in General Plan 2045, that would represent more than 27% of the county's total projected growth. Yet in 2024, Livermore's population was approximately 5% of Alameda County. Livermore with 5% should not be required to provide for 27% of the County's growth.

The City's fiscal impact analysis states that the estimated residential growth through 2045 is probably less than 8,000 houses. Areas zoned industrial should not be rezoned now as residential. We need land in the city for industrial uses. Other land that is not zoned industrial can be used for residential growth. It has been shown that there is adequate space for both residential and industrial growth within the city boundaries. Thank you.

The next speaker is Katie Marcel.

Good evening, Mayor and Council members. I'm Katie Marcel, CEO of Innovation Tri Valley Leadership Group, and I'm here tonight to express our gratitude to all who contributed to the city's general plan draft, and to support this thoughtful and forward thinking plan that delicately balances innovation and growth with preserving a healthy community and quality of life. A city's general plan is more than a land use document. It's a declaration of what a community believes it can be. Livermore's future is tied closely to its role within the broader Tri Valley region.

As the area continues to grow and evolve, this general plan serves as a shared vision, guiding not only Livermore's development, but also its contribution to the region's collective identity and economy. ITV's 2040 Vision Plan identifies the Tri Valley's $52,000,000,000 GDP as being anchored by a uniquely diverse innovation economy. To honor that potential, the general plan must actively welcome the commercial and industrial uses that drive this innovation economy forward, including emerging technologies like commercial fusion energy, which is happening right here. The 2040 Vision also makes clear that infrastructure is destiny. We urge you to acknowledge that power, high speed communications, water, and transportation aren't just utilities.

They're a foundation on which the next generation of companies will decide to locate, stay, and grow. The General Plan Advisory Committee has done the hard, thoughtful work of planning for Livermore's future. We're grateful for that stewardship, and we look forward to working alongside all of you as the vision becomes reality. Please keep this plan moving forward. Thank you.

Next speaker is Jeremy followed by Doug Mann, followed by Sherry Souza.

Honorable mayor, city council persons, hello. Happy to be back. My name is Jeremy Trudmasi. I'm gonna do my best to stick to my notes tonight, and I had the privilege of serving as our Vice Chair on this General Planning Committee. First and foremost, I wanted to say a thank you to Planning Commission Chair Tracy Kronzak, who threw my name in the hat for that.

Certainly didn't think I was qualified for that role, and I learned the hard way that you can grow into anything, so really enjoyed that. Over the past four years, we, alongside the Planning Commission's city staff, our planning partners in PlaceWorks, the community, and yourselves, have worked tremendously and tirelessly to put forward the best version of this document, and proud of it. We represented a diverse range of Livermore residents, and while it took some time for us to get rolling, as AMD and Brandon and the city staff can attest to, ultimately, were very thorough, and again, we were proud of what we got to. It was a tremendous document to unravel that hadn't been dusted off in quite some time, so there was some catching up to do, we got there. You know, the perspectives, research, and value our group was able to offer, like I said, you know, proud is kind of the theme of what we were able to do, so, you know, lastly, in conjunction with my recommendation to keep the ball moving on the document presented in front of you tonight, I would like to state that the work does not stop with the adoption of this document.

I hope and implore our community to remain engaged as the work really is only just beginning. This document sets the standard for what can be done, and there is room. We feel really good about the room we left for the city to grow naturally and organically within the confines of this document. We live in a tremendous city worth working for, and if you play your cards right and work diligently, you might find yourself the chair of a planning commission or even the mayor. So thank you.

Next speaker is Doug Mann, followed by Sherry Souza.

Evening council. I'd like to start by saying yes, I want the East Of Greenville study area just taken off of this. I'll get back to that. The other issue that I'm focused on let me introduce it this way. Some some of you are are newer to the community, but many years ago, I was the first guy that I know of to declare that BART was never coming to Livermore. And I had my reasons in 1999. I thought it seemed doubtful. By early two thousand, I was convinced it wasn't going to come here because it was too expensive to design, build, and operate, and

it was never going to

be a taxpayer value. And in between all that, most of you still weren't here, but we had this big keep Bart on the freeway thing. People were gathering signatures. It went to the council. They adopted it. It was all this energy behind Bart delivered. But I just sat back and said, A lot of energy wasted for something that's never going to happen. Valley Link is facing significant headwinds. I will recognize that now the language in this document at least suggests that the train might not come. It uses, you know, the word potential, etcetera, in more places, but not everywhere.

And the thing you need to remember is this document is going to outlive you on the council. People ten years from now, fifteen years from now are going to look at this and be coming up with ideas of what they want to propose for development projects. And they're not going to know all this backstory. And when they see Valley Link Train station potential, oh, a train station's coming. By that time, it might even be obsolete.

But I'd like to see you add language that at least gives people permission to feel more doubtful that it's going to be built because you're going to be right. And I would maybe perhaps add a line that says some community members have spoken about the Valley Link Train Station as being very unlikely to be built. Something like that, I think, would be fair to these people who you don't know, and they won't know you, but they're going to be looking at this document and saying, well, what is this Livermore thing anyway? Getting back to East Of Greenville, you were at the Planning Commission, every single community member who stood up to speak about East Greenville study area wanted you to take the East Of Greenville study area out. And it's fair to look.

Put it this way. How many Livermore residents have said, hey, hey, hey, keep that East Of Greenville study area in there? Okay, not too many. So just take it out. Sorry you spent all the money on the study that you've done so far. I tried to convince you not too big. You didn't. Well, anyway, have a good day.

The next speaker is Sherry Souza.

Good evening, council members, mayor, city staff. My name is Sherry Souza, and I am the CEO of the Livermore Valley Chamber of Commerce. And I come before you tonight representing the Livermore Valley Chamber of Commerce and the business owners and workers in Livermore. The chamber represents member businesses in all sizes and industries that currently operate in the city of Livermore. We deeply appreciate the effort and the care that went into developing a plan of this scale and importance.

Crafting a general plan is no small task, as it requires thoughtful coordination, long term vision, and a commitment to serving the community's evolving needs. I would like to focus tonight on how this plan plays a critical role in shaping the future of Livermore's commercial and industrial sector. An essential part of that vision is maintaining Livermore as a welcoming home for commercial and industrial enterprises. These sectors are foundational to the local economy, and their continued presence supports job creation, innovation, and overall prosperity and economic vitality. The general plan provides a framework for ensuring that businesses continue to see Livermore as a place where they can thrive and grow.

They are an important contributor to the city's financial strength, enabling the city to maintain its infrastructure and provide for a great quality of life. Sustaining the right balance between housing and jobs remain vital. A healthy community depends on the equilibrium where residents have access to employment opportunities close to home, and businesses benefit from a stable local workforce. By keeping this balance in focus, which requires adequate space zoned for commercial and industrial growth, Livermore can continue to flourish. This is a solid plan, and please keep the future needs of the commercial industrial sector in mind as it moves forward.

We acknowledge the work the city staff and the general plan advisory committee has invested in planning for our future, and we support this recommendation for the general plan and encourage adoption of this plan. Thank you for your attention to this critical element of our economic future.

Mayor, there are no additional speakers.

Okay. In that case, I'm going to close the public comment period and bring it back to the Council. Questions or comments from the Council? Councilmember Brannan.

Do you want to split it to questions and then comments? Sure. Okay, I just said, first of all, thank you. I'll get back to that when I get to my comments, but I just had a couple of questions I wanted to address. First of all, one of the commenters said that the general plan references that the population will grow by 50%. Don't believe we use any language similar to that in there. Is that correct?

That's correct.

And the numbers that we cite in there, there are no projections for population growth.

No, they're not.

And then looking back at the past general plan, the maximum build out numbers that were used in the general plan versus the actual population growth, was it anywhere near 100% of those numbers? No, it was not 100%. Was it even close?

About half. Yeah.

So

when people are citing the maximum build out, it seems like that is just part of the EIR process. It isn't part of the general plan process, but it has nothing to do with actual population growth or expectations of population growth. And so it seems to me that it is something that people are using just to try to throw errors into mix without any actual backing to them. Furthermore, let me see. I wanted to ask really quickly.

Let me see. Actually, I'll save the rest for comments.

Questions? Councilmember Dunbar?

Just to take that one step further, you talked about the EIR population figures, but could you speak a little bit more about why it's done in that specific way? What is the legal framework that causes us to do that in the first place?

So there's two parts to that. One is the environmental impact report is looking at potential physical impacts citywide. And so we want to look at be conservative and look at a high magnitude of what the potential impact could be. So if everything were to build out, this is what we could expect to happen. And how do we mitigate for that and plan for it?

The other part, though, why we have to look at those numbers and that land use map is because of future RENA cycles. We're anticipating that the numbers will either be the same or continue to grow. And around this sixth cycle, we anticipate we plan for 5,000 units. If we have to plan for another 5,000, another 5,000, we need to find the capacity to do that to meet state requirements.

Could you speak to what if it's not done that way? What are the consequences of that?

We're in a unique opportunity of updating the whole general plan comprehensively so that we can look out on those time horizons. If we don't do it that way, it's likely that staff would be before you at each cycle, seeking amendments to the general plan and zoning to find spaces to meet housing requirements.

So we would be rushing to find locations that may no longer be vacant

Exactly.

Available to us. And the consequences of not having any locations left would be what?

At that point, there are provisions in the urban growth boundary that would allow us to look outside.

Yeah. I mean, what? I guess it's more of a state question of if we're not meeting the RENNA numbers and we have no vacant parcels to accommodate the RENNA numbers, what is the consequence of that?

There's several.

To the city's land use authority.

Sure. There's several. There's builders' remedy, where the city's land use authority would be ineffective. If we have a non compliant housing element, there's punitive measures that the courts could impose fines or fees on the city, and the city could lose access to several funding sources for housing projects and other infrastructure projects.

So to wrap that all together, if, you know, there are there are reasons why we're doing it that this way, legally from the perspective of EIR is that you want to forecast it in that way. And the consequences of not doing that way may actually result in housing in locations we didn't even want in the first place and would cause a very big use of staff time to react to stuff in the moment years down the line in a way that's not very comprehensively planned or is less comprehensively planned than what we're talking about today. Is that

Yes, that's much better assessment than what I provided.

Thank you.

Customer burritos, questions?

Okay. Christie, go first.

I kind of want to follow-up on that train of thought. So there are consequences for not having enough land to fulfill the numbers that are given to us by the state. What are the consequences? Because we're balancing land use needs for residential use, but also for commercial and industrial use, which is also very critical to the effectiveness and the success of the city. What are the kinds of consequences that can happen from not having enough land for commercial industrial use?

It's a good question. We're trying to find the right balance. The city has goals to make sure that these various land uses occur in harmony and complement each other. We look at job generation as a quality of life indicator, allowing people the choice to work in the community they live in. There's also sales tax, property tax generation that helps us fiscally, which was mentioned earlier.

Yeah, I think that was one of the more interesting parts in the plan, was that, you know, what's generated by different land use- the revenues of the city that's generated by different uses of the land. And so having enough commercial and industrial land is critical to our ability to kind of fund all the needs and the infrastructure and maintaining our assets and be able to support all the residents that get added on. So I want us to really be cognizant of that when we talk about a twenty year plan for the city. That was it, but I appreciate the answers to those questions.

Desmond Brantes?

Yeah. I don't know where people are freaking out about population. In fact, I think our country is slowing down in that rain list. We're gonna add something to the water. And, you know, immigration usually is what drives birth rate.

And without those young kids coming in, we're gonna have a hard time in this country. But I'd like to thank Andy and Steve for your effort and what you're doing at, the meetings. And the other thing is too, when people have when they go to the meeting, what's it like there? What's the atmosphere like when they try to give you information or input at these committee meetings? I'd like to go, but it won't let me.

If you're referring to the General Plan Advisory Committees? Yeah. They run very similarly to the Planning Commissioner City Council. There's opportunity for public comment. They get time to speak and address the committee and staff. We take that information and at the committee's pleasure, we can respond to questions and comments.

I think you always find somebody who's not really happy about, know, I look at next door once a while, which is kind of not a fun place to look at. I just watch. Anyway, I appreciate what the community does with you your efforts, and so let's hopefully, we'll keep within the urban growth boundary and not have to expand. But it looks like when look at you, when you guys talk about this, because we do have briefings about this, and we ask questions there, and it looks like you're doing the best you can with providing space for industrial and commercial growth. That looks good, and of course, we want more things in it, but let's see what happens.

Okay.

Let me

get down to the weeds here for a minute. On in Figure 2.3 or two dash three, there's one concern about how the HDR four, which is 55 plus, will fit within the current neighborhoods around the Laughlin area.

So just to clarify that it is a high density residential designation, but it's category one.

Okay. On the on the map, it was originally HDR four. But I think there was there was the table there. Right. There's HDR.

We can we can take a look and make sure. The intent is to be HDR one, which is 23 to 30 dwelling units.

Yeah. It's HDR, and then it had one through four in the the table below it. But it's HDR one, not four. Correct. Alright. Great. And again, just to that the two six two dash 16, this is basically a mathematical exercise. This is not a prophecy. It's not a mandate for the population numbers. This is an arithmetic exercise.

It's not a calculation, yes.

And so 3.17 dash 33, the table is 3.17 dash three. The table shows a tenfold increase in I'm a water wonk, so this is what look for. But it showed a tenfold increase in the demand between the years 2040 and 2045.

That is a typo that we can correct as part of the final EIR.

Okay, leaped out at me and, you know, things like that when there's an order of magnitude, I get really concerned. Okay, so that's that's good. It does address the concern about. The ability of the Department of Water Resources to supply the long term demand, And that's something that's both on the State Zone 7, California Water Service, and the City Of Livermore. So all of those working together to because two of the pillars of the General Plan are sustainability and quality of life, and that's something I'm very concerned about, is that we can maintain water being a fundamental component of life and power, of course.

So those two elements, as part of sustainability and quality of life, those are two elements that I'm very concerned about, and we're addressing those. One last thing. Based on the revenue projections and the service demands of the zoning changes contemplated, will there be sufficient revenue to sustain this quality of life? And what's going to be the financial position of the city and what options would be available?

So short answer is yes, we did a fiscal impact analysis. We did not look at the max theoretical build out. We looked at a more feasible build out scenario based on trends and overall analysis concluded that there would be sufficient revenues to maintain levels of service.

Okay, yep, because those are some moving targets. Yes. Recognizing that as we're looking at the ultimate land use that we've applied through this general plan, that based on the revenue projections, it will be sufficient to maintain the operations of the city. That's correct. Okay, great. I will extract myself from the weeds. Thank you very much. Coming back to comments, Councilmember Brinning.

I have a lot of comments, but I want to start first of all by thanking everyone involved with this, which is basically everyone. So I want to thank all the staff who was involved in working on the general plan. I want to thank the Planning Commission. I think at this point, somewhere around 10 to 12 Planning Commissioners have seen the general plan in some form or another. Some of them are on council right now.

Roughly the same number of council members have looked through the general plan over the years. And the GPAC, really just an amazing group of citizens who really came, spent a ton of time going through the weeds, going to just unbelievable detail in this plan for years now and all as volunteers giving up their evenings to come in just because they love the city. So I wanna give a really huge thank you to the GPAC members who spent all this time on this project. With that, in no particular order of importance to me, I have a bunch of just comments on things. I'd like to start with commercial.

It's been brought up. I think something that we really need to keep in mind is over the long term, residential doesn't pay the bills for the city. Let's be frank. Commercial is a vital part of us being able to provide the services that we need as a city. And at this point, particularly for large scale commercials, Gillig, Lam Research, Pacific Fusion, projects like that.

We do have very limited spaces for large scale commercial. I know we're working to maintain the ones we have, but we also have to balance RENA numbers. And correct me if I'm wrong, but land is not infinite no matter what we do. So I do think it's really important I asked. Before we acquired S and P forty and forty one, I asked if there was anywhere in the city we could build another Gillig, and at the time the answer was no.

Now, with the acquisition, maybe we could fit in one more industrial, one or two more industrial spaces of that size. But these are those high-tech jobs that we really want to attract. These are the people who we want making the reverse commute, deliver more coming, providing for our economy, making sure that we have the technological and innovative resources. And so I know that it's come up multiple times for how do we maintain commercial? As we go through the general plan right now, we have a plan, but things shift as we go, and I really want to emphasize that I do want staff to continue to come to us with updates on our commercial inventory, how we're going to meet the commercial needs to make sure that we can provide the services that everyone in the city really wants and deserves.

Next up, I guess actually this one is like the most important to me, which is that I just really want to thank staff because I've been bugging you guys since I got on council and since I was on the planning commission about providing more opportunities for people to grow edible plants as part of their city space, commercial space, home space, public spaces, and it is part of the general plan, and I'm just really pleased as punch actually about the fact that we put that in. I know it's a small thing in there, but I really do think that, you know, it was brought up. Food insecurity is a major thing, and while people growing plants in their, you know, green strips is not gonna solve food insecurity, it does provide an outlet for healthy food locally that people can get. So I'm just absolutely pleased that that's going forward and really appreciate that from staff. Next up, there's some mention, but I do want to make sure that we continue to be strong on making sure to support high paying jobs, making sure that our focus really is on jobs that support our community.

That includes labor and the trades and apprenticeship programs as well as, you know, jobs in the innovation sector. Really the jobs for the future growth of Livermore. We've talked about it before with staff where one of the things that we don't want to overwhelm the city with is things like distribution warehouses, which don't provide a lot of jobs. They don't provide particularly high paying jobs and they use up a lot of space. But things like, you know, I go back to Lamb and Gillig because they're top of mind.

They're near my house. Places But like Lamb and Gillig are providing people with a living wage, providing people with multiple opportunities. When we're working with the building trades and labor, we're finding people who have a job path going forward. And so wherever we can in there, just keeping that as a priority for the city. And just for the audience, some of these a lot of these comments are in the general plan already in different sections.

So I do want to say that I'm. Reiterating them with staff as priorities, but I recognize that a lot of them are addressed already. Next up, I wanted to mention just small businesses. I think one of the things that really makes deliver more amazing is our focus on small businesses, craft economy, local businesses. You know, we've really been innovative in the past about how to support local businesses moving from a garage to a retail shop.

How are we going to make sure that in the future we remove barriers for people being able to start businesses for being able to support them? And I want to shout out a lot of our local businesses, which have really taken on themselves to provide craft fairs. Like Vice Mayor Wong actually helped organize an event at Sakura Winery, which had local businesses selling crafts there. It was hosted by a local business supporting small businesses. It's a great opportunity, so anything we can do that really is helping along with the incubator small businesses.

The more we can see that in Livermore, I think it adds to our charm. It adds to the overall feel of the city. And then the last comment I want to make is something I think is really important that we're doing that not a lot of cities are doing. Which is that this general plan is really a future forward document in ways that I haven't seen necessarily in a lot of our our counterpart cities. I go to a lot of the Cal Cities events and talk to other people, and there are state laws a lot of state laws being discussed on changing how we develop general plan, how we move forward with it, what elements are required, and most of the cities there are really in opposition to a lot of these changes.

And then I come back and I look at our general plan, and our general plan already includes sections about childcare, about health, about food services, about senior care. And those are things that other cities are saying, well, we don't need to plan for that. It's not required by the state right now. We don't need to plan for it. We don't need to worry. It'll be fine. And I just really wanna commend the staff that this general plan is incredibly approachable. It's incredibly readable. I went through cover to cover, which I'm not the fastest reader. So it took me quite a while to get through, but I actually read the entire general plan and it's in plain English.

It has clear goals. It has clear guidelines. It really talks about the future of the city and it's the future. And it is those things, it is keeping in mind changes that the state might be putting forward that really we're adapting and preparing for. So I just absolutely was blown away by the quality of our general plan.

You absolutely knocked it out of the park. So I really again want to thank everyone involved in this of how much not only does this represent the future of Livermore, but it represents our values and what makes Livermore amazing and really tries to capture all of that into a humongous document that will, as was said, it will outlive this council and the councils after us even, but it will guide Livermore to continue to maintain the character and quality of life and welcoming nature that makes our community so great. So I want to give a huge, huge thank you to all of staff, GPAC and the Planning Commission and councils before me to get us here.

Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Councilmember Dunbar.

I'll echo that. Very well done to staff and the consultants and GPAC and Planning Commission a tremendous amount of work. You have followed the recommendations of this council and councils before in terms of the directions that we set previously and I got familiar with on the planning commission, where we were overly prescriptive in our previous general plan, it got us into consequences where we were forced to do things that maybe weren't perfect. This allows us that flexibility to react in real time Two, things that we may know today and things that the state may give us later and things that we don't even expect, both in the sense of what Councilmember Brannan talked about in terms of support services and food security and senior services and use your services. It even talks about future transportation models in a variety of different ways so that we're prepared and have principles about how we approach transportation, housing and human services, community character, because the landscape will change on us whether we like it or not, but we're ready to adapt to that with our specific plans as we go forward from here with exactly how we get that done in practice in Livermore.

Just to follow on from the questions part of this discussion about the population discussion, if I wanted to rapidly build Livermore, I would not make this general plan. I would force staff into reactive mode and get into arena problem that causes us to lose control and then people build wherever they want. We are not interested in doing that. That's why we're doing this the way that we're doing it now. It keeps us from that result.

Even if the state keeps down going down this path that they're on now, we are prepared to maintain some level of control in the city of Livermore and try to figure out where to best actually place units that are being assigned to us. It would not look like this if I was interested in a different result. I think we do find the balance. We do find the balance that has been talked about by public comment and has been talked about in the Planning Commission and General Plan meetings where there is no absolute here of housing versus growth versus jobs versus commercial versus industrial. There are too many variables of where the future goes from here to set that in so much stone with a general plan.

That's what our specific plans are for. That's what our neighborhood plans are for. That allows us to get there depending on where the future goes based on and it was discussed about whether we should have an AI element. I don't think we need an AI element. I think we have the right principles here to respond to the way that AI changes the world or large language models change the world or whatever you want to call the systems that we have going on right now.

I will call out that I agree with pretty much all of the Planning Commission's recommendations that they pushed in their language clarifications, considerations about 21 Canyon, considerations about specific areas, level of service discussions, bicycle parking discussions, EV charging discussions. I thought those were all very well put and very considerate of reading this giant document. I know as a planning commissioner before that I wanted to be specific, and I had to pull back from over and over again. I don't like that language. It's not quite the way that I would put it, but it's general enough to get the point across and to get the principle across.

And that's what I was really looking for. And after I took a breath from reading all these various things, I realized that intent was well put together. I've discussed with staff a few little technical corrections. I found my own couple of typos and some tables and things, and I'm sure those will be taken care of by the time, and I won't go into them here. Thank you for all the work and trying to find the balance.

To all the people that participated in GPAC but came to a GPAC meeting or just filled out the form at the farmers market, or there one response in Spanish that was support for the youth. Give the youth things to do. Just reading through the pages and pages and pages of community that got involved in this process and looking forward to see where it goes from here.

Okay. Comments, comments, Member Berrientos? Any comments? Any further commentary?

Okay.

Vice Mayor.

I just want to speak to three things, and I'll try to do them very quickly. One is that prior to being elected on city council, I was able to attend the GPAC meetings, and I did try to go to all the ones that I could prior to being elected. And I really appreciate how much effort the committee, the community members that were on the committee, I see Alan Burnham, who especially provided a lot of insight and thoughtful comments. But our staff, especially Andy Ross, Steve Riley, Brandon Cardwell was at a lot of them. Paul Spence was at a lot of them.

And just the hours and hours over these four years that you've put in, I really appreciate. But then the report itself is so well put together and well written. Between this and the Vision Zero plan, I was just so impressed and really rather enjoyed reading them. I also appreciated in the agenda packet, we saw the feedback that was received in the discussions at Planning Commission, and also letters that were received. All of that was in the agenda packet, and so I appreciate the effort it took to put all that together for us to be able to just read through, because those are all very helpful too.

And so that sort of relates to a second point I want to make, is the comment that one of the speakers made earlier, that every speaker feels this way. And when you look at all that feedback, you know that's not true. It might be the people who attended one meeting one night, maybe the only people who spoke felt one way. But you know, if you see my social media, you know I'm very active in the community. I go everywhere.

It's not just that I enjoy going to these events and, you know, celebrating with people. It's a lot of it is this is how I get to hear from people in the community who don't come to these meetings. And there are lots of reasons people don't come to meetings. They don't know about them. They don't know this is how decisions in their city are made. They don't speak English. They are taking care of children or elderly parents at home. The people who come and speak at that podium don't represent. This is not a referendum of how people in our community feel on an important topic or a minor topic. And this is why I think it's so important to be out there in the community as a decision maker, because we need to have ways to really interact with different groups in our committee.

It's also why I go in spaces that aren't really made for me. They're not places where they invite elected people. And when we talk about, you know, social services, and just as one example, I've been taking weekly shifts on the Tri Valley Haven Crisis hotline for fifteen years, more than fifteen years. I want to be that person on the other end of the line when someone in crisis calls in the middle of the night needing help. I learned so much from these conversations, and I didn't do it because I thought fifteen years later, I'm gonna be on city council.

I did it because I, as a person, I wanna know what- I as a person of now a lot of privilege and comfort. I want to know who what the most vulnerable people in our community are going through and what their needs are. And so these are not people who are coming to Sika City Council meetings. So I feel like I get a much broader view of what our community's needs are and what people are looking for. And so related to that, I think it's not quite appropriate for us to say, the five of us up here, to say, in this general plan, we will not mention the urban growth boundary, or we will not consider what goes on East Of Greenville, which things are happening East Of Greenville.

We just have no control over it. But that's not a decision city council will make now or in the future. That's gonna be made by the people. And I don't think it's appropriate for us to say no residents of Livermore in the future can ever make a decision to consider what happens East Of Greenville or breaking an urban growth boundary. That's not for us to decide here now and to limit future plans and conversations.

And the study does not say that we have to do anything, it just lays out conditions for considering a study, and that's the one thing we could do, is to request staff study this. But it doesn't We cannot break the urban growth boundary. So I just want to make that clear, because that keeps getting brought up. And it is not something that the residents, like I said, have a unified view on. And then my final comment is this issue of the population numbers that are in the study.

It's explained very clearly. You've explained it very clearly tonight. We've questioned it even more in-depth, and you've explained very clearly this is about maximum theoretical build out. It's not a projection. It's not a prediction of what's going to happen in the future, but it keeps getting brought up. And I feel like the people bringing it up have heard this explanation. They've probably read the report. They seem very well very well versed in what's in it. And so the I can only imagine they just keep bringing it up to cause problems or to maybe mislead people who haven't read the report. And it's sort of, for me, sort of tiresome to see this keep getting brought up.

And so hopefully people will read the study or watch the parts of this meeting where we discuss this point, and we don't have to keep discussing this issue of the population numbers in the report. But thank you all again so much for all the work that went into this.

Okay, thank you. Yes, I have kind of an interesting, perspective up here because I was on the general plan review in 2002 when we did this the last time. And the proposed, well, actually the estimate, if you will, the number that they came up with at the end of the 2002 was Livermore's population in 2025 was going to be between 95,105. We're not there. Best guesstimates were around 85,000 right now.

It was interesting because there wasn't a big hue and cry back then about that number. But what's interesting is this cynicism that's being injected into this, and this is sort of an underlying, an undercurrent to say, Well, we don't know this, so therefore these are the projections. These aren't projections. As has been demonstrated over and over again, this is just very simply an arithmetic exercise based on the zoning that we're required to put in here. Again, I've got to say thanks to the GPAC.

I started out on the GPAC, and then I got promoted back into the mayor, but it was fascinating to be able to provide some historic perspective to the GPAC about what we had done before and to see the difference. There was a lot more public comment, a lot more public outreach. I remember the previous meetings where we just got in a room and sort of argued. But with this general plan, there was a lot more public engagement. There was a lot more public input.

There was a lot more information and much more engagement and collaboration. There was a lot of negotiation that went on during these meetings that I was a part of and to see how the plan adapted to the public comment and to the staff input and then also the information that was provided. There was a lot more this go around than in 2002. I keep saying the I wasn't going to mention this, but since the Vice Mayor brought it up, yeah, there were some strident voices tonight about, Everybody that you talk to thinks this way. Well, you know, we have had 12 out of 13 elections in Livermore where the voters overwhelmingly supported Eden Housing, and yet we keep hearing over and over again, Oh, nobody wants this.

12 out of 13 elections, the overwhelming majority of the voters said yes to Eden Housing, that we want to support the service workers that provide services to our community. And I think that we've heard from the voters. And this is something that I also find intriguing that there have been comments that, Oh, the city council will not make a commitment about the urban growth boundary. We put the urban growth boundary in the hands of the voters. I can't think of a better place to put that responsibility but in the hands of the voters.

We've taken it. The city council does not have the ability to change the urban growth boundary. We put that in the hands of the voters. I think that's a tremendous commitment to the urban growth boundary. So I, again, I applaud the tremendous work that the GPAC did.

Thank you to the public. I went through all of the comments in both in Spanish and English. Thanks to the staff that worked at the farmer's market and engaged the public to make their comments. I was out there a couple of times and did the same. It was really interesting to have people come up that had no idea, or some folks that had a very definite idea, And yet in conversation realized that by adopting this general plan that we could achieve a lot of the goals that we were actually trying to achieve as a community.

So thanks to the staff. Andy, you're a rock star. I mean, and Brandon Cardwell, thank you so much. You shepherded this along. You herded the cats, Jake Potter as well, sort of later on in the process. And Steve, thank you all very much. This a huge effort, seven forty eight pages. And it's a document that's going to continue to lead this community and to direct the progress for the community for the next twenty five years. I'm looking forward to it because I think it's an excellent plan. There's flexibility in there and it enables us to ultimately achieve our goals.

Andy says that yes, we're going to have the money to do it. So with that, does the staff have sufficient direction

at this point? I think so.

But just to clarify that the full council supports Planning Commission's recommendations, and we can go ahead and make those.

I'm seeing five nodding heads. Yes. Thank you very much. So with that, I guess there being no further. Do we go into the committee reports and matters? Council Member Barrientos, any matters or anything that you wanted to highlight from your report out?

Yes, unlike the chief. Over there, I went to the blue, whatever, red, white, and blue ceremony. And I'd like to say thank you and shout out to the two awardees from Livermore. I'm not sure what I'm saying. Right? Chris Curciris for, police and, Jorge Diaz. I guess this is next room. He was really excited about his award, and that didn't include a big salary raise. Right? Oh, okay. Sorry. I appreciate what they do with their with their first responders. My son is one of miss Spokane.

Alright. Councilmember Dunbar.

I'll highlight the League of California Cities division meeting that I went to with a few of us up here. We were talking about e bikes and e motos in particular, discussing all the various bills that are going on at the state level to talk about to make them as safe as possible. I just wanted to highlight that it was either yesterday or today. It was announced that Amazon is going to be pulling all of the listings for non classified illegal illegally classified or out of class emotos from their website, you'll no longer be able to buy them in California, which is great progress.

Yes. Councilor O'Brining.

Thank

you. I just wanna highlight actually an event that was partially put on by Vice Mayor Wong. I really wanna thank her for helping to organize taco and wine pairing at Sakura Winery. It was an absolute blast. As I mentioned earlier, it brought out local businesses and it was in a celebration for AAPI Heritage Month. So I just wanted to give my appreciation for that event. Thank you very much. And then with that, just since we won't see each other again here at least until after graduation, I just wanna wish all of the grads out there a very happy graduation and a happy summer coming up. Thank you.

Ms. Smear.

Oops.

So I did help organize two AAPI Heritage Month events that happened to be on the same day, so I was very exhausted that day. But I so appreciate the mayor and all my fellow council members who attended one or both of the events, and meant a lot to me to see them there, and really spending time there and hanging out, and it was great. So thank you all so much for being part of it.

Couple of things I'd like to talk about. We had the Tri Valley Cities Coalition. We had our Sacramento Legislative Advocacy Day where we went up and spoke with a number of our elected representatives and their staffs. At that time, we heard that there was probably going to be no legislation coming out of Sacramento this year regarding e bikes. There's a dozen different bills that are up there, but the consensus is it's probably not going to do anything in an election year.

So that's unfortunate. But in the conversation that was up there, were talking about how right now you can buy a motor and put it on in tandem with your seven fifty watt motor and double the power of your e bike. That there are e bikes that have fake pedals on them, they look like class ones, but they're not. And that you can right now buy a decal and declare your e bike to be any type of model that you want it to be and full law enforcement. So it's going to be an interesting year and see where everything evolves on e bikes.

We talked about it today at the Alameda Transportation Commission and underlined the fact that our main concern is safety, Trying to keep everybody safe, everybody that's riding an e bike and everybody that's walking down a sidewalk because they're called sidewalks and not side rides for a reason. You you have people walking on these things. Attended the forty fifth graduation of the Livermore Citizen Police Academy. That was terrific. We got a whole new batch of volunteers that are willing to act as our ambassadors back out into the community.

We were out on Vice Mayor and Councilmember Dunbar. We were out this weekend with 30 other volunteers cleaning up trash. Picked up, there was hundreds of pounds of trash that were picked up and even some graffiti. So, to the community for stepping up. We're now recognized as a clean California city for all of those efforts.

And today was the fiftieth anniversary of Ratzloth Winery. So, they put us on the map back in 1991 with their double gold winning blend for the 89 Cab Merlot. So, fifty years for Ratzlaff Winery and just underscores the amazing place that we are fortunate to live in. So, with that, there being no further business before the council, I adjourn the meeting. Thank you.

Well, we got through every.