City Council - Regular Meeting

Call to order the regular meeting of the San Ramon City Council for September 8th, 2026. Please call the roll.

Here. All right. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

All right, thank you. Please be seated. All right, item three, announcements. Do we have any announcements?

Okay, thank you. I'm going to now open up public comment. So at this time, the public is permitted to address the City Council on any non-agenda item related to the business of the City Council. Items that are on the consent calendar, including a request to pull an item from the consent calendar and the reason why you wish to pull the item or items, please note that the decision to remove the item from the consent calendar is strictly at the discretion of the City Council. You may speak on requests for future agenda items or on special presentation items under six of tonight's agenda, and we h

All right, do we have any other speaker cards?

Okay. All right. Thank you. Next speaker, please. All right. Gary.

All right, thank you. All right, next speaker, please.

Thank you. All right. Thank you. Next speaker, please. I'm sorry.

Okay, then I'm going to close public comment. Do we have all the contact information for all the speakers?

With that, then we will move on to item five, the consent calendar. Does anyone wish to get clarification on any of the items on the consent calendar, or wish to pull any of the consent calendar items? I move the motion for consent calendar.

Okay, we have a motion by Councilmember Verros, a second by Vice Mayor Rubio. Okay, motion passes unanimously, so we will then move on to item six, special presentations. Item 6.1 is a proclamation declaring September 17th through the 23rd, 2026, as Constitution Week, and I have a proclamation that I'll be presenting to Heather Bilhart, Regent, and Sue de Luau, Chair at the National Society of Daughters of the American Revolution, or any other representatives that you have, but let me bring the proclamation down. Proclamation of the City Council of the city of San Ramon designated September 17

You want to come on over for a picture, and then I'll give you the opportunity to say a few comments.

All right, thank you. All right, Sue, did you want to add anything? Okay. All right, she did a great job. Any council members wish to say anything? Okay, we have a council member for us.

Thank you Heather and Sue. Congratulations on proclamation. Thanks for bringing the awareness of the Constitution. So it is not just a historical document, but it is a document that provides us a guidance on our freedom and rights. Especially San Ramon is a very diverse community. It is very important for us to share that within the community so that community understand the importance of Constitution and how it helps them to bring together and keep them together. So thanks for all your services. I appreciate it. Once again, congratulations on Constitution Week.

Well, thank you for joining us, and I know you do so many wonderful events throughout the year, and especially for our young people as well. I know you've been there, and so we just really appreciate the work that you do in making sure that we don't forget our history. It's extremely important in making sure that as we move forward, we don't repeat some of those mistakes, good and bad, right? So the work you do is truly important, invaluable to this community and beyond and i just want to say thank you personally for all the work that you do throughout the year all right thank you anyone else

Yeah, I'm glad we have a chance to reflect on the Constitution because it's such an essential document and, you know, it didn't happen overnight. There was a lot of struggle and we tried other documents. I think the states had a problem wanting to have that federal government step in, but it was so essential. articles of Confederation didn't work and so fortunately we had some great early American leaders like James Madison and we're able to you know crap that document we were able to have the Bill of Rights so everything that we have now is thanks to those people at that time to had the fores

All right. And I'll just close things out. Thank you, Heather. Thank you, Sue. I was stationed in the nation's capital while I was still in the Army back in 1987. It was the 200th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution, and it was a pretty big deal back then. And it's a big deal again this year. This is 250 years since the founding of our nation, and I just want to thank the DAR for all that you do in terms of – educating our residents and promoting our nation's history, promoting patriotism and all the work that the DAR does. So thank you and we'll see you again next year, I hope. All

Let's get pictures at the end after you introduce all of the award winners and what they did and things. And then we'll do individual pictures and then maybe a group picture at the end, too.

And if you wanna come up and just receive your big set.

That's all right. All right. Thank you very much. All right. Well, let's get the city council. Let's get city council. Let's all go down, and we'll take a picture with all the winners.

Can we just just one at a time also? Okay. Sure. Are you okay? Yeah.

Before everybody leaves, let me see if any council members have any comments here. Anyone from council want to make a comment? Sure. Okay.

Thank you. Don't go too far for our award winners. Hold on. We're speaking to you.

Congratulations Neil, Aditi and Chloe for winning the championship of Discover San Ramon and all participants congratulations for participating. Thanks to Discover San Ramon for organizing this event so that we can showcase our city San Ramon local businesses and supporting our local businesses so that we can bring them and bring not only the youth, but the community together to tell the story of San Ramon. So thanks for all your great work and services. Appreciate it. And see you next year again. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Anyone else?

So I just want to say congratulations as well to all the three winners, Aditi, Neil, and Chloe. That is a huge accomplishment. And honestly, I was just thinking to myself, $5,000 is a nice savings to start before you go to college. or whatever your next endeavors are. It's a great savings right there. But you earned it and your creativity and ingenuity is really what, and perseverance is what got you there. And that is a huge testament to your character and honestly the support and leadership that you're also hopefully feeling you're receiving from Discover San Ramon in your leadership. So jus

All right, well then, I'll just chime in also. My congratulations to Aditi, Neil, and Chloe. This is fantastic. Our young people in our community have such great ideas, and that's captured here this evening. Thank you to Discover San Ramon, for sponsoring this. Thank you, Sean. Thank you, Beth. Thank you, Raghu, all those members of the Discover San Ramon board. Just wonderful creativity, wonderful imagination, and quite an incredible recognition, $5,000. I think that's wonderful. Hopefully that'll motivate next year's crew to come up with some great ideas also. So again, congratulations, and

All right, thank you, Dylan. Let's go to questions, and we'll start down here with House Members Wainwright.

Hi, Dylan. Thank you so much for the presentation, and thanks for coming out here to the presentation. I'm just curious, what prompted the request to form the committee?

Thank you. Council Member Varoj. Thanks for the presentation. It's more than a question, I just want to make sure the confirmation so public can understand. So the committee members who are going to be part of, the members who are going to be part of this committee, in the charter it is mentioned that they will be submitting FPPC form 700 disclosing if they own any stocks or any of those equity funds. So could you please clarify that?

Sounds good. My second point is, or question point is, how we measure to make sure that whatever, after we switch to the committee, things are working as expected. Is there a way we want to monitor or measure? Is there anything like that in place?

Sounds good. And just to make sure, is there any impact, financial impact on the contributors when we are moving from current to the committee?

Okay. Any other questions? Council Member Adler.

Yeah. The way this committee is going to be laid out, is it similar to what other cities do as far as the people who are in this committee? Is that kind of a standard practice of these departments, this personnel is similar to what other cities are doing?

And just one question about the ability of the employees to, I mean, I know the state has guidelines, which they should have, and so this is laid out similar to a 401K, right?

Yeah, and so is there a little bit of ability of the employees to get into a little more I don't know, not as conservative investments. Do they have that option somewhat so they could, you know, make some small changes where it might be a little bit more less conservative, especially maybe a newer employee who's starting out as opposed to a person who's about ready to retire, probably doesn't want to do a lot of more risky things. But is that something that employees have the ability to do?

Thank you. So I guess I just wanted a little more clarification in terms of what authority does, other than approving whatever the committee proposes and brings before us and presents to us, what authority does the council still retain in having input on those investments and how we manage those financial decisions?

Okay, and then so as mentioned, so how often will you be reporting back to the council?

I almost would feel better if those reports, regular reports were made available to the entire council because at the end of the day, we're all responsible. So I would prefer that that be expanded to the entire council so that we are aware of what's transpiring on a regular, more than once and twice a year. I don't think that's sufficient for us to give you feedback if there's anything we'd like to suggest and for you to be able to respond and do something with that. You know what I mean?

Yeah. I just, yeah. Cause I'm thinking like when, I don't know if that's going to be frequent enough once or twice a year to do that. Um, so, and, and my question is in terms of, is it an indefinite position in terms of for the members they're, they're selected, they're there in perpetuity unless they're no longer working for the city?

Right, because it's defined by the job title of the person. The other thing is, I know later on you mentioned something about should they need, say, the primary person, appointed person, not be able to attend, they can ask anyone. And that's the kind of language that I'm like, well, who's anyone to be able to fill in for them? Would it be their natural successor? And if their successor can't be there, who would fill in then under those circumstances? Right.

Not just the chair. I mean, there was language in there that said on page, on page 43, should any individual in these roles cease to hold their position, that individual's successor will automatically assume membership on the committee in their place. And then... There was on page 46, the committee may be written by written rule or by its minutes, allocate responsibilities among committee members and may delegate to persons other than committee members the authority to carry out any of the responsibilities under the plans noted herein. So I'm asking for clarification of who those individuals w

Got it. Okay. As needed, basically. Correct. Is what you're saying. Yeah. And so let me go back a little bit because I kind of flipped over here. So I'm assuming this is a committee that we want to keep as long, in a permanent basis, correct?

Yes, makes sense. The other thing is, it says all reasonable out-of-pocket expenses of the committee will be paid by the city in accordance with standard reimbursement policies unless paid for from assets from the plans. What expenses are they referring to specifically there?

OKAY. AND THEN, OF COURSE, THERE'S ALSO STAFF TIME BECAUSE IT WOULD BE A WHOLE NEW COMMITTEE. SO THERE WOULD BE ALSO STAFF TIME. SO DO WE HAVE AN ESTIMATED COST OF WHAT THIS TOTAL COMMITTEE, WHETHER IT'S STAFF TIME OR THOSE ADDITIONAL ESTIMATED OUT-OF-POCKET EXPENSES WOULD BE?

Right, right. Sort of like what we do with the other committee, sort of, right?

Yes, I understand that. And I think, I mean, anybody who has investments understands that when they relegate their investments to somebody, it's because they obviously have more experience and insight into these types of things and where it would be more, how shall I say, prudent to invest your funds. So that... It makes sense from a practical standpoint thinking about that but for the sake of having complete information I want to make sure to ask those questions just to clarify. So the last thing I would like to suggest in addition to just making sure that we also, we as a council are kept ab

Well, in all the other committees that we have, we have council liaisons to those committees.

Okay, so did you want to add something, Martin?

No, I mean, so what it sounds like to me is that this is going to be operating somewhat independently, almost like a commission, but not fully like a commission because the council still has sort of the final purview to review things and approve it. So in some capacities, it is acting more independent than an advisory committee, but not as fully independent as, say, our commissions.

And I like the idea that you are including our police and CIU as well in that process, the workers in that process. It's important. Okay, so do you need three nodding heads to request to make sure that we sort of just get those regular reports when you do meet? Yes.

Sure. And I guess my question is, if you're only meeting one to two, maybe three times a year, I mean, I think it's feasible to give us an update when you have those meetings, if that would be helping. Because it gives us an opportunity to provide some feedback if we want to before you finalize anything for the year. That's why I'm saying that. Do you need three nodding heads for that?

Right. But what I'm specifically asking for is just if you're only meeting two to three times a year at most, right? I'm asking personally, and I want to make sure that it does happen so that we can stay abreast to everything that's happening. that we're getting some kind of report back on what transpired, where we're at, and not just the once a year presentation in that sense. You don't have to do a presentation, but if we get, say, the minutes and what was discussed and we have a sense of what's going on, that's very helpful to us as well.

Correct, correct. And I know the market can also change that.

Okay. Okay. Well, thank you for answering my questions to all. Thank you.

Okay. And Mike, I just had one simple question. It's in the report, but I'm going to ask it anyway. I just want to confirm that these meetings are going to be agendized. They will be open to the public and announced meetings, correct? Okay. All right. Any other final questions from the Council?

How is the decision made, just on a general point of information, when we retained Morgan Lewis? Did we have other companies that were interested in doing this job? How did that work, Scott?

Had we used any other company that had the same kind of expertise? You know, they have the same expertise? No. No.

THEY HAD THE DUAL ABILITY OF BOTH LEGAL AND FINANCE IN ONE PACKAGE. ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Last call for questions from council. Okay. Thank you, Dylan. I'm going to open up public comment on this item 9.1. And who's our first speaker?

ALL RIGHT. THANK YOU. THE NEXT SPEAKER? ANY OTHER SPEAKER?

Okay. Then with that, I'm going to close. Public comment. Bring it back over to the City Council for determining what we want to do. We have a resolution. We have a draft charter for the committee. We have a proposal. And any final comments from... Council members, before we entertain a motion.

I just forgot to ask one question. All right, go ahead. If that's okay, I'm sorry. Go ahead. I just wanted to ask if anybody could give information about what other cities have a similar committee?

Could you provide some examples of similar cities?

Okay, so maybe people who you're not working with.

Okay, thank you. Okay, other comments? Yeah, just comments for now.

So, well, you know, ERISA law as well as state laws, they are pretty complicated, right? And as we counsel our fiduciary responsible to make sure whatever the money that is coming for these two funds, like 457B as well as for retirement health savings programs, right? So it is very important that the money is responsibly held accountable throughout the process, whether it is an investment or post-disbursement or any place or any phase. So for me, it is important that someone who understands this should be looking at it. It sounds like even though as a council we are delegating this to the comm

No, no, I have a comment. I just wanted to also add that there are some complexities that were discussed that, you know, they're not sure. That may impact also bring some more complexity to the situation. I believe the AB 1383 by McKenna, the bill that has to do with public employees, retirement benefits, safety. I remember, I don't know if that will impact us here, but that those are things that we definitely, um, is that something we need to be looking out for?

Got it. Oh, that's okay. Yeah, that's right. Okay. Good.

Okay. I agree with Council Member Ross. I mean, we have a very important role as fiduciaries, but I do think it's wise to delegate the fine details of managing these plans to a qualified committee. And I think the membership of the committee looks right. I think the actions as far as the oversight for the day-to-day administration and the different fiduciary functions, I think that looks right. Council's still going to maintain authority for the higher level policy decisions. And I intend to support the committee formation and approval of the resolution. So unless there's any other comments, I

Okay, we have a motion by Council Member Frost, a second by Council Member Adler. Any final discussion? Okay, motion passes unanimously. So we're going to move on to item 10, city manager and city council member comments and matters initiated. We'll start with the city manager.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Let me go down to council members right now. Thank you, Mayor.

Just September 11th is upon us. Never forget our first responders and our firefighters and our heroes before us and always remember. So that's it, Mayor. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Council Member Varos. Not much except attended teen council vice chair selection or appointment. Thanks to once again to all applicants. Amazing teens. All the best to the appointed member, Boynini, Ananya Boynini. So that's pretty much for my side. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, Council Member Adler.

Yeah, I will echo Council Member Verosa's comment about these kids are just so smart and they are so articulate. And I'm very impressed by the high school students in San Ramon and also Danville. They're just... They always impress us when they get up and interview for these slots. I attended on August 28th, Friday, the San Ramon Historic Foundation. They had their final speaker series. at the Walnut Barn at Forest Home Farms. And it was very interesting to hear from Michael Ross Smith, who concluded the series, and his talk was called Coming Home. And he shared stories about renting a small c

So as was mentioned with everyone else, I was in attendance on August 31st for the teen council interview. We did have some very competitive applications for the teen vice chair position. They were all fabulous and I'd encourage them all to come back. um for um and for our county we were fortunate people did step forward to apply uh we were also very fortunate to have uh ed caranza who has 37 years of living here in san ramon and serving in the transportation advisory committee to also sign up to serve as our liaison to to cta um And then, on September 3rd, I attended the Marketing, Planning,

Okay. And then a few things for me. On the 2nd of September, this was all part of National Preparedness Month for the month of September. I attended a mass care and sheltering exercise. It was done in part by City of Danville, City of San Ramon. It was down at the Danville Community Center, the Fire District, our County and State Office of Emergency Services, various role players, the County Medical Reserve Corps, team and some of their social service departments. Prior to the actual sheltering exercise, they did have some position training, but I thought it was a very successful event and it

Okay, then I'll open public comment on this item. Yes, please.

Please keep it restricted to just the comments that were made.

All right, thank you. Any other public comments? Okay, seeing none, then in recognition of 25 years since 9-11, I'm going to adjourn tonight's council meeting in honor of Thomas E. Burnett, Jr. Tom and his wife, Dina, and their three children lived in San Ramon. And on September 11, 2001, Tom called his wife, Dina, from on board United Flight 93 to tell her that the plane he was on en route back from Newark to San Francisco had been hijacked. Over about a 30-minute period, he made several phone calls to Dina. And on the final call, he told her, don't worry, we're going to do something. His las