City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. This is a regular meeting of the Oakley City Council. Tonight's meeting is called to order. It's 6.30 p.m. Will the clerk please call roll?

Would everybody please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Item 1.3, recognizing Lizzie Morgan for her extraordinary bravery during a house fire. If Lizzie can meet me up front. And if I could have the clerk read the... Okay.

So tonight, we're here to recognize you, Lizzie Morgan, for your amazing courage, bravery, and quick thinking. with exceptional presence in mind and selfless bravery in facing intimidating danger. You helped save lives and prevented profound tragedy. The community of Oakley is deeply grateful and inspired by your heroism. So congratulations. Can we get a quick picture? Thank you so much for coming. We'll move to item 4.1, proclamations recognizing Parks and Rec Month. And with that, we'll be receiving proclamations from Jesse De La Cruz from Public Works Maintenance Manager and Alicia O'Leary

And I'd just like to add to that, speaking for the council, you guys do an amazing job. A lot of it's behind the scene. Some of the things that we've seen with Studio 55 over this last year just has been amazing. And it has really brought the community together. And you can't drive through this community without seeing our parks look beautiful day in and day out. So we can't thank you enough. Please accept these proclamations on behalf of the council. Would the council like to come down and be part of this picture? Item 1.5, our report from our library commission will be moved to another meeti

That was my only public speaker. Card, online, we did have two people wishing to speak. Eric Cortez.

Our other person that submitted online and wanted to speak was Kristen. OK, not seeing that, we'll move to Madam Clerk. Do we have anybody online that wishes to make a public comment? CHRISTIE WOODARD- Yes, Mayor.

Madam Clerk, do we have any other hands up?

With that, we'll close public comment and move to item three, council members' comments. Seeing none, we'll move to item four, consent calendar. Do we have any public comments for the consent calendar online?

Okay, would that accept a motion? I move approval. So we have a first and a second call for a roll call vote.

Moving on to item five, public hearings, 5.1. This is a continuance from our June 9th meeting, a public hearing considering the confirmation of the assessment, ordering of a levy and collection for the annual assessment for 26-27. The city of Oakley streets and landscaping Assessment District 1. And with that, we'll have our Public Works Director, Billie Lee, present.

Questions for staff? So we'll go ahead and open the public hearing and receive public testimony. I do not have any speaker cards. Is there anybody in the facility that would like to speak on this matter? Seeing none, I do not have anybody that submitted online to us ahead of time for this item. Madam Clerk, do we have anybody online with their hands up to wish to speak?

Seeing no one wanting to speak for that, is there any property owner that wishes to turn in a written protest regarding this levy for the lighting and landscaping assessment for District 1 for 26-27? Seeing none, we'll close the public hearing. Madam Clerk, is there a majority protest levy on this assessment?

So we'll bring it back to council for deliberation or a motion. I move approval of item 5.1. So we have a first and a second. We'll call for a roll call vote.

Thank you. Item 6, regular calendar 6.1, adopt a resolution authorizing the city manager to execute an agreement with local addition marketing LLC for public art project and development. And our staff report will be from our city manager.

Questions from the council? Thank you. Not seeing any questions. Do we have any public comment? I have no cards up here. Anybody on the line?

Bring it back to the council. Council member Meadows.

I know the new technology. No, I'm good. I'm good with this item. I'm OK moving it forward. The walls in here do look a little blank. I hadn't thought of that until you guys started talking. But there used to be something up there. So I'm good with moving it forward.

Um, I obviously am super excited about this project. I think it's good because, you know, they brought up a lot of this stuff about, uh, just the downtime, but downtown vitality and neighborhood vitality. And I think it's important for people to feel, you know, we obviously provide the homes, but are we really giving people a place where they can be proud of? So I'm really excited to just have things that get people excited about the beauty of where we live. So I'm really happy about this. So thank you for. Finding them. Thank you for being willing to work with us. I'm super excited about this

Councilmember Shaw also very excited Hopefully you guys really get to do a lot of fun research on how how amazing Oakley is and the Delta and all that all that stuff So it's gonna be really exciting to see what what comes and how it Enhances what is already super awesome here. So I do work in Pittsburgh. So I have seen that So now I'm pretty excited to know where that came from. So yes, very excited To see this move forward So I'll make a motion

Second. So we have a first and a second. Roll call vote, please.

7 reports 7.1 city managers report Good evening again actually have several items to report on tonight.

Okay, item 7.2, Councilmember's report. Councilmember Shaw.

All right, well, I am, I guess, giving my report. And then Council Member Williams and I have a little announcement to make about our PD and some of the cool things that they got. But on the 12th, I was at the Rockies Chicken Ribbon Cutting, the 13th, the Juneteenth event. And then later that day, the Beer Isle second year birthday anniversary, call it what you want. The 18th was a Cal City's East Bay Division board meeting. We had a Tri-Delta Transit board meeting, and I was nominated to be this upcoming year's vice chair. I went to the City Pack Cornhole Tournament for Cal City's We had our

All right, we're going to save the hometown hero best part for last. I attended the Rockies chicken ribbon cutting. I also went to the ABAG meeting. It's our annual meeting. We did have a presentation from Libby Schaff on Bay Area Council. And she was just speaking on the importance of regionalism and local government versus state and federal. One of the things that was interesting is she was talking specifically about how many buildings are entitled currently in Oakland for housing, because I know we talk about that a lot, and that they can't pencil for the developers. So there is a lot of ad

And I would also like to thank him for coming on his day off, because there was a little bit of timing issues. So we appreciate him so much.

Since our last meeting, I've attended MC board meeting, CCTA board meeting, which we'll also have one tomorrow. We'll have two meetings. One will be discussing the expenditure plan that will be coming up to hopefully replace Measure J. I attended Summerfest, Juneteenth, and CCTA Planning Committee meeting, and then swearing in yesterday of our newest officer.

And since our last meeting, I want to jump on the bandwagon about Summerfest. Staff did an amazing job. It was a great family event. There were a lot of families out there just really enjoying the city, and there were folks coming from out of the area that hadn't been to Oakley before, and they were very impressed with the way everything went. And then I also attended Friday Night Bites, which was on the 3rd, and still had a good turnout, even though it was kind of a holiday weekend. With that, we'll move to 7.2.B. Is there any requests for further agenda items? Vice Mayor Meadows.

So with us going to the meetings having to be online, I would like to look at our public comments. We run public comments at the beginning of the meeting, which I'm fine with. I was talking to a city council member in a city in Central County. They have their public comments in the beginning with a limited time, and then if they go over that time period, they will continue at the end of the meeting so that they can get the business of the meeting. That's on the agenda, done. So I would like to have that discussion.

I support that. Antioch does the same thing.

I didn't know that. It was conquered. Thank you.

Any further? If not, we'll move to 8.1, work session. objective design standards work session and that will be led by our associate planner, Evan Gordon.

Questions for staff? We don't have any questions right now. Do we have any public comment on this?

And I'll bring it back to the council for feedback for staff. Vice Mayor Meadows.

My comment is as we move forward, I would like to see picture books so that it's easier for us to follow along in what you're trying to describe in words. So if you've got examples, that would be great. I mean, reading through what was presented in the staff report and the agenda, I mean, I understood a lot of it, but it would be nice to see examples. So that just makes it a lot easier.

Council Member Williams. OK, I have kind of a lot. Shocker, I know. So I guess I have a couple of questions, because I I want to know kind of what the reality of this. So you gave the two examples, right? And I realize the first one is kind of wordy and stuff like that. But to me, it also feels like who's benefiting from it? If we're just streamlining this and making it more bland, which the second design standard, the objective design standard seemed to me, Are we concerned at all that developers are going to put things down to the bare minimum, and we're still not going to have anything affo

Funny enough, I'm going to talk about trees as well. I had asked for the newest tree list because I wasn't aware that there had been a change. So I appreciate that. But the concern was, while I appreciate it being updated for some of the invasive species, it did take us down to one native. So I would love to really look at that and see what we can do. I know drought tolerant and all those things. But if we can increase that list, I would like to see that since we are opening this up. I would be interested in some sort of matrix on what was retained, modified, removed, added, and which of those

compare it and I think having the public safety component in it is very important and I know projects now are going through the agencies for review and everything but having that focused into the plan I think is an important step in there again I agree with my colleagues that photos and illustrations on this stuff so making it you know not in city ease so anybody can open up this and look at it and have the ability to understand what we're really looking for and there because it's it's easy to that if you're a designer or somebody that reviews these every day to understand that, but the averag

I'm good with what both Councilmember Shaw and Williams said. I think Councilmember Shaw was kind of saying don't throw, just because it's 23 years old, don't throw it all out. And I don't think you guys are. You're just looking to update where it needs to be updated. I'm good with all that.

Did you get enough direction tonight from us? Yeah, thank you, council. I appreciate it. With that, we'll move to item 9, closed session. Item 9.1 will be public employee performance evaluation pursuant to 54954.5 , city manager. 9.2, conference with legal counsel, existing litigation pursuant to government code 54956.9, subsection D, subsection 1. ADI, Oakley, LLC, Summer Lakes Homes Association et al., and the City of Oakley Superior Court case 24-076. And with that, we'll adjourn tonight. Thank you.