City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening, everyone. I call to order September 14, 2026, city council successor agency to the redevelopment agency authority regular meeting to order. There are no teleconferences announcements for this council meeting. Will you all please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic Item four, changes to the order of the agenda. Staff, are there any changes?

There are no changes to the order of the agenda. Thank you.

Thank you. Council, are there any changes? Okay, for the fun part. Tonight we'll be recognizing RethinkWay's 2026 Trash to Art Contest winners, Kenna, Karen, Parker, Ms. Array's class, and Ms. Thornton's class. So will you all join me in the front, please? Parker. Hi. I'll read yours in full, and then I'll read the rest in portions, okay? Whereas, in celebration of Earth Day, Rethink Waste hosted its annual Trash to Art contest, inviting all third through fifth grade students and classes from the Rethink Waste service area to create artwork using commonly discarded materials collected from home, school, and the community. helping students think creatively about reuse and environmental responsibility. And whereas a total of 31 submissions of one-of-a-kind pieces were received by students showcasing the artistic talent and creativity of students throughout San Mateo County, and whereas Rethink Waste evaluates submissions based on creativity, resourcefulness, functionality, type of materials used, and adherence to the contest guidelines, while also taking into account, when possible, the artist's age and skill level, as well as their access to art supplies, resources, or adult support. Whereas Parker, then a third grade student at White Oaks Elementary School, earned first place in the individual third grade category of the artwork titled Trash Owl and Book. Is it up there? Yes, I see it. Which was created using various discarded materials and showcasing their imaginations, collaborative spirit, and creative reuse. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that I, Prerna Venkatesh, Mayor of the City of San Carlos, hereby congratulate Parker Upon winning first place in the 2026 Trash to Art Contest, encourage the community to continue in a creative in their efforts to protect and care for their environment. Presented this 14th day of September, 2026. Here you go, Parker. Whereas Kenna, then a third grade student at White Oaks Elementary School, earned honorable mention in the individual third grade category for their artwork titled Save Our Earth.

Is it the middle one? It's the last one? Oh, there you are, I see it.

which was created using various discarded materials and showcases their imagination, collaborative spirit, and creative reuse. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that I, Puneet Venkatesh, Mayor of the City of San Carlos, hereby congratulate Kenna upon winning honorable mention in the 2026 Trash to Art Contest and encourage the community to continue being creative in their efforts to protect and take care of our environment. Here you go, Kenna.

Karen.

Did you go to Raleigh Gymnastics?

Yeah.

Whereas Karen, then a fourth grade student at Mariposa Upper Elementary School, earned honorable mention in the individual fourth grade category for their artwork titled Recycling for Planet Earth.

I see it in the middle.

which was created using various discarded materials and showcases their imagination, collaborative spirit, and a creative reuse. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that I, Preeta Venkatesh, Mayor of the City of San Carlos, hereby congratulate Karen upon winning honorable mention in the 2026 Trash Yard Contest and encourage the community to continue being creative in their efforts to protect and take care of our environment. Here you go, Karen. Okay, that's okay, I'll do Ms. Martin. Whereas Ms. Martin's third grade class from White Oaks Elementary School received second place in the class category of their creation titled Preserved in Plastic. I see it up there. market problem and art piece made of various discarded materials that showcases their imagination, collaboration, and creative use. Now, therefore, be it proclaimed that I, Puneet Venkatesh, Mayor of the City of San Carlos, hereby congratulate Ms. Morton's third grade class on this 14th day. Thank you so much. Would you guys like to say anything? Any of you want to say anything?

How about just thank you? Thank you. Thank you. Oh, we'll just take a picture. Do you guys want to come take a picture? Would you like me to take that?

Yes, that would be amazing. Ready? You have to go, Brent. Come over, I have to switch in.

Two more.

Make you guys get up.

One, two, thank you. One more time.

Congratulations.

Any comments from Council?

If I can, Madam Mayor, I'm the board member for Rethink Waste. I guess they left already, but thank them for the trash to art contest. It's one of our sort of favorite events that we do every year. It's a great opportunity to see the creativity among the students. And I had a chance at the Rethink Waste facility in Transfer Station San Carlos to be able to be there for the presentation of the awards. It's a great event and I encourage more schools to participate and more students to participate. It's really a great opportunity. So congrats to everybody.

Any comments from public? Thank you. I don't have any slips for this item from the public. Thank you.

Next, we'll be recognizing September 2026 as Suicide Prevention Month to be received by Sylvia Tang, co-chair of SMC Suicide Prevention Committee. Could you please join me up front, Sylvia? whereas in 2025, 65 people died by suicide in San Mateo County. 9,212 calls, 1,073 chats, and 1,073 text messages were received by 988 suicide and crisis lifeline. operated by Felton Institute's Peninsula Suicide Prevention, whereas San Carlos residents are encouraged to support one another and help prevent suicide by recognizing warning signs, offering support, and connecting individuals with local resources, including the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, peer and law support groups, and suicide prevention and mental health trainings. And whereas in 2026 theme, the weight we carry, recognizing visible burdens many people, particularly men and boys may carry, including emotional pain, stress, grief, isolation, and societal expectations. And calls on our community to reduce stigma, strengthen connection, and belong, and ensure that no one carries these burdens alone. And, whereas the City of San Carlos affirms its commitment to mental health and suicide prevention through leadership, participation in the San Mateo County Mayor's Mental Health Initiative, and collaborative efforts across all 20 cities in the county to raise awareness and expand access to mental health resources. Now, therefore, we proclaim that I, Pranita Venkatesh, Mayor of the City of San Carlos, on behalf of the entire City Council, hereby declare september 2026 as suicide prevention month in the city of san carlos and encourage members of our community to take part in finding their role in suicide prevention presented this 14th day of september 2026. i feel like sarah should come up because we did the mayor's initiative you want to take a picture

Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Mayor, council members. I also wanna thank the city manager, the attorney, and city clerk, and staff, and the San Carlos community for this proclamation. I don't wanna be repetitive, so I'm gonna skip through some things that were already said. But I, as mentioned, I'm one of the, I'm Sylvia Tang, one of the co-chairs of the Suicide Prevention Committee. And the coalition or the committees here, for anyone who's interested in joining, our core functions are around suicide prevention, resource coordination, partnerships, data, and policy advocacy. And we're really grateful for this proclamation. I also wanted to add that this proclamation is important to me because I have loved ones who have struggled with thoughts and attempts of suicide. And even though I'm not a therapist, I have found, I've been found that I can still offer skills and support my loved ones, including listening to their pain and their stories and assuring that they are not alone and that there is hope. And through these conversations I've had with loved ones, with community members, I've learned that talking about suicide openly doesn't plant the idea in someone's head. It actually plants the idea that you are able to have these conversations with them and that they can turn to you for help. So I invite everyone in the San Carlos community to find your role in suicide prevention. You don't need to be a mental health professional or clinician, and you can take small steps to really help prevent suicide. I want to mention three briefly. One is reaching out and sharing the weight that we carry and checking in with someone, especially if you see signs of withdrawal, if they're overwhelmed, if you know someone grieving or isolated, please reach out to them. Every compassionate text or call could make a difference. Two, know the signs of suicide and where to turn for help. If you know someone who is struggling or thinking about suicide, there is one resource you can remember if you don't remember anything else, and that is 988. 988 is available 24-7. You can call, text, chat that number, including youth and adults. And lastly is please... in our Suicide Prevention Month events. I put flyers in the back, but we have a flyer for Suicide Prevention Month and specific events. And I'll mention a couple this week, which is there's a virtual event for older adults and mental health crisis on Thursday, 6 p.m. via Zoom. And then Saturday, there's a walk in San Francisco where everyone in our Bay Area community is welcome to help participate suicide come out of the darkness and really promote suicide prevention. So I want to end with some thank yous. Of course, thank you to the San Carlos staff. I have great interactions with your staff, including the city clerk, Crystal, for coordinating this and your communication staff. I appreciate you all lighting your building in teal and purple for the month of Suicide Prevention Month, social media, and youth support and engagement year-round. You all do, San Carlos does things for suicide prevention, not just in September, so I really appreciate that. And also was mentioned, thank you to the Mayor's Mental Health Initiative, particularly to co-founder, Councilmember Sarah McDowell, for your leadership around mental health and suicide prevention. You've really shown how meaningful this is to you and how you can really bring that to the community. And we're really excited this past year to bring a new workshop that isn't offered anywhere else, which is a mental health workshop for elected officials as well. We know that you all are human too, and every one of us in this room needs support with mental health, including our elected officials. And lastly, thank you again to the mayor and city council members for this proclamation. Thank you.

Thank you, Sophia. Okay, moving on to items. Any public comment?

Any council comments?

There are no public comments. Thank you.

Moving on to item six, council communications and announcements are brief items from members of the city council regarding upcoming events in the community. And correspondence that they have received, they are informational in nature and no action will be taken at this time. Any comments from council? Just want to say thank you to Parks and Recs for days of day of service. It was fun to see everyone get out and get, you know, pull some weeds and make our parks a little bit nicer. So thank you for that. Vice Mayor Rick.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I also just wanted to, I participated in the day of service up at Vista Park and got to pull some weeds and do some planting and the park looks much better. So we had a ton of volunteers. It was really great to see the community engagement and thanks to the park and rec staff for that. Also attended, the History Museum had their annual ice cream social, which was also packed and had a chance to really see good celebration of the history of San Carlos and TALKED TO A LOT OF DIFFERENT PEOPLE. AND THEN FINALLY ATTENDED THE NEW DENTAL OFFICE THAT'S OPENING. THEY HAD THEIR OPEN HOUSE OVER BY THE TRAIN STATION. SO NEW BUSINESS COMING INTO TOWN AS WELL, WHICH WAS GREAT TO SUPPORT THEM AND TO VISIT THEM. SO BUSY WEEKEND. SO THANK YOU.

AND ALSO WELCOMED ANOTHER SAN CARLOS BUSINESS, MUDITA TO SAN CARLOS. THAT WAS A FUN EVENT ALSO. Next is public comment. Next on the agenda is public comment. Person wishing to address the City Council and it matters not posting on the agenda may do so. Each speaker is limited to two minutes. We will start with public comment in the room and then move on to Zoom. We will not be allowing additional commenters to join the queue, so please be sure to raise your hand if you'd like to speak. Crystal, are there any public comment?

Yes, we have two speakers in person. So we'll go ahead and take those first. First up is Linda Preston. And then you'll be followed by Angela Giannini-White.

I am going to briefly ask Mark to speak on my behalf. I'm losing my voice regarding the bid process for Harrington Park. Thank you.

Greg, is that allowed? Greg.

Is there another slip for the same person? No, okay.

I've seen that done many times before where people, they feel like someone else would be better able to get their point across. So I think you are welcome to come up then. This is the public comment period that she gave you permission to speak on her behalf.

thank you everyone good evening mayor and councilmembers as you know I'm running for city council. I mailed concerns about the harrington project to everyone on the council as these questions remain unanswered and requesting that we pull down the from the consent calendar until the issues are addressed publicly or four issues first more than 600 residents as the city not to move forward yet the bid was issued 2 weeks before Christmas when contractor participation is lowest resulting in only one bid. Second that single bid in included line item prices that were 2 to 10 times higher than benchmark data that I provided to all you as well. and the city did not rebid excepting it appears to have increased project costs by a considerable amount can estimate anywhere from one to 2 million maybe 3. Third the city added an additional million for oversight and design fees despite having full-time public works and engineering staff. Fourth and this is the biggest uh deserve clarity on contractor vetting under public contract code 1103 that greg knows probably much better than i do the awarded contractors former ceo was convicted in federal court for bribery and kickback related corruption sentenced to prison and the company was barred for five years This is 2000 to 2005. During the same period, the city was renegotiating this contract. The current CEO, with the same last name, by the way, agreed to a federal ERISA judgment against the company and herself. Okay, I'll finish during my other time. Thank you.

Okay, next up is Angela. And I do see you have two public speaker slips for items that are not on the agenda, if you want to go ahead and approach. So I just want to clarify, you will have just one opportunity to provide a public comment under not none on the agenda.

Good evening, Mayor and Councilman. So you as council members and mayors have a fiduciary responsibility to act as stewards and public trust. So I do not believe that you did that with the Harriton Park and did not investigate Azul Works. So I think you did a complete failure of due diligence with them. Since, as Mark mentioned, there was a federal lawsuit at the time that they were doing the bid and that you guys were reviewing the bid. As Mark mentioned, that they were in trouble for bribing and they actually gave cash. They did $250,000 worth of work for the public's works in San Francisco. And I just can't believe you didn't get more bids for that. And later you're gonna talk about your 2026 strategic goals and talk about climate change and you're gonna put in a fountain, which I cannot believe.

And that's all I have to say, I'm very disappointed.

Thank you for your comments. Pulling up to see if we have, in person, is there anybody else who'd like to make a public comment? Okay, so seeing none, I'm gonna go ahead and move over to Zoom and cap it at the one hand that we have up at the moment, which is John Durkin. I'm sorry, hold on a second. John, you should be able to unmute. There you go. John, I see that you're unmuted and your microphone is working, but we can't hear you. Oh. Now there you go. OK, OK, thank you.

Sorry about that. Sorry about that. Thank you, John Durkin, San Carlos resident for 25 years. The Harrington Park refresh and I have refreshing quotation marks doesn't appear to have many cheerleaders living in San Carlos. I was on the San Carlos Parks, Recreation, and Culture Commission until July 2024. For some reason, a park, the refresh of Harrington Park, never came before the commission for recommendation, either for or against, to give to the city council. Perhaps this refresh would not have moved forward. We will never know. Can't go back, but certainly wish we could. City Council, you had many meetings where you discussed paver colors, trees, skylights, baby changing tables and sinks in Harrington Park. When you approved the bid and awarded the contract in the consent calendar, there was no discussion about the cost of items. The refreshed Harrington Park will have six bike racks. Each bike rack costs $6,000. That's $36,000. The refreshed Harrington Park will also have eight bistro tables and two chairs. Each table chair set costs $8,000. That's $48,000. On a personal note, I sold outdoor furniture for 25 plus years. We never had an outdoor table set in any collection through the years. Does the City Council feel these costs seem high? You're spending taxpayer money. Would any of you spend $8,000 for a bistro table for your backyard? The construction of Harrington Park can't be slowed down. However, there might be an opportunity to please rethink some purchases. The Harrington Park refresh won't be completed until early 2027. Not sure how you define early. With a price tag of $7 million, the city's definition of refresh differs from many in San Carlos. It's only September. I imagine the bistro tables, chairs, and bike racks have not been purchased. I respectfully ask the city council to put these costs on a future agenda. Thank you.

That concludes our public comments.

Thank you, Crystal. Moving on to item eight is a consent calendar. Are there any items council would like to pull? Seeing none, Crystal, can you please take roll? Oh, sorry, members of the public. Any comments from members of the public?

We do have two speaker slips for the consent calendar, both for item 8H. So Mark Ivanowski and Ken Castle, you'll be up next.

Sorry to continue, but to add to the comments earlier. That decision to hire that contractor that had the former CEO had been disbarred and went to jail on bribery and corruption charges. the company served prison time and the company was barred from new public works for 5 years as I mentioned the amazing thing is during the same time the negotiations were going on the current ceo. Who has the same last name signed a federal risk of judgment against both the company and her personally. Let me ask any of you would you have hired a contractor to do work on your home. that. When discretionary projects come in far above market costs they strain the general fund and those strains are later cited as justification for proposed sales tax increases. Residents are frustrated because they feel fiscal mismanagement is being passed directly Tonight, I'm simply asking for transparency. Please answer the four questions I've asked on the record tonight, and please consider pulling the downtown plan from the strategic plan until we have benchmark-supported cost data for Phase 1B. Thank you.

Thank you, Mark.

Yes, Ken Castle. Can you approach the podium, please?

Good evening mayor and city council can't castle longtime resident of San Carlos 16 years with regard to the street skate update I'm Requesting it's time to reopen the discussion about the wisdom of keeping the 700 block of Laurel Street closed for a fantasy land pedestrian plaza It's harming businesses. Not just on that block, but in other blocks as well No other similar suburban cities in the Bay Area have continued closures of this nature after reopening some downtown areas following the COVID shutdown. Most reopened in 2021 or 2022. Times are changing, and it's time to say goodbye to the COVID hangover. after all what happened when the farmers market was moved over to bay port avenue not very not very good situation was it only 16 of 40 vendors remained and the number of shoppers reduced dramatically now we have a more vibrant farmers market the city never performed a formal feasibility study that would have prioritized feedback from the merchants and property owners before reaching out to the general public Instead, the survey that supported the closure was heavily weighted toward residents wanting a downtown Disneyland without taking into account the negative impact on the businesses. And if you're not talking to the merchants, you should be. Today, most of them want a reopening, and there are new businesses such as the Mediterranean Market that I've spoken with have only been open for two years but are struggling. They made it clear they want curbside pickup available and street reopen. It is disrespectful to these businesses to insist that the only vehicle access they can have is through a tiny and stinky back alley. By contrast, you proceeded with the Harrington Park refurbish at a shocking $7.2 million to a single bidder even though 600 people signed a change.org petition to not go forward with a major renovation. So apparently you didn't listen to that survey from the public. Now with something the council may not have considered in the past possible closure a part of El Camino Real by Caltrans and loss of more parking spaces it's time to reopen the whole discussion about the impact on downtown and just to give you a little bit of information I'm going to pass out to you a feasibility study of a street project in Burlingame that tells you how streetscapes should be done.

Angela, I received your slip for the consent calendar. Yes, please come on up. Thank you.

Good evening again. So I'd also like to talk about the closure of the 700 block. And I will email you guys studies that prove, and I know that Fauci already said it, the six feet thing doesn't work, but I will send you lots of studies. I don't have a problem with the parklets at all, but I think it should be open sometimes for parking and as other businesses not just restaurants are worried about older adults 30% are over 60 and we have 10% that are disabled so they do need parking and we lack that and I know you guys are gonna get rid of 56 percent or 56 parking spots And then with the El Camino, like Ken has said, we're going to have more issues of parking. So I think the businesses are hurting. I know a few businesses that are already planning on closing that aren't even on that 700 block, and they feel like that 700 block is impacting them on the 600 block and on the 800 block. Thank you.

Thank you, Angela. Are there any other public comments for the consent calendar in person? I don't see any hands. And looking to Zoom, there are no hands. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Madam Mayor, I move to approve City Council consent calendar items A through J.

First of all, can you please take roll?

Second.

Oh, sorry.

Second.

Okay. Councilmember Dugan?

Yes.

Councilmember Layton?

Yes.

Councilmember McDowell? Yes. Vice Mayor Rack?

Yes.

And Mayor Venkatesh? Yes. Motion passes. Thank you.

Thank you, Crystal. Next, we move to a study session. Receiver presentation provide direction on updates to the formula business ordinance. Deanna, you're in. Hi. Welcome.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the City Council. My name is Deanna Skaggs, and I'm an assistant planner with the current planning division, and tonight I will be presenting the formal business ordinance. I'm the project manager, and I'm joined here tonight by Vinny Chen and Richard Dundee, as well as our supporting advisory team. The agenda for tonight is as follows. I will begin with project conception followed by background and our strategies for studying the form of the business ordinance and end in discussion. You will see discussion questions throughout each section for you to consider as I'm presenting. And in the end during discussion portion, we'll return to each question for in-depth conversation. Why are we studying the formula business ordinance? From 2022 to 2025, the community development department was doing extensive outreach regarding the downtown specific plan. This included several study sessions, pub events, and open houses. During this outreach, formula business emerged as a recurring theme. To address these comments regarding formal business as well as other topics that arose as part of the downtown plan project, council had held a special study session focused on downtown prosperity in November 2025. In this study session, it was determined that formal business ordinance required additional analysis and research and to proceed separately outside of the downtown plan. The downtown plan would go on to be adopted in February of this year. In January of 2026, during the council's strategic plan meeting, council adopted several strategic objectives to solidify the discussion and direction given during the November study session. The objective most relevant to this project is objective number four. Develop strategies to preserve ground floor commercial uses and mixed-use zoning districts in the downtown as directed in the downtown specific plan. Having explained the project inception, I wanted to orient you for how the rest of the project will flow. Next, I will go over existing conditions regulations, and then into background research conducted by staff, and end with staff strategy for studying the formal business ordinance. And then we will transition to the discussion portion of tonight. The ordinance in its current form was adopted in 2017. The ordinance defines the formula business as a use with 15 or more locations in the United States and applies to the six, seven, and 800 block of Laurel. The ordinance requires that all new formula businesses, as well as pre-existing ones, expanding by 10% or more, obtain a conditional use permit. So what is a conditional use permit and what makes it different from our minor use permit process? The general required findings for both are the same, and both are public hearings. However, minor use permits have lower fees, often take less time, and are reviewed by a zoning administrator. While conditional use permits have higher fees, often take longer, about four to six months, and are reviewed by the Planning Commission. Knowing this, staff looked at what businesses have gone through the formula business conditional use permit process. We found that the most recent formula business application approved was Paris Baguette back in 2022. Staff has not received any serious inquiries or applications from formula businesses since. Staff also took an inventory of formula businesses currently located along Laurel Street and St. Carlos Avenue, shown by the map here on the right. As you can see, a majority of formal businesses are concentrated in the six, seven, and 800 blocks, with only a few further down on Laurel and along San Carlos Avenue. In preparation for this study session, staff also looked at previous public comments and council comments gathered as part of the downtown specific plan outreach to get an idea of what was being discussed at the time. As you can see, there was a mix of opinions, some in support of having formula businesses as anchors in the downtown, while others were concerned about building owners and small businesses. These comments helped shape our outreach and study strategy we will be discussing tonight. The last aspect of our background research was to look at the case studies from surrounding jurisdictions. The eight jurisdictions we looked at were Burlingame, Foster City, Menlo Park, Redwood City, Mountain View, Campbell, Palo Alto, and San Mateo. We found that San Carlos is the only city in San Mateo County that has a formula business ordinance. The only other city that staff found that had a formula business ordinance was Palo Alto. They adopted their original ordinance in 2015 and defined formal businesses as having 10 locations or more in the United States. They recently amended their ordinance in 2024, amending the definition to be 50 locations in California and would only apply to restaurant uses, excluding other uses such as retail. Staff found that although Menlo Park does not have an ordinance, they do discuss formal business in their downtown plan. In their downtown plan, Menlo Park limits the size of certain uses and they mentioned that this may discourage larger change from locating in the downtown area. The city continues to monitor the changes in composition of uses and if necessary, will institute additional regulations. Moving to the research we plan to conduct following the study session, staff plans to research lot and building sizes, rent values, vacancy rates, rental history, and the mix of formula and local businesses, and other characteristics that council would like to see included for San Carlos and the surrounding jurisdictions. The other aspect of our strategy is to conduct extensive public outreach. Staff proposes to interview commercial brokers, survey downtown local businesses, and send out a citywide resident consumer survey, attend city events such as the farmer's market, outreach on social media, and hold study sessions with PTC and EDAC. Staff has also identified preliminary discussion topics for the interviews with brokers and the surveys. Potential discussion topics include general awareness of our ordinance, inquiries received from formal businesses, impacts on both local and chain businesses, and familiarity with our CUP process. Survey topics could include property owners' views on leasing to local versus formula businesses, residents' opinions on the current balance of local and formula businesses, and perspectives on allowing additional formula businesses in the downtown. The last aspect of our research strategy will be evaluating different options for the formal business ordinance. Before you reform preliminary options, staff plan to evaluate based on council feedback. The first option is to maintain the status quo and make no amendments to the ordinance. The second option is to repeal the formal business ordinance but monitor the changes. The third option is to change the orders through a code cleanup menu. Potential amendments could be changing the CUP requirement to a minor use permit requirement, changing the threshold from 15 locations to a different number, and distinguishing between national, local, and regional change. The last option is to amend the fee schedule. This could include separate fees for formal businesses going through the CUP process or different fees for national, regional, and local chains. Looking at next steps, following this study session, staff will begin implementing the outreach and research strategy, and the deliverable staff plan to bring to our next study session with council are a summary analysis of the current form of business ordinance, evaluation of the impact of the current regulations on businesses, an understanding of how San Carlos compares to other jurisdictions, and a summary of stakeholder opinions. preparation for this meeting staff notified planning commission at their august 17th meeting that would be holding the session tonight staff presented to edac on august 25th regarding this work plan and a courtesy notice was mailed out to all owners and occupants within downtown specific plant area i would also like to note as of late this afternoon staff received a public comment letter from the chamber san mateo county and a copy of this letter can be found as an insert in your packet That concludes the first part of my presentation, and we can transition into discussion portion or open it up for clarifying questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Deanna. Downtown is a popular spot in San Carlos. Any questions from council? Vice Mayor Rack.

Again, thanks for the presentation. I had a couple, just a couple questions before we get into this, at least from my end, from discussion. Can you remind me first, when this formula business ordinance went into place,

like 12 years when when did that go into place your original so the first formula business ordinance was adopted as an urgency ordinance in 2015 that got extended into another urgency ordinance and then a temporary ordinance and then this one we have now is our fourth and final ordinance adopted in 2017.

2017 yes, so got it before any of us were on here Okay, can you clarify just a question on the use permit like some of the different options you offered? And I know you said that they don't other cities don't have Most cities don't have any sort of form the business requirements Do they have does that include not having any kind of specific use permits? I mean they may not like a minor use permit, for example, it's like does San Mateo have a minor use permit for formula businesses?

No, so the only.

I think it's just sort of standard to everybody else.

Yes, the only one that would be different would be Palo Alto. They have additional requirements for formula businesses and us.

Got it, okay, thank you. That's the only questions I have right now. I mean, I have comments, but.

Can you follow up on that question? Yes.

Yeah, so they currently, they don't regulate formula businesses, but they do discuss it in their downtown specific plan, and they mention, you know, we have limits, size limits for certain uses, and that's kind of to discourage a large amount of formula businesses coming in, and they kind of monitor the ratio, and they're open to further regulation, but they haven't adopted any at this point.

Council Member Layton.

Thanks for the presentation. A couple questions just in terms of kind of process-wise. First of all, have we done something prior to 2017 and the 2015 amount? Have we done something similar for our downtown in terms of economic development? And then maybe, sorry, I'll be more specific. I remember being, at some point in time, I was told that there were a large amount of like beauty shops or nail salons or things like that.

I can't speak to that. So there are regulations on different uses in the downtown. So as you mentioned, there's regulations on personal services. Personal services can only go in where previous ones were established. They can't be within 300 feet of each other. We also have regulations on financial institutions. As you saw, there's a lot of banks in this area. So we limit them by size. And once again, not within a 300 foot radius. And then lastly, price point retail, there's regulations for those in the downtown too.

What's the, give me an example, sorry, price point.

Like Dollar Tree.

Okay. And then in those regards, those regulations that were prior to 2015, they have nothing to do with the amount of businesses that are nationwide or anything?

No, it just regulates the use itself.

And then I guess I'm just wondering also in terms of history, are there other things we've done for downtown that have maybe been in response to kind of economic downturns or things when the downtown wasn't as vibrant that we've done in the past that have increased it. I know we've done certain things around restaurants in the past. Maybe you can elaborate on that and then talk about if we've done anything else.

I'm gonna pass that one to Al.

Good evening honorable mayor members of the City Council many years ago, maybe 30 years ago and maybe up till 20 years ago In the evenings there was a concern that downtown was very quiet after 5 p.m. Some some would say You know there needed to be more vibrancy and so years ago we relaxed our parking regulations and Before, what we were requiring a lot of parking for the number of tables at restaurants and things like that and retail businesses, and that was having a real impact on those businesses in terms of being able to go into leaseable spaces. And so we eliminated parking requirements for restaurants and other small businesses, and that had a very significant positive effect on the vitality and resiliency of our downtown

So with that elimination, I guess with that, would you quantify it as that would switch, I guess, the parking responsibility then from the landowner and the business to the city at that point in time?

Yes.

And then did you see, Al, sorry, I'm going to send you here. Did you see, Al, an increase in the vibrancy after that change?

Yes. I mean, we got a lot of new restaurants. Atavala, which was an old one before town, right? They were one of the first that came in in that building, and that set the stage. There was a number of others, Piachari and others that brought that nighttime activity. you know more people walking down the street doing window shopping and things like that in the evenings so it and so it did have a catalytic effect on the downtown and we became somewhat of a food destination after that and some of the retailers then benefited from all the extra pedestrians and things like that and then last question but it's all good lawyers will say last question to my next question um

None of us were on the council, I believe, in 2015 or 2017. So was there a specific reason that the council took that action, or was there something in the works that gave the council pause in regards to the downtown and economics at that time? Way back then? Yeah. In like 2015, 2017, when this formula, when it was created.

Yeah, I mean, there was concern at that time with regard to our small businesses. And, you know, there's economic changes, right, that happen. You know, they come in waves and patterns, right? So at that time, there was a good deal of concern. We were hearing from our small business about lease rates. People were shopping online. So the general marketplace was challenging for small businesses and where we have some fantastic small businesses in our downtown. And so the interest was to, I think, make that ecosystem, help that ecosystem and help those small businesses stay independent And not put pressure bringing you know, there was some concern with regard to bringing some of these larger Formula type businesses into downtown that could displace small mom-and-pop retailers Thank you both that was all I had that's member Dugan

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you for the presentation, Dan. Al, before you sit down, I think my, I'm looking for a little history here, too. Thank you. So, you know, I guess I kind of, the threat on this process has caused me to pause just a bit, because I think this was raised as a concern last summer, and then we had even like a strategic downtown vibrancy meeting, and I I think you were recommending at that time that we downshift from the CUP to the minor use permit. And then I think in that meeting, it felt like we had a consensus. And what happened next? And is it we just have now kind of waited until now for the next step on that? Or was it a different decision or new information incorporated?

No, I think it's the same. We're just coming back with a work program for this idea that we talked about back last November. And this idea to re-approach formula business came from the downtown specific plan. An economist that we had that assisted us with that plan said that we ought to take a look at our downtown and in particular he cited that as being a concern in terms of marketplace dynamics moving into the next 20 years so that's one of the other things to consider here is that you know we're we're looking into the future you just adopted your downtown specific plan which is a visionary document goes out 20 years so uh What we're bringing forward tonight is a work program. So it's kind of all the details that we think that you ought to look at as part of the formula business ordinance. And as I noted earlier, downtown's an ecosystem and it makes sense for any city to reevaluate the regulations that you have in place, particularly in light of big changes that may be coming in the near future and these fantastic plans that you've adopted. So that's what we're doing tonight. Okay, got it.

So this is a continuation of that, and you're bringing this forward. I know it's a study session, and we want to do the outreach and talk to our businesses and such, but it sounds like staff is still leaning in the direction of, hey, we ought to do something different here.

Well, I think we need more quantitative information, and we need to do some more surveys. We need to talk to the small businesses. I read the letter from the chamber today, and that hits home, of course. So we do need to talk to everybody, but we're also hearing from our small businesses. Some of them say that they would prefer to have more of these formula businesses because it would benefit them. It brings foot traffic. If there's a destination formula business in your downtown, they may shop at your store or go to your restaurant. So we're also hearing from both people in the community, and that's what we want to do is we want to survey the general community too and see how they feel about formula businesses, but also the small business community, property owners, and others. to get a better feeling so before we make a recommendation to you. We will acknowledge that it is working as intended okay and that it is a barrier to entry to our community and it's a policy decision and what we're going to do is provide you with all the information we will make a recommendation when we're ready. Okay.

No, I appreciate that, and I appreciated you mentioned data, because that's what I'm sitting here asking myself. How, as a council member, can I make a decision like this? Is it we just anecdotally are like, hey, we don't see as much vibrancy as maybe Burlingame, and so now we need to search the answer to that? Or are there benchmarks? How are we going to approach this in a more informed way?

Yes, I think there are benchmarks. And the good news is, you know, having looked at this and looked at local, regional, and national business trends and the types of businesses that are in each category, what we think you can do if you wanted to is be very detailed about, you know, who you want to attract. To your community, so it's not an all-or-nothing thing. We think that there's like a continuum that you could choose from Maybe to make some adjustments to it Maybe not to you know get rid of it all together but just make some adjustments if you want to and we can be very specific and take a look at even the types of businesses that are regional which we have many regional businesses in our downtown that are great that we all

I think enjoy so I think that again it's it's it's a continuum that you'll be able to look at and you can make adjustments if if you think it's necessary and we'll make a recommendation got it yeah I mean I think you know we can get into a discussion but I think there is general observation that hey you know our retail is not necessarily thriving there and you know is this is this one of the issues so I'm definitely glad we're looking at it And I'm also struck by no one around us does this. This is kind of a one-off we seem to have invented. Is this done elsewhere in the country, in the state? Do we have any? Palo Alto tried it. I think maybe we modeled on that. But they already decided it was a bad idea, and they've mostly reversed it. So I'm just, how unique are we here?

Well, we are unique in San Mateo County. We've looked elsewhere, and these are the cities we found. We're happy to cast a wider net. As far as I know, we haven't looked nationally at what other cities do outside of California, but we certainly can. So I'm not sure with regard to, you know, we are unique in our county, but maybe not in this whole state of California. So we'll need to take a closer look at that.

Okay. So my last question is just, you know, I feel like maybe we lost some time on this over the past year. I understand, you know, I support the outreach. You know, we should study this, see what's out there. I'd like to see more data on it. But, you know, assuming, you know, we're still leaning in this direction, it feels like we're leaning in making a change here. You know, can we do it faster than June of 27? That seems like a long wait.

time uh to to get into implementation on something like this because we're talking about just pulling it back right um we would we'll try um we would appreciate having that date because we have so much other stuff going on and we're working on the ground floor thing as well um which is is really um you know complex and we have a ton of other stuff going on so we would like to have that date out there if we can deliver it faster we certainly will Okay, all right, thank you, Al.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, Council Member Dugan. Thank you, Al. I've been working with you on some of our business owners trying to get permits, so I know the obstacles they face. Like, for example, if the Apple Store wanted to come in San Carlos versus Burlingame, how much harder is it for us to start here for Apple Store? Six months versus four months?

Yeah, it would be at least six months. And yeah, so I mean, if they applied to somewhere in the city of San Carlos, it would be at the very least six months, yes. So that's what the formula business ordinance does. It would be a public hearing before the planning commission. So there would be a public hearing process, much like we're having where people can come and speak their piece about it.

I'm okay with moving it forward if you can also.

I also have the slides duplicated if you guys want to go back to specific slides.

Number one.

One.

Are there any additional jurisdictions staff should study?

Would you like us to look elsewhere in California or?

Oh, sure, I'll just say, you know, I'm always, Burlingame, Los Gatos, and Carmel-by-the-Sea are the downtowns that, you know, I get most excited about visiting.

Are there any characteristics of other jurisdictions the staff should include in the comparison analysis? Vice Mayor Rack.

So what, and this may be, I may sort of extrapolate a little bit on this, but to me, I do kind of like the idea of exploring kind of reducing to a minor use permit or just changing it, but I also want to see if there's ways to maybe, I think Burlingame might be a good example, it has a balance of what I don't want is to all of a sudden we have all chain stores. So I want to see, is there a way to kind of manage that so we, you know, I think part of the charm of St. Carlos is that small town feel, is those mom and pop shops, And I wanna try to find the right balance of, I think, finding those, looking at can we get some anchors and sort of loosen things up, but also how do we preserve that balance, I think for me is sort of the biggest question. And if there's cities that have, we can identify as having that balance, that to me is what I would like to look at.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Council Member McDowell. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would agree with what the Vice Mayor just said. I would be curious kind of what, if there's other formulas, you know, that other downtowns use, if they say 50, they try and, you know, do half 50% formula versus mom and pop shops. Also, for characteristics of other jurisdictions, I would be interested in the age of downtown and if revitalization efforts have already been undertaken, like Burlingame. I think that that kind of plays into the ecosystem mentioned earlier.

Thank you. Thank you, Council Member McDowell. Committee Outreach. Are there additional survey topics that should be included? Are there? Vice Mayor Rack.

I was just looking at the, I guess I'd be interested if, and I'm sorry, Dana.

Do you want me to toggle back to the slide?

Yes, please. That'd be great. Thank you. I guess partly I'd understand, like, I think it'd be interesting to find out what kind of businesses people feel were missing and where, you know, what they would like to see come in, whether it's certain restaurant chains or retail chains or whatever the case may be. I think that would be helpful to understand, like, where there's gaps and where people might say and how those can help us inform how those might get filled.

Okay, thank you.

Councilwoman McDowell. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I'm wondering if as you're reaching out to property owners, I'd be curious on their age of their properties and if they have plans to renovate and how if they plan to stay in San Carlos for five years, 10 years, or 20 years.

Vice Mayor Racker.

I had one other question, too, or topic, or something as we think about. We have, obviously, a number of different property owners, and some of the sizes of the retail or rental, you know, lease spaces, they vary, right? So, you know, there's certain ones that there's no way or would be really difficult for a form of business to go in. Others would be a better fit. So I think trying to understand from the commercial brokers and others, like, what... you know, what's possible as well, right? If they look at and survey the downtown, they may say, gosh, yeah, an Apple store is impossible because there's like two buildings that would possibly fit it and they're not gonna turn over for the next 20 years as far as because of long-term leases or other things, or they may say, hey, sure, I don't know, Jamba Juice would be great, it could fit right here and it'd be perfect. I think that'd be helpful information as well.

I also have a sore subject question regarding parking. There are some businesses that require a lot of parking, and there are some businesses that hardly require any parking. So just like some of the sports, like karate and things like that, they require a lot of, or yoga, right? They require a lot of parking, and then versus a restaurant, that might not require as much parking. So, yeah, go ahead. Council Member Layton.

Thank you. I'd just like to piggyback on in terms of the data. So I think a lot of there's retail is going to have specific height requirements, size requirements they want, as well as a lot of business stores. What I would like to see, I think that just in general, that's going to require turnover The properties right and any developers buying dirt more than they're necessarily buying a building, but I'd love to know if a developer sees Economic viability with purchasing downtown right we have a lot of things in the downtown plan that you know can be mixed-use There's a lot of laws that can be enacted if these things aren't turned over necessarily that can turn things into non mixed-use So it'd be good to know if this is holding someone back from buying the dirt to really put a large investment into a property that would be a mixed use property for us.

I think we can go on preliminary options. Are there any specific options council would like staff to research?

Yes, Madam Mayor. You know, something I want to get a better handle on is, you know, I don't know, I know a lot of commercial listings are online, et cetera, but I'm also struck by how many vacant retail spaces don't even have a for rent sign on them. You know, there's no broker information. And, you know, especially if we're continuing our focus on local retailers, you know, people need to walk by and see these are available. And I'm thinking of some of the ground floor of some of the new condos on El Camino. I'm thinking about the train station cafe. That thing's been vacant for five years. I've never seen any activity, no signage, anything. I would think that'd be an attractive space. So anyway, I just want to get a better grip of Are the spaces being adequately marketed, in our opinion? And what could we do about it? Is that a conversation with the owners? I don't think there's any incentive or anything we're going to get involved with, but I just want to understand that better. Why would spaces not be fully marketed? I just don't understand that.

So this is for the interviews with the commercial brokers, right?

I don't know where it fits, but that's just information I would like to receive at some point.

Thank you, Council Member Dugan. Can you go back to the question? Yes, sorry. I'm going to go back to question four. Are there any stakeholder groups that should be included in the survey? Council Member McDowell.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I have a question and a comment. With the business stakeholder meetings, I know for our downtown plan, we had several downtown business stakeholder meetings that our staff went and invited all of the downtown business owners to come. There was an agenda, lots of topics were covered. It happened several times in the course of our downtown specific plan. How are you envisioning, I know we have now a downtown prosperity team on staff. How do you see that playing out with outreach to the specific business owners downtown?

So currently we have planned like the survey that would go out to each business owner. However, if council is wanting something like a more of an open house or us to talk directly with business owners, there's definitely something we can incorporate into our work plan.

Okay.

Yeah, I think, I mean, I would prefer a high touch approach. I feel, and I feel like we did that with the downtown plan because we hand delivered invitations. There was in-person meetings. I think there should be at least, you know, one in-person meeting, or I know that our downtown prosperity team is going out and meeting individually with each business owner as we proceed with our plans, if that's something, but I don't know that an online survey, it's so easy to get lost in email, And I do want to make sure, I took the Chamber's letter to heart as well, Al, and I thought that that was, you know, points made and points very well taken that, you know, this could be impactful to our small businesses, maybe in a good way, maybe in a challenging way, we don't know. But I want to make sure that we're taking the time and making that effort to hear from those who are impacted. And that probably is for the building owners as well, to make sure that we are actually getting connection with them. And there is some personal responsibility to make sure that they're meeting us for those meetings as well. So I do want to make sure that we're being very thoughtful with that. And then I just wanted my comment was for additional outreach I would love we have a very thoughtful Youth Advisory Commission made up of high schoolers who have disposable income and shop downtown and eat downtown and I think that it's it's valuable to hear their perspective too as we as we talk about new businesses because they are shoppers and and use our downtown as well and And I would also be curious to hear what our adult community center members like and prefer and what they would like to see. And I know that maybe online surveys are not the best way to reach them either. So maybe we could do a little sticker thing at the ACC like we do at the farmers market. But I would really like to see that we're capturing all age groups and being inclusive. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Vice Mayor Rack?

Thank you, Madam Mayor. So this may be a difficult one to do, but I think also, I don't know that our downtown and our businesses thrive and survive just with San Carlos residents and businesses. So I think it would be helpful to find out what would draw people from neighboring communities to come into San Carlos and wanna spend their money here, spend their time here. and to do that. I know it's a little bit more difficult to do that, but maybe if you're able to partner with the Chamber or some of the restaurants who, or businesses that have people, maybe they're willing to do something that allows, when they have customers coming in already, there might be a way to get some feedback that way as well. But I think, you know, people in Belmont, Burlingame, how do we get all those people from Burlingame to come down to St. Carlos? I think that would be great, thank you.

Thank you, Vice Mayor. Council Member Dugan.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I guess I think these would be additional topics for the survey. I'm struck the only neighboring community with this is Palo Alto, and they recently chose to remove the restriction from retail. It only applies to restaurants now. So I would like that to be included in the survey as let's get people's opinion of maybe taking a step like that if we're not ready to remove it entirely at least remove it on the retail, which seems to be the area we're most concerned about. And then another option could be on the survey, but just repeal it and see how it goes. Put a moratorium, just like for a year. Let's just, for a year, let's see what happens if we don't have this, and then it would come back into effect after a year or not, depending on how it goes. The point being, we're not making some... permanent massive decision, we can choose to do something and adjust downstream as well. However, that could be reflected in the survey. I think we all have a sense, hey, we've got to do something to help retail. I'm glad we're studying. I'm glad we're going to do outreach, but I think we need to be in action mode and The point is, nothing we do here is the once and final action. I mean, I think we've amended this thing four times along the way. So my preference is to do something and adjust if we need to.

Council Member Layton.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I guess, so...

There it is. I guess the one thing... I always like to say is like when it comes to surveys and everything is great and all, but if like you took my survey to heart, downtown would be an arcade, like three pizza places and a bunch of coffee shops, right? So what I would like to see the balance of the survey results be against some form of, you know, we have an economist we use. I feel like this, you know, we have a certain set of space to our downtown core that we're trying to improve and continue to make better. And as Al said, put into our ecosystem. So I'd like to see how that balances to an economist perspective on what the severe results does. So what that would mean would be does San Carlos seems to have a lot of the same thing often that comes up at once, right? You know, is there a cap on do four pizza places downtown make little sense for a downtown of our size? Or can it be economically viable, right? Are they hurting each other or are they helping each other? Those synergies would be good to know for me from an economic perspective more than necessarily a survey perspective as it relates to other cities, right? So what makes from an outsider's perspective it look like a downtown University Avenue thrive compared to necessarily, you know, Burlingame or our downtown. So that would be just the one thing I'd like to see the balance of as it comes to the survey results.

Okay. Thank you. Number five, I think. I think we did that one right. I think you all kind of touched on it, but if you want to discuss it more. To number six now. Are there other specific options Council would like staff to research? Well, my colleagues are thinking. I was just going to say, we're not a tourist destination. whatever, tourist destination. But it would be nice to bring in some formula businesses to get some foot traffic into our downtown to help some of our small businesses. Vice Mayor Iraq, do you have a question?

I know I mentioned that earlier, Deanna, but I think in this section, it would just be like, I do think we want more options. I think Council Member Dugan mentioned sort of the one-year moratorium, look at what I would like to see, like how do we find some, whether it was what Council Member McDowell mentioned, is there like a percentage somehow that gets, you know, there's some limits so that we are sure that we're preserving our small business community as well, but to find some balance. So I think that's, to me, the biggest, Factor is kind of balancing both the small businesses that we have and attracting some new business form the businesses that can help anchor And to help so that to me would be not a one or one way or the other but how do we find is that to me is like a middle ground of Moving to that sort of maybe a minor use permit or getting rid of the permit and then have been having some cap potentially Thank You vice mayor

Do you mind going back to the questions? OK, sorry. Deliverables. Number seven, are there additional deliverables council would like to have included? Now we'll public comment. Crystal, do we have any public comment on this?

Yes, we do. We have at least one in person from King Castle. You can come on up, please.

good evening again council members can counsel I've studied almost a dozen cities in detail but their downtown plans were with their street cake straight streetscape plans were the formula that Burlingame has followed is absolutely the model of success. And if you haven't been there, you need to walk down Burlingame Avenue. And what that city does, they've decided that over a number of years, and we lived there for 16 years, that having a vibrant downtown depends on diversity. And beggars can't be choosers in our situation. You know, the diversity that Burlingame has with an Apple store, with a Limon restaurant, that appeals to the younger audience, to the younger consumers. If you take a walk down Laurel Street, I don't know if you'd do this, but if you did and took a look at all the mom and pop stores, try to figure out who their market is. Who are the consumers? I can tell you this. It's an older group. It's 55 and older for all these specialty clothing stores. None of you are going to go buy anything there. You're not going to do that. Now, so if you bring in the specialty stores, you're not going to get the big box stores. They're not coming in. But to get rid of this formula situation and look out for those other chain groups that can come in, I can tell you, if you put a lazy dog restaurant downtown, the place would be streaming with people. And I've studied Livermore, Pleasanton, Danville, Walnut Creek. Walnut Creek's got a great success story, and it's downtown. I've studied Los Gatos, Los Altos, Menlo Park. But Burlingame is definitely the one to look at. No street closures, beautiful new plaza called the Town Square. And they have that mixture of formula businesses and small businesses, and they help each other. And it's time to move on.

Thank you, Ken.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Up next is David Carroll.

Hello everybody, my name's David Carroll. I've been resident for 35 years. I own a building on the 800 block of Laurel Street for the last 25 years. As in a quick aside, this whole formula business thing came because the dollar store was gonna move into the Bell Market when it left. That was the urgent thing that happened, and then that evolved into this disastrous formula, in my opinion, formula business ordinance that's lived on and on for this long. So I am very actively opposed to this. I see what's happening at Burlingame is a great example of anchor tenants that are formulas that are sitting side by side with local mom and pop shops. It's a great synchronous situation. There was a question about how can you limit how many formula businesses come. Don't worry, our parking is gonna do that, unfortunately. So it's gonna be sort of self-regulating. I strongly believe, agree, we should go faster. Somebody asked about, are you gonna renovate your property? If I can get a quality tenant, like a formula business, then I can justify spending millions of dollars to renovate my property. If I'm going to be renting to a substandard mom and pop that may or may not be there very long, probably not. It's just business. If I have a bigger pool of tenants that I can rent to, I'm going to invest more and more into my building. Or it's going to be worth a lot more to somebody else that's going to buy the dirt. So it's kind of obvious. At this point, this thing is way outlived its life. It's interesting, in 2017, people were talking about, we don't want to be Burlingame. I'm not saying we should be Burlingame, but there's a lot of good things about it. Jamba Juice was used as an example. We don't want a Jamba Juice. So I'm really happy that this is finally getting discussed. Please move faster. And I'm happy to talk to all of you one-on-one as much as possible. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Is there anybody else in person who would like to make a public comment on formula business ordinance? Okay, don't see any hands. Looking to Zoom, there are no hands there either, thank you.

Do you have what you need? Thank you.

Can I make one last comment?

Oh, sure.

I just want to follow up on one thing. I know, Al, you talked about a timeline, just given all the other things going on. The one thing I would ask staff to be, the consensus is that this is something that should be revoked or changed can you please bring it back sooner rather than later right we don't if it's something that's able that people are wanting to move quickly on and want change then i think we kind of owe it to them to change if that's possible or at least have the discussion and make that out loud so thank you thank you i would second that i would third that

Do you have what you need, Al?

Madam Mayor, one just final comment for all the fans of Burlingame. I'll just point out they have a brand new multi-million dollar fountain there, by the way.

All right. Well, thank you, Council Member Dugan. Thank you, everyone. Going on to new business, item 10A is consideration of supporting SAMTRANS coordination with Caltrans and the City of San Carlos to plan, design, and implement complete street improvements on El Camino Real in San Carlos as part of the El Camino Real multimodal plan. Hello, Lisa.

Hello. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members Dugan, Layton, McDowell, and Rack. Lisa Porras, Planning Manager for the City of San Carlos's Advanced Planning Division. And I'd also like to introduce my colleague, Hania Houshmandi, who is Senior Transportation Engineer with the Public Works Department. Joining staff tonight are Cassie Halls, project manager of the Central El Camino Real Multimodal Plan, representing Samtrans, and their consultant, Erin Ferguson, from the firm Fair and Peers. Tonight, SamTrans is requesting the City Council of the City of San Carlos consider adopting a resolution supporting SamTrans coordination with Caltrans and the City to plan, design, and implement Complete Streets improvements on El Camino Real in San Carlos as part of the El Camino Real Multimodal Plan. So the purpose of this item is essentially to memorialize, through resolution, San Carlos' support for SamTrans to coordinate with Caltrans for future study, technical analyses, and ultimately selection of a preferred design for El Camino Real. Through this resolution, the city is not obligated to make any decision on the design of El Camino Real tonight. Rather, Sam Trans is asking council for support and agreement to participate in a process. At a future date, however, Sam Trans would return and ask the council to endorse a preferred alternative. To this end, I would like to draw the council's attention to the final four whereas clauses as well as the now therefore be it resolved section as presented in the resolution and located on packet pages 181 and 182. So the discussion tonight will focus on four things. First, the central El Camino Real plan. The presentation will highlight community engagement, and most importantly, it will present some conceptual alternatives for San Carlos' segment of El Camino Real, and then describe the next steps for implementing the vision for transforming El Camino Real into a Grand Boulevard. So now I'd like to welcome Cassie Hulls from SamTrans.

Thank you so much, Lisa.

I also wanted to call out that I'm joined by Charles E. Chang from our Government and Community Affairs group at Samtrans, who's gonna be helping with the presentation today. So, really appreciate the great intro, Lisa, and thank you for having us. Some of this is information you've heard before related to the Central El Camino Real Multimodal Plan as well as the Grand Boulevard Initiative. Today we are trying to kind of put a bow on the plan and to seek a resolution of support. So I'm just gonna give a brief intro and then I'll pass it over to Charlesy and then Aaron to walk through the rest of the presentation. However, just as a reminder, this central El Camino Real plan covers San Carlos as well as Belmont, San Mateo and the northernmost portion of Redwood City. And the goal of the project is to transform El Camino Real to better serve people walking, biking, and taking transit. And the plan is currently in a final state, just seeking this resolution of support. From where it is now, it will be advanced as a part of this countywide Caltrans project development process that's being facilitated by the Grand Boulevard Initiative, which I can talk about more. So just a reminder of where we are in the plan and where we came from So we started this plan back in spring of 2025 We conducted a in-depth needs assessment as our first Aspect of the plan and we also conducted phase one of community engagement That Charles II will speak about more but ultimately included both online and in-person events We covered, you know San Carlos as well as San Mateo, Belmont, and Redwood City in our outreach. We had an online mapping tool, virtual listening sessions. We had pop-ups at libraries, including the San Carlos Library. We had walk audits, including a walk audit along El Camino in San Carlos. We had CBO, so community-based organization-led outreach, and we also presented to you all in city council. Moving to phase two. So what we did from the needs assessment, first we started with just understanding what the issues were on the corridor. And then we came up with some draft alternatives, design alternatives. And that led us into our second phase of engagement where we gathered community input on conceptual alternatives. So that phase two happened from January to March of this year and included a online survey. Some listening sessions pop-ups other types of events And now we're in our phase three of engagement So right now we are narrowing down the design alternatives to be advanced into the Caltrans process and We are in phase three of engagement, which is kind of closing the loop with City Council different stakeholders And we're at the far end of that timeline right now and the alternatives that are selected in the So we have multiple alternatives that are being advanced into this next phase. And then in the 2027-2028 timeframe, that's when we're going to be determining a preferred alternative in coordination with Council. And we'll be coming back to you a lot during that time period. So just big picture reminding you of you know, what this larger effort is that Sam trans is leading in partnership with other agencies including the SMC ta see a CAG Caltrans and MTC This the central plan is one piece of this larger Grand Boulevard initiative also called GBI And what we're doing is we're knitting together all of these efforts that are happening along El Camino. So the basis of all of our work is local planning studies, including all the previous plans that San Carlos has done. That informed this central El Camino plan. And then this central El Camino plan is informing the Grand Boulevard Initiative. So GBI serves as both a means of bringing all these local plans together, a forum for collaboration for city staff, and also opportunities for them to speak to advocates and business groups and other folks who have a stake in El Camino. And then lastly, the GBI is just an ongoing effort that that Sam Trans, the TA is using to go through this Caltrans process. So that's because El Camino Real is a state facility. So it's State Route 82. And so any kind of work that we want to do has to go through Caltrans. So, big picture, this effort is going to be ... I covered this in the last slide a little bit, but we have a lot of cities involved, a total of 15 cities and towns in the county plus Palo Alto. And we also have big money that we need to get for this project. This is going to be one of the county's largest transportation projects. So this is not a small effort. We anticipate up to a billion dollars in costs to deliver 22 miles of streetscape redesign. And this is a very rough cost right now. We'll be refining that as we move forward. But this is worth noting that we have one of the reasons why it's so great we're working so closely with all these regional partners is that the SMCTA is able to fund up to 500 million and this is funds that we would apply to, but they can fund up to 500 million of the total project costs with sales tax measures, measure A and W. And then the additional $500 million that we'll be seeking, we'll be working closely with all of these other partners, including MTC, CCAG, SMCTA, to identify federal, state, and regional opportunities. And also, as a corridor-wide initiative, there's more funding that can be tapped into than if one city was trying to do this alone. So from here, I will pass it to Charlesy.

Okay, thanks Cassie and thank you Mayor and council members for having us back. I'm gonna talk a little bit more about our community engagement. So we did have the online community survey, but we also had in-person pop-up events at the library and at the San Carlos Caltrain Station. We had virtual listening sessions with different groups like business groups, public safety groups, and just different people that might not be able to participate in the regular online survey. We also had a community-based organization meeting, so for San Carlos specifically, we worked with the villages of San Mateo County, and we actually recruited San Carlos participants, particularly seniors, and we held that meeting at our San Carlos office when our headquarters were across the street still. If you don't know, we moved to Millbrae a couple months back. And then we actually partnered with Stanford on walk audits with staff and with our staff as well to go and walk the corridor itself and pinpoint different places where we found issues and take photos of the different locations. And we've also had the different stakeholder presentations, including to the chamber and to different groups that might be interested in things, you know, a project like this. And then finally, we had a virtual community workshop, and that was corridor-wide, inviting different people and groups from throughout the corridor. So from Redwood City all the way up to San Mateo. So for the online engagement methods, in our first phase, I wanted to mention that in the 830 responses, we did also have bus shelter temporary signs. So we had them posted at our bus stops along El Camino Real and San Carlos. We also had people taking the survey that way. But out of the 830 in the phase one, 208 were from San Carlos. And for phase two of the 701 responses, where it was more giving feedback on designs, 113 of the 701 responses were from San Carlos. And just want to briefly talk about the key takeaways that we heard from San Carlos. There was a lot of interest in reducing congestion, improving safety, as we're seeing more in businesses and housing growth continuing along El Camino Real. We did hear some positive reviews on parking removal on El Camino Real, but we're just taking this feedback in and there's going to be more, that's going to be more continued engagement in the next phases. And I'm actually going to pass it now to talk about the specific conceptual alternatives. Tara.

All right, thank you, good evening. Before I talk about the specific concept alternatives, we just wanna highlight our approach to developing these. So first and foremost, wanted to note the alignment that this effort to improve transit, walking and biking along El Camino Real really aligns with the council's strategic objectives for actively pursuing plans and strategies for improving mobility while encouraging alternative modes of transportation to provide safe and efficient movement throughout the city. There's also quite a bit of kind of alignment with Caltrans policy that because Caltrans owns the right-of-way we wanted to build into the consideration as we developed the alternative design concepts. So in about the last roughly five years Caltrans as an organization has really been evolving how they approach improvement street and roadway improvement projects and they've had a number of directors policies that we've noted here on the slide to really prioritize and emphasize the importance of incorporating complete streets improvements into their projects, prioritizing road safety, including a commitment to eliminating traffic fatalities and serious injuries. They also have now a transit policy And then they have released design guidance, kind of an update to their design standards to give information about how to go about designing these complete streets elements when we're looking at them within their right of way. So all of these policies were part of our considerations in developing the alternatives as part of this plan. with these policies district 4 which is the district that El Camino Real is within for account trans has also through their planning processes identified El Camino Real as a priority corridor for a low stress continuous bicycle connection so that would be like a separated bike lane. They've also, in their pedestrian plan for District 4, identified El Camino Real as a priority for pedestrian improvements and enhancements. And in their transit plan for District 4, they've identified El Camino Real as a priority for transit improvements to improve bus speed and reliability. So there's a lot of expectations for El Camino Real, as you're likely gathering. A lot of these policy alignments from Caltrans, or policies from Caltrans also align with the city of San Carlos policies that we see in the city's general plan related to improving pedestrian bicycle facilities as well as public transportation, reducing vehicle trips, enabling those alternative modes of transportation, considering bicycle safety and bike route continuity and connectivity. And as the city's updating your TDM program and parking requirements, these improvements on El Camino Real can create opportunities and contribute to that effort as well. The other piece of information that we took into consideration was really other recent plans that touch on El Camino Real. So the city's bicycle and pedestrian master plan from 2020 identifies a number of spot improvements. And so those are part of what we've incorporated into this central El Camino Real multimodal plan. The city's downtown streetscape master plan identified a proposed cross-section for El Camino Real and that's reflected in the alternatives that we've put together here. And then Samtrans recently completed a bus speed and reliability study which also identified both spot improvements along El Camino Real as well as Portions of El Camino Real where a bus only or transit only lane would be needed to help improve bus speed and reliability. From just outside of the immediate right of way of where people and buses and bikes move, the other piece of important context that we looked at was just how land use is changing along El Camino Real throughout the county, in San Carlos specifically. Over the next decade, we're expecting to see 11,000 new jobs and 6,000 new residents within a half mile of El Camino Real. And so again, this really speaks to the amount of anticipated future growth and really the need and the opportunity to help meet and serve a vast majority of that growth through other modes of transportation. So the importance of making El Camino Real a truly complete street. Okay, so these next couple of slides show the alternative cross sections and this is from roughly F Street to Edgewood Road. On the top of the screen here, we're depicting the existing cross section with two lanes northbound, three lanes southbound on street parking on the kind of southbound side of El Camino or western side of El Camino Real. So we have two alternative cross sections identified in the central El Camino Real multimodal plan for San Carlos. This first one on this slide incorporates those separated bike lanes and that I mentioned are a priority to Caltrans. That's also consistent with the city's downtown specific plan and streetscape master plan that you all recently finished. The primary difference reflected here is that outside travel lane is different. It's shown here as a bus-only lane in the southbound direction. The reason for including that as part of this alternative is based off of the prior Samtrans bus speed and reliability findings that indicated based on existing operations on El Camino Real that southbound lane is needed to improve bus performance. The second alternative is similar, but instead of that southbound bus lane, we have on street parking on the west side of El Camino Real. It also reflects the separated bicycle facilities. And so this is the cross section that reflects what is in the downtown specific plan and streetscape master plan for El Camino Real. for your awareness in Belmont. If you're looking at the full content of the plan, Belmont got one alternative primarily because that's where El Camino Real right-of-way is most constrained. And so there wasn't a lot of options within the city of Belmont to explore different kind of cross-sectional elements. The other portion of the plan touches on placemaking opportunities and these are really opportunities meant to start a discussion, so these haven't been fully vetted in terms of details like cost or maintenance agreements or responsibilities or anything like that, but it's really a recognition that as we look at changing kind of the cross section along El Camino Real to create more space for humans and people to travel outside of vehicles. There's also an opportunity for placemaking to create public spaces where people want to spend more time or is more attractive and kind of brings vibrancy to local businesses as well. So within the plan, you'll see those ideas for placemaking opportunities as well. All right, I'm gonna pass it to Cassie to cover next steps.

Great, so as I mentioned before, today we are still in our phase three of engagement on the central El Camino plan. We're wrapping this up by the end of the month. And what we're trying to accomplish right now is narrowing down these alternatives now that we have two, getting that resolution of support from city council. And then we are starting our project initiation document. We've actually already started this. So this is part of the Caltrans process. It's the first step. We started this in April, but we're still working with all the city staff to define what those draft alternatives are. So we're finishing up this plan right around the time that that handoff is happening. And through that project initiation document phase, we're gonna be refining these alternatives further. looking forward to upcoming milestones. So the next phase of work is called the project approvals and environmental document. It's a long jargony title, but ultimately it just means the design phase. And in this phase, we'll be selecting a preferred alternative. So from 2027, 2028, we're gonna be having a very big outreach and engagement effort with all of the local jurisdictions up and down El Camino because they will all be making this decision around that same time. So just calling out now that there's going to be a lot more engagement from council and a lot more engagement with the public when we're doing that decision-making process. And this is just the same information, but this noting that this plan was under a million dollars and the PA and ED phase that you just described is probably in the range of 15 to 20 million. So it's a big effort in terms of outreach and analysis. So there's very thorough traffic analysis required, environmental analysis, et cetera, through the Caltrans process. Okay, so I'm gonna go back to what Lisa presented at the beginning, which is just a, Reminder that today what we're hoping in addition to any feedback or comments on the plan and the materials we presented today your consideration of adopting a resolution basically just supporting that Sam trans continues this process with Caltrans through the PID and future phases to plan design and implement complete streets improvements on El Camino. Thank you so much.

Thank you for the presentation, keeping us up to date on all the outreach. I have a question, and then I'll let it leave it. In the plan, I still see a bike lane dedicated, correct? Is that the feedback you got from different cities? A dedicated bus lane, sorry. Sorry, your question is? The bus only lane? Yes. Is that the feedback you had from other cities also?

Yes, so it really depends on the jurisdiction and also the previous work that we did. We did a bus speed and reliability study where we identified segments of the corridor where bus lanes are most needed. So we weren't asking for bus lanes from each jurisdiction, but for the jurisdictions where there is the congestion and that we need that bus only lane. There was a lot of support for transit only lanes from the community when we were doing that outreach.

So does each city decide bus lane versus no bus lane?

Basically, if bus lanes are part of the alternatives that were developed, that is something that they'll be deciding through the next phase.

Okay, thank you. Council Member Dugan.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. And, yeah, thank you for the presentation. I mean, I think El Camino Real is the very definition of a strode, I would say, which, you know, it's not a great street. It's not like Laurel Street where you want to spend time, and it's not a great road because it doesn't really get you anywhere all that quickly. And it's also not very safe for cyclists. or others right now, so I definitely support taking a look at it. We did take a really thorough look at it. Our downtown specific plan, our downtown streetscape plan were the most extensive planning exercises I've been involved in as a council member. Three to four years of effort, massive public outreach. And so, Crystal, could you flip to slide seven, please? And so, you know, and I understand this is, you know, a big section here. And, you know, these plans need to line up. But can someone explain to me what the Redwood City study and the Atherton study and the Menlo Park study are and how they're different than... I mean, I can only imagine those were not as extensive of an effort as we put in on the streetscape plan. So what I'm struggling with is why are those...

you know at least on this looking to be independent and you know why would our very significant effort uh be lumped into this 10-mile corridor no that's a great point so one of the challenges with this effort is that each city is in a totally different spot so there's some cities that have done a lot of engagement recently completed plans and there's some cities that maybe hadn't done a plan when we started this effort you know restarted this effort two years ago or their plan was out of date. So you noted the Menlo Park, Atherton, Redwood City, I can talk about those, but this kind of applies across the corridor. So Redwood City had done a recent plan or semi-recent plan, but it was not as recent as your all. It was done in 2017. um and then atherton recently completed a plan that they did with the ta um so i would say those are two kind of two ends of the spectrum in terms of um uh you know representing different phases of where uh different parts of the corridor are menlo park as an example did not had not done a recent plans we actually worked with them and funded a small effort that didn't involve any community outreach, but ultimately worked with city staff to identify a couple of draft alternatives for inclusion in the PID. I would say you all are at an advantage that you've already done this very extensive specific plan. Not every city has that advantage, so I think that's part of what the next phase is. The PA and ED phase that I talked about will involve a lot of outreach and engagement. In places like San Carlos, maybe there's less of that needed because you've already done that very extensive engagement. But for the places where there hasn't been the same level, that's where we'll focus a lot of effort.

Yeah, I guess what I'm really struggling with, so like, did you present this to Redwood City and they turned you down? They didn't want to be part of this? Or what does it mean for us to join in this effort if we don't need as extensive public outreach? You know, does that mean that, you know, the public outreach that does get conducted in Beaumont or San Mateo ends up getting weighted heavier than ours, but since we sign up to this, then our input that happened a couple years ago is not as respected in this process. Do you see what I mean? I mean, you know, these things have a life of their own, and I'm just... I'm not wanting to do anything tonight that undercuts this very significant effort we already have done as a community. So that's... If you... You know, that's what I need to understand is what are we signing up for if we lean into this kind of a collective effort?

Yeah, I did want to, I know that this slide maybe can be a little bit confusing, but there's ultimately two efforts that we're talking about today. We're talking about the central El Camino plan, which included the four cities that included you all. And that is tied to the resolution. But ultimately the larger effort is this Grand Boulevard Initiative that includes 15 jurisdictions up and down El Camino. And they are all opted in, all 15 cities are opted into this process. So just worth noting that San Carlos is one of many jurisdictions that's a part of this. The central El Camino plan that we are about to complete was just San Mateo, San Carlos, Redwood City, and Belmont because there was a grant that we applied for that you all were included in. Redwood City was part of that, but basically it was kind of filling a gap in some of the jurisdictions in the central county portion who had not done recent plans. At the time, San Carlos had not done a planning study. I just wanted to make sure that you understood the differentiation between the central El Camino plan and then the broader GBI effort. I don't feel like I fully answered your question, but it's not intended to undercut or diminish at all the extensive engagement that you guys have done as a part of this plan. It's more of a regional effort that you all are getting involved in. And there'll be many opportunities to make sure that the perspective from San Carlos is heard in the next phase of work.

Yeah, I guess that's where I'm at, is I guess I'm looking to be sold on the advantages, right? How are we gonna be sure we're in that process and can make sure the planning we've done is fully respected? And then does this represent a funding opportunity for San Carlos? I mean, is this gonna be a collective regional effort more tied into state and federal grants? That's why we should lean into this. I'm hoping to get sold here.

Yes, no, that's a great question. So the bigger picture is that we are leading this redesign of El Camino. And it's really important that you all have a seat at the table because the decision maker is not us, it's not you, it's Caltrans. And this is an opportunity to influence what Caltrans is going to do in this segment. So I feel like for that reason, it's very important for you all to be participating in the process. Unfortunately, as a state facility, Caltrans can decide what they wanna do. They ultimately want to have city council input, but you know, there may be an instance where they will just do something because there are enough injuries and collisions. That situation was similar to kind of what happened in Palo Alto where they put in bike lanes and the community ultimately supported it, but it took a long time to get to that point. So I think this is, you know, the ship is moving and either you can be on it or not. But it's also an opportunity to access a lot of funding for improvements that you all would not be able to access on your own. I mentioned that billion dollar That's going to be the cost of delivering this whole effort. We already have half of that committed, or not committed, but we'll be applying for that. This is also an opportunity to seek external funding for improvements that are dramatically needed on El Camino.

Thank you. Final question then probably for Lisa. I mean, if, you know, what are our degrees of control over El Camino? If, you know, I just don't know if Caltrans says we're doing this, do we have a say? Is it, you know, go before our planning commission? I mean, you know, what, as a city, do we have any say over El Camino if it comes to it?

Thank you for the question, Council Member Dugan. Certainly as a planner, I would definitely be supporting of and recommending to our regional partners here that whatever engagement is outlined for next year, that we speak about it in San Carlos in the context of the efforts that we've taken so far, as you've just mentioned, and as our community knows, we've adopted the Streetscape Master Plan. which does include our preferred alternative for El Camino Real. So that's the conversation that we as staff would continue to advance. And that could include whatever study sessions we need whatever kind of outreach that we are used to doing in our community, really working with our partners here to make sure that we're giving them input and advice on how to do this and what we've done successfully. But as far as the influence on Caltrans, I cannot speak to that. Maybe my colleague, Hanya, can. It is their facility. But I think from a planner's perspective, we would need to be telling our story, and this is the input we want to maintain and be consistent with going forth.

Got it, thank you, Lisa. And Hania, maybe I should have asked you first, so sorry.

No worries. Good evening, Mayor, council members. My name is Hania Houshmedi, I'm the senior traffic engineer. This is Caltrans right away, so ultimately they are the final decision maker. However, practice historically been that they wanna engage with every city and they don't like to go against the grain. But if they were to, they certainly have the authority to do so. One other thing I wanted to add to what Cassie had mentioned, the PID process, the Project Initiation Document process, is a very lengthy and cumbersome and expensive process that if we were all to go through it individually as cities, it would take quite a large sum of resources and time. Some of the cities have already done that. City of Como has already done that. It took them years to get through the process. Redwood City, some portions of it, same. So this is a great opportunity for us to kind of bundle up with everybody else and get this big chunk of effort out of the way. That way, when we are ready to go through our corridor of El Camino, we can just tap into that corridor white pit and not have to go through that again.

Yeah, thank you. That's helpful. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Thank you, Council Member Dugan. Vice Mayor Rack.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Cassie, thanks for the presentation. So I had a couple questions just, and I think Council Member Dugan answered, and I got some of them answered. So it sounds like if we don't opt in to work with you on this, then we could technically go it alone, but we would have a different process, and we might be more costly, take a longer time period, etc. might sit behind all you guys to do everything and have, and then at that point, everything's done except for St. Carlos and they, Caltrans may say, yeah, that's nice, but 14 other jurisdictions have X done this way and this is how it's gonna be. Is that sort of accurate from that?

Yes, I think that is accurate. There's also the potential that, let's say, you all choose not to be part of this process. Caltrans just decides they're going to move ahead anyway. So that just means you don't have a seat at the table. So we're trying to avoid that. That's why we're setting up this whole GBI effort to make sure it's very city-led and that you're really leveraging all the work that you have already done.

So and then in terms of our ability to kind of advocate for because we have so many businesses on this or the southbound side you know western part of Camino that you know parking is important the northbound the sort of northbound east side is less relevant there's not really any I mean there's a couple at the very southern part and northern part but they some have parking their own parking so there's a lot it's very much less of an issue. So does this give us less control or more control over being able to advocate for parking in St. Carlos, which is part of our downtown specific plan? I mean, we do have bike lanes built in in terms of what we want to do on both ends. We want to try to do both help support the businesses and support mobility. So does this give us any extra negotiation or now we're lumped in with everybody else?

I think it gives you an opportunity to express your local preferences. However, I will just say that from the Caltrans perspective that Aaron talked about, all the policies, the value of that space for parking is huge. lower than the space if it's being used for biking or transit or wider sidewalks. So I would say, yes, this is an opportunity to express your local preferences. However, it is possible that Caltrans might make the decision that that parking is better used for different that promote kind of the multimodal future that we wanna see, especially with all the increases in housing and development along the corridor. But this is an opportunity to have a voice.

And then my next question on this is, so my understanding, and I think that it's still in there, is in SB 79, if you put a rapid bus transit lane on El Camino, essentially the entire corridor will be subject to SB 79, and we will have to basically lose all local control over zoning.

So we are working from the guidance from the bill author and there are not specific stops identified in the regional transportation plan or the transportation improvement plan. So at this time from our understanding because the stops have not been identified that that would not be the case.

We don't want to stop in San Carlos because we don't want to have to build like basically lose all local control over zoning.

So it's that those stops had to have already been identified in those plans.

The bill being signed into law? Yes. All right, because I know like in LA, they basically were able to do a carve out to carve out LA because basically it would have applied to the entire city.

Yes, and we do hear those concerns and we're continuing to work with the bill author for all those clarifications. Yes.

That's something to me I'm really concerned about from just this constant sort of losing of local control. We spend all this money and state requirements for housing elements, everything else, we do our part, and then they come in and just say, yeah, that's great, but we're gonna just do what we wanna do anyway. So I'm very cognizant of this, and that is a key priority for me on this. And maybe it needs to be fixed at the legislature, but I'm really concerned about where this could go for SB 79. That's all the questions I have for right now.

Council Member Layton.

Thanks for the presentation. Sorry, I just want to clarify just one point on what we're doing tonight just because so many things are kind of up in the air. To me, it's just a resolution tonight to agree to kind of participate as a group and continue the work collaboratively on a essentially multi-county, close to multi-county study, but obviously one of the broken parts. That's essentially how I read this resolution. Correct. Okay. Also, I read the resolution that we're not committing to any preferred alternatives. We're not committing any money. We're not committing really much of anything outside of we're just saying that we support Collaboration.

Yes.

Okay. That's it, thank you.

Council Member McDowell.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. Thank you for the presentation. Thank you for being here with us late. Could you go to slide 17, please, Crystal? I just wanted to note that even though we have our downtown specific plan, our downtown specific plan didn't talk about safety upgrades like crossing improvements, signal improvements. So this is another benefit of basically joining into your plan is that we're going to get to address some serious safety issues and upgrades that are needed okay and I did want to say thank you because a lot of these are issues that we have heard especially from our east side neighbors who cross from the east side over to the west side for school and coming to the downtown and I think that these are really important safety issues to address so I want to thank you for that Crystal could you go to slide 22 please I just wanted to talk about this front porch strategy. This is not something that we are deciding tonight, but because it is called out in such a prominent way, this front porch, I really think it's a beautiful drawing, a beautiful rendering. This will not play out well in real life. I have huge problems with Caltrans just painting the left-hand turn arrow from Howard onto El Camino on a regular basis. There's no way painting on El Camino. This features one bus. It should feature like 75 cars sitting there at a light. I don't really understand how these beautiful renderings translate to real life. So I don't see this being realistic. And I'm just wondering, I understand placemaking and beautification, but is this something that is under serious consideration? This will be coming back to us to make a decision on? This doesn't really fit with our downtown plan strategy. So I'm just curious if you could just talk through that a little bit more, please.

Yeah, no, thank you for those comments. So this was intended to be kind of a visioning exercise. So like you talk about, the renderings are not very well defined. They're still kind of at a high level. This is just to kind of inspire ideas to begin the conversation, but we have not put any, you know, Serious effort into the design considerations or maintenance or all of that that's involved in this So we would definitely be coming back to you over that next two-year timeline that I mentioned for the design phase to talk through place making opportunities along the corridor and and to have make sure that it reflects your community's needs and Okay, thank you.

Go ahead, Madam Mayor. Can you just explain what is the purpose of this? They're going to stop and then there's walking and bikes in the square?

Yeah, I can maybe start and then Aaron can chime in if there's further but the idea is it's a pedestrian scramble I think that is the concept and then the idea is that you're kind of creating more space for bikes and buses through those On El Camino. Yes. Do you want to add anything Aaron?

Okay, I think I've said my piece. Madam Mayor, if you don't mind, I'll just make a comment. On the Central El Camino Real Multimodal Plan, I just wanted to say thank you for including this photograph of El Camino with the weeds. Recently, Sam Trans cleaned up an area that had about six-foot-high weeds that was blocking a sidewalk, and I really want to make sure that, yes, these long-term plans are great, but in the short term, if there are areas that Sam Trans is in charge of along El Camino, your maintenance people addressed it quickly when our code enforcement got involved, but I would appreciate some proactive cleaning up of weeds as well, so thank you.

Thank you. I don't see any more questions. Crystal, do we have any public comment on this item?

Yes, we have, I believe, two slips for in-person. Ken Castle, you're up first. And Andrew Hsu, I'm not sure if, is it for this item? Okay, you'll be up next. Thank you.

You're hearing a lot from me tonight. I went back and played the meeting in February when you had the initial presentation from Caltrans, and I pretty much agreed with all the comments that council members made at that time. Let me give you a reality check. When you say that Palo Alto approved the bike lanes, maybe you don't read the newspaper. It's killed off most of the businesses along that route from southbound on Palo Alto and Mountain View. And there's a little use of the bike lane. Frankly, traditional bike lanes are obsolete with e-bikes, and Councilman Layton made that comment or made that concern back in February. So this traditional bike lane basically killed off businesses in Palo Alto and Mountain View. It did eliminate the overnight RVs that were parked there, but it killed off a lot of businesses. And I can tell you that BRTs, I've had experience with BRTs for the last 15 years throughout the Bay Area, all the major projects, The AC Transit BRT from San Leandro to Oakland, which took years to build, went over past deadlines, eliminated about 30% of the businesses. The other BRT that got a lot of commentary is the one on Van Ness in San Francisco. When they installed the BRT lanes there and eliminated side parking, a large percentage of those businesses retailers went out of business all the auto shops and everything uh pretty much gone and so that's that is the the negative side of this and i wouldn't be signing any blank checks to either caltrans or samtrans on this yes participation is appreciated but um let's let's look at the facts the bike lanes don't work on el camino nobody's on them

Thank you, Ken. Andrew, you're up next.

Mayor Venkatesh, esteemed city council members and city staff. I'm a longtime San Carlos resident, father of three, and longtime cyclist. While I'm on the board of directors of the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition and co-lead our local bicycle advocacy team, San Carlos Bikes, I'm here representing myself. I strongly recommend that city council adopt this resolution to support Sam Trans' coordination with Caltrans and our city to plan, design, and implement complete streets improvement on El Camino ECR in San Carlos as part of the ECR multimodal plan. As you may already know, San Carlos is one of 19 cities along the 43 miles of ECR that connects San Francisco to San Jose. Caltrans and Samtrans are championing what is called the Grand Boulevard Initiative to update ECR with complete street designs to make ECR safer for pedestrians, bicyclists, and public transit. This ambitious plan requires support of all communities along ECR. As a previous commenter mentioned, times are changing in our community, along with the entire Bay Area needs more and better alternative transportation options. Aligning our city with Caltrans and our neighboring cities of Belmont and Birdwood City's ECR design efforts would be a huge benefit to the increasing number of community residents who are tired of using cars for short trips and want safer options to travel both within our city and to our neighboring communities. I urge you to adopt this resolution so that city staff has your support in working with SamTrans and Caltrans and our neighboring communities for improving ECR to meet our community needs. Thanks.

Thank you. Thank you, Andrew. Is there anybody else in person who would like to make a public comment for this item? Okay. Looking over to Zoom, we have two hands, so we'll go ahead and cap it at that. Jennifer Rossi, you're up first, and then you'll be followed by ARL Lewis.

Good evening City Council. It's Jennifer Rossi and I am one of the co-presidents for the GESC board. I appreciate the coordinated planning because that is often not done, I think. And I also just want to bring up a few concerns. One is having a dedicated bus lane. I would want to see like what bus ridership is like. And also it seems like it's being done because there's a lot of congestion. So it makes me worry about traffic in our city. Um, and I wonder how it like integrates with our overall traffic plan. I like a protected bike lane and also most bicyclists right now use old county, um, which is on the east side. And so I would like to see like some planning for safe riding on old county and also safe connection between old county. And El Camino, the weed pulling that Sarah mentioned is great. And also, sometimes it gets pulled along the west side of El Camino, but it doesn't get pulled along the east side, which is the old county side. So there's a lot of things that will actually impact the east side that we would love to give more input on. A lot of the surveys were probably done because we sent them out to a lot of our neighbors. So we would love to give more feedback as the plan develops. There are a lot of engaged people on the east side that use El Camino consistently, and there are a lot of concerns and areas for improvement for safety, which I appreciate your planning for. I think those are all my comments. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Jennifer. Thank you, Jennifer. And ARL Lewis, you should be able to unmute.

Hi, this is Arlie Lewis. I'm a 20 year resident of San Carlos and like everyone else here, I use El Camino a lot, both by car, by bike and on foot. And I also urge the Council to support the collaboration with Sam Trans and Caltrans on the Grand Boulevard initiative and just turning the entire stretch of El Camino into more of a complete street. Right now, I don't think we're using the space very efficiently and we're building a lot more housing all along that corridor, which is great. But as Andrew said earlier, those people don't want to have to a lot of that housing is built pretty close to downtown. Those people do not want to have to get in a car every time and then search for parking on both ends of the trip when they could just walk, bike or take a bus. And interesting thing is we're talking about the Old County Road as the current bike lane. And last week I had the good fortune to help support a ride by some Carlmont students who are doing a safe bike commute ride from Carlmont and doing a whole loop down to downtown San Carlos. We took Old County, which is, it's a bike route, but it's not that safe because there's not much room for the bikes. I think that once we have a good bike lane on El Camino, you're going to see a lot of usage just because so many people live nearby and there's already a lot of bike traffic on Old County and those people, many of them will be eager to move over. Thanks very much.

Thank you. And that concludes our public comments for this item. Thank you. Thank you, Crystal.

Any other comments from council? Good. Vice Mayor Rack.

So I appreciate the presentation. It was really helpful for me. I plan to support this. I think it's a good, it sounds like it gives us a better voice as part of the process. I would just, I wanna just highlight some of the things that were said for me. Improving the crossings is really important for us. We have some really dangerous areas. Preserving the parking on the southbound lanes. And we have enough space where we are to have bike and ped. I think those are protected bike lanes are critical. And I would want you to come back with us on the placemaking because I do think there's, gonna be a lot of discussion on our end to be a part of that because that is not just a let's work on how transportation works. It has a bigger impact on our community. So thank you for the presentation. I appreciate that and I look forward to seeing what happens next.

Thank you. Council Member Dugan.

Thank you madam mayor Yeah, I'm glad we're taking a look at this and I welcome a broader effort here We do have significant housing plan now along El Camino and we will see ever greater use and We'll need that corridor to be as efficient and multimodal as possible So I am supportive I like that it's a fuller planning effort than perhaps we did with those additional safety improvements. That was a good point. And I am convinced this will open up more opportunities for state and federal grants. So obviously this will all be very expensive. And at the end of the day, Caltrans can kind of do what they want to anyway, so being involved probably is to our benefit. I will say I agree with my colleagues and some of the callers. We went through an extensive effort, and I do think parking on the west side of El Camino will be important to our community and will continue to be. And it's probably something we would fight for. I will personally not be supporting anything that eliminates parking on the west side of El Camino. I was very integral to the planning and the thinking and the outreach that we did. And it also opened up the opportunity for a protected bike lane, at least in that direction, which Any protection we can give the cyclists out there is is is worth an investment And I agree with the caller, you know a dedicated bus lane. It's an interesting idea You know, I would want to see usage numbers You know that that really in my mind represents a pretty massive investment to dedicate a whole lane just to buses and Would really want that justified by by usage numbers before you know that could be considered so I'm glad that one of the options that was presented, I know this is at the very beginning of the process, but I'm glad that it was fully reflective of our vision for El Camino. So with that, I'll support continuing this effort tonight. Thank you.

Thank you. Council Member Layton.

Cassie, I want to thank you for coming to a city council meeting asking for a resolution of collaboration. Obviously, in something like this, you're just asking us to continue to support it so you can go out and try to lobby the main deciding group of Caltrans who can decide to do it, can decide to never do the project based off of some other things I've seen in the past. It could be centuries before any of this kicks off. So I applaud all three of you for coming out to doing that. I just want to remind the public tonight, we're making no financial commitments. We're making no approvals of designs. We're not suggesting anything in designs. Tonight is just a resolution for us to say that this is in the works. It is something that government agencies need to collaborate on and work together with to achieve an accomplishment. To say you're at $500 million short now is a big reach. So I wish you the best in that funding scenario. But what's being asked of me is always what I start with. And if it's only being asked to pass a resolution to collaborate, then I'm happy to pass that resolution and wish you the best. And as you can see, there's plenty of questions for when you come back on the options.

Thank you, Council Member Layton. I appreciate that we're not making any financial commitments tonight. So, okay. Okay.

Madam Mayor, I move to adopt Resolution 2026-2022.

112.

112, a resolution of the City Council of the City of San Carlos supporting Samtrans coordination with Caltrans and the City of San Carlos to plan, design, and implement complete street improvements on El Camino Real in San Carlos as part of the El Camino Real multimodal plan. Second.

Crystal, can you please take roll? Vice Mayor Rack?

Yes.

Council Member Dugan? Yes. Councilmember Layton?

Yes.

Councilmember McDowell? Yes. And Mayor Venkatesh? Yes. Thank you. Motion passes.

Moving on to item 10B is consideration of introducing ordinance amending San Carlos Municipal Code chapter 5.43, sidewalk bending. I think that's you, Greg.

Thank you, Madam Mayor and members of the City Council. Tonight, the item is to introduce an ordinance amending Municipal Code Chapter 5.43, sidewalk mending to conform with SB 635 and making findings pursuant to CEQA. SB 635 was passed to supplement SB 946 that was signed into law in 2019. So our current code is based upon the earlier version of SB 946. So the legislature passed SB 635. to further limit the authority of cities to regulate sidewalk vendors except in accordance with its provisions. Next slide. So the main items that that are in SB 635 are related to privacy. We can't ask about or collect sidewalk vendors immigration status, place of birth, or criminal history. We're prohibited from requiring background checks for a permit, including live scans and other similar types of background checks. and significantly information sharing by local law enforcement and non-public entities from sharing a vendor's personal identifying information with immigration enforcement agencies without a subpoena or judicial warrant. So as a result, our current ordinance is out of compliance with state law, and the state's mandating that we update our ordinance to reflect this. I actually did receive a letter from an organization pointing this out to us, and I convinced them that we were moving forward with it. It's just in our queue of things to do. So when I took a look at our ordinance, I also took an eye to making sure that we're recognizing some changes that have happened in San Carlos since 2019 when we enacted the ordinance. So you'll see in the redline strikeout version that's attached that I added pedestrian mall to the definitions and then added that to the places where sidewalk vending would not be allowed. I added the state mandated provisions. I removed the requirement of automobile insurance because it didn't seem appropriate since these are sidewalk vendors. They're not in a vehicle. They have a cart, so they don't need automobile insurance. I talked with the finance department about streamlining the time to request a permit. So it did say 30 days before the event, before the intended event, and we changed it to 15 business days, which is equivalent to 21 days. And then I added parks, like I said, just be said before I added parks and pedestrian malls from where sidewalk vending could take place. Amended some of the distance requirements. And then I, since there was already a prohibition against tobacco and cannabis products, and because of our recent problems with some of our tobacco retailers, I added kratom to the, or similar products to the prohibited items for being vended. And then the final thing is just, this is not a subject to the California Environmental Quality Act because there's no effect on the environment from what you're doing tonight. So that's the brief presentation. If you have any questions, I'm glad to answer them for you. But the bottom line is that most of what is in the proposed ordinance for introduction tonight is required by state law, and some of the other items are things that I thought were appropriate for you to consider.

Thank you, Greg. How are we communicating this for the public?

It has not, there's been no specific outreach on this because it's mostly driven by the requirements of state law and the cleanups are pretty limited that are being proposed.

Okay, thank you. Any questions from council? Vice Mayor Rack? No.

Okay, go for a public comment.

Council Member Layton.

I just got a couple comments, Greg. So what's in front of us is mainly just the state updates, right, that were required, passed from the state law. And I guess just looking for a little bit as the practical matters that relates down to us to San Carlos. I mean, I know in looking through it, the operating requirements, things like that, but how does enforcement on any of this work out?

I mean, this is one of those situations I would say diplomatically that the state has created a mandate and because certain cities in Southern California decided to come down hard on sidewalk vendors and the state reacted by liberalizing and taking over the field from local government. We don't have a history of sidewalk vendors pulling permits, so what we've been doing is trying to get them to, if they don't have a permit, we get them to move on and leave the area is what we've been attempting to do through law enforcement. We've had sidewalk vendors come to some of our informal public and celebrations like Halloween and the Christmas holiday lights along Eucalyptus Avenue, and that's primarily where that type of informal enforcement's been going on. I'll just tell you the reason I looked at making it easier to shorten the timeline for the permits is to try and encourage people to actually apply for one instead of waiting until It's too late to get one. So I'm trying to get help with compliance with that. But I mean, there is time to process things and get through our outside vendor to have the permit applied for and then get it through that process. So that's where it came up with the compromise of the 15 business days. I'm hoping that we do get better compliance because Because what they have left us with the authority to do is these time, place and manner types of regulations. And there is a reason for them. I mean, we don't want people leaving garbage and messes everywhere. And we want the health, the products that are being sold to be healthy and not dangerous. But other than that, we have to allow them to operate on the sidewalks. Sidewalks have become where they are. And then you probably gathered, if you looked at the ordinance, that our code enforcement remedies, even if we had somebody with a permit, even if we caught them violating the rules, or even if we catch them without a permit, The fines are limited and we have to provide a process to waive the fines. And it can't be criminal, it can only be an infraction at the most, or actually can't even be an infraction, it's gonna be an administrative fine. So the state has really occupied the field and liberalized the subject.

And I guess with that in mind, I guess the one thing I would say as we approve this ordinance, and one thing I guess I would ask as we move into our holiday season where, you know, trick-or-treating and the, you know, I'm blanking on the name. Yeah, eucalyptus. There we go. Thank you. And eucalyptus, it happens a bunch. It would be great for us to be able to. What I don't want to see us do just at the end of it is just what ends up happening is when things are so restrictive at the state level, we try not to enforce it. And then when things get out of hand, you go to the state and say, look what's happened. You have zero data to do it. It would be great to actually take some time as we kind of focus in on these things, if they do become problems, and have some data to say, hey, look, these things are affecting us. And we tried to cite 15 people without permits, or we at least stopped and told 37 people without permits to move on for a small city like ours. That's more of a comment than it is a question, but it's just something I wanted to bring up. As I've started to notice, people take advantage of the liberalization of this law.

Yeah, I was thinking about that earlier today, about the timing of when, assuming you introduce it and then adopt it. If you did that at your next meeting, it would be, in effect, just before Halloween. but too late to require the 15-day permit. But that might be a good education opportunity for vendors that might show up there so that we could prepare for the Christmas season at the Eucalyptus Avenue Light Celebration.

Council Member McDowell.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just had a quick question, Greg. I noticed that you added kratom to the tobacco. Is it worthwhile to add whippets as well, since that's another item that we banned?

I didn't think of that. But yeah, tonight, when you introduce, you could add that. And then I can, when the ordinance you're adopting next time, could include that.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. That's all I have. Council Member Dugan.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, and thank you, Councilmember McDowell. That's a nice add to add the whippets, so I definitely support that. And then just a quick question. So I get it. The state is, you know, stepping on our ability to keep any rationality in this area, but what if there is a straight-up health and safety issue? I mean, like, what is our authority now?

Fortunately, in that aspect, the County Department of Health would enforce those rules. The health rules are enforced by the County Department of Health. We would just maybe identify it, but they do go out and inspect these sidewalk vendors that are serving food.

So if we observe an issue, the sheriff knows to contact the county and they will dispatch at 9 PM on a Friday night for a particular concern?

Maybe not that night. They could. I'm not saying they wouldn't. But I think once they identify a problem, what I've seen is that the county health department will try to do their own separate code enforcement and try to identify vendors. I mean, these vendors are usually the same people. They go to different places like that. And so they start to become known, the ones that are violating the health rules, and they start to... do their own enforcement which includes that that enforcement is is that allowed in the in the uh in the state law and that they can shut down the sidewalk vendor and they can seize the cart and say you're not operating anymore okay um well i guess uh you know let the buyer beware then um so thank you crystal any public comment on this

I don't have any slips. Oh, yes, please come on up. No problem. If you can introduce yourself for the record. Thank you.

I've lived here over 20 years. I will say in relation to this walking on Halloween down eucalyptus this past year, the sidewalk vendors were like, because I know for a while we there were no cars allowed. And now there's cars driving again. And the side vendors make it so that you have to walk in the street.

Can you speak in that? They make it so you have to walk in the street.

And it was an issue. So I'm just worried about that with a lot of areas we have here. Because when you have thousands of people walking, we don't have room for the people on the sidewalks and the vendors and then cars. So there is a safety issue. I don't know how that we deal with that. OK.

Thank you.

Thank you. OK. Is there any other public comment in person? OK, seeing none, I'm going to look to Zoom. And I don't see any hands there. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Would anybody like to make the motion? I'll make the motion.

I move to introduce ordinance number? 1638. 1638? Yes. Okay. An ordinance of the City of San Carlos amending San Carlos Municipal Code Chapter 5.43, Sidewalk Vending, to conform with SB 635 and making findings pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act with the amendment to include whippets.

Second. And then, Madam Mayor, if I can just make one comment. I think the previous speaker made a good point about Halloween, and I would just ask that maybe we can communicate to the Sheriff's Department that concern. I do think it's a safety issue and something, because the ordinance won't totally be in place then to get these certain approvals and stuff to get the permits, so thank you.

I forgot to mention that I reviewed the ordinance with the Sheriff's Department already, so they're in tune to the new requirements, and I'll certainly talk with them about that.

Thank you. Crystal, can you take roll, please?

Council Member McDowell? Yes. Vice Mayor Rack? Yes. Council Member Dugan? Yes. Council Member Layton? Yes. And Mayor Venkatesh? Yes. Thank you. Measure passes.

Okay, last item under agenda setting. We have consideration of agendizing item, receive an update on the implementation of the protected tree ordinance. Vice Mayor Rack, this is your item.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Yeah, I think there's just been a lot of issues over the last sort of six months or so around some of the trees. And for me, I think there were some requirements in place to monitor when trees were removed, how that's going for replacement trees. And I mean, in having some conversations with the city attorney, I think there might be some conflicting paragraphs in there as well. So I think it would be good to just get an update. on the ordinance if there's any cleanup that needs to be done. And also just to get an update on how that's going in terms of the permitting process for removal, the replacement trees, are we monitoring that to make sure that those trees are being maintained? Because I think that's part of the requirement as well. So I don't think there's a huge time crunch on it, but I would like to just sort of get this on the agenda on radar for the staff to work on.

Council Member McDowell. Thank you, Madam Mayor. I would support that. I think it's becoming a topic in the community, and I think it is a good time to check in on how it's working. With your permission, Vice Mayor, I'm wondering if we could expand the topic a little bit to include the citywide tree maintenance program and just how we are looking at the tree canopy in San Carlos. I think that overall, maybe having a not necessarily like an in-depth study session, but a an overview of kind of the state of the trees in San Carlos, I would appreciate that.

I think that's a great idea. I would support that.

Nobody?

It seems like a topic that I'm happy to listen to. We need three people to say yes.

There you go.

All right.

OK, we have three. All right.

Thank you.

Through the mayor, we do have a public comment, if you're ready to take that. Vincent Gritt, you should be able to unmute.

Hey, guys, thanks. I have never attended 1 like this. I was sitting here going. I have no idea how this is going to work. So, thank you. You guys want to get home and get out of there. So be quick. 1st, just a thank you to Mr rack for being kind and for listening to this concerned citizen about what's going on. Not a lot to say here, other than directly affected by what appears to be a challenge from the standpoint of. The city being directed on kind of a build everything possible mandate, which I get that is conflicting now with the heritage tree ordinances that. The city put in place for the residents and the citizens request to preserve the beauty and heritage of these trees. And unfortunately, planning is either unaware, unwilling to enforce what in some cases are very clear ordinances that do not allow for arborist exceptions. So it's become an issue. You guys have put it on the table. It sounds like you're going to take it up next. That's where we stand. Unfortunately, we were forced to drop a lawsuit. The city was served this morning to try and deal with this. More will be coming as residents become more aware due to the lack of notification anymore, but it's becoming more public. So appreciate you guys taking it up. I think it's a great idea. Thank you. Mr rack for all your help. And thank you guys for considering it more than happy to help you guys in any way going forward with any more information I can provide to you.

Thank you. I do not have any other hands, thank you.

Yeah? Okay, are there any other agenda setting items? Okay, we're adjourned at 9.39.