City Council - Regular Meeting

Mayor Mrakas, Good evening, welcome to this the. Mayor Mrakas, July 27 meeting and deliver more City Council, I called the meeting to order a roll call, please.

City Council Chambers, Mayor Sean here, please join me in the pledge of allegiance.

City Council Chambers, Okay question for the city clerk was there any action taken in the closed session.

OK, very good. Thank you. OK, so we've come to the end of a long journey. No, I'm not talking about tonight's meeting. I'm talking about in September, we paneled the September of 2021. I had actually termed out of office, and I was fortunate to be appointed to the General Plan Advisory Committee. and uh every 20 years or so uh the city council goes through the general plan uh to update it and uh so i had updated the plan in 2002 and figured since i had so much fun doing that i'd come back and do it again so we impaneled 19 people uh and uh it was a wide uh cross-section of the community uh our

also like to recognize the three people who were on the committee but are not here uh krista alexi uh arun bhatia uh and ellen pete uh also stuck out the uh the whole five years here and uh sincerely appreciate the tremendous amount of work and commitment that everybody did so once again thank you so much greatly appreciated City Council Chambers, This is the blueprint for the next 25 years so certainly appreciate the fact that. City Council Chambers, They got it right 748 pages in the final document, so thank you. City Council Chambers, advisory body appointments we don't have any. City Counc

City Council Chambers, Okay, thank you i'm going to put close the public comment period for open forum. City Council Chambers, Moving on to the consent calendar, is there anything that anybody wishes to pull on consent. City Council Chambers, branding. not pulling items but i wanted to give staff an opportunity to comment on six three and then i have some comments on six five okay um and i have uh some comments on uh the uh the sewer uh proposal and uh and then i'll be abstaining on 6.7 but if you want to go ahead and make your comments

yeah if we could start with 6.3 um I just think this is a really great program this was kind of amazing the city was able to work it out, so I wanted to give staff a brief opportunity to kind of explain what we're doing with the cyber walk repair project and just to highlight it for the public on what we were able to do.

So staff are very very excited about this investment in our community and thank you council member for the opportunity to comment thank you yeah this is a really great program um really just showing you know the economies of scale that the city was able to figure out a way to really uh make do the sidewalk shaving for, like you said, 15,000 out of 16,000 of them for a very reasonable price over the course of the next year, the project's expected to complete in roughly a year's time. So that's, I think, pretty amazing. I just wanted to highlight that because it's really, it is, you know, it cos

City Council Chamberson, which is the wind for everybody, and the fact that again thanks to the staff for taking a lead on that and negotiating was a great benefit for everybody.

City Council Chamberson, That actually did a okay. City Council Chamberson, With that there's no. City Council Chamberson, No, if there's no other comments on consent i'll entertain a motion. City Council Chamberson, Oh, we have. City Council Chamberson, Oh, sorry.

City Council Chambers, There's also public do you want me to go first, or do you want to know I don't have I don't have a comment. City Council Chambers, Myself on six five um I just want to comment, we received a new really extensive letter on the airport project. City Council Chambers, I just wanted to make sure that staff was able to review that letter and as we're looking forward to the implementation of this project, taking the advice under consideration, I think there was a number of items in there that were you know meaningful. City Council Chambers, I'm not going to go through item by

City Council Chambers, Okay, so if that's the comments, then if there is i'll accept the emotion to. City Council Chambers, We do have one public comment for public on i'm sorry.

OK, thank you. Yeah, this has been, I think, the state of California recognized that the homeowners were responsible for the site of Lubbock in, I think, 1947. So this is some people move in and out of neighborhoods. There have been some cities that used to fund that. And with all of the other requirements on cities now, we just don't have the resources. And it's up to the homeowners to, uh to mitigate that so uh this is an opportunity to make a huge difference and uh again i applaud staff for for making the uh taking the initiative to make that happen any other public comments no additional s

City Council Chambers, Okay, so. City Council Chambers, i'll amend my motion to move all items, other than success okay.

City Council Chambers, And i'll second okay seconded by Council member dunbar any discussion on the motion moving everything except 6.7. City Council Chambers, Oh, if you roll call this right. City Council Chambers, hybrid meeting.

Aye. Okay, moving on to, is there a motion for 6.7? I'll move 6.7 and I'll second. Motion made by Council Member Branning, seconded by Council Member Dunbar. Any discussion on the motion? Roll call, please.

I'll abstain. Okay, that quote moving on from consent. This is item 7.1, hearing to place delinquent sewer accounts on the property tax rule.

Okay, seeing none, I'll accept the motion. Moved by Council Member Berrientos. Seconded by Vice Mayor Wong. Any discussion on the motion? So since we are hybrid, we have to do the roll call in each one, correct? Okay.

In that case, I'm going to close the public hearing, bring it back to the council. Any questions or comments from the council? John Potter, Okay, so we just did a repair on the sewer line, I saw that $20 million is the ballpark. John Potter, Revenue we just did a repair of 3400 feet. John Potter, Of sewer line which came into about $3.5 million and so. John Potter, So doing the math that comes out to about $1.6 billion to replace our sewer system, and this is bringing in 28 million. John Potter, So, hoping that the sewer system lasts for about a year, and then we're going to be able to replace

Aye. Passed unanimously. Moving on to the 7.3. There were a few people that are sticking it out. See the final episode here.

Okay, so we're gonna take a brief recess while we work the technology. Sort of see heads nodding. Okay we're gonna take a brief recess, so we will be back shortly as we work through the technology.

OK, ladies and gentlemen, if you could please take your seats. Looks like we've worked through the technical details and the meeting is going to resume shortly. So if you please take your seats. We will get back to, uh, uh, we were in the middle of taking a public comment on, uh, 7.3, the general plan. Uh, and we had, uh, uh, just promoted, uh, Jean King to speak. So if that, uh, I'm going to, uh, call the meeting back to order and, uh, we will, uh, hear from, uh, Ms. King.

Any questions to start with the council? Moving on. No, see no questions. Comments. That's member Dunbar.

take it away i mean it's not the first time we've been here we've seen drafts we've been through this uh it is quite something to come to the end of the line and go all right this is this is the end of the line that we've been working towards this whole time five years five years um I'll maybe start with the small thing that needs addressing more so than anything else I could find. The report as it stands today does not have hyperlinks within the PDF and does not have chapters in its PDF. I'm able to get through it because it's my job to get through it. But in order for it to be a useful docum

And it's fair to say that we're constantly trying to integrate all those together to be easy to follow, not just for the applicants, but for staff zone review. Yes, in terms of the you know we we talked about the purpose of the override considerations. You spoke a little bit to the impacts that are significant and unavoidable, and then being programmatic in nature. Can you expand on that a little bit for the audience.

will be met through the general plan and that those benefits outweigh the potential significant impacts associated with it so for example in the document it talks about noise potentially being significant and unavoidable as if all the projects get built at the same time with loud construction equipment with no mitigation but that's not what we're expecting at the project level obviously but we have to analyze it in this way for the purposes of the eir exactly yes I heard a lot of the word balance that's the word that I am looking for in this plan as well that's really all you can do it such a

City Council Chambers, I think that covers most of what I wanted to cover in terms of public comments, we are doing our best at conserving all of these wildlife corridors i'm certain that we will look at the. City Council Chambers, connectivity of those relative to our other plans as those continue, but not really taking any action on the places where those might occur or propose, I know we had some sort of grant application in the recent past about. City Council Chambers, Those sorts of crossing so we wouldn't want to be conflicting with ourselves our own grant application anyways. yeah. I th

Mayor Mrakas, customer branding sure i'm actually going to break my comments in two parts, because I think one. Mayor Mrakas, We need to talk about as a Council. Mayor Mrakas, So, first I want to start with a huge thank you to everyone who was involved in this, I particularly want to start by thanking the G pack committee members um. you guys were volunteering your time for five years for a lot of meetings that's i don't know how many hours you spent on this plus reviewing packets and all that like that's a big volunteer commitment and this didn't happen without you so i really want to thank t

First off, I'd like to thank GPAC for all the work you've done and the staff. And we get briefings throughout the years, here's where we got planned here for Midtown. And we get to see all that and all the plans we have input at that time too. And our concerns right up there. So you get this document, it's kind of cleaned up a little bit. Some of the edges have been knocked off. And I appreciate for the work you've done. The other thing is, I would, if you've heard of, A couple of years ago, I voted against the EIR on the Greenville area. And my concern was Mission Creek. And I felt like if we

I think you're a human account, headcount. Anyway, you know, squirrels, raccoons, chipmunks. Anyway, the other thing is, one of my friends drove down. I was born in San Francisco, and I lived in South San Francisco. If you drive from South San Francisco down south on the El Camino, you cannot tell when one city switches to another. You can't tell when you cross from Burlingame to Millbrae to San Mateo. You can't. And that's what impresses some people that come to Livermore. They're impressed with our town and the way we're set up. And we are concerned about encroaching from our neighbor cities

This makes me a little nostalgic thinking back to the early meetings of this process, which I attended and because I wanted to see how a plan like this gets put together. How does a city go about putting together a plan like this? And what I saw until I was elected and not really welcomed at those meetings anymore. um was just community members coming together to serve officially on the general plan advisory committee and also to the ones who came and attended every single meeting and sat through the meetings as long as they went and made thoughtful comments and um both the people sitting arou

Well, it's been a great privilege for me to have started on this plan back in October of 21 and moving ahead with it. And now here we are five years later. When I did the plan in 2002, it was a two year plan. And again, we had a large group of folks. As I mentioned before, it was very contentious. I have to congratulate everybody for going through a tremendous amount of information. And again, the staff for providing all that information and feeding it to everybody in a way that they could digest it because we're not all urban planners, but we represent the community. And we had 19 people spea

Just a few things to add. One, on the connection with our neighbor, we added a policy LU 2-8 Newland Canyon Open Space Greenbelt for maintaining the green belt between us. City Council Chambers, I wanted to add a little bit to a public comment I heard, which was about metrics there is in the implementation chapter a specific breakdown of the housing production and affordability jobs housing balance and match economic vitality is environmental sustainability. City Council Chambers, multimodal safety and quality of life metrics that is exactly the highlight of where we're going with that impleme

all right i'm breathing i'm gonna get us way into the weeds on something right now um so i have some concerns about the las colinas uh amendment to the general plan and so um this is something that's come up and it put me in a little bit of a weird position and it a lot of it has to do with the ordering of how things are going to be on the agenda and so with the development agreement that were is coming up next on the agenda the development agreement includes uh it's not for the specific plan it goes into the broad suite of it but uh unfortunately along the way in developing that i don't think

Well, it sounds like the cleanest way would be to... John Potter, move this item and then finalize that in in the language that you're talking about in the resolution in the next item 7.4 remember any project that comes to us, we still have the ability to approve or disapprove it, so I think that's where most of our strength is. uh is as a project comes in um we can still disapprove it uh but it sounds like from what you've described the cleanest way is to and the easiest would be to go ahead and move this uh and then ensure that we have that language in the resolution in 7.4 anybody else mayo

of course we would trust staff to ensure that as those negotiation progressed, that they would maintain their consistency with the general plan.

Yeah, I don't think you were talking about changing the zoning.

So that would be if we wanted to start over on negotiations, we would change back to the current zoning. If we wanted to move forward, we would approve the entirety of the general plan as is, or if there were other modifications outside of Las Colinas, we would approve it as is and then make discussions during 7.4. So we couldn't, just to rephrase it, we can't continue 7.3, have the discussion in 7.4, and then go back to 7.3.

But I said trusting staff that they would maintain the consistency with the general plan. Because I don't think the issues that you're talking about John Potter, or where are we getting far feel are we discussing 7.4 or but it sounds like we can trust staff to ensure that we have a consistent agreement consistent development agreement without changing the zoning because I don't think zoning is the issue it's the benefit package.

the the zoning is is part of the issue but if we move forward and we had the additional language it gives us it does give us some support so it is stronger if we we could get stronger language if we pulled las calinas left it at the original zoning and then modified the da or sent the staff back to negotiate the da we could get stronger language I have spoken with staff and staff does believe we have enforceable language. It's not as strong as had we renegotiated, but it is still enforceable language that we would be able to get if we move forward on 7.3 and then do a modification to the ordin

But we still have the ability to deny the project.

We would, but if we deny in 7.4 after approving seven, if we improve 7.3 and then deny that, the da and 7.4 we wouldn't have any real bargaining leverage anymore if we move forward we would be able to deny the specific project based on uh objective criteria which modifying the ordinance gives us an objective criteria to work with again I like I said this is getting very deep in the weeds we've had a lot of conversations again my sense is if the if that were to happen if if you were to

Do you can you know move forward with the general plan and, as stated. That is a theoretical possibility, but the site is so complex that doing it without a development agreement. And the city playing hardball by not having the previous development agreement agreed to would be very hard for the developer to actually get through even under objective standards I don't necessarily see that as the biggest risk. Mayor Mrakas, That fair.

Mayor Mrakas, Okay, but I mean i'm like I said I can go either way, I just wanted to address this as a very, it is a large concern I had with I think that we can get through it, I think that a staff has shown themselves to be very, very adept at.

working through a lot of these issues especially with you know 748 pages of the general plan uh i think that this uh uh that this is doable and i would trust staff to uh uh ensure that the uh uh the plans are compatible okay looks like uh we have consensus uh councilmember briento can i move approval 7.3 sure absolutely Mayor Mrakas, Okay, moved by customer very interest is there a second. Mayor Mrakas, i'll second okay seconded by customer dunbar. Mayor Mrakas, Is there any discussion on the motion. Mayor Mrakas, will call, please.

John Potter, Okay, moving on to 7.4, this is the hearing to introduce an ordinance and wave the first reading of the less cleanest road. John Potter, Development.

Thank you. Thank you with that, and we'll open the public hearing. Do we have anybody who wishes to speak?

i ask that you not approve the development agreement thank you that was our last speaker that's the last speakers that was our last speaker okay i'm going to close the public hearing then uh bring it back to the council uh questions comments from the council i mean clearly but if you want me to go last okay uh councilman dunbar

John Potter, or I will start. John Potter, Staff can you speak to I was trying to pull it up on on my computer i'm looking at exhibit be for the roadway alignment relative to the. City Council Chambers, Where the trail is proposed as part of the earlier items in the evening, it looks like it's sort of an immediate left turn once you hit the overpass has proposed for the. City Council Chambers, roadway alignment, so it would not extend very far onto the section that I know is dirt like go over there, sometimes. City Council Chambers, Is that and and even if it is dirt today, they would be neede

ACM Conference 29th, But it would need to meet our fire access standards and they will purchase. ACM Conference 29th, Yes, the developer, whoever they may be in the future, we need to find a way to actually meet those for us to get approval in the first place, and that would be just an objective standard that they do or do not meet. ACM Conference 29th, And if they do not meet it, it would be our purview to block the project at that point. ACM Conference 29th, But we're not going to block it at this point because. ACM Conference 29th, they're prerogative to go search for that. ACM Conference 2

City Council Chambers, I think the concerns about water flooding or the same as the roadway concerns there to be analyzed it's too early to analyze them. City Council Chambers, I hear the concern, but I don't know how to react to it right now, given that just don't have a report of what the design actually looks like that fair. Okay. City Council Chambers, I think we've both been over before you know. City Council Chambers, The school impacts, given the declining school attendance these days, but I do think it's fair to say that there are amenities with this project. City Council Chambers, The

City Council Chambers, Because we're very into us questions comments.

Well, I haven't heard too much from my constituents. That's my district. Where were they? I heard them here. I do have concerns about the whole thing anyway. I see that little blue thing going through there, the creek. But right now, I just want to hold my comments until later.

um i i'll leave the labor issues to council member to address um is it fair to say that some of the issues that particularly neighbors of this property some of the concerns that they've brought up are things that City Council Chambers, will be considered and addressed and as the development of the project goes on, but this is not the stage at which we would address those I mean I right now, we just don't have I don't have the information to vote up or down on those kinds of concerns.

okay and so they're not adequately addressed at that point that's the point where we can vote yes or no when that when an actual project uh application comes forward okay okay that's that's it okay so again just uh uh as i understand it this development agreement is not a final plan uh but it sets up a process to develop a plan Because obviously there's there's nobody's going to be building a development supplied by a 23 foot dirt path. So this this sets up the process to develop a final plan. And this this is within the city limits of livermore. City Council Chambers, Yes, it is because someb

Okay, thank you. And again, when there's a final development application, that's when the project specific traffic study and those types of things will be coming in. That's correct. This just, again, sets up a process. Okay, I got my questions answered. Take it away, Council Member Brannon.

All right. So first of all, I do really want to start by thanking the Archdiocese in Aventis for coming to us with this project. This was... land that had a different designation 45 minutes ago and now is actually zoned for housing. So this was something that is giving Livermore an opportunity to get some really good community benefits here. I really do appreciate the negotiations, the conversations. I know there's concerns from neighbors. And as the plan develops, you know, follow along, continue to get specific concerns, but any of the concerns that have been brought up should be mitigated a

John Potter, Any comments on the proposed provision. John Potter, I think this this does speak to quality of life and that's something that we already talked about is one of the primary drivers of our general plan is quality of life, and I think that. John Potter, Encouraging local workers and encouraging apprenticeship programs because that's going to be contributing to the growing workforce, so I can certainly support all of those. and using the term encourages. So I would be willing to support that.

So if you're willing to make the motion um if I may add just a few more things okay I'm okay with that I think it expands upon the intent of the ordinance as it was proposed but more specifically um I just wanted to add a few more things one on emergency access I wrote down there is proposed another emergency access easement via the trail via the item that we approved earlier in the evening so that is another consideration here that is addressed at least at a concept level at this point um I I wanted to make the point that we've talked about this many times before. We have a housing element, a

City Council Chambers, Sorry, any further comments customer variances.

Every time we go through these developments, I understood that we always encourage developers to hire union workers. And the word encourage is like, by a teacher, I encourage my kids to do their homework. Some did, some didn't. Anyway, that's the only thing that bothers me, encourage it. But, you know, I'm a union work, I'm a union man all my life. U.S. Steel to post office to teachers. And so I support the idea that we need union workers. And they've been destroyed basically in the last, the union movement, and that's what made our country better and the middle class stronger. So I support yo

City Council Chambers, yeah I had the same thought that you know, encourage and engage and those those aren't the strongest we're nothing requiring anything, and so it's very easy to support.

City Council Chambers, Okay, so with you've made the motion or now I can make the motion and officially make the motion, I would move staffs recommendation with the amendment to section five that I stated earlier, is that phrased correctly. City Council Chambers, that's fine all right.

City Council Chambers, Is there a second. Mayor Mrakas, i'll second okay seconded by vice mayor long any discussion on the motion. Mayor Mrakas, Roll call please.

Mayor Mrakas, Okay we're rolling up to 10 o'clock but we're real close does anybody want to take a five minute break.

okay 7.5 this is uh mcgrath rent corp thank you all very much for your comments tonight thank you all right 7.5 good evening mayor members of city council my name is jake potter economic development manager in the innovation and economic development department

City Council Chambers, Okay, in that case i'm going to close the public hearing bring it back to the Council. City Council Chambers, comments from the Council. City Council Chambers, Oh yes, for branding yeah I just.

uh i do want to thank the commenter about the importance of us having objective uh guidelines staff if you could confirm for me i believe it this phase because it's not a project we don't have those findings yet but for the project we will have those findings is that correct that's correct okay yeah to clarify we we have a resolution for sequa it's

City Council Chambers, That is an existing facility and therefore qualifies under those exemptions. City Council Chambers, Planning Commission laid that out pretty clearly yes. City Council Chambers, Correct.

City Council Chambers, and also. City Council Chambers, The modifications from mcgrath are relatively minor right now there's a potential project, I know coming from them, but this is that project is not even fully. realized or imagined at this point and then the potential new customer coming in or new land use coming in also hasn't fully been imagined or agreed to correct correct and a full sequel analysis would occur when they submit an application for development yeah so the the City Council Chambers, The majority of this is covering a facility that already exists and is going to maintain i

Just a quick thank you to our staff and to the folks at McGrath for coming together to come up with an agreement that both sides seem to be very happy with, and so I really appreciate that.

I know they were concerned when we first saw the midtown plan, and I knew the staff was going to be able to work something out with them. I'm glad you're pleased, and I'm glad everything came out okay.

John Potter, question I have. John Potter, This is 2018 we've been contemplating a valley link coming in, and I know that with midtown there was originally the proposal to have a station out there. John Potter, assume as this plan begins to move along. John Potter, that's going to still be incorporated within the within the plan.

City Council Chambers, I'll just echo what the others have said and say thank you to both parties of this, the word of the night has been balancing act and I see it here again in this item, so thank you for all the work. City Council Chambers, Okay, great words of the night two words.

City Council Chambers, Okay, so with that if there's no further comment.

City Council Chambers, i'll entertain a motion. City Council Chambers, i'll move approval the staff recommendation.

City Council Chambers, Okay motion by Council member Denver seconded by vice mayor long a discussion on the motion will call, please.

Aye. Okay, we got through it. Matters for consideration? None. And Council Committee reports and the matter's initiated. Council Member Berrientos?

Right, but that's okay, so we didn't have we didn't carry over anyone. There were no no additional 30 minutes the opening so just make okay yeah. Pardon me.

Okay, all right very good okay then um. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers.

City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers. City Council Chambers, that they've done this fair and it's opportunity for people who are looking for places to volunteer looking for nonprofits to partner with. City Council Chambers, And then, also for people who need resources or looking for resources that those nonprofits might provide to meet with them and see what kind of what kind of different services they ha

i just want to give a big thank you to the livermore pleasanton fire department who fought a huge fire last week that was i live right at the border of livermore and pleasanton so it was basically across 84 from me and we actually evacuated ourselves because of the smoke and ash that was falling in my neighborhood um and so grateful for how they fought so hard we were really monitoring it closely and we have a lot of friends in ruby hill And just really grateful to the outcome of that and the people and property that were all kept safe. And happy 40th birthday to Wheels Bus and see you at Nati

very good thank you uh and uh uh yes the uh uh I could see the smoke from my house it was uh the fact that it grew from uh 50 acres to 700 acres that was a fast-moving fire and it was uh according to the chief that was the the biggest fire they've ever fought so uh that was that was impressive yes uh my son's uh

You know he first responded up and so can he told me to get this APP he might want to get his call watch duty, some of us have it better pinged you real quick like it ping me the three fires you've had there's one going on right now mines road. approaching 300 acres right now wow.

Okay, but that we welcomed velo 3D into the city there a an additive manufacturing and there really are. at the cutting edge of modern manufacturing right here in livermore we recognize the 100th birthday of kate mccall and here right here in livermore and also recognizing the 40th anniversary of wheels bus so with that there being no further business coming to the city meetings adjourned