City Council - Regular Meeting

popped out. Okay, thanks.

Thank you very much. Our first order of business is public comment. Comments are limited to items listed only on the agenda for the Geological Hazard Abatement District. Does anyone wish to speak on item number two at this time? I have no speaker cards for it. If you would like to speak on item two, which is adopting resolutions approving the engineer's report for the 26-27 annual assessments, you would please approach the podium at this time. Seeing none, hearing none, we'll close public comment and proceed to the consent calendar. Items listed on the consent calendar are considered routine in nature and may be enacted by one motion. If discussion is required, that particular item may be removed from the consent and considered separately. We only have item number two. Any questions on consent? This is a hot mic. Any questions on consent? Okay. We've already done public comment. I move approval. Thank you. I'll second. We have a motion made and seconded. Any comment before we take a vote? Roll call vote, please.

Board Member Eichert.

Aye.

Nyberg.

Aye.

Gatos. Aye. Testa. Aye. Chair Bulch. Aye. Motion passes unanimously.

Thank you. And with that, this meeting is adjourned. See, like I said, looks like we popped the clutch. Okay. Now we will wait for TV 30 to pull us in. I will signal that we're ready, and then we will begin our regularly scheduled meeting. Okay, with that, welcome to your Pleasanton City Council meeting. Today is Tuesday, May 19th, 2026. We're just a minute behind at 7.01 p.m., and we're going to call this meeting to order. If I can please ask you to rise, and Council Member Tessa, if you would lead us in the pledge.

Ready, begin. I pledge allegiance to the flag

Thank you very much. Can we go ahead and please have roll call?

Council member Eckert.

Present.

Gatos.

Present. Here. testa here mayor balt present thank you thank you uh okay hopefully we can manage the mics uh quickly i have just a few quick announcements for our community the first is that the longest table will be sun saturday june 6 at 6 30 pm if you're interested in eating a meal with uh 999 of your closest friends Visit www.ltpleasanton.org to learn more, which will be on our main street. Secondly, Cone with a Cop will be on May 27th from 2 to 4 p.m. at Meadowlark Dairy for a free ice cream cone and seeing and interacting with our police force. And third, this is National Public Works Week, and I just wanted to put out a shout out of thanks to our Public Works employees who are keeping the sewer pipes clear, the storm drains clear. Public Works has been a pretty significant topic of the council lately and just wanted to uplift. Thank you so much for the work you do behind the scenes to keep our city where it's going. With that, any report on closed session? We have nothing to report out at this time, I believe, right? Thank you very much. Agenda amendments.

Thank you, Mayor. We do have two this evening. One is related to item number two. Staff continues to recommend that the council request display of the pride flag for the month of June, which is consistent with city policy. However, we are asking that you delay delivery of the proclamation until we get the right folks in the room to receive the proclamation. We had a little bit of a scheduling issue, so I would like to respectfully request that the first part of item two move forward, the proclamation, we move to the next regular meeting, which will be June 2nd. The second is related to item 17. I want to call council's attention to some supplemental material that we left on the dais for you this evening. It is the POTA or the pre-annexation and development agreement. It was an attachment that was inadvertently not included in the packet. It was included in the planning commission packet. It is now posted and available on the city's website, but that is now available for your review and consideration this evening as well. Thank you.

So just to clarify, item two for the action and then item 14 for the proclamation itself will be continued?

No. Item two, the proclamations continue. Item 17 is just some additional supplemental material. We're not changing the agenda for you this evening. We just want to make sure that you're aware of that in this part of the meeting so you have a chance to peruse if you can. Thank you.

Okay. So let me just recheck. Item two stays on the agenda to approve it for June, but item number 14 for presenting it shall continue to the next June 2nd council meeting. And then 17 was a supplemental. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any agenda amendments by my fellow colleagues at this time?

No.

Okay. The agenda will proceed as posted except for item number 14 is hereby continued until June 2nd. Okay. With that, we're gonna proceed to the consent calendar. Items listed on the consent calendar are considered routine in nature and may be enacted by one motion. If discussion is required, that particular item may be removed from the consent calendar and considered separately. I do have some speaker cards for one of the items on consent, items three, four, five, and six, a few items on consent. So we'll take that and go from there, see if we can keep it on consent. Any clarifying questions on consent by any of my fellow council members at this time? Council Member Baker? No. Council Member Testa?

No, but I'm sorry. I have to ask again. Item two is staying on the agenda.

14 is just the one continuing.

Got it. Okay. Thank you.

I apologize for the confusion.

I created that. Easy, easy, easy solution. Councilmember Nyberg, any clarifying questions on consent? Please. He is a speaker, but if you have any clarifying questions. Okay. And Vice Mayor? No. Okay. I do not have clarifying questions on consent so we will go to public comment for the consent items at this time. If you would like to speak on anything related to the City Council agenda, we ask that you fill out a blue speaker card located on the credenza outside and then we'll call you up. I typically read this at the public comment period but I'll read it now since we do have speakers. This is the time for members to address the City Council on an item that is on consent. If you wish to speak, please fill out the blue speaker card, as I've mentioned. I ask our community members to be respectful and help maintain decorum. Speakers may have different opinions, and we want to hear all perspectives and viewpoints. To that end, please no clapping, booing, or other disturbances. If you would agree with what the speaker's saying, simply raise your hand and we will understand that as additional support. Please also know that this is your time to be heard. If you do ask questions, those won't necessarily be answered unless taken up by a council member after the conclusion of your time or after the conclusion of the public comment period. Again, this is just for consent, so items one through 13. And each speaker will have three minutes, please, Danielle. Okay, our first speaker is Mr. Todd Nelson. You'll be followed by Sharon Prakarski, and you'll be followed by Laura Calvert. Welcome.

As some of you know, I was hit by a car a couple of years ago on my bicycle. I rolled up onto the hood and shattered the windshield. Somehow I also flew over the vehicle and broke its back window out. I don't know how long I was unconscious on the pavement. After I got home, my wife took me to the hospital to check for concussions because my helmet was cracked. and I had a dislocated rib, which still bothers me today. Because my elbow was bleeding, this qualified on the police report as visible injury. This doesn't qualify as a serious injury in the Transportation Safety Act and Plan. The Transportation Safety Act and Plan isn't bad. There are some very innovative things in here, but there's also a lot of things in there that have been brought up for years. The focused high injury network are basically the same as the corridors in the 2018 plan. And we spent money on consultants for several of those corridors. We built part of those corridors and then moved on to the next one. So the plan ignores that all this happened as if it wasn't really there. And so Santa Rita is the next one. We have a bike pad master plan revision in development right now, and most of this Transportation Safety Active Plan overlaps it. There's no part of the clear strategy in the transportation plan that really acknowledges that that's going on. And so it's not obvious how we will resolve conflicts that inevitably come up when those two plans are adopted. The 2010 master plan said we had 16 bike collisions per year and a goal of reducing those by half. The 2018 plan said we had 26 bike collisions per year and a goal to reduce those by half. Last year we had 37. So this Transportation Safety Act plan should analyze why we failed to meet those goals in the past. And we are somewhat of an outlier. Pleasanton is second only to Oakland in the number of bike collisions for children. Between 2014 and 2023, so 10 years, Livermore had 201 bike collisions, Dublin had 108, and Pleasanton had 290. Maybe Livermore and Dublin are doing better because they focused on off-street trails. I don't know. We decided to destroy part of the Arroyo Canal trails and let Zone 7 revert those. And San Ramon, Dublin, and Livermore all got new bridges on the Iron Horse Trail in the time that we've been working on it. Six months ago, we had a pedestrian and a cyclist fatality. none of those details that I just shared are registered and comprehended in the Transportation Act and Plan. So I'm over time, thank you.

Thank you very much. I think our next speaker may have a similar comment, so we'll group them together. Welcome. Maybe not.

Good evening. Pleasanton's bicycle pedestrian master plan was approved in 2018. While we've made significant progress since then, the current plan has caveats, such as bike lanes will be added where feasible, which is code for unless we might slow down traffic. Some of you may also remember the reason given for not putting buffered bike lanes on 45 mph sections of Hopyard Road, due to one sentence in a 272-page master plan that said, The City of Pleasanton uses an 11-foot travel lane width as a minimum standard on roadways over 30 mph. Again, prioritizing drivers, even though studies have shown narrower lanes, which slow down traffic, do not increase collisions, and when collisions do occur, they result in less serious injuries, not just for bicyclists and pedestrians, but drivers as well. We have many bike lanes on high speed streets that just disappear as we approach an intersection where most collisions occur. I'm told marking a bike lane to warn drivers they may be crossing a bicyclist path confuses drivers or it confuses autonomous vehicles and bicyclists will just figure out where to go. Not exactly putting safety first for the most vulnerable road user. Because we already have extensive facilities for drivers and pedestrians, the most critical need is improvement of bicycle infrastructure. Did you know that less than 1% of the traffic in Pleasanton is bicyclist, but they account for 25% of the killed and seriously injured? THAT'S WHY THE CALIFORNIA OFFICE OF TRAFFIC SAFETY CONSISTENTLY GIVES PLEASANTON HIGH SAFETY RANKINGS OVERALL, BUT A VERY POOR ONE FOR BICYCLISTS. THE SAFETY ACTION PLAN FINALLY PUTS SAFETY OF ALL USERS ON OUR ROADWAYS AS THE TOP PRIORITY. not secondary to level of service for drivers. So please approve the plan and authorize the associated submission of a grant proposal to help fund infrastructure improvements on Santa Rita Road. And by the way, approval of this plan tonight is contingent on us being able to submit a grant in the next few days. I AM ALSO ENCOURAGED TO SEE A PROFESSIONAL SERVICES AGREEMENT FOR THE DESIGN WORK AND CALTRANS APPROVAL NEEDED TO IMPROVE BIKE AND PEDESTRIAN INFRASTRUCTURE ON THREE I-580 OVERPASSES. I ONCE WORKED IN DOUBLIN, JUST A MILE FROM MY HOME. ALTHOUGH I OFTEN RIDE IN TRAFFIC LANES, CROSSING THE SANTA RITA ROAD OVERPASS FELT TOO DANGEROUS. Even walking there was unpleasant enough that I always drove instead. This overcrossing project would make a meaningful difference, so please approve this contract as well. Everyone deserves safe, reliable, and affordable transportation. Implementation of these plans will go a long way to make that a reality. Thank you.

Thank you. Staff, I'm going to ask for a response, but I'll get through the last speaker card so that you have a few more minutes to prepare. Laura Calvert, welcome. Sorry about the bungalow and the name earlier. It's okay. Welcome.

In Maryland, everybody knows Calvert, but here in California, it's not so much, even though I'm a native. ANYWAY, GOOD EVENING. I'M THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AT SPECTRUM COMMUNITY SERVICES. ITEM NUMBER SIX IS YOUR HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES GRANT PLAN, AND I AM HERE IN SUPPORT OF THAT PLAN. AND REALLY TO THANK YOU FOR FOR CONTINUING TO PRIORITIZE THE MOST VULNERABLE RESIDENTS OF PLEASANTON ARE ELDERLY NEIGHBORS WHO ARE HOMEBOUND AND WHO RELY ON MEALS ON WHEELS TO COME KNOCK ON THEIR DOOR, NOT JUST ONE DAY A WEEK, TWO DAYS A WEEK. WE ARE KNOCKING ON THEIR DOORS FIVE DAYS A WEEK AT THE SAME PERSON'S HOUSE FIVE DAYS A WEEK. And today we brought them a hot meal of chicken with a mushroom sauce on it. We're very excited to have that. I highlight that because not every community has that level of service that we are able to provide here in Pleasanton. Why we're able to do that partially is from your support. MOST OF OUR OTHER GOVERNMENT FUNDING THAT WE GET FROM THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND THE STATE GOES TOWARDS THE MEAL COST. WE GET A VERY SMALL AMOUNT TO HELP WITH OUR ADMINISTRATION. YOUR FUNDS HELP US PAY FOR OUR LIMITED STAFF. INTAKE ALL OF THOSE RESIDENTS WHO NEED MEALS ON WHEELS AND RECRUIT VOLUNTEERS AND KEEP THINGS MOVING SEAMLESSLY EVERY DAY TO MAKE SURE THAT SERVICES HAPPEN. SO THAT IS WHAT THE FUNDING THAT IS BEFORE YOU FOR SPECTRUM IS PAYING FOR, IS THOSE PEOPLE TO WORK HERE TO SERVE THE COMMUNITY THE BEST WAY WE CAN. Right now, we have 113 Pleasanton neighbors who are on Meals on Wheels services. And we know that there are more in the community who need help. We just haven't been very visible in asking for that. And I am optimistic that we will be able to take on more clients in the coming year. We do always need more volunteers. If you know of anybody or if you have any ideas for us to be able to advertise for that, we'd love to hear that. But thank you so much for your support. This ongoing partnership is very, very important to the community. I appreciate it.

Thank you. Okay. Uh, if you have not turned in a blue speaker card, but would like to speak on items one through 13, which is our consent calendar, please approach the podium at this time. Hearing none seen none. We'll close public comment and bring it back to the council before we do staff. If you don't mind just maybe outlining or talking to some of those comments on that, um, safety plan.

Yes, so Cedric Novinario is our senior transportation engineer. Cedric is going to come up and answer questions that the council may have about that particular item.

Good evening council members and mayor. I'm Cedric Novenaro, senior transportation engineer. So in terms of, you know, the PTSAP as we call it is a safety action plan. It looks at all of our accidents and we looked at it between 2020 and 2024. That was the window of data that was available at the time we started the project. AND IT LOOKS LIKE ALL THE MODES OF TRANSPORTATION AND IT CATEGORIZES AND WE DEVELOPED A HIGH ENGINE NETWORK AND YES, WHILE ALL OF OUR CORRIDORS ARE IDENTIFIED AS A HIGH ENGINE NETWORK, IT WAS IMPORTANT FOR US TO REALLY SEE WHERE THOSE ACCIDENTS WERE. AND WE WENT FURTHER BY LOOKING AT A FOCUS NETWORK. SO IF WE WANTED TO START IMPROVEMENTS, THERE WAS A DENSER POCKET OF LOCATIONS WHERE WE WANTED TO START.

Maybe I help a little further. The rising numbers of collisions with bike and automobiles, right? So we're working on that. Yeah.

So while our accidents for pedestrians and vehicles have been going down, we do recognize that our accidents for WHICH TELLS US THAT OUR FACILITIES NEED TO BE UPGRADED WHICH IS IDENTIFIED WHERE A BUFFERED BIKE LANE ON A HIGHER SPEED ROAD EVEN THOUGH THE LANES MAY BE REDUCED MAY NOT BE GOOD ENOUGH. Together with our plan and the current update to the bicycle pedestrian master plan are showing that we need an actual facility, some kind of hardscape in between the travel lane and the bike lane to make that improvement, to make it more comfortable for a rider, and to also encourage more riders to use the bicycle lane.

I also noted from the plan, Santa Rita, which has always been a hotspot road or high collision road, as well as West Las Positas. So I just want to ask as a follow up, West Las Positas continues to be a priority for the community. For us, there's a city to rebuild and provide that protected bike lane.

THAT IS CORRECT. IT IS NUMBER ONE IN THE BICYCLE MASTER PLAN AND NUMBER TWO IN THE MASTER PLAN AND WE FELT THAT GOING FOR A PROJECT ON IT BEING NUMBER TWO ON THE BIKE PLAN AND HIGH PRIORITY FOR THE P.T. SAP IS A GOOD PACKAGE TO GO FOR A GRANT.

ANY FURTHER QUESTIONS OF CEDRIC WHILE HE IS HERE? THANK YOU. NO, I DO. COUNCILMEMBER DIVERT.

THANK YOU, CEDRIC. I do have a question about the requirement for 11-foot lanes on streets that have a speed limit greater than 30 miles per hour. We may have discussed this in the past, but mention has been made that folks have not been able to get that decrease by one foot to allow a bike lane. Could you explain that to me again, and is it at all possible to have that reduced to 10 FEET SO THE BIKE LANE COULD BE ACCOMMODATED.

IT'S BEEN OUR STANDARD TO HAVE 11-FOOT TRAVEL LANES TO ACCOMMODATE VEHICLES. IT ACCOMMODATES THE MOVEMENT OF VEHICLES. BUT WITH OUR ROAD PROJECT, WE'RE EXPLORING WHETHER 11-FOOT LANES CAN BE REDUCED EVEN FURTHER. BUT WE WON'T KNOW THAT UNTIL WE GET INTO DESIGN. BUT IT WILL BE CONSIDERATION.

CAN I FOLLOW UP ON THAT? So when we repaved Hop Yard Road, I mean, I was we all were here at the time because we talked about this. Right. So it was obviously an excellent opportunity before we re striped it to adjust it. Right. Where's the point where we will design Santa Rita that we can weigh in on? The council can weigh in on if it should adjust down.

I THINK WHEN WE HAVE A CONCEPTUAL DESIGN, AT FIRST WE WOULD LIKE TO GO BACK TO OUR BPTC AND SHOW OUR CROSS SECTIONS AND BIKE FACILITY DESIGN AND FROM THAT POINT YOU GO TO CITY COUNCIL TO LOOK AT OUR CROSS SECTION FOR BICYCLE LANES AND DECIDE WHETHER THAT'S A GOOD MOVE FOR THE CITY OF PLEASANTON.

Okay, yes, let me jump to item number six, which is the overpassings or overcrossings. Are you still the right person to talk? Sure. Okay, great. Yeah, I have a concern about not only the three that are mentioned in this item, but also the Stone Ridge at 680 intersection. you know, Foothill Boulevard at 680. Well, Stone Ridge at 680 as well and Foothill Boulevard at 580. Let me put it that way. Is there a reason or what is the reason that only the three that are mentioned here are being considered and those other two are not?

So the three that are being considered were also are a, are being funded for design work from Alameda CTC. So hence the THE CONTRACT GOING TO YOUR COUNCIL FOR APPROVAL.

THOSE WERE ALREADY IDENTIFIED IN THE PAST WHEN CTC WAS ASKED FOR MONEY.

ABOUT A YEAR AND A HALF AGO I WENT TO COUNCIL TO ASK FOR PERMISSION TO SUBMIT A GRANT PROPOSAL AND THIS IS ONE OF THEM.

DO YOU KNOW IF THOSE OTHER It would have a similar ranking in terms of need or requirements?

I don't know off the top of my head. I don't remember where it was, but I know these three were number one. Yeah. Or they were higher ranked in the bike master plan.

Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Any further questions of Cedric?

Okay.

Thank you very much.

That will close public comment. We had no further speakers as why I already had done that So at this time, what would the council like to do with the consent calendar?

I'll move to approve it Second, okay.

We have motion made by vice mayor gato seconded by councilmember Tessa any further conversation or statements for vote Okay, I'll just mention that item number nine is the police contract before us. And so as stated in the prior meeting by the full council, thank you to our police department for negotiating with us to reach this and for the dedication you show the community 24 seven. I hope this sets up a long and safe career for our police officers here in Pleasanton. With that, we have a motion made and seconded. Let's take a vote, please. Well, it's gotta be roll call.

Councilmember Gatos?

Aye.

Testa? Aye. Eichert?

Aye.

Nybert?

Aye.

Mayor Balch?

Aye.

The motion passes unanimously.

Thank you very much. Okay, with that, we're going to proceed to meeting open to the public. Item number 14 was continued earlier, so if you're here for that, that will be on our June 2nd meeting. And we're going to proceed to item number 15, which is public comment on matters that are not on the agenda. Similar to my comments for the consent calendar, I ask that all communities be respectful and help maintain decorum. We'll kind of go with the same element that if you would like to show additional support for what is being said, simply raise your hand and we will understand that as additional support. Speakers are limited to three minutes and we have quite a few. And again, these are for items not on the agenda. If you would like to speak on something that is on the agenda, please fill out a blue speaker card and we'll call you up at that time. So I'll call three names, and that way we can have you queue up along the side wall there. Our first speaker is Kenneth Salzman, followed by Sharon Pekarski, followed by Dan Morley.

And can I just, on item 14, if there are people who are in the room that had planned to speak on item 14, they could still speak if they chose.

That is true.

Yes.

Oh, thank you.

I think the mic is working, yeah? Does it work? Yep. Thank you.

Okay. Yeah, I'd like to first of all thank the council and the mayor for all the effort you guys do. I understand what it's like. Years ago, I was a city councilman for six years for Farmingdale, New Jersey. I was also the chairman of the water company. So I know what it's like to not only have an infrastructure deal with, but one that's 160 years old. So when I was looking at things, and I have to admit, I'm transitioning in my life from being a scientist and whatnot here in the Silicon Valley to a fixed income retiree. So I'm still trying to learn a little bit about what's going on, especially in the environment we have today with increases of cost for everything. So when I saw what was going on with the city water bills, I inquired and found out that primarily the increase in bill is for the actual connection rather than the actual water usage. That kind of pushes the cost of that expense onto people that are either fixed income or small family size of one or two people in a residence, rather than distributing it more to people and organizations that are using larger volumes of water. So I was curious to find out, are there things that the city has been looking at to assist people in that income bracket of fixed income and lower income as well as for families that are only one or two people in a residence? Based on that, some of the things I was looking at, when I was city water company manager in Farmedale, I had an infrastructure upgrade I had to make legally for the city to maintain itself. I was able to go to the EPA and other agencies and get $4.5 million for the city and actually fix the water system to meet code. HAVE THE CITY LOOK THROUGH THE OTHER RESOURCES, OTHER GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATIONS THAT MIGHT BE ABLE TO HELP SUPPORT THIS KIND OF CHARGE INCREASE FOR THOSE KIND OF RESIDENTS THAT REALLY NEED THAT ASSISTANCE. So that's my question.

OK. We can have staff respond. I would like to do so. And I would also, because we do have a water discount program, and our city manager can explain that. We did, unfortunately, discontinue our senior discount program, but seniors are still eligible income-wise.

We need to state a clarifying question. Staff, could you respond to this?

I'm actually just going to connect you directly. Adam Nelke is in a room right behind that door. He'll step out and speak with you, or Alexa Jeffress, our assistant city manager, will get you a card, and we'll run you through the history of the water rate, recent discussions, as well as the discount programs that exist today.

I'LL ALSO MENTION FOR OUR COMMUNITY, THERE ARE QUITE A LOT OF PUBLIC MEETINGS ON THE WATER RATES THAT HAVE JUST RECENTLY.

UNTIL A FEW MONTHS AGO, I WAS BUSY ENOUGH, I WASN'T PAYING ATTENTION TO THAT. THAT'S A FAULT ON MY SIDE.

NO PROBLEM. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COMMENT.

I love going to the Pleasanton Farmer's Market on Saturday mornings. It has the freshest produce you can buy. It tastes better than what you find in the supermarket. There's a wide variety of organic produce, and they have varieties you simply don't find elsewhere. The vendors are also smaller operators, located within a reasonable drive from the city, which reduces greenhouse gas emissions for transportation compared to items shipped from Mexico and beyond. However, I am appalled at the amount of single-use plastic that leaves that market every week. While literally everyone brings a large reusable shopping bag, there's a huge use of smaller single-use produce bags. I'm not talking about these flimsy bags you used to get in the supermarket, but instead these huge plastic bags that weigh 11 times as much as the flimsy ones. This is the ones that all the vendors use. While I understand the need to use a produce bag for small items like green beans or a bunch of grapes, I've seen everything from a single orange or garlic bulb up to a small watermelon put in these large bags, none of which even need a bag. Vendors automatically grab a bag and put your purchase into it. I have many times had to request no plastic, or if the vendor is too quick, even take my purchase out of the bag and hand the bag back to the vendor. Some may say we should use these compostable bags. But they are not currently compostable in any city in the Tri-Valley. All plastic-looking items labeled compostable take special processing, which none of our cities in the Tri-Valley currently are able to do. I called Pleasanton Garbage Service and was told they pull these out of the green waste and throw them in the trash, and they also gum up their machines. There are alternatives like paper bags or these reusable produce bags, which is what I use, that could be sold at the market, perhaps as a fundraiser by a nonprofit, or given out as a promotional item, like this bag that I was given at the Dublin Farmer's Market. There are markets that have already banned plastic produce bags. Berkeley, Santa Monica, Monterey have banned plastic bags. Irvine and San Francisco Ferry Plaza farmers market are in the process. Boulder, Colorado was the first in the nation to initiate a zero waste campaign at their market. As you all know, plastic, especially single use plastic, is a huge contributor to the degradation of our environment and our health. Please ask the Energy and Environment Commission to work on ways to reduce this unnecessary use of single-use plastic and then support it in its efforts. Thank you.

I would like to make comments.

You can ask clarifying questions of the speaker. That's the procedures.

I think I can respond to her comments.

Sure.

So I'd like to, one thing for everyone to know, the plastic bags, while are not recycled by Pleasant and Garbage, both Raley's and the Safeway stores have bins in front that you can collect the thin plastic bags and they will recycle them. They have programs to do so. This has been a discussion in the community for a while, and I've been frustrated with it as well. And at our last city council meeting under matters initiated, I did ask the council to have a discussion about single-use plastic because we are not enforcing the, well, there really isn't an ordinance on the single use for our takeout restaurants. We, as a council, had worked on doing so and put it on pause during COVID, and it just never got started again. So I think it's something that's important overdue, and I'd like to see us have an ordinance for single-use plastic.

Okay. Thank you. Okay, our next speaker is going to be Dan Morley, followed by Jerry Geer, followed by Tony Shrug. Welcome.

Hello. On May 1st, the Federal Bureau of Prisons issued an environmental assessment on FCI Dublin, opening up a 30-day public comment period. So everybody in this room has the opportunity at this time to offer public comment in response to this report. This 2700-page report issued numerous problems with the facility and came to the conclusion that it is unsafe, uninhabitable, recommending their proposed action to permanently deactivate the site. Sounds like good news. What it doesn't quite say is that it opens up the door possibly for a transfer of that facility to another federal agency. This was noted in a notification letter to City of Dublin in December of last year. The report does not address what could happen in that possible transfer nor does it address the possibility of demolition of the site which would be the most preferable option the safest option for the community. So I do this as an informational statement to everybody in this room has the ability to provide public comment i urge you to do so and i urge the city to consider issuing public comment as a city i urge you to consult with the dublin city manager colleen triby who plans to provide provide comment on behalf of the city And that leads me to my second point, is I ask the council to take up the consideration of passing a resolution formally opposing immigration detention at the closed FCI Dublin prison. Dublin did this, taking the lead back in December, and they're waiting for their tri-valley fellow tri-valley cities to do the same alameda county did the same in april of this year so i urge you to consider going on the record and formally opposing immigration detention in our community it affects us in pleasanton in particular because of the hospital the stanford tri-valley hospital would be the point for caring for emergency response from people harmed by the violent apprehension of detainees and also by the medical neglect of those that would be in this facility. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Jerry Gere, followed by Tony Shrug, followed by Isabel Gomez. Welcome.

Welcome. If I may, it's Jerry Geyer.

Oh, I apologize. Thank you.

I answered a lot of different names. Council members, I stand before you tonight to ask for your support in developing a city resolution opposing any effort to bring an ICE or CBP detention facility to the former FCI Dublin site or anywhere in the Tri-Valley. The recent Bureau of Prisons environmental assessment renewed concerns many residents have about the future of that property. I fear the site could be transferred and repurposed quickly despite its troubling history and unresolved safety issues. When reports of abuse first emerged at FCI Dublin, I assumed federal leadership would correct the problem, but no. Then a county judge was assigned oversight and again I assumed the system would fix itself. I no longer believe we can simply stand by and hope others will make the right decision for our community. My husband and I moved here 41 years ago because Pleasanton represented something special. Safe neighborhoods, strong schools, thriving local businesses, and a community built on trust and respect. We proudly raised our son here. And while Pleasanton remains our home, the Tri-Valley has become deeply interconnected. We work, shop, receive medical care, attend events, and build relationships across Pleasanton, Dublin, Livermore, and San Ramon. What affects one city increasingly affects us all. Some may feel Pleasanton is not directly connected to the former prison site, but we are connected. economically, socially, regionally, and even through shared public infrastructure. The Bureau of Prisons report notes that the FCI Dublin shares wastewater services connected to the Dublin San Ramon Services District infrastructure housed here in Pleasanton and contracted to the Pleasanton residents. That may seem minor, but it reflects a larger truth. Our communities are deeply interconnected. What happens there does not stay there. I ask you to consider what the long-term identity of our region becomes if a large federal detention operation takes root here. Will businesses suffer from fear and instability? Will our local emergency rooms and public services face additional strain during large enforcement operations, protests, or detention-related incidents? Will tourism and downtown activity decline? Will trust between residents and law enforcement erode? Will protests, security costs, and division become part of our regional identity? These are not partisan questions. These are local governance questions. This council has already shown compassion towards those affected by immigration enforcement actions. Tonight, I ask you to match that compassion with courage. Even if we cannot control every federal decision, we can speak clearly about the kind of community we want to be. Silence also sends a message. Our neighboring leaders and county supervisors have already taken a stand. I urge Pleasanton to stand with them and adopt a resolution opposing ICE or CBP detention facilities in the Tri-Valley. Thank you. I'm sorry about the going over.

No worries. Thank you very much. Tony Shrug, Isabel Gomez will be after you, and Roy. Welcome. Hi.

I'm Tony Shuga. I want to thank you for your time and attention today. I'm here because I strongly support the rule of law and appropriate immigration enforcement. Tragically, there's overwhelming evidence that ICE and DHS far too often operate outside the law, violate due process and other constitutional rights, and use inhumane or even violent treatment against detainees. Events in Minneapolis this year made that clear. Then just this week, a new study indicated that more than 100,000 children, including U.S. citizens, U.S.-born citizens, have been separated from their parents during the current immigration crackdown. The exact number is unclear because the agency causing this harm, DHS, does not even bother to keep track of the awful consequences of its actions. As you probably know, those are just two examples, obviously. As you probably know, many state and federal judges, as well as organizations of legal professionals, have strongly rebuked ICE and DHS practices, and many police forces have declined to participate in them. So why should this council take a position on this now? These ICE and DHS tactics undermine American values, the rule of law, and civil society, so they should be opposed by any reasonable means, including denial of resources such as detention facilities, until ICE and DHS are reformed and demonstrate a consistent change in practice. Do we want our children and grandchildren? to know someday that their government was severely mistreating hundreds of people, guilty or innocent, citizens or noncitizens, a few miles down the road from here, and that we, their elders, did not do our best to stop it. Please oppose having an ICE facility in our area. Thank you.

Thank you. Isabel Gomez, followed by Roy. Welcome.

Good evening, mayor and city council members. I've been in Pleasanton for 24 years, a resident, and I'm here tonight towards the council to pass a resolution opposing any plans to repurpose the former FCI Dubliner facility into a nice detention center. While the facility is in our neighboring city, its impact will be felt across the entire Tri-Valley. FCI Dublin was closed after years of horrific systemic abuse. Replacing a felt prison with an ICE detention center brings those same issues of secrecy, lack of oversight, and human rights concerns right to our doorsteps. A nice facility does not reflect the values of Pleasanton or the Tri-Valley. We should be advocating for federal land to be used for things that actually strengthen our community, like housing, education, or healthcare, not mass civil detention. Please take a formal stand PLEASANTON STANDS FOR SAFETY, DIGNITY, AND COMMUNITY TRUST. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH. ROY? Welcome. This is my last speaker card before you begin. If anyone else would like to speak on matters not on the agenda, please fill out a blue speaker card at this time. Welcome.

Thank you. My name is Roy. I'm a 23-year resident of Pleasanton and homeowner, and I'm requesting that the City Council add to the agenda for the next meeting a resolution to formally oppose immigration detention at FCI Dublin. There are a number of compelling reasons to take this position. A recent environmental assessment identified a number of documented hazards such as mold and as Dan Morley said declared the facility unsafe and uninhabitable. There are additional potential hazards even including possible radiation exposure. A thorough and independent assessment is needed to provide a more accurate picture of this facility. FCI Dublin has a long and dark history of human rights abuses. It's time to remove the stain on our community's reputation and repurpose this facility so it can be used in a positive way to improve the lives of the people in our community. rather than enabling a corrupt and morally bankrupt administration to govern using fear and cruelty to harm the most vulnerable and hardest working members in our community. We are better than that. An immigration detention facility in Dublin would stain the reputation of our community once again and take us back in the wrong direction. Let's not go there. We deserve better than that. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you very much. Are there any additional speakers who would like to speak on matters not on the agenda at this time? And you haven't turned in a blue speaker card, please approach the podium at this time. Seeing none, we'll close public comment. For those speakers about the particular items, all of the items, the way that this council works is you would have to have a majority of council matter initiate something. That section is at the end of tonight's agenda and we would know at that time if it would be agendized for a future meeting or during a priority workshop process. We've recently had one of those as a council, so that process is, generally closed as an avenue at this time for that. Okay. Thank you very much. With that, we're going to be proceeding along to public hearings and other matters. We have two items on tonight's agenda. Adopt a resolution accepting fiscal year 26-27 midterm update for operating capital budget and approve a revised five-year water capital improvement plan. City Manager.

Thank you, Mayor. Our Finance Director, Susan Shea, is going to deliver the presentation this evening and will be available for questions later.

Thank you, Jerry. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. In June 2025, the City Council adopted the biennial budget for fiscal years 2026 and 2027. Based on the City's policy, the second year budget needs to be updated during the first year of the two-year budget cycle. Tonight, staff will present the proposed changes to the fiscal year 2027 budget. reflecting the update of financial projections, priorities, and changes to the financial outlook since the budget was first adopted. The economic outlook remains uncertain due to the conflict in the Middle East and persistently high inflation. A softening labor market and recession concerns are impacting both business and consumer confidence. The uncertain economic climate is taking a direct hit on the city's top two revenue source, property tax and sales tax. For the operating budget, expenditure adjustments prioritize operation needs and efficiency across multiple city funds. For the capital budget, adjustments reflect updated costs, funding availability, and project delivery timelines. The midterm budget continues to reflect the city council's priorities of preserving core services, investing in community infrastructure, and advancing economic development initiatives that serve the best interests or long-term interests of the city and its residents. The citywide operating budget is projected to increase by about $8 million, with a total budget exceeding $265 million. The increase is primarily driven by enterprise funds and internal service funds. General fund revenues are projected to be lower than the adopted budget and expenditures are projected to be higher than the adopted budget. The revised budget reflects an additional contribution from the capital reserve to help fund an aging fire vehicle. The revised budget deploys strategy implementation reserve to fund council priority projects. For the long-term financial forecast, structural deficits persist in the out years. The general fund budget reflects the council's commitment to economic vitality with funds allocated towards community priority projects. While there is an imbalance between general fund revenue and expenditure, staff is not proposing COST REDUCTIONS TO BALANCE THE BUDGET AS WE ARE ALREADY HALFWAY INTO THE TWO-YEAR BUDGET CYCLE. IT IS MORE EFFICIENT TO CONTINUE OPERATIONS AS PLANNED. AS A RESULT, THE BUDGET IS BALANCED WITH $6 MILLION IN ONE TIME MONEY, INCLUDING FUNDING DRAWS FROM THE CAPITAL RESERVE, STRATEGIC IMPLEMENTATION PLAN RESERVE, PENSION TRUST FUNDS AND RETIREMEDICAL TRUST FUNDS. General fund revenues are projected to decrease by about $400,000. The change to net transfers is $50,000. Use of program reserves is projected to increase by about $300,000. And expenditures are projected to increase by about $200,000. $250,000 in surplus is projected for fiscal year 2027. General fund revenues are projected to exceed $165 million for fiscal year 2027, excluding about $4 million in transfers from other funds. The largest share is in property tax, accounting for about 60% of the revenue budget, or close to $100 million. Sales tax is about 16% of the revenue budget, close to $26 million. The remaining revenues are from hotel tax, business license tax, other taxes such as franchise fees and documentary transfer tax, development service fees, recreation fees, and other revenues such as interest income, reimbursements, and inter-fund charges. General fund expenditures are projected to exceed $160 million, excluding about $10 million in transfers to other funds. Salaries and benefits account for about 72% of the expenditure budget, or over $115 million. Materials, supplies, and services account for about 22% of the budget, or over $36 million. The other expenditures are from the categories of transportation and training, repairs and maintenance, capital outlay, and debt services. Next, I'll present the major adjustments to the general fund. Public tax is projected to decrease by about $1.9 million due to slower growth in assessed valuation. Sales tax is projected to decrease by about $900,000 as current economic conditions are impacting business and consumer spending. This decreases possibly offset by increases from business license tax, one-time development service fees, regulation fees, and other revenues mainly derived from inter-fund overhead reimbursements. Salaries and benefits are projected to decrease by about $700,000, mainly due to the utilization of a higher vacancy factor. Training and transportation costs are projected to increase by about $300,000, mainly due to the increase in vehicle repair and maintenance to maintain the city's aging fleet. Cost for materials, supplies, and services are projected to increase by $400,000. Expense increases are already possibly offset by a decrease in general liability insurance costs. Some of the larger adjustments include $300,000 in professional services related to land development work, such as inspection and permit work. And 300,000 are related to updates to the downtown specific plan and the development of a fiber master plan as directed by the city council. For financing sources, the general fund is expected to receive an additional contribution from the capital reserve fund for 500,000, increasing the total transfer from the capital reserve to 2.5 million. 300,000 in strategic implementation reserve will be used to fund the downtown specific plan update and the development of the fiber master plan, this council priority projects. For financing use, the general fund will transfer 500,000 to the Fire Operator Replacement Fund to help to fund a fire engine that costs about 1.6 million. The council established general fund reserve target is 20% with a range of 17% to 25%. The projected reserve for 2027, it's about 21% or over 21%. As noted in the staff report, there are some major one-time funding needs that need to be addressed in the new term, including $5.3 million in funding for two aging fire engines and a ladder truck, and $1.2 million in additional assessment for LPFD from a prior insurance pool for general liability insurance coverage with half owed by Peasanton. Based on the latest information from the insurance pool, the assessment is likely it's going to go up. As we all know, due to resource constraint, the operating budget adopted by the city council every year does not adjust all of the city's operating needs. As a result, sometimes we need to identify resources to fund some of those projects and expenditures outside of the budget. As part of the year end codes for the current fiscal year, if there is one time savings identified, we should consider allocating resources to fund those items. The general fund long-term financial forecast was also updated as part of the meeting budget update. Property tax is higher and sales tax is lower compared to the February mid-year update. General liability insurance costs were also updated based on the latest information with lower cost projected over the forecast period. Higher property tax and lower expenditures help to improve the financial picture, but structural deficits persist in our years. If there is an economic downturn, the gap is likely going to increase. Please note that the 44 million annual infrastructure funding gap identified in the asset management plan is not adjusted in the forecast. The annual deficit is projected to range from over $7 million to $8 million, over $8 million between fiscal year 2028 and fiscal year 2031. And the annual deficit is projected to range from over $4 million to over $5 million between fiscal year 2032 and fiscal year 2035. Please note that the potential revenue from the hotel tax measure that the City Council is contemplating is not included in the forecast. After the first year of implementation, the annual revenue is projected at about $2.8 million. As I just mentioned earlier, the infrastructure funding gap is also not reflected in the forecast. For enterprise funds, water fund revenues, expenditures, and capital contributions are projected to increase. The sewer fund revenues and expenditures are projected to increase, while capital contributions are projected to decrease. The council established reserve target for these two funds is 35%, with a range of 30% to 40%. The waterfront reserve is projected at about 38% higher than the reserve target. The sewer fund reserve is projected at about 34%, slightly below the reserve target. Water service charge revenues are projected to increase by about $7.4 million due to the rate increase approved by the city council. And operating expenditures are projected to increase primarily due to Zone 7 water purchase costs and increases in other programs, such as vehicle replacement, water loss program, and water flow modeling. for about 4.5 million. The contribution to the capital fund will increase by about 900,000. Sewer service charge is projected to increase by about 1.1 million, primarily due to the DSRSD rate increase and the current revenue trend. Expenditures are projected to increase by about 600,000, primarily due to the increase in DSRSD fees. The contribution to fund capital projects will be reduced by one million in order to preserve cash and fund balance in the operating fund to plan for debt issuance. For special revenue funds and internal service funds, the adjustments are based on projected program activities. The larger adjustments are associated with the Vehicle Replacement Fund and the General Liability Insurance Program. Based on the anticipated revenues, the revenues and expenditures for the donation funds will increase by about 400,000. The opioid funds will be used to fund one ARU connection at about 200,000. The fire apparatus replacement fund will receive a $500,000 contribution from the general fund to fund an aging fire engine for $1.6 million. As I mentioned earlier, the general liability insurance cost will go down. As a result, the revenues and expenditures in this fund will be reduced by about $1.3 million. Next, I'll present the proposed changes to the capital budget. Capital investments support the City Council's commitment to safe, reliable infrastructure and quality community services. The 31 million budget for fiscal year 2027 includes significant investments for water, sewer transportation, and street-related projects. Capital adjustments reflect updated cost estimates, funding availability, and revised project timelines. As noted in the staff report, we also updated the fire capital improvement program for the water utility program operations in order to plan for their issuance. For capital expenditure adjustments, there's a net reduction of 1.9 million in the sewer transportation, streets, and water categories. For capital revenue adjustments, there will be a cancellation of $1 million in transfers from the sewer operating fund in order to preserve cash and fund balance in the operating fund for debt issuance purpose. There will be additional $1 million in transfer from the water operating fund to fund water projects. Three new projects were added to the midterm budget, totaling in $1.7 million in capital investments. The projects are all for the sewer utility program. The $1.1 million investment in the Danker area emergency sewer repairs project is to repair up to one mile of sewer. defective sewer mains. The 600,000 investment in two projects related to force main desktop analysis and inspections and large diameter sewer pipe inspection study was identified in sewer system management plan. The city is required to inspect and identify repairs for sewer mains in order to maintain system reliability and make sure we meet the compliance requirements. Next I will highlight some of the changes to existing projects. Based on project available fund balance, the budget for the annual sewer inspection system improvements projects will be reduced. For the same reason, the budget for the annual street resurfacing and reconstruction project will be reduced. For the water ground well project with Zone 7, the budget will be canceled. When staff has identified a specific timeline and budget for the project for fiscal year 2027 together with Zone 7, staff will come back to the council to request a special appropriation. For the QK and snow fire flow improvements project, the project will be move up to allow staff to do some planning work before design and construction. The water meter and AMI system replacement project will be move up to adjust fouling infrastructure. The timeline and budget for the water system emergency power improvement program has been adjusted mainly due to the transition of a fleet of portable generators to permanently installed generators. Looking ahead, the citywide organizational assessment is in progress. The work is expected to be completed during this calendar year. Between December and April next year, staff will be working on the budget development for the upcoming two-year budget, and the community will be engaged for feedback. Budget adoption is anticipated in June 2027. For the mid-year budget update for fiscal year 2027, it's expected in February 2027. Staff recommends that the City Council accept the fiscal year 2027 mid-term update for the operating and capital budget and approve a revised five-year water capital improvement program. This concludes my presentation and I'm happy to answer questions.

THANK YOU VERY MUCH. MAYBE FOR A QUICK POINT OF ORDER, IT IS GETTING QUITE COLD IN OUR ROOM HERE, SO IF WE COULD CHECK THE THERMOSTAT, I WOULD APPRECIATE THAT. IT WASN'T WORKING EARLIER, SO I THINK WE MIGHT HAVE OVERCOMPENSATED SLIGHTLY. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. ANYTHING FURTHER, STAFF? THAT CONCLUDES OUR PRESENTATION.

HAPPY TO ANSWER QUESTIONS.

APPRECIATE IT. uh we're going with clarifying questions we don't have any speaker cards on this item item number 16 if you would like to speak on the budget uh please fill out a blue speaker card uh we're going to start this way and go this way so council member tester any clarifying questions of staff on the budget and your microphone yes um

I had an opportunity to get my questions answered, so I'm going to wait for comments. Okay. Thanks.

Okay. Councilmember Eicher?

I only had one. I think most of my questions were answered earlier, but I have one in regards to maybe go back to slide 12. And this is just for clarification purposes. Your 12 may not be the same as my 12. Go back to the one where it shows property tax at $1.9 million. Right there. SO THAT'S ON 11 FOR YOU AND 12 FOR ME. SO HERE WE'RE SHOWING THAT WE HAVE A REDUCTION IN PROPERTY TAX. OUR PROJECTION IS WE'RE GOING TO HAVE 1.9 MILLION LESS IN PROPERTY TAX THIS YEAR. THAT'S CORRECT?

COMPARED TO THE ADOPTER BUDGET.

compared to the adopted budget. Yet in slide 15, we say that property tax is higher compared to the year.

The immediate budget update.

Update. Yeah. So does that mean that property tax is gaining now?

No, compared to the adopted budget, property tax is lower. However, compared to the media update that was presented to the council just in February, it's performing slightly better.

Okay, so it is performing better compared to February. But we're still projecting 1.9 million. That's correct. Thank you. That's all I have.

Okay. I'm going Vice Mayor next, please.

Thank you. No, I don't have any questions on this portion of the presentation. I have comments, but no questions. Thank you.

Council Member Nyberg.

Yes, just one question. Slide 18, if you go there, in regard to... DSRSD fees. Can you clarify, are these pass-through fees only? In other words, they come into the city and then they go out to DSRSD?

That's correct.

That's correct. So they're shown both incoming and outgoing. So it's pretty much a wash, would you say?

In this case, the revenues, it's projected to be higher than the cost. SO THE ADJUSTMENT TO THE REVENUE IS BASED ON CURRENT REVENUE TREND AS WELL AS THE ANTICIPATED INCREASE FROM THE DSRSD REVENUE OR FEE.

Okay. I think I see. And would the same apply for Zone 7 charges?

To some extent, yes. But the increase in revenue is mainly due to the rate increase approved by the City Council not long ago. At the time when the budget was adopted, we did not anticipate that level of revenue, so we are making that adjustment right now. Okay.

I got it. Thank you. Okay. I just have a few clarifying questions that I'll bring, and I did discuss them with staff earlier, but just maybe to help us move along here. So we're obviously looking at year two of a two-year budget, and year one we're just almost at the end of in a few months here. So when we got the update on year one, we have stronger business license revenue that allowed us to not draw down some one-time money options And so I'm just asking staff to clarify that money, we still will have at the end of year two, because year one was still produced where we didn't have to draw down as much. We still had to draw down some, but just not as much. Can you kind of speak to that a bit more?

So actually in fiscal year 2025, we did not have to draw from the capital reserve, you know, partly due to the increase in business license tax and some one-time development revenues. IN THE CURRENT FISCAL YEAR BUDGET, WE ARE DRAWING DOWN ABOUT 1.5 MILLION FROM THE CAPITAL RESERVE.

A LITTLE FURTHER BACK.

YEAH. SO THAT AMOUNT THAT WE DID NOT DRAW IN 2025 HELPED US TO UTILIZE THE FUNDS FOR 2026 AND 2027.

Yeah. Okay. So in the staff report, it talks about the capital fund will decline to 2.62 million, but I think we initially anticipate it might have been depleted.

Yeah, that's correct.

So we're actually doing a little bit better in that. Okay. The second thing I'd like to talk about for clarification that we talked about earlier, the council has just gone through a pension funding strategy and that using an expert, a couple of advisors to really guide us on how to draw down the 115 trust fund, 60 something approximate million dollars for our pension obligation. For poor summation, it estimated four million, but in our slide here, we're showing that we're still on two for this budget year. Can you explain that further?

Yeah, at the time the budget was adopted, the council decided on the use of a two million for the current fiscal year budget. Prior to that, we also had our actuary, our pension actuary, who gave us a presentation, and there was some recommendations and range presented at the time. Two million, it's about half what he recommended at the time, which was about four million. That's the starting point. For what was presented to the council in March, there was also a range. $4 million was one of the amounts from the list of fiscal years that we expect to draw down the funds. And in some years, the amounts are expected to be lower, and in some years, the amounts are expected to be higher. Yeah.

So we would see that in our next two-year budget more so than where we're at in this mid-term update?

That's correct. As part of the budget development, we will update our schedule based on the projected assets in the pension trust fund. Then we'll come up with some estimates for withdrawals over the period of the next how many years.

Yeah, thank you. I know you and I spoke about the vacancy. The vacancy moving from 2% to 3% was something we did in the year one of the two-year budget. And so this is us just implementing it through the remaining of year two, correct?

That's correct.

Okay. uh and then your long-term forecast the 10-year uh i know you've said it but i just want to confirm does not include potentially uh if the tot tax was adjusted by the voters uh if it is brought forward that's correct okay And furthermore, we talked about in the past annexation of the east side would or could potentially have a positive million dollar a year benefit. I know it comes with costs to maintain and all of that. Those annexations, Merritt, Leicester, which is on our agenda for the next item, Eastside, those are not in our 10-year forecast.

Yeah, those are not in the 10-year forecast. Once the projects have been developed, then those revenues will be reflected in the forecast.

Okay. And then I think I asked staff earlier, but as part of kind of the work we've already done, we've been tackling overtime in our fire department and travel and training were reduced overall. So can you just speak to that?

Yeah, when the council approved the mid-term update for fiscal year 2025, we reduced the child and training budget. While there have been adjustments for budget related to public safety because there are mandatory training required for police and fire, the budget level for this current fiscal year in 2027 is still lower than fiscal year 2024.

Yeah, but we're still being proactive to have a very cautious of how we restaff and things like that, correct?

That's correct.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Yes, please.

Thank you. In regard to what the mayor was just talking about, the 10-year forecast, you mentioned that in out years, the structural deficit persists and That seems kind of obvious. We know that exists. But the out years, it seems to me based on the graph, begin Next year.

That's correct.

Yeah, let's go year 2728. It goes all the way to FY 2035. Yeah. Okay, so that's still something we all know we're going to have to address sooner or later, hopefully sooner. But regardless of the potential increase in the hotel tax, which is not included in the forecast, and the potential increase in revenue which comes after projects are developed, and we have that stream of property tax. structural deficit, by its very nature, will still persist, right?

That's correct. So while some of the one-time expected ongoing revenues are not included in here, such as new development projects, some of our funding gaps related to infrastructure, as well as the vehicle replacement program that I mentioned earlier, they're also not reflected in the long-term forecasts.

So because they also are not reflecting the long-term forecast, in addition to the structural deficit, it's actually even worse. If you look at the expenditures that the city would like to include in its operating budget, but would be unable to.

Yeah, that's correct. That's the case for us and for other cities as well. In order to balance our budget and other cities' budget, we all do the same thing. You only include what you can afford at this point, and you exclude what you cannot afford, and you deal with it later for outside of the budget.

So you had mentioned the one-time use of one-time resources. In this budget adjustment, we are looking at adjusting the $5.2 million figure in one-time resources upward to $6 million. That's $800,000 more in one-time money to bring it to $6 million.

That's correct.

In light of what you said earlier about us requiring less drawdown of the pension trust fund than we had initially allocated, how does that square with the increase in one-time money in this adjusted budget?

Yeah, so the $800,000 increase in the use of one-time money is associated with two council priority projects. It's for the downtown specific plan update and the development of a fiber master plan. That's $300,000 right there. It's draw from the strategy implementation reserve that was set aside for this project. purpose um and the additional 500 000 in the use of one-time money is related to the replacement of the fire engine so the money would come into the general fund and then it will go out the general fund to fund the purchase of the fire engine so is it expected that since we're adjusting its the figure to six point

or six million overall in one-time funds that will actually spend that much yeah i without this six million we would not be able to balance the general fund budget okay but somehow we saved we spent less required $1 million less from the pension trust fund in the current year.

The $1 million that you're thinking about is for this current fiscal year that the council canceled.

Right, okay.

Yeah.

And yet that's included in the $5.2 million figure. Yeah.

Yeah, the 2 million remains in the 5.2 million figure.

Okay. All right. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Okay.

All right. That concludes clarifying questions. We're going to go to public comment at this time. If you would like to speak on item 16 and haven't turned in a blue speaker card, please approach the podium at this time. Hearing none, seeing none, we'll close public comment and bring you back to the council. Just to remind my fellow council members, staff is looking for adopting a resolution for the midterm update capital budget and approve the revised five-year water capital improvement program. Council Member Testa.

OK, so really dovetailing on the comments of Council Member Nyberg, because I also wanted to go to slide number four real quick. I think it's really important to emphasize the economic uncertainty is weighing on the city's two top revenue sources. We've really adopted a policy of economic vitality. We're very supportive of new business and hopeful that the increased economic vitality will help soften the structural deficit. But the reality is that economic... I mean, our... the economy is soft. And when we do bring in a new economy, because we've got some great new businesses that come in, but we are kind of staying flat because we lose one, we gain one. To have our eggs in the basket of economic vitality is very much a long game. So when we look right now and we still have slide eight, WE STILL HAVE THE $6 MILLION. WE'VE DONE A GOOD JOB IN REDUCING EXPENSES. WE'VE CUT WHAT COULD BE CUT. WE'VE DONE SOME PAINFUL DECISIONS IN CLOSING OUR LIBRARY ON SUNDAYS. WE'VE REDUCED OUR DEFICIT BY HALF. IT'S NOT FIXED. IT'S NOT DONE. AND IT WON'T BE IN THE LONG RUN, WHICH IS WHAT COUNCIL MEMBER NYBERT WAS POINTING OUT. WE'RE LOOKING INTO 2035 AND continuing to have the structural deficit. Even if we hopefully pass a TOT tax, which will bring in some additional dollars, we need more funding sources to offset the increases in costs and our continued escalating pension costs, PERS. public employee retirement system has had a lot of bad years, but just recently a couple good years, which has really helped a lot. But all it takes is another bad year to really set things back. And in no way are we... You know, we've still got, I don't know, what is our unfunded liability, PERS liability right now? I think it's still 200 and... That's correct. Yeah, $200 million. We have this pension fund that is $60 million, and we're using that. In this, on slide eight, is that slide eight? Yeah, that's it. Balanced budget is achieved through six million in one-time funding from the capital reserve, strategic plan implementation reserve, pension trust fund, and retirement medical trust fund the pension is still has at least another eight to ten years before it hits peak right when does the is the projection for peak okay and so

Sorry, it's around 2031, 2032, but the peak may change depending on CalPERS investment gains and loss.

A bad year and it's going to be even worse. So the drawing on those funds at this point, we're not going to have, there isn't enough in that reserve to get us through the continued escalation in our, what is our annual now? Is it 25 million? It's about 28 million. $28 million a year out of our general fund just for our annual pension payment. Yeah, for fiscal year 2027. Right, and that's not paying off our unfunded liability. Right. It's not paying off our unfunded life. It's just our annual. That's correct. Yeah. So my question is, when we look at we're drawing on reserves, trust fund, retiree medical trust fund, how long? Will we be able to... And I'm stressing this because I've had somebody stop me in Safeway and say, Julie, we had a budget surplus and everything's fixed. People need to understand everything is not fixed. We needed a... TINY HALF PERCENT TAX MEASURE. IT DIDN'T PASS. THAT WOULD HAVE REALLY HELPED SIGNIFICANTLY. TO SAY EVERYTHING IS FIXED IS NOT BEING HONEST. THEN IF WE GO TO SLIDE 14, bottom of this slide, the operating budget adopted by council each fiscal year does not address all the city's operating needs. So even with this deficit of only six million that we're backfilling with reserves and trust fund, As it's saying here there are needs significant needs Aging fire engine and that we can't put in the budget because then we wouldn't have a balanced budget and we are required to have a balanced budget a balanced budget does not mean that we've met all the city's needs and so when there is a surplus of It's a very misleading when a longtime resident said, okay, oh, isn't that great? It's fixed. There really was money, and we didn't need that tax measure. So glad it's fixed. The community needs to understand it's not fixed. And so I think I had one more slide, 15, I wanted to go back to. So, again, 44 million annual infrastructure gap, again, we have significant infrastructure needs that we don't put in the budget, because if we did, we would not have a balanced budget, and we are required by law to have a balanced budget. So the point is that how long can we sustain with using trust fund, reserves, savings, things that really are identified for other future needs? How long? How long can we sustain a balanced budget with the reserves and trust fund money? I mean, what happens in 2035? Do we still have all those one-time monies that we can draw from?

IF WE DON'T IMPLEMENT OTHER BUDGET SOLUTIONS AND JUST RELY ON ONE-TIME MONEY, THE OVERALL RESERVE IS GOING TO BE DRAWED DOWN SIGNIFICANTLY OR CLOSE TO BE DEPEDED OVER TIME. IT'S NOT A RELIABLE SOLUTION AND IT WOULD NOT BE BENEFICIAL FOR THE CITY OR BE CHALLENGING FOR US TO GO OUT FOR BOND INSURANCE, FOR EXAMPLE, BECAUSE YOUR CREDIT RATINGS WON'T LOOK FAVORABLE. As noted in the staff report, one-time money is really a temporary solution while we are exploring other opportunities such as revenue options and some other cost-saving measures.

Right. Okay. So I'll just conclude. Thank you to our staff. Thank you to our finance department because It isn't that things are fixed. It is that they have guided us through, done a good job. Their forecasts had always been reliable, and there was a lot of misinformation that was saying otherwise. And, you know, we're getting through this, but there should be no illusion. IT'S NOT FIXED. AND SO THANK YOU FOR YOUR WORK. I'LL STOP THERE.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO MAKE A MOTION?

I'LL MAKE A MOTION THAT STAFF RECOMMENDATION THAT WE ADOPT THIS BUDGET THEY HAVE BROUGHT US BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, THEY ARE GETTING US THROUGH THIS. AND YES, I'LL MAKE THAT MOTION.

OKAY. COUNCILMEMBER EYKER, YOU'RE NEXT.

I understood the comments by Councilmember Nybert and Councilmember Testa and understand their perspective on the issue. But at the same time that we're in this financial position, the city has still been able to fund $31 million in capital expenditures during this budget cycle, or plan to for 26-27. Is that correct?

Yeah, that's correct. And with that budget, a significant portion is non-general fund resources.

Yes, so that's going to be the water fund, which we increased water rates to help improve our infrastructure there. We're looking at sewer fund. to increase the rates there to cover improvements to our sewer system. So that will be covered. So we talk about the expenditures that we're going to have moving forward, but we don't talk about any of the funding that we have in the pipeline to offset that funding aspect.

uh... we'd we do talk about it fairly regularly uh... i appreciate the question a lot because it speaks to the complicated nature of city budgeting uh... we we have created water management plans sewer management plans and we've gone about SECURING THROUGH THE PROP 218 PROCESS THE NECESSARY FUNDING FOR ENTERPRISE FUNDS. THE GENERAL FUND IS SOMEWHAT UNIQUE IN THAT IT'S TRYING TO MANAGE INFRASTRUCTURE NEEDS, REPAIR AND REPLACEMENT NEEDS, AND OPERATING NEEDS, SO PROGRAMS AND SERVICES AND PERSONNEL. THE VAST MAJORITY OF THE EMPLOYEES HERE AT THE CITY OF PLEASANTON ARE FUNDED, OUR POLICE OFFICERS, OUR CITY'S CONTRIBUTION TO THE LIVERMORE PLEASANTON FIRE DEPARTMENT. is all general fund. And so the challenge that we have is not in those enterprise funds where we have a great deal of local control and ability to set rates through a public process, a Prop 218 process, but not a vote of the people necessarily to amend funding sources. And so we're doing what we can. I wanna appreciate the work, the hard work that the council did in the last budget cycle. We cut seven or so million dollars out of the budget, 13 and a half full-time equivalent positions out of the budget and made some really hard decisions about programs and services along the way. And as has been acknowledged here, we got about halfway through that structural deficit that had been identified. And so I think what you're seeing tonight, and I appreciate the motion and the discussion, is a midterm budget that is really a lot of status quo. We're trying to make minor adjustments. But what we're trying to set up for the council is that the next two-year budget is going to be another round of discussions about how to right-size programs and services and You know, the saying live within your means feels almost cruel when you're talking about public services, but really scale down programs and services or continue to use one-time money, which we know has a finite path for us. So that's really in a nutshell what tonight is about. It's making sure that you understand a couple of things really clearly and the community in particular because I think the council is well aware at this time. This is a baseline forecast scenario. It doesn't anticipate any economic slowdowns or recessions. It is certainly dependent on CalPERS continuing to perform. That is one of our biggest cost drivers at this point. While we're dealing with these near-term challenges, our infrastructure gap continues to grow. We have about $60 million of annual infrastructure funding needs on the general fund. We're getting about $16 million toward that need, which is not great, especially for those out years. When we start to talk about coming through the pension peak, our infrastructure gap is building year on year. um you know i want to put that into the context of the conversation this evening because um this is this is a midterm uh budget update we are we're not trying to get to the heart of the matter but it is still something that will have to be uh thought through and discussed pretty heavily in the coming months and sort of i would anticipate in early 2027 heading to that july THAT NEW 2027 BUDGET IN JULY, THERE WILL BE A LOT OF COMMUNITY CONVERSATION ABOUT THE ISSUES AND GAPS THAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT HERE AGAIN TONIGHT.

OKAY. THANK YOU. I'LL SECOND THE MOTION.

OKAY. THANK YOU.

support the motion and I appreciate staff's hard work I mean this being the midterm budget update it's not significantly surprising or different than what we thought it was there's minor adjustments little pluses and minuses that all sort of come out in the wash to the tune of a few hundred thousand dollars so you know I acknowledge that we have challenges and opportunities to you know address the future of Pleasanton and where our values are going to be know i've said in the past you can you can be a full service city that has all these nice amenities and beautiful manicured parks and fully funded police fire extracurriculars library pool you can be a city that doesn't want has been shy on development for the last 20 years and looking for reasons to say no. And you can be a city that says they don't want to raise its taxes, but you can't be all three at the same time. So we're going to need to be a little different about this in one way or the other. And I think looking towards the future, there's an opportunity And there's a lot of new development coming to Pleasanton, a lot of potential new revenue streams that's coming. And I look forward to the opportunity working with this council to figure out how we're going to deal with all those things. So I appreciate the hard work by our finance director and our city manager on the budget. It was a difficult time and we may have difficult times in the future, but we will take it as it comes and put our heads together and make the best decision for Pleasanton. So those are my comments.

Thank you. Councilmember Nyberg. Yeah, thank you very much to staff, to the finance department, new director Shea, and the city manager. Really appreciate all the effort that you put in. I'll echo some of the other statements made by other council members here and also our city manager. I appreciate his remarks. Yeah, in regard to future developments coming. Yes, no doubt future developments are coming. The thing is about future development, it's unreliable and unpredictable. Unreliable in terms of you don't know when it's going to occur, and unpredictable in terms of it may go away, it may end up looking like something entirely different. So you never know. when revenue from property taxes or other revenue sources that are unreliable and unpredictable will come in. And in my mind, the key to really attacking the structural deficit is to be able to identify your expenditures and identify the revenue this is after cutting expenditures to whatever extent is possible or advisable to still be a full-service city but matching those expenditures that you're budgeting with revenue that you're expecting you know item for item without having to still engage in deficit spending and balancing budgets each year through various one-time means or calling or hoping that things will be better in the future. So I'll stop there. I support the motion. Thank you.

uh well maybe i'll start with uh i appreciate my council members and i appreciate the community because first of all we don't have groupthink in this council so there we go uh secondly uh maybe i'll just say i appreciate the community watching i know we have a lot of you here for other issues but This is Pleasanton's kitchen table. We are dealing with a fiscal challenge at Pleasanton's kitchen table. Just like I'm teaching my 17 year old son how to budget, Pleasanton is discussing it and lots of different ways to address the challenge. lots of different ways to see the challenge and frankly i find the conversation uh very invigorating maybe because i'm a cpa so uh it all relates but uh i'll start with that a thank you to my fellow council members and the community definitely a thank you to staff as we penny pinch to watch the dollars and the pennies as we navigate through the fiscal challenges um All of the comments made by my fellow council members related the structural deficit, the challenges ahead, the headwinds we face, the softness in property tax, the softness in sales tax, all of that are extremely valid and very prudent. How we get through it, how we address that, that is definitely part of this ongoing conversation we've had for quite a while. Things that we see, like fire overtime, we are working to reduce. Organizational headcount, salaries, cost reductions, credit card fee recovery, I can list all of them. But future revenue sources, such as cell towers and potential cell tower revenue, sponsorship agreements, cost recoveries, I wrote permit streamlining. We are doing things to work on this problem. So I just want to assure you, each one has a different trajectory of what it can yield and win for us. But we are, you know, we have a serious headwind that we are navigating through. And I do think, and I'll just continue to lend it, that we need to have a serious conversation about the TOT for a future council. I don't want to predispose, but a serious conversation about a TOT asking our voters in November. So I'll end with... I appreciate that our staff is doing more with less. The vacancies are difficult. It means workload, timing, and what we realistically can deliver for our community do have to change and prioritize. And so I appreciate us reflecting the actual vacancies in the budget, but I also want to thank our staff for working through that and the effect it has on them and their job. So with that, I'll be also willing to support the motion. I'll go on to state that capital spending and allocation. There is a capital need of this city. We talk about it often and we're working to identify it through the asset management plan, the sewer management plan, stormwater management plan. All of these things are going on right now so that we can actually quantify what it is. And the unfortunate thing is that the CPI continues to make these uh dramatically more difficult to achieve compared to revenue growth and that is definitely an overarching challenge in amongst the operation of the city and its resources so appreciate uh the continued conversation of the community as we navigate through it okay we have a motion made and seconded to make a final comment please sure council member testa thank you

A reoccurring comment is that we're a suggestion that we're in the fiscal situation we're in because we've restricted development in the past. There is a state-mandated RHNA, Regional Housing Needs Assessment, where the state mandates us how much housing we are required to produce. You know, the city doesn't build, ZONE, AND IT'S NOW MANDATED WITH SANCTIONS, SO IT'S PRODUCTION, NOT JUST ZONING. IT'S AN EIGHT-YEAR CYCLE. RIGHT NOW WE'RE IN THE SIXTH EIGHT-YEAR CYCLE. OUR LAST, RIGHT, WE'RE IN OUR SIXTH, NOT OUR SEVENTH, RIGHT, YEAH. AND OUR LAST CYCLE, THE FIFTH CYCLE, which I think is what's being implied, we didn't produce enough housing in the past. We, Pleasanton, much more than some of our neighboring cities, we produced 300%, 300, it not just met those goals, but 300% of our market rate housing mandate. So I disagree completely that we haven't built and produced housing in the past. This cycle, we're not going to No, almost no cities, 450 cities across the state, almost no one will meet their affordable housing mandate, but very few are going to actually meet their market rate. We probably will not be able to meet our market rate this time, but it isn't because we've been denying projects. We do have projects happening. It is that the economic conditions are not favorable and there's not as much interest from developers in building. But more than that, the state has given us absurdly unrealistic numbers. So we won't meet them, but we're still doing a good job of getting projects built more than many of our OTHER CITIES ARE COMPLAINING THAT THEY'RE NOT ABLE TO ACHIEVE ANY BUILDING. AND WE CERTAINLY AREN'T GOING TO BE ABLE TO MEET OUR AFFORDABLE MANDATES BECAUSE THE MONEY DOESN'T EXIST FOR THE SUBSIDY TO DO THAT. SO I THINK Pleasanton has done an admirable job at 300% of our market rate in our last cycle. Okay, thank you.

Well, it's excellent that we've updated the developer impact fees so that they're paying current costs. Okay, we have a motion made and seconded. Can we go ahead and have a roll call vote, please?

Council Members Testa? Oh, aye. Eichert?

Aye.

Gatos?

Aye.

Nybert?

Aye.

Mayor Bulch?

Aye.

The motion passes unanimously.

Thank you very much. Okay, that concludes item 16. We're going to take a short five-minute recess before we begin item number 17 to allow staff to switch out. Item number 17 is very long, but it's known as the Lester property if you've been following. So if you would like to speak on item 17, please fill out a blue speaker card and we'll call you up accordingly. All right, we'll take a quick five-minute recess. Thank you. So if you can please take your seats, and here we go. Thank you and welcome back to the continuation of the May 19, 2026 Pleasanton City Council meeting. It is 8.52 and we are beginning with item number 17, commonly known as the Lester property, but I'll let staff maybe more formally introduce it as we go from here, please.

Good evening, Mayor, members of city council. I'll introduce Natalie Amos, associate planner, who has been working on this project for, I think, nine years now, quite a while, but very pleased to have this item here before the council tonight. And with that, I'll turn it over to Natalie for the presentation.

I'm notorious for technical issues. I see the mouse moving up here, but it is not working on my screen. That's what I did. It's not working.

Well, we don't see you often, so we'll give you first timers.

I'm trying to get back to this so I can do it to myself. I'll see. But I need that one. Okay. Good evening, Council. Yes, this has been a project that's been on the city's radar for quite some time now, and the request this evening that's being asked of the Council is to certify the final environmental impact report that's for the project and the proposed entitlements, which include annexation of around 130 acres, general plan amendments, which would include redesignating residential land use into open space and vice versa, rezoning into a plan unit development site for residential and open space, AND WITH THE DEVELOPMENT OF 28 NEW HOMES IN THE EAST BAY REGIONAL PARK STAGING AREA, WHICH WILL ALSO INCLUDE ON AND OFF SITE IMPROVEMENTS. AND A VESTING TENTATIVE TRACK MAP FOR 30 NEW HOMES WITHIN A MORE CENTRAL PORTION OF THE PROJECT SITE. AND ALSO AN APPROVAL OF A DEVELOPMENT AND PRE-ANNEXATION AGREEMENT. While the project was formally submitted in 2018, it was actually on the city council's priority work plan in 2017, 2018, where the council at that time had directed staff to work with the applicant on creating a single family development project that had some public benefits, including a staging area for the East Bay Regional Park District. During that 2017-2018 time period, we worked with Ponderosa to develop what we felt would be a good project for submittal. They did that in 2018. During that time, there was more project refinements as it was reviewed by other city staff and departments. Then in 2019, there was a notice of preparation and a scoping meeting, which gave the Planning Commission an opportunity to give feedback and some recommendations on it, which include perhaps Some more refinements in terms of reducing the number of units that were on site a little bit more conformance to measure PPQQ. And just taking some feedback on where the East Bay Regional Park staging area would be, which initially it was a little bit farther back, but the request to have it more towards Dublin Canyon Road was presented. DURING THAT TIME, THE APPLICANT WAS WORKING ON THOSE REFINEMENTS. IT ALSO CAME AROUND FOR OUR SIXTH HOUSING CYCLE FOR THE HOUSING ELEMENT, WHERE AT THAT TIME IT WAS PUT ON OUR HOUSING SELEMENT I AS A SITE ONE FOR THE COUNCIL'S CONSIDERATION, AND IT WAS ADOPTED AS ONE OF THOSE. SO IT DID BECOME A HOUSING ELEMENT SITE AND WAS PREZONED AT THAT TIME FOR OPEN SPACE AND RESIDENTIAL. With that, after 2023, we began working on a little bit more project refinements, doing the environmental impact analysis that needs to be conducted for this project. And it went to our 2025 December Planning Commission meeting to have public comments on the draft EIR. There were some comments received. Our environmental consultant addressed those. And we took it to Planning Commission on April 22nd to get their review and recommendation to the City Council where they did recommend that the city council certify the EIR, adopt the entitlements, and consider the development agreement that's associated with it. Some site and land use context is that the project is unincorporated parcels. There's about 105 acres. Of that 105 acres, 66 of those lay outside of our urban growth boundary. The urban growth boundary line will not be moving. It's not a part of the project. It really may not is. And that land will be considered open space from there. All of the development will occur on the eastern side of the project site. The existing conditions include two Lester homes that are more on the northeastern side of the project site, undeveloped grazing land, and the Oak Hills Congregation Church is an intervening parcel between what's known as the Lester properties and the Ponderosa owned parcel. The general plan land use designations in the county and with the city of Pleasanton are for low density residential open space grazing. There isn't a whole lot of changes that are to the land use designation. However, I'll speak more about what those refinements need to look like with this project. This gives you an idea of the project boundaries where it has incorporating all of the 130 acres where you see that yellow line. The urban growth boundary line is the more, depending on how it looks on your screen, either brown or maroonish line kind of intersecting through that. And our city limit line, which is that dashed line. What it's around the neighborhood is you have the Canyon Creek townhouses to the north. You have the Canyon Meadows Circle single family homes to the north as well. And then you have the preserve, which is to the east portion of it. And then other single family homes that are unincorporated on the western portion of it. To give you a better idea of what this looks like, we'll talk a bit about the open space, which is that 117 acres approximately for the designated open space to the public. 69, give or take, is going to be dedicated to the East Bay Regional Park District. There is going to be another parcel C, which is proposed for future dedication to the East Bay Park District through Via Life Estate. The new staging area will have 18 parking stalls. It has trailhead access. It'll have a vault restroom, a water fountain, and some seating areas. In terms of the residential development, oh, sorry, we'll go to the public improvements. In terms of what's being done offsite will be Dublin Canyon Road. This will include some restriping and some turning lanes for safe entry and extra into the development. New bike lanes, some sidewalk connectivity and new sidewalks. An emergency vehicle access road will be put through the development and also leading into the Oak Hills Congregation parcel. Then there will be a new traffic signal at Canyon Meadows Drive. The residential development which Ponderosa will be overseeing as a part of a new HOA development will be 28 new homes that'll be detached on lots one through 28. They will be rebuilding the two Lester homes that are more on the northeastern part of the parcel site and generally in the same location. There's three model types that'll be proposed for the new developments on lots one through 28 and those are approximately 3,750 square feet to 4,243 square feet. The architectural styles in the new development for Ponderosa will have four different types of the rustic village, Spanish Prairie and farmhouse, which is pretty consistent for the area. And for the Lester's hot lots that are being rebuilt for lots 29 and 30 will be a single story homes in this cottage bungalow style. Lots 4, 7, 15, 24, 25 and 28 will also include detached accessory dwelling units. This is the existing Pleasanton land use map for the general plan. What you'll see there is most of the new lots for lots one through 28 are in this grayish green, dark green area. What will be changing in the land use designation is where you see on those lots three, four, and five, which are more in the bright green were considered open space. And the lesser lots, which are more to the right or eastern side, are lots 29 and 30, which are also in open space. That's part of the general plan designations that we would be requesting to be amended to where those would be low-density residential, where those lots are, and then having the rest of it be designated as open space, either private open space for Ponderosa's development or public open space for East Bay Regional Park District. This gives you a little bit better idea of how that'll look. So you'll notice that the green area is going to be what's dedicated to the East Bay Regional Park District. That more bright pink area is Parcel C, which will be retained by the Lesters through their life estate and then turned over to the East Bay Regional Park Districts at a future time. The purple area is going to be the private open space for the new lots 1 through 28. The more, I guess, teal, white, or green is where the Oak Hills Congregation site is located. What this also includes is some orange hatch areas, which is what will be the improvements along Dublin Canyon Road, where you'll see that restriping, those bike lanes, some sidewalks. You'll also have the traffic signal, which will be just outside of the driveway entry for the Oak Hills, OR WHAT'S JUST OUTSIDE OF THE CANYON MENDO CIRCLE STREET ENTRANCE INTO THAT DEVELOPMENT. IT WILL ALSO INCLUDE SOME IMPROVEMENTS THAT EXTEND FURTHER EAST TO THE GREEK ORCHESTRAL CHURCH WHERE PONDEROSA WILL BE HELPING TO CREATE SOME IMPROVEMENTS FOR THEM THROUGH A REIMBURSEMENT PROGRAM THAT THEY'LL BE DOING WITH THEM SINCE PONDEROSA IS OUT THERE DOING THE WORK. IT WILL HELP EXTEND AND TIE INTO WHAT WAS PREVIOUSLY APPROVED. This will also include some work that will kind of meander up through the hill to connect to the tank that's through there. But for the most part, this will be the layout of what the open space looks like and where those lots will be laid out on the hillside development, which is consistent with measures PP and QQ and that the developer really worked with the contours of what's out there and is not going to be having any structures in any of the slopes that are 25% or more and it isn't anywhere near any ridge lines that are designated out in that area. A part of the analysis for this would be the annexation part of it where it's within the city sphere of influence and it supports the implementation of the housing element as being an area one site one that was already pre-zoned to take in for arena numbers. The general plan amendments again are just reallocating those residential spaces to open space or open space to residential depending on where the layout of that is. It is a clustered development. The focus, like I said, is our homes that are less constrained areas where there's less of those slopes that you have out there for PPQQ. And it preserves the steeper slopes and open space resources. It's compatible with the other hillside developments around Pleasanton and in the surrounding area, such as the preserve. And again, it is consistent with measure PPQQ in that it does keep structures out of prohibited slope areas and it isn't anywhere near a ridge line. As a part of this, there is a development agreement and it is a 10 year term. It will take the applicant some time to get through other outside agencies in order to get permitting requirements for this. However, it isn't the intent for the applicant to wait 10 years. It does help the developer with this pre-indexation and development agreement, have vested rights, but it also includes public benefits, which is the staging area, which constructs the staging area of the parking and connection to trail heads, the open space dedication, the traffic signal, The improvements to Dublin Canyon Road. It also includes in the agreement a $500,000 contribution towards future improvements that the city could do towards Dublin Canyon Road. And it also be required to be paying applicable city and agency impact and development fees, including affordable housing fees. For the final environmental impact report, most of the impacts are less than significant or can be reduced to less than significant with mitigation. Those less than significant with the mitigation, monitoring, or reporting programs are air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, hydrology, noise, recreation, and utilities. Less than significant with those mitigation, monitoring, and reporting programs would be aesthetics, light, and glare, biological resources, geology, and soils, and hazardous materials. The mitigation and monitoring program identifies each measure and the responsible agency or entity that's going to be monitoring those in addition to the timing and completion of those monitoring things and construction and operation of the project to ensure that it is less than significant. The environmental impact report did come out that there is a significant and unavoidable impact, which is transportation, those vehicle miles, those traveling times with it. And it's the same impact that it is with the housing element in the EIR that was conducted for that. It's really unavoidable for these low density projects that don't have these transit opportunities in the area to do that. but that requires a statement of overriding consideration where the city must consider the significant and unavoidable impacts against the benefits of the project. The benefits of the project would be that you are doing a housing element site where you will have the abilities of those RHNA numbers, which would be 30 units, where 31 as a part of the pre-zoning for the housing site is what's allowed. AND THE AMOUNT OF OPEN SPACE THAT WILL BE DEDICATED TO THE EAST BAY REGIONAL PARK DISTRICT, THE STAGING AREA THAT'S ASSOCIATED WITH IT, THE DOUBLIN CANYON ROAD IMPROVEMENTS AND THE TRAFFIC SIGNAL, BUT THE CITY MUST ADOPT THOSE STATEMENT OF OVERWRITING CONSIDERATIONS BASED ON THE FINDINGS THAT ARE LISTED IN THE EIR AND THE FINDINGS THAT ARE LISTED IN THE PUD FINDINGS AND THE ORDINANCE THAT IS PRESENTED WITH THE AGENDA REPORT. Public notification was done for each public hearing that we had, and there is identification sign that was posted out there. There was no new public comments that were presented by the time it's reached city council. There have been some communications that the developer has continued to have with neighbors in the area. It's ongoing conversations, but I'll let the applicant speak to you about those, but there hasn't been any additional city comments that have been provided to staff. As a part of this is the annexation and development process where the annexation cannot occur, it has to occur until a separate application is submitted to the Alameda County Local Agency Formation Commission, LAFCO, where LAFCO is the authority to review and approve with or without conditions the annexation as a part of this. And that it considers with what state law adopted policies and what's an orderly urban development in terms of preserving open space and discouragement of urban sprawl. The city has already been in communication with the county to talk RENA numbers and tax sharing, which would be a part of this. So it is a conversation that has been started and will be an ongoing conversation soon. moving forward in order to ensure that we do get the RHNA numbers that we are searching for. And that will be the final step where the applicant has already initiated the application process in hopes that this does receive a favorable approval from city council. which is what staff recommendation is for this evening, that you adopt a resolution certifying the EIR, introduce an ordinance and waive the first reading, making the PUD findings and approving the annexation, general plan amendments, rezoning, the vesting tentative track map and the planned unit development plan, and introduce an ordinance and waive the first reading for approving the pre-annexation and development agreement. And staff's available for any questions that I may not have covered in the presentation.

Thank you very much, really appreciate it. Okay, so we're gonna do clarifying questions, and just for the community to know how this works, when we have an applicant like this, we'll do clarifying questions by the council. When we get to public comment, the applicant will have 10 minutes, the general public will have three, and the applicant will have five minutes on the backside for any rebuttal. and then we'll bring it back for council to evaluate the items. If you'd like to speak on this item, as I've mentioned several times, you probably know the drill now, a blue speaker card would be appreciated. And with that, Councilmember Eicher, you're leading us off with any clarifying questions at this time.

Yes, thank you for this. This is a tremendous amount of work in nine years. That's a big project. so I read through a lot of the comments that were in the EIR and I had a couple concerns with two of them that really kind of stood out to me and I wanted to know if it wasn't real clear on whether they were addressed affirmatively or not or whether they get addressed in the EIR or if there's something that we can do when we have our negotiation with the developer, we address it at that time. um but the first one is uh the uh checking my notes here the uh devaney ranch access road which i guess is currently a dirt road that goes up there where they plan on building housing across the road uh has that been mitigated through this eir or is that is that access gonna be provided some other way? I mean, what do?

Right, that isn't a part of the EIR, but that is an ongoing conversation that the applicant has had with Devaney and the other ranchers that are using that for access where they will be providing an easement for them to have rights to continue to go through that for the grazing and the ranching rights.

Okay, so that's a process that comes down the road where they'll work that out, not necessarily tied to our response in regards to the EIR.

Right, for their private agreement, yes.

Okay, and then the next one was the visual aspect for existing residents in that area. Is there a plan to provide some tree planting along the backside to at least break up the housing element that's there?

So each lot will have its landscaping that's associated with it. And there is some outside landscaping or streetscaping, if you will, associated with it. From an engineering perspective, it's very difficult to plant a lot more trees along that line to offer screening because it's just not engineered that way when you have um the roads that you're creating and just the weights that are to it and i don't know if jeff has his engineer here but it's it's an engineering issue of planting more trees it just wouldn't be stable on the slopes in order to do that but there will be street skate landscaping and the lots themselves will have that what about on the properties that are on the uh i guess they're on the south side of the street so it'd be their backyards as opposed to the front front of the house So rear landscaping will be something that's done by the homeowners for that part of it if they do want to have that landscape. Are you talking specifically about the rear yard landscaping? Yeah. So that will be up to the individual lot owners on the type and amount of trees that they're going to be putting in that area.

So in the EIR, there's no provision to address that issue?

For rear yard landscaping?

No, for the visual aspect or... You're always going to see the project.

I mean, it's never going to be something that's fully screened from any perspective, whether you're up from the preserve or you're along Dublin Canyon Road. It just wouldn't be feasible to offer that amount of screening to where you don't fully see it.

And I don't know that in the comments it was about making the project not visible. It's about breaking up the housing patterns, so to speak, by having some more mature trees or something in there to kind of break it up so you're not just getting these housing imprints across that hill.

Right. So I think the landscaping that they have with that will kind of help with that breakup that they're having along the streetscape, along the fronts. I mean, it could be a condition that if landscaping needed to be installed in the rear yachts, lots, that's something that could be considered to offer that breakup.

Maybe just to add, I mean, I think the viewpoints in question, because it's come up repeatedly during public meetings, are the ones that are from the preserves sort of looking down on the project. And frankly, as Natalie suggested, you're going to be able to see the project. There's no amount of tree screening that's going to make it invisible, because you're looking down from above. So there are a lot of measures in addition to the landscaping, use of muted colors and sort of breaking up the buildings and not having shiny elements and things like that. And all of that is intended to help the project sort of blend into the landscape as much as possible. And over time, obviously, as landscaping matures, it will become a softer visual appearance. But I think it's just to be realistic about the project is it's impossible to screen it completely. A lot of care is being taken to try and make the project blend in. But it's a 30 or 28 units, single family homes on a site where it didn't look like that before. And so just to be realistic about what can be done to fully, fully screen.

Okay.

Well, those are really the two issues that, when I was looking through it, that didn't appear to be mitigated or that there was a solution to it. So that's why I wanted to ask about it. In regards to the site, and I guess I have some site plans here, it looks like there's Between the Lester property and the East Bay property or the access, it looks like there's going to be four access points to Dublin Canyon Road. Is that correct? Four driveways?

Is this visually helpful, what's on the screen? Is that what you're referring to?

Yeah, it's part of it, but that shows two of the driveways.

YEAH, IT DOES. SO IT HAS THE DRIVEWAY FOR THE EAST BAY REGIONAL PARK DISTRICT AND THEN IT HAS THE PRIVATE DRIVEWAY FOR THE LESTERS THEMSELVES ON THAT OTHER ONE. AND THEN THE NEXT DRIVEWAY IS THAT EMERGENCY VEHICLE ACCESS ROAD TO HAVE THE SECONDARY ROAD FOR THE NEW DEVELOPMENT AND ALSO OFFER SERVICE TO THE OAK HILLS CONGREGATION.

So Oak Hill's congregation will come off the secondary driveway?

They'll still have their main driveway. They'll still have that portion. That's not going to change as a part of it. This is just an added bonus for them to have this EVA associated with it as well.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you. That's all I have.

Okay. We're following the same order, so you'll be at the end. But, Vice Mayor?

Thank you. Thank you for the very lengthy report. There was some, in the EIR, there was some communication about the traffic signal and its impact to Canyon Meadows. Can you briefly touch on that just so there's information in the record tonight?

Sure. So the signal itself isn't necessarily required. It didn't meet the standards in order to actually have it. The developer has offered it as a way to help with the residents that do live out there on Canyon Meadows and the other development that's with it. So in terms of the traffic counts, it will help and offer some safety and slowing down when cars do come through there, which was a lot of the concerns that the residents had out there and made comments through planning commission that they thought of traffic light would be ideal for it. And it will offer that safety when it comes to it and kind of slowing traffic down for that part.

Great. Thank you. My other question, just regard to the interface with East Bay Regional Parks and the Pleasanton Ridge. Can you please just touch on what amenities are being added to the project to coincide with access to the ridge and biking and hiking trails?

So it'll be the trailhead access that they'll have through this staging area. It'll have that connectivity to it. Right now, it doesn't necessarily have that, but it'll offer the staging area and then the trail connection that creates it in one cohesive access point.

Great. Thank you. Those are my two questions. Thank you.

Okay.

Council Member Nyberg. Thank you. My question has to do with the mitigation measures that are planned and identified in the report, the consultant's report. I know they're listed there in Appendix A, but I haven't read all of Appendix A. Could you just briefly describe what those mitigation measures might be?

Did you have a specific one or just?

Your one slide there on mitigations and unmitigated impacts. Okay, so with MMRP, the second bullet there, what would be, would any of those be ongoing reporting or would there be a mitigation during construction only?

There's some on reporting that they'll have to do with it. I mean, it depends on the mitigation specifically on what it's going to be in terms of if it's during a construction phase or if it's something that's going to occur afterwards. But I mean, like for aesthetics and lighting glare, there's certain windows glazing that they have to use and things like that. Biological resources is generally tied into the construction part of it. Same with the soils and hazardous materials. So some of them will either be a requirement or it'll be some monitoring or happening during construction.

Okay. HAVE ANY HAZARDOUS MATERIALS BEEN DISCOVERED DURING THE APPLICATION PROCESS?

NO. OKAY.

THAT'S ALL I HAVE RIGHT NOW. THANKS.

WELL, NATALIE, THE CRAZIEST PART IS I REMEMBER THIS IS A PLANNED CARRIER. THANK GOODNESS I LOCKED. YES. SORRY.

OKAY. I saw on the slide sidewalks, but I didn't see in the report. Are there sidewalks throughout the development?

Within the 1 to 28 lots?

Yeah.

Yes, there will be. They'll have sidewalks fronting the houses.

Great. Thank you. I remember way back when that there was a big development. There were no sidewalks and they ended up adding them at Planning Commission. So I just thought maybe. Okay. So then my other question is... The lot 29 and 30 is in the urban growth boundary. It's 68 or 66 acres that will be in the urban growth boundary that is part of this development, but it's the rebuilding of the existing homes. I'd actually like our city attorney to weigh in on the legality of doing that and is rebuilding completely new homes allowable within the urban growth boundary requirement of approval by the voters?

Sure, it doesn't require any type of voter approval. All the development is occurring within the urban growth boundary. There's no developing that's occurring outside of that urban growth boundary line. It's all within that eastern portion of it, which is within what can be developed.

Okay, because on page of the report, it actually, page 4 of 13... It says including 68 or 66 acre portion outside of the urban growth boundary, two parcels containing the existing residents. Am I misunderstanding that?

So in this image here on what would be the left side of you, that's that maroon line is the urban growth boundary line. So nothing would occur. There's no development or any proposals of grading or anything on that left portion of that urban growth boundary line. Everything will occur on the right side of that line, which is where the new development will be and the Lester's property. So everything is farther east or to the right. Nothing is going to happen to the left of that maroon or brown line.

Okay, that's fine then. I still don't understand why it identifies the two parcels. But anyway, okay, the visual is helpful. Okay, and... I would like to understand the development is opting out of the building affordable housing and choosing the in lieu alternative, allowable alternative. So I was hoping that somebody could give us an understanding of what those in lieu fees will be, how much will that be, and compare that value to actually if there was a requirement to build.

I wrote it down. So the project will be required to pay an in lieu fee for each of the 28 new units at a rate of about $51,000 per unit, which amounts to about $1.5 million. It's a little bit more difficult to put a price tag on the cost of constructing the, you know, if those units were built on site, but it would be four units would be their inclusionary requirement. And just a ballpark, you know, 15 to 1800 square foot house and four of them at about $250 a square foot is about $1.5 to $1.8 billion. It's actually quite a comparable value in this case. construction at home 250 dollars a square foot um and that's assuming i just read something recently it was more than double that for construction now but maybe i misunderstood i think that can vary a lot depending on the thing that was i pulled that number from a recent discussion i had with the building official about a project that's um currently under construction and that's that was and that would admittedly a different product type but I was assuming this would be sort of smaller, maybe it's an attached couple of duplex, you know, unit, something like that. And so the numbers are, you know, without having a project to analyze, hard to put a number on, but it's a million and a half dollars of inclusionary housing fees that will be paid by this project approximately.

Okay. Million and a half. Thank you for that. Then Is this project considered a high-fire hazard zone?

So it's been evaluated by our Livermore Pleasanton Fire Department as a part of this. It was, it has the, I mean, it's in a high fired area, but based on their proposal of how they're doing it, the evaluation that was done by the representative for the Livermore Pleasanton Fire Department, and with all the other mitigations methods that'll be put into it, where, I mean, there'll be some, there's a condition of approval, I believe it might be number 91, that has kind of like abatement, if you will, to kind of clear out and make sure that there's fire breaks within it. And then the landscaping that they have in there will be fire resistant, if you will. So it is in a high area, but there are ways that you can kind of mitigate that part of it.

So will the homes because it's in a high fire hazard area be required to be fire hardened by the developer?

I mean, they'll be required to meet the building code requirements. And if it's in that area, that'll be something that the fire department will have as a part of their plan check process that they may have to do that during their construction plans. THERE'S NOTHING ABOUT THAT IN THE REPORT. IT'S DIFFICULT FOR US TO PUT INTO THE REPORT BECAUSE THEY PULL PERMITS NOT USUALLY RIGHT AFTER IT'S ACTED ON AND BUILDING CODES AND FIRE CODES DO CHANGE OVER TIME. SO TO CONDITION IT IN A WAY THAT IT WOULD BE THAT THEY WOULD HAVE TO MEET THE CURRENT FIRE CODE IN PLACE AT THE TIME THAT THEY APPLY FOR BUILDING PERMITS. which is a condition of approval that's in there. So at that time, if it's evaluated that this isn't an area that does require that, they will be required by code in order to do that as a part of their construction mechanisms.

So I was just at an event in Lafayette, beautiful wooded area, and there was a lot of discussion about... homeowners in that area who their homes were built before the discussions that have happened over the last five years plus and they're no longer able to get insurance and they're all hardening their properties, but even that, they can't. It was a topic and a discussion that I had never heard in Pleasanton about not being able to get insurance and having to go on the fair plan. I had no idea what that was. I learned a lot that day. And I saw a lot of anxiety and concern with a lot of people that were all there talking to the candidate for the insurance commissioner. And so do we know if they're, you know, are we creating a development of homes that won't be able to get insurance? Is that the kind of thing that we should be responsibly talking about? Listening to those people and what they were saying.

So the city's regulations don't preclude development in fire hazard zones, but do have additional requirements, as Natalie was suggesting, around building measures, sprinklering, obviously egress and so on that are intended to be as protective as possible for those homes. I'll speak as a homeowner who just signed up for the fair plan because I live in the Oakland Hills, which is a high fire hazard zone. I'll bet it cost you a pretty penny. It cost me a little more than my previous insurance. And that's, I think, an expectation that would have to be set with those homeowners and part of their disclosures, right? As part of the typical real estate disclosures that if you're in a hazardous zone that those restrictions may apply. I will say these are new homes. They're going to have sprinkler systems. They'll be about as well designed to resist fires as possible. But it's a challenge in our environment and in these kind of hillside environments to be fully protected without outright prohibiting development. And so that's not what our general plan says about this site or housing element. And so that's how we've processed this application.

Well certainly there's a lot of discussion and a asking of our legislators to create legislation that in fact does require a limitation to building in high fire hazard areas and this conversation after the the horrible fires, palisades and others, is a big topic in a lot, and that we're not talking about it, and we are creating a project that will be vulnerable in these ways. I want to have discussion about... Oh, and by the way, you were lucky to get on the fair plan. What I understand is most of the homeowners in the neighborhood that I was visiting... are not able to even get that. Some could, but very few, because the fair plan only allows homes up to a certain square footage, so almost none of these homes would even qualify for the fair plan, and so they're left without insurance. I think that I'm asking important questions that no one else has asked and aren't even in the staff report, so

We're just clarifying questions. We have speakers, so we want to obviously observe the speakers. I'm asking, I think, important questions. I thought you were talking about the fair plan.

And I think that that's a valid point in this discussion. And I want an awareness as we move forward on other projects that these are um, conversations that haven't taken place in Pleasanton, but absolutely are important and should be in a project like this should be considering those. So I'd also like to know on the, um, I'd like to know if our, and you know, I know our chief fire chief is in the house and I would love to hear from, um, his perspective on all of these pieces, but the emergency evacuation plan and whether, you know, I'm pleased to see that there are two Egresses so I would can can I ask you to come to the podium and any thoughts that you can reassure me with because I'm concerned that I'm hearing number one I'm concerned that this just is not even a part of this report that that these considerations that are just so significant across the state. And we've been just really fortunate in Pleasanton that we haven't had to have that conversation. But this project, I think it should be, so what has our fire department discussed with this? And specifically, I wanna be reassured with the emergency evacuation plan.

Yeah, so good afternoon, honorable mayor, council, members of the community. I'm your fire chief, Aaron Lacey. Specifically on this development, in the wake of the 1992 Oakland Hills fire, the state enacted Assembly Bill 337 that outlined fire hazard severity zones throughout the state of California. These zones are deemed between moderate, high, and very high. Between recently, from 2007 to 2011, the Pleasanton Ridgeline was deemed to be a very high fire hazard severity zone. And then just recently, last year, it was downgraded to just high and not very high. So particularly, there was a lot of changes in the California building code. Chapter 7A of that building code is the wildland urban interface code compliance. So any developer that comes in would have to comply with the building code and make sure that these homes are built to the standards for fire protection and safety.

So that is a requirement right now. We can be confident that the fire hardening, the roofs, I know the roofs actually since the Oakland fire have changed significantly, but it's so much more than the roofs now. It's the... It's the siding, it's everything has to be in these kinds of areas, have to be very specifically certain materials. And so you're assuring us that the developer is required and I'd like to get a report on that, so.

Yeah, it's required in the California building code for wildland urban interface construction. So any developer would have to comply with the California building code as it relates to fire protection and mitigation. For this specific area, it does have challenges related to Dublin Canyon. one way in, one way out, but it seems like they have alternative means of egress and access into the development. This area is 28 units, I believe, so it does provide some defensible space. It'll also bring in infrastructure such as fire hydrants, staging areas for other apparatus to get in and mitigate if needed. We do have a comprehensive mutual aid plan and automatic aid plan with Cal Fire, Alameda County Fire Department and other surrounding jurisdictions for fire suppression and response. And our firefighters do plan, prepare and train for these specific types of incidents.

Chair, please. Chief Lacey, is CAL FIRE stationed right there by where the East Bay staging area would be?

The CAL FIRE station is located in CINAHL. down the road from Foothill Road.

Well, in looking at the EIR, one of the residents was talking about how they have a station at one of his residences right above where the staging area is. In fact, he actually included some photos of all their trucks lined up at the house and

Yeah, I believe that's an East Bay Regional Parks substation. And I think in the actual staff report, they had a photo of a meeting they convened with CAL FIRE during one of those meetings that discussed the area.

So CAL FIRE isn't actually there. It's East Bay that's using the house for their purposes.

Correct. And between Cal Fire and they classify it within state responsibility area, jurisdiction and local responsibility area. And then any area that has a high or very high potential fire risk, they deem as a mutual threat zone. So anytime that there would be any type of a fire reported in that area, you're going to get a full Cal Fire response, a full LPFD response, Alameda County fire response to this location.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay. So you said that there are some problems with this because of the topography. And you said, but there are two roads in and out. I mean, one road in and out. I see two roads in and out. Are those roads not both exiting onto the Canyon Road?

Yeah, Dublin Canyon. Yeah, as mentioned, I think that they have in the plan.

Can you show that slide that shows the actual road?

THERE ARE CONDITIONS OF APPROVAL THAT SPEAK TO INFRASTRUCTURE AND SITE PLANNING UPGRADES, BUT AS MENTIONED, THE BUILDING CODE IS PRETTY SPECIFIC AND IF THE PROJECT IS BUILT IN THE FUTURE, THE CURRENT BUILDING CODE REQUIREMENTS WOULD APPLY. YOU CAN SEE THERE IS SORT OF A LONG EMERGENCY VEHICLE ACCESS. THAT IS MORE THAN WHAT A LOT OF OUR RESIDENTS HAVE IN OTHER PROJECTS IN THE COMMUNITY AND PARTICULARLY ALONG FOOTHILL ROAD. SO WHILE THERE'S NOT AN IN-DEPTH DISCUSSION IN THE STAFF REPORT ON THIS PARTICULAR TOPIC, FIRE SAFETY IS SOMETHING THAT THE STAFF REVIEWERS AS WELL AS OUR DEVELOPER OR OUR APPLICANT IN THIS PARTICULAR CASE TAKE VERY SERIOUSLY AND HAVE BEEN INCORPORATED. I WANT TO PUT THAT OUT THERE THIS AFTERNOON. IN 2022, WE HAD THE PLEASANTON RIDGE FIRE. So we're not immune either here in Pleasanton. It is something that has touched the community locally. Thankfully, the cavalry as well as our LPFD team arrived and dealt with that fairly quickly. But we did have evacuation of certain areas along Foothill Road in 2022 and all tied to the Pleasanton Ridge area. So not a topic that we've spent a lot of time in this particular agenda report, but certainly something that There's a lot of foundation pieces that are built into the conditions of approval and the building code as well as the site design that I think address what you're concerned about and what we're all concerned about.

Okay. So emergency evacuation has been thoroughly addressed?

Yes, I believe that the consultant and has been working with our LPFD prevention division and staff.

Okay. Thank you.

Yep.

So I will ask staff to put a report together about the fire hazard and everything that we've discussed.

we could certainly share the fire hazard mapping and some of the other information that we've gathered when the maps were being revised. Um, is there more that you're looking to, or are you looking for, we don't have a lot of, um, a lot of these kinds of projects, uh, in the Hills at this point, um, because of measure PP and measure QQ, uh, you know, we, we talk sort of tongue in cheek about this being a nine year project. Uh, there just aren't a lot of these left, uh, for us. Um, we we've, um, The name of it is escaping me, but the one that's, I think we have Spitorno Ranch that's still left out there and maybe a couple of others. Lund Ranch was recently filled in. So there's just not a lot left to tuck in to the hills, but we're certainly, we can talk about that wildland interface and give you a sense for what we're considering while we review those kinds of projects and get that in a memo for the council.

Yeah, and I'd like to hear from the developer that the hardening and that... I mean, I see a lot about the architecture, but I see nothing that talks about how we're acknowledging that this is a high... fire hazard area. So just confirming again, do I not see read the map correctly? There is there I see two roads that outlet from this development. Is that true?

That is correct. So there's the cul-de-sac that opens up as the main entrance at the, I guess what I'll call the northwest portion of the property. And then on the northeast side, you can see it's a more minor showing road with an emergency vehicle turnaround just past lot 28 on the plan. Sorry, Natalie, I'm jumping in here, but I'll turn it back to you. But essentially, there are about three and a half roads in this, if you include the cul-de-sac. And the fourth leg is an emergency vehicle access. So it wouldn't be used as a main coming and going. It would only be in the event of an emergency. It would be a way for people to get in and get out

Okay. So then I'll move on. I'm still concerned, but I'd like to just get a report that... We'll have to ask if there's a sufficient council support. Okay. All right. And then, so I have just two last items. You mentioned PP and QQ. In fact... Well, I'll save that one for later. So my last one is just confirming the traffic light is a part of this project and absolutely confirmed, correct?

Correct. Yes, it is a part of the project and will be constructed.

Okay. All right. Thank you. I have comments, but I'll wait on those.

Okay. Uh, thank you, Natalie. Uh, a couple of other quick questions I have. Um, let's go a little further. So the East Bay regional park stage areas shifted from the original plan. It's now way closer to Dublin Canyon road, right? Uh, just confirming police, uh, to make sure it's patrolled that it's, you know, uh, monitored maintained that's going to fall on East Bay regional parks. Correct.

Correct. Yes, those responsibilities will still fall to them. And that was part of the reason of moving it closer to Dublin Canyon Road was for more visibility for safety purposes. So they will be responsible for that.

It was way up on the canyon in the prior iteration, as I recall. Correct. Fire mitigation as well as Council Member Tess has done elaborately. But for East Bay Regional Park, are they responsible for fire mitigation of their open space area just as part of the ridge line? they would be yes fire breaks and whatnot okay and then for the homeowners association that'll just be around not this map but the other map that outlined their area that they're not designating as open space correct correct okay let me see if I just had anything else No, I do not. Okay, perfect. Thank you very much. All right, with that, we're going to open it up to public comment. If you'd like to speak on this item, I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but a blue speaker card. We'll start with the applicant. 10 minutes, please, Danielle, if we can. Get the clock, give us just a second to get the 10-minute clock up. Thank you for your patience.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. There you go. 10 minutes would never cover what I could say about this project, but I'll try to say as much as I can in 10 minutes. I really appreciate staff's help with this. It's been a long process, and there's a lot of reasons that it took this long, partly because it had to be annexed. Partly because of PPQQ. So the site that you see up there is purely a result of PPQQ. It's being developed where it can be developed. It's limited. This site on the general plan could contain up to 84 units under the zoning. Okay, we came in, our first plan was 34 units and we ended up with 28. So it's a very small portion of what could be developed out there under the general plan, but it's not what would make sense. And so we are that's one of the reasons we were able to negotiate paying the affordable housing fees because we're limited in development area and this home this project carries a significant infrastructure load so a lot of other things that we're funding and we're able to negotiate out of that and pay the fees which is appropriate because it would be hard to put small lot homes into the subdivision I'll respond to the comments I heard. Mr. Devaney's here tonight. We spent a lot of time working with him on access to his property. We've provided an easement for residential access because he can build a house. He's outside the Urban Growth Boundary. We can put one house on his lot. So we've got an easement for that. And then we're working with the Parks District on lands that are going to be granted to them as part of this project to have a grazing agreement between him and the Parks District where he can get... his rancher can ranch both properties and they can get out on the road through East Bay Regional Park District's easement. So we believe we've covered those issues, but we're working with him to make sure he's satisfied that he's not going to get locked out, but he will have access for his own use through our subdivision to the property. Okay. um the visual issues you can't plant well first we don't plant mature trees people ask can't you plant mature trees no they don't last you have to plant trees that will grow into where they are and you don't typically plant them on engineered slopes which is the entire southern edge of the project it's it's all a fill slope basically and it's all because of ppqq and so that area will be grassland like it is now there is not a tree anywhere near any of the houses on this proposed project area so it's all grassland and that slope will not be planted with trees it'll be planted with grass and be managed by the homeowners association OK, so we have worked with our neighbor, Mr. Gelb, to try to address his concerns about visibility. But frankly, we can only build where we can build. And so that's where we're building in that area that PPQQ allows. It took a while to get that held the project up, probably two to three years, basically. So talking about the driveways. So there is one entry into the project. It's a gated entry. And then there's an EVA to get out and for the fire partner to get in. That also provides the opportunity to provide a new driveway for the Oak Hills congregation, the Jehovah's Witness Church. The property, we had to cross a portion of their property to get the EVA out with some of the utilities. And so we had to work with them. It took a while to reach an agreement. to provide them a new driveway in exchange for them providing access out onto dublin canyon road for eva and for utilities so that's why that driveway for the churches there provides better access to them and it's all because of the signal issue we were told early on about the by the neighbors that we have a big problem dub dublin canyon road obviously we're bringing a new project in And one of the things that we could do, working with the property owners, is to come up with a solution for that intersection. So we're providing a signal with a left turn lane into Canyon Meadows that will improve the safety along Dublin Canyon Road. You'll have a flashing light on the west. When you come in from the west, There's gonna be a signal ahead. Then there's gonna be streets that have wider, they're a little bit wider with better bike trails. There's a turn lane and there's a traffic signal and that provides a lot of safety. It affects the way people drive. They drive fast past open space. Properties that are developed, it's different. They treat it differently. So that will be a real improvement And that driveway where the church is will also the signal is designed to accommodate Canyon Meadows and the driveway to the church there offset slightly. So it's a very it's about a half a million dollar just the signal itself, let alone the roadway improvements. It's over a million dollars for all that work, but that will greatly increase the safety for everybody at the church and the neighborhood on Dublin Canyon Road. The mitigation monitoring program, a lot of those things in there are long-term. That's almost all biological stuff. Okay, the site's open space, it's habitat for five different things. Not that they've been found out there, but it's habitat. So we have to protect that habitat. We're dedicating 73 acres ultimately to the parks district of open space for this project that will have habitat mitigation and monitoring plans on it. And those are I have to fund that for ten years. It's a ten year monitoring program. Okay, we fund that upfront and we bond for it. And we have consultants go out and survey the site and provide reports. There's an easement holder that holds the easement. It's very complicated. The Parks District is great. I've worked with them on another project so we know how to do this. That's all gonna be put in place as part of this project. Sidewalks, yes, we have those. Lots 29 and 30, so there's maybe some confusion there. Those are existing houses that are inside the urban growth boundary. We're just replacing those two houses for the property owners who are here tonight. I'll introduce them shortly. We are in a high fire hazard zone. That whole issue has been huge for the building industry in Sacramento. These houses will be the most fire-hardened houses you've ever seen. Everything on these houses, concrete roofs, the siding, the stucco, it's all concrete. The window trim is concrete. all the eaves will be enclosed. They'll be the safest houses ever built in Pleasanton, and they'll have sprinklers, which have been around forever. So that issue is mitigated that way. Also, there will be a fire mitigation program. So the Homeowners Association will have to maintain the grass, all grass, around the edge of the project to make sure it's not a fire hazard. And that's an ongoing operation. that the homeowners association will fund and pay for it. And then the staging area, so we've worked extensively, oh thank you, extensively with the parks district on this staging area, how it's gonna be operated and utilized by Pleasanton residents. They've already built the trail that's the end of the Pleasanton Ridge trail system. They're just waiting for us to connect. But this project, even though it's taken, I started working on this almost exactly 13 years ago today. This project, you won't see a thing built out there for probably three more years. We have at least two years of agency permitting processes to go through. And then by the time something gets built actually vertical, it's gonna be a long way off. Is there a time to run this really quick? Let's try, did I just hit the start button? So we did, we were asked to do a visual 3D simulation of this by members of the staff and planning commission way back, and we said, you know what, I'd like to see how that looks and how it works. So let's do that, and we'll start it here. Do I just push that button first? This one? Okay, so there's some, this is, Some of these are renderings, and some of them, there's a couple of videos. So this is from Dublin Canyon Road, and you can see as this is even up above Dublin Canyon Road, you can hardly see any of the houses at all. You just see the two on the right, and then there's three up on the left there from the project entry. This is a street scene through the project. And obviously, this is an estimation of what this landscaping will look like at some point. It's not a part of the landscape plan. It's just a visual simulation. But this is all done by actual topo. This is all GPS topo. And the houses are the houses that are in the plans. These are just a couple of views looking from different places along the road. This is the cul-de-sac that goes, looking back down towards the staging area from the cul-de-sac at the end. So this is a view from the hills, looking down on the project from the hills. All the fencing around the project will be open space fencing. So it doesn't present a wall, it's open space. It's an open fencing and neighbors will plant trees in their backyards. We don't show that here because that's all private. But there will be trees in the yards that will provide some visual blockage of homes, if you will. Just another view. Just kind of gives you a sense of how this works. This is the open space fencing. Looking down from near the entry, looking towards the southwest. So you need the two Lester family homes right there in the front, the EVA running up the hill there, and the staging area in the back. This is just kind of a fly-through. So if you notice as you go through here, other than a couple of properties that are up above us on the hill, You can't see much of anything of this project from anywhere. The EIR pointed that out. All the public viewpoints, you could hardly see a thing. And you can see how the houses are tucked in behind slopes, so you can't see them from pretty much anywhere. That's why we call it Hidden Canyon, okay? And all these houses are designed with color schemes. These color schemes are a little bit dated because the project's been going through the process for quite some time. And the house is actually, you know, these things are market driven. So by the time we build these homes, we'll be back in front of the planning commission, probably with revised architecture, with a color palette that's slightly different, but it's all intended to kind of blend in. These are green hills. And this is from the entry. But they're brown most of the year. And so there will be those kind of colors. So the project's intended to kind of blend in. And we've done the best we can. We can't do much to address people who are looking down on the project from a private view, if you will. It's not a CEQA consideration, but we have tried to make some Other concessions to help mitigate other issues relative to the property at the top of the hill. And then we've worked with Mr Devaney on his easement situation to make sure he's comfortable with his ability to get in and out. But this is a, this project brings a lot to the community. It's a traffic signal that's not required. OK, it's a donation for Dublin Canyon Road improvements that aren't really required. Right. But it's a staging area that exceeds our park obligation. But it was something we knew early on was something that was needed. And we said, hey, this is something, you know, this is what we do. We build communities. So I think I covered all the questions. But the fire issue, it's a huge part of what we do now in our business. I've been involved at the state level. And these homes will probably get better insurance rates than a lot of existing homes. And like I said, there's no trees out there. It's all grassland. I'm here to respond to any questions or comments you may have. Thank you for your time.

Okay. Thank you very much. We have additional speaker cards, so I'll bring them up if you can. You'd like to ask clarifying questions. Sure.

So you just mentioned you believe the homes will be insurable because. Oh, yeah. And this is great. Thank you. I really I feel much better. Yada, yada, yada. So that I would still love to know from what I heard just being in an area like this even I mean these people who were doing everything to do the hardening of their homes and they still were not there were the insurance companies have simply said we're not going to insure in these areas. So I still think that's a concern that I'd love to get some feedback on.

It's super hard to do that with existing residences, especially where there's a ton of vegetation that has to be taken out. Right now there's a We have a requirement per building code. There's a new zero zone that's five feet, okay? No combustible material. They're actually moderating that a little bit because they found out, oh, you know, that's kind of hard to really enforce. But there's a state rule, zero zone, five feet from the house, nothing is combustible, okay?

Right, yeah.

Some cities are trying to force people to remove combustible materials from that space. It's really hard to force that onto existing homeowners. It's really hard to harden your home if it's been built before fire codes that we have today. But these homes, the materials are, there's not gonna be any combustible material on the outside of these homes. Maybe some vinyl around the windows, but that's probably gonna go back to aluminum. It's a constantly evolving process with the fire codes. It's super important. But our homes are actually going to provide buffers for existing homes from fire. Now, there's no existing homes around here, so that's not the same here. But when you build a new residential neighborhood next to an existing residential neighborhood, research has been shown that you're actually hardening the existing residential neighborhood.

Thank you. I feel much better. Thanks.

Okay, are there any additional questions of the applicant at this time? Seeing none.

Okay, thank you very much. We'll go to the remaining public comments if you'd like to speak.

So three minutes, please, Daniel. Okay, our first speaker is Sarah Jane Hollister and Robert Devaney. You'll be next, followed by Guy Houston.

Sarah Jane was my children's kindergarten teacher. Hi, Sarah Jane.

Hello. I'll be brief. Thank you. They've addressed, I only want to address one issue. Well, first I want to say thank you to the mayor and council members for letting us all speak and thank you for representing all of us. I've been a resident of Canyon Meadows for over 20 years, but I've been a resident in Pleasanton for 56 years. And I'm so happy we're going to have a traffic light because as you all know, that was a country road when I first moved here. Then it was a frontage road, and now it's just an alternate for 580, and especially on Fridays. But the traffic light is going to help all of us on Dublin Canyon Road. And Ponderosa Homes, I go back to when Canyon Meadows was first built. And I won't name the developers names then, but we probably know quite a few of them. And when it was built over 30 years ago, one of the things in the plan was the widening of Dublin Canyon Road and a left hand turn lane. THEY WERE NOT BUILT WHILE IT WAS CONSTRUCTED, AND THEN I DON'T KNOW IF THEY RAN OUT OF MONEY OR WHAT HAPPENED, BUT IT WAS NEVER WIDENED. IT WAS NEVER A LEFT-HAND TURN LANE PUT IN THERE. PONDEROSA HAS GRACIOUSLY SAID, I BELIEVE, AT THE PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING, THAT AFTER THE TENTH HOUSE IS BUILT, THE STOPLIGHTS WOULD GO ON. BECAUSE WE'RE GOING TO HAVE ADDITIONAL TRAFFIC WITH THE BUILDING. IT'S ONLY A TWO-LANE ROAD. WE NEED THAT TRAFFIC LIGHT FOR THE ADDITIONAL TRAFFIC THAT WILL BE JUST BUILDING THE HOMES. I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT IT'S NOT PUT OFF TO THE END AND THEN THERE ISN'T ANY MONEY TO BUILD PUT IN THE TRAFFIC LIGHT, JUST LIKE WHAT HAPPENED 30 YEARS AGO. PONDEROSA, DID I SAY THAT RIGHT? IS IT AFTER THE TENTH HOUSE IS BEING BUILT? THEY WILL BUILD THE TRAFFIC LIGHT. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

THANK YOU. THANK YOU. OUR NEXT SPEAKER IS ROBERT DEVANEY. YOU WILL BE FOLLOWED BY GUY HOUSTON. Welcome.

Good evening. It's actually Devaney. Oh. Yeah. It's been mispronounced about 20 times so far, but yeah. And he misspells it, too, every time he writes it. No E-Y. I apologize. But anyway, thank you for your time tonight and for some of the expressions that have been towards our access here. But a fun fact, my great-great-grandfather purchase the project area that we're looking at here in December 10th in 1878, a patent deed from the U.S. government. So that land passed on long ago to others, but we've maintained 160 acres immediately west, also purchased on the same date adjacent to the property. And I'm here kind of on behalf of it's a family property. I'm here on behalf of my sister and cousins. nieces and nephews and children and all that good stuff. Anyway, but there's a nuance that I wanted to lay out that is confusing. I'm an environmental geologist, I'm not an EIR person, but I've stayed away from it as much as I could, frankly. Anyway, but there's this nuance here that in Section 4 of the EIR, the finding in terms of impacts of the project on agricultural resources was not significant. But it bases that in part on this easement access that is assumed to be granted to us for agricultural use, okay? And we're very appreciative of the progress so far. Jeff has been very engaged. This meeting really got the ball rolling. So we were out there last week. We've been spending time on this. But the one thing that's a slight hang-up, and I hope that there's a resolution to this, is that what What the applicant is proposing is that we have a way to get humans up there, but we don't have a way to get cows in and out of the area. Jeff was like, there's no way they're walking through the subdivision or we're driving cattle trucks through the subdivision. I get it. It's a beautiful place. You don't really want that. So we need this kind of dual easement situation where we get in one way, and then the animals come in and out a different way down the hill, different way. It's a very hilly country, and there's kind of limited ways you can get in and out. And the applicant is proposing that we, rather than to grant an easement, that we would just share an easement with East Bay Regional Park, that they have an existing easement, that They can't grant to us, and there's other reasons that no one obviously is willing to at this point. And we think that that is a deviation from what was assumed in the EIR. So if an easement can't be granted, I think it questions some validities of the analysis of the final EIR. So that should be taken into consideration. Oops, I'm negative here. Let me move. And so we think there is an alternative way to do that, that there's a way to get us a limited easement that would get us onto the Lester's property. The existing road and then access out to Dublin Canyon Road so we can get the animals in and out so You know we would like Anyway for you to take that in consideration when you're looking at the approval of the EIR if you know Maybe some more time is required to work that out. I think we could have that resolved in a week or so, but We have to keep the ball rolling. So anyway, that's it. Thank you for your time.

Thank you and our last speaker, mr. Guy Houston

Mr. Mayor, members of the council, Guy Houston here tonight. A couple hats I have is I'm an owner in Canyon Meadows, and so I applaud the traffic signal, which has been talked about before. It wasn't required. It was asked for many times, and so I think that's a huge safety improvement for those that are that are in Kenyon Meadows. I also worked, most of you know, on the entitlement of the Greek Orthodox Church project. And so as part of this project, we work very closely with Ponderosa and Jeff, and these will be improvements that are going to be helping the church when they eventually build. The traffic safety is really an important thing. So to me, I think this is a win-win for the city of Pleasanton. You have East Bay Regional Park, you have safety improvements, you have open space. So it's a win-win. And so I certainly encourage that you support this project and get it to the next step so that Ponderosa, which is a great community home builder, can get on with that. And hopefully it won't take three or four years before we see something up on that hill. So thank you very much.

Thank you. That was my last speaker card. If you would like to speak on item 17, commonly known as the Lester property and have not turned into blue speaker card, please approach the podium at this time. Hearing none, seeing none, we'll close public comment, bring it back to council. Staff, if I could just ask the question for all of us related to the EIR and the conversation about the limited easement, is that a potential challenge for us or not? Excuse me, you know what I also realized is I didn't have applicant rebuttal. So did the applicant want to have five additional minutes? Okay, we'll reopen public comment. Sorry about that. I have it written here, but I... Not doing very good at this late hour.

Just real quick. We're working with Mr. Devaney. We respect his position. Devaney, sorry, Bob. We respect his position. And we've had our attorney look at the easement situation. We think it works the way we're proposing it with the Parks District. If it doesn't work that way and there's another way to do it, we'll find that way. I told Bob we would get that done. So I didn't want that to be an impediment. to completing the process tonight. We work in good faith with our neighbors and do as much as we reasonably can, but everybody's interests have to be considered, and I just wanted to let you know that. Also, I wanted to take a brief moment to introduce the property owners. They've sat patiently through years of this, and with us tonight is Myron Lester, Diane Lester Kolb, his sister, and Kirk Kolb, they've been there their entire lives from day one. And I think your grandfather bought the property in the early 1900s. Great-great-grandfather. So we went into contract with their mother, Mabel Lester, and unfortunately she passed away about four years ago. But thank you for your time. Thank you very much.

Okay, so I'll reclose the public comment period. Thank you for that. And staff, given we've just had the applicant state it in a public meeting related to the easement for our EIR, does staff believe that that is an issue for us to consider, or do we think we have it sufficiently resolved?

Yeah, it doesn't sound like it rises to the level where it would sort of invalidate the findings. It's the concept of an easement is reflected in the mitigation measures. And I think if there's an adjustment to where and how that easement or an alternative easement is implemented, that feels like a relatively minor change to the language of the EIR. It shouldn't present an issue from my perspective.

I just wanted to ask staff's opinion before we deliberate further. Okay. Uh, so we're, uh, close public comment, brought it back to council. Uh, I'm won't forget you this time, but council member Riker, same order, same starting position, uh, comments, motion action.

So I'm gonna, I'm gonna take basically right outta your EIR report here is the general plan supports the amendments, uh, where they further the hillside environmental objectives, including the preservation of ridge lines, the protection of natural landforms, and the clustering of development in less constrained areas. This project is consistent with this general plan objective. It provides amenities to our community. In fact, it provides amenities to the entire Bay Area as a whole with the East Bay Regional Park connection and the improvements that will be made at that site. Twenty-eight houses is a relatively small number of houses for the site, and I know that you had the opportunity for up to 34 at one time, and it got whittled down to 31. But I think this actually looks like a win-win for our community, where we're getting some houses on open space. It sounds like the fire issues, there's mitigation efforts in play in this plan. And we're going to get safety improvements to Canyon Meadows Road, which have been needed for a very long time. So with that, I'll make a motion that we approve this. Staff's recommendation? Yes.

Okay. Vice Mayor? I echo those comments. I'll second staff's recommendation. I'll thank the developer and It sounds like everyone was good neighbors in this process, and everyone did the best they can, and it's been a long road for your development, given the restrictions that were placed on, I believe, back in 2008 in PP and QQ. We know it's complicated matters for you, but you've been able to get through that and build a beautiful project, and I think it'll be welcome. in the city. And it almost seems like, but for a few people, when you call it Hidden Canyon, almost no one's going to see it. And it's kind of a shame because it's such a beautiful project. So wholeheartedly support it and second the motion.

Okay. Council Member Nyberg.

Thank you. And I'll echo comments made previously. I support the project. It is consistent with the city's general plan and supports general plan policies. Just take a second here to say that developments, it's essential that plans brought to the planning commission and the city council comply with our city's general plan. And in addition, support staff's findings that are intended to support the general plan. to go on with other items on page 55 of the consultant's report, referenced by Councilmember Eicher, complies with hillside measures PP and QQ, complies with zoning with only minor changes, compatible with surrounding land uses, and there are significant benefits of the project to the city, including housing element requirements and a number of others, such as, of course, the East Bay Regional Park District new trailhead and staging area. So I'm happy to support the motion. Okay.

Council Member Testa?

I think it's a lovely development. I think it is an asset to the community. And I will also not only thank staff and the developer for bringing us a nice project, but I'm going to thank the people who fought so hard for Measure PP and QQ, because as stated, this project is what it is. our predecessors worked on a ballot measure, two ballot measures actually, that protect our hills and the ridge and that I think that we have some important protections there for the community. So this is a really lovely community and I think it's going to be a really nice addition to Pleasanton, and I'd like to see it happen as soon as possible at this point. So thank you, and I support the motion as well.

Okay, well, I was a planning commissioner when it was introduced in 2018, 2019. So it's interesting how, like I said to Natalie at the beginning, full circle, but I have visited the site several times. It is a gorgeous piece of Pleasanton, no doubt. I know a lot of the neighbors appreciate the gorgeous views. And so for some people, it will be an impact to their view shed for sure. but warm colors on the homes, the design of the homes where we're building to try to mitigate all of those impacts. I truly appreciate those efforts to try to mitigate it. I'm sure it will be for some. It's such a gorgeous landscape. Like I said, it'll be an interesting change for some of the residents that can see it. But uh appreciate that the mitigations we've done i i also want to thank staff for the uh natalie it's great that we've had you uh with us this long to have the history with it because you speak uh very intelligently about it because you've been so involved with it from uh such a long time and so um kind of to the benefit of of great staff that have been with us a long time The benefits that came along. I remember when the light was being discussed as a benefit or not being debated in conversation. The $500,000 addition and frankly resolving out the East Bay Regional Park staging area, which was contentious on the prior design because it was going to be up a long road. and we didn't know how we were going to police or monitor it. So I think we've got a better project through it, but it definitely took some time. So from a fiscal standpoint, as we know, when we still got to negotiate with the county, but property taxes will generate from this with a property tax sharing agreement, some RHNA credit, depending on how that allocation goes, and we'll see where we end up with that. So I will be happy to also support the motion on the table. With that, we have a motion made and seconded. Can we have a roll call vote, please?

Council Member Eichert?

Aye.

Gatos?

Aye.

Nybert?

Aye.

Testa?

Aye.

Mayor Balch?

Aye.

The item passes unanimously.

Thank you very much. That closes item number 17. We're going to round out the rest of our meeting here. If you are leaving the room, I can ask you to just carry your conversations outside so that we can finish up. And with that, we move to matters initiated by council. Are there any matters initiated by any council member at this time? Yes. Yes. Council Member Nybert first, please.

I'd like to initiate a matter brought forward by a number of the speakers, at least five of the public commenters, and agreed with by the show of hands in the audience. A resolution that would address the disposition of the FCI Dublin facility based on the findings of the new environmental assessment. and addressing that part of the question only, resolving that it not end up as an ICE detention center because of the negative impacts and threats and costs to our city and to our whole community in the Tri-Valley.

Okay. Is there any additional support for that matter initiated?

I absolutely support that.

Okay. Any additional support for that matter initiated? fails for lack of support. Okay. Councilmember Tessa, any additional matters initiated?

Well, first, I'm very disappointed in that, but the plastic, single-use plastic came up again tonight, and I have Do we have anything to report back, or should we initiate a discussion of single-use plastic ordinance?

As promised, Councilmember, I forwarded you the presentation and all the information from the stop-waste meeting about the single-use plastics that we had last Tuesday. On Friday, May 15th, I emailed that to you at 3 o'clock.

I read it.

Okay.

But what I saw was a report on single-use plastic bags. Right. It wasn't on what we had discussed.

Sorry. So it's matter initiated, not on the agenda. Would it be possible to have staff forward that to the full council? Maybe we start there?

yeah and i think if if this is specific to the farmer's market there may just be a conversation that we could have with pda it's not you want to go broader well yeah what i forwarded you was the presentation regarding reusables dine-in that's what was forwarded their presentation on what you brought up about restaurants and to go that's

That's right. There was the reusable, but still... We can share.

We'll share information. Okay. So let me get a hold on this. Council Member Tessa, do you want to revise your matter initiated? No, don't. Okay, so can you restate your matter initiated?

We were bringing it forward. I mean, that was a report on...

I understand, but can you just state the matter you're trying to initiate at this time?

Yeah, a single-use plastic to-go utensils and materials for our restaurants. Okay. That's not what that discussion, the stop waste discussion was about. So I would still like to have a discussion about an ordinance on single use plastic products. utensils and devices for our restaurants.

What I sent to you was the stop waste. It had a QR code. It has free consultations for restaurants. It has grant money associated with giving restaurants money to buy them for our restaurants.

I read that. It was all interesting and that's wonderful, but that doesn't cover this goal.

So we have a matter initiated by Council Member Testa. Do we have additional support for this matter initiated? I support it. Okay.

Any additional support? Can you restate it for me so I understand what you're trying to do?

I'd like a discussion on an ordinance. It's something that we started years ago and we paused. And it would be single use to go, I'm drawing a blank on how to identify, but equipment for our restaurants. I mean, when we have a at an early meeting and we are given a meal, I just feel so uncomfortable and many of us have talked about it because everything is plastic and we're just throwing it all away. And years ago, we talked about doing something.

Again, we're matters initiated, so it's not on the agenda. So Councilmember or Vice Mayor has asked you to restate your matter initiated. I did. Okay, so Councilmember Nyberg, you said you support that matter initiated? Is there any additional support at this time? I'm still unclear, so I can't. Well, what is it that you're unclear about?

Give us an opportunity to have that so that we can be clear.

It is not on the agenda. He's asked you to restate your matter initiated.

And what is not clear on the to-go plastic?

well maybe i could communicate with you about what you're trying to agendize and we could bring it up the next meeting i'm happy to talk about it i just i'm not sure how to respond to um what you're saying yeah okay if you we'll have that discussion and bring it back more defined that's great thank you okay that fails for lack of support however if i could just ask staff uh if we could all be provided with the information so that we could um be on the same page as council member tessa and vice mayor that would be helpful Okay. Any additional matters initiated by any fellow council members at this time? Okay. Council reports. Same order, different starting position. Vice mayor.

Other than the stop waste meeting I just kind of alluded to on May 14th, nothing else to report.

Okay. Council member Nyberg.

Okay. Quickly take a look here. Attended a wildlife connectivity event. project stakeholder meeting conducted by the Alameda County Resource Conservation Department in regard to proposed wildlife crossings or under crossings of 580 and 680, four of which are on their radar. Interesting discussion, which then informed also the Alameda Altamont Landfill open space community meeting that following Friday, which I also attended and represented Pleasanton at. Attended a beautiful concert, heritage presentation by Asia Pacific Americans Association in Dublin. Let's see. Attended the groundbreaking ceremony for the Walnut Grove TK projects for PUSD. luncheon. Not Chamber of Commerce. Community of Character. I have CFC written here. Community of Character awards luncheon. And Valley Link Board of Directors meeting and Mesquite Obeyment Trustees meeting.

Thank you. Council Member Testa.

Okay, I attended an Innovation Tri-Valley meeting. I attended National Day of Prayer, hosted by Supervisor Halbert at the county fairgrounds. Attended a Valley Links meeting. And I think that's it.

Council Member Eicher?

Yes, I attended a couple closed session council meetings and the APA recognition event. And on May 13th, I attended the community character luncheon where Pleasanton residents Greg Thaum, Bill Rudolph, Joanne Wesser, and the Alan Hugh Foundation received the Juanita Haugen Character Award for demonstrating a solid history of strong character traits in the service of their community.

Okay. On May 6th, I attended with our other Tri-Valley mayors advocacy trip to Sacramento to discuss issues for our 350,000 joint residents. On the 9th, I went to the Tri-Valley Asian Heritage Celebration dance performance with many of you. On the 12th, the vice mayor didn't mention, but we met with the PUSD liaison committee about their strategic plan. They are going through a strategic plan light process. We also had a community trust meeting on the 13th with PUSD. On the 13th, I also had Pleasanton Community Character Luncheon where, as Councilmember Eicher just mentioned, some amazing awardees. Also on the 13th, we went to, the city manager and I went to Hayward for the Mayor's Conference where we saw modular homes, 3,000 square feet, that can be produced for $250 a foot. 3,000 square foot modular home. Pretty impressive. On the 14th, I woke up early to bike to wherever where I biked to Donlon. And those kids, crazy, 700 some odd kids at that school hitting a free line of goodies, mob mentality. but also on the 14th and something pretty amazing for our community. Stanford Healthcare Tri-Valley had the groundbreaking for their new east wing complex in our community which is a long time coming and will be a tremendous asset for Pleasanton and the Tri-Valley. So Stanford Healthcare Tri-Valley obviously is a significant sponsor of a lot of city events and amazing community partner. On the 14th, LAFCO met with LAFCO. And then this morning, Fairlands Elementary School Citizens Action Project kickoff. Okay, with that, City Manager, update, please.

Thank you, Mayor. Just a couple of quick appreciations and some recognition and then a heads up for something coming on June 4th. So Asian Pacific, excuse me, Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, AAPI, We had celebration here in the city of Pleasanton on May 16th. This past Saturday, we hosted AAPI Heritage Month at the Firehouse Arts Center on the patio. It was an event that brought together residents of all ages celebrating vibrant culture, traditions, and the contributions of Asian American and Pacific Islander communities through music, dance, and other performances. I just want to call out our particular library and recreation staff and other staff who helped to make events like this happen. They really reflect Pleasanton's commitment to inclusion and cultural understanding and really creating the opportunities for the community to come together. Mayor Balch mentioned Bike to Wherever Day on May 14th. We again, as city staff, supported this event. It's an annual event for us. We're promoting healthy, sustainable, and connected transportation options throughout the Tri-Valley, but throughout Pleasanton as well. I want to give a special shout out this year to some folks who don't usually get it directly from us, Trek Bicycles for providing the onsite service station, Viva Systems for supporting the giveaways and community engagement activities, and then always Bike East Bay for their continued advocacy and partnership for safe and sustainable transportation throughout the region. And then the upcoming event that I'd like to call the community's attention to, and the council's aware of this, the Diluki Musical Plaza installation. The construction of that musical plaza installation is coming to completion. The musical instruments have been installed. We're creating really a new interactive and creative gathering space for children of all ages, families, to be able to come out and spend time in our downtown park and do something a little different. So the project will feature a sculpture. That installation is scheduled for June 4th, and that'll complete the final element of the plaza. City staff are currently working on planning that celebration, and there'll be mornings to come on this soon, but that's June 4th.

Don Lewis. And then it will be preceding the 5th, which will be our first concert in the park. So it is great timing for the kiddos. And and and young at heart and young at heart. Thank you very much, city manager. All right. And with that, Councilmember Testa, can you take us out?

The Pleasanton City Council adjourns this meeting with a tribute to our nation's men and women serving in the military and with gratitude for every United States veteran who has bravely answered the call to serve. Further, we wish to honor the memories of those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in conflicts both past and present in defense of our country.

Thank you very much. We are adjourned.