City Council - Regular Meeting

Recording in progress. Go ahead and call the um I'm going to call the April 23rd, 2026 meeting to order. Let the record reflect that all council members are here. Uh I've asked three people to come up today to lead us in the pledge of allegiance. I'd like to invite my granddaughters June Francis and my other granddaughter Evelyn Kate. And this last week we had New Horizons came to the city council and uh we had an opportunity to meet a number of the students from uh New Horizons. And I asked any of those students, I said, "If you come to the 7:00 meeting on Thursday, you get to come up and lead uh help lead in the pledge of allegiance." So, I'd like to welcome Kay from New Horizons to come up and join us. Kay, I would ask everybody to stand. Young people, if you'd face the flag over here, our heart, hand on our heart, and what's the first word? 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. So, I'm proud to, as my colleagues are, to proclaim 2026 as building safety month, and I would ask staff to come up

uh and I can present the proclamation to them. Building inspectors Brian and Ray, if you come up and JOIN ME. I can't uh underestimate the importance of uh building safety, especially for those of us that have been around a long time. We remember the 1989 earthquake and the damage that it caused to thousands and thousands of homes. infrastructure. For those of you that have been around, you remember the Bay Bridge actually fell. Parts of the Bay Bridge fell. The fires in the Mission in San Francisco and of course uh the delay of the World Series from in 1989 where the A's beat the Giants four games to none. But that's a different issue entirely. Um building safety is important. You know, without building codes, electric codes, plumbing codes, people live in unsafe conditions. And so building safety is critical to make sure that the homes that are built, the modifications that are made to homes are done not only in compliance with building codes, but they're safe for the people that live there. And that's why building safety is so important. So it's with great privilege that I issue this proclamation 1971. Bye granddaughters. Do we have to stay for the whole meeting, Grandpa?

So, building safety month. Whereas the city of Newark is committed to recognizing that our growth and strength depends on the safety and essential role of our homes, buildings, and infrastructure play both in everyday life and when disasters strike and and hopefully before disasters strike. Whereas our confidence in the resilience of the buildings that make up the community is achieved through implementation of modern building codes and the dedication of building safety and fire prevention officials, architects, engineers, builders, and others in the construction industry who work year round to ensure the safe construction of buildings. And whereas these modern buildings codes include safeguards to protect the public from hazards such as hurricanes, snowstorms, tornadoes, wildfires, floods, and earthquakes. Whereas the building safety month is sponsored by the international code council to remind the public about the critical role of our community's local code officials who ensure us of a safe, sustainable, and affordable buildings that are essential to our property. Whereas built to last, the theme for building safety 2026 encourages people to get involved in all aspects of building safety. Now therefore, I'm Michael Hannon, mayor of the city, on behalf of my New York City Council, proclaim May 2026 as building safety month in Newark and urge all Newark residents to consider the commitment to improve building safety, resilience, and economic investment at home and in the community and to acknowledge the essential service provided to all of us by local and state building departments, fire prevention bureaus, federal agencies in protecting lives and property. So, it's with great uh proud that I issue this uh proclamation to our building inspection staff and you know, thank you for the work that you do. Um you make our community safer and if you look around the community, you know, we

have an outstanding fire department. Welcome back, granddaughters. We have an outstanding fire department, but you know, the the number of calls that they respond to are no longer fire building related. Most of those calls are medical related because we've made changes in our building codes that make our buildings safer for all of us and it make it make it safer for our firefighters that have to respond. So, it's with great pride I issue this proclamation to you. John, thank you for the outstanding work.

Thank you.

No. Excellent. Thank you. My pleasure. Uh it's always a great pleasure to introduce uh new employees. So Ray Yang, I'm going to ask you to come back up here again. How nice is that? I start with the city. I'm recognized and they're already giving me a proclamation. Does it get any better than this? So Ray, we're really proud that you joined the city of Newark. He joins the city of Newark with over 10 years of experience in the private sector working in general construction, real estate, and home inspection. Throughout his career, he has invol was has been involved in a wide range of projects, gaining hands-on experience in construction processes, field coordination, and property evaluation. This role marks his transition into public service, and he's excited for the opportunity to support the city of Newark. and a hus husband and father. Ray enjoys staying active and spending time outdoors with his family. He recently took up running and completed his first marathon. What was your time, Ray?

Very long. Very long. Reflecting his commitment to personal growth and pre perseverance. Ray is extremely proud and honored to work alongside some of the city's most knowledgeable inspectors. Now, did you write this part or did the building official write this part? That was you. Okay. Uh Ray is extremely proud and honored to work alongside some of the city's most knowledgeable inspectors and officials. He looks forward to developing and expanding his skills in inspection, plan review, and serving and contributing to the community. Ray, we're really proud. Happy. It's our pleasure. Thank you.

Thanks, Rick. The next item on our agenda is probably one of the most enjoyable items that I think we the council are u presented every year. Uh it comes from the New York library. Um certainly happy to have uh our librarian here, Mr. Stoner. Mr. Benoon, did you want to make any preliminary comments? Then I welcome Mr. Joe Stoner, our librarian, to the podium. Mr. STONER.

Thank you, Mayor Hannon and council and city staff. If we could get this apologies.

And also, thank you community members. I'm Here we go. Okay. Um, I wanted to start out by introducing a couple of people tonight. We also have Ramsus Esco who is our division director for community libraries in charge of all the Alama County Library branches and my boss. And we also have Ben Gberg who was recently promoted to deputy director. And because our former deputy director Deb SEA was officially hired as the county librarian or executive director. And then to round out our administrative staff, we also have Aaron Jones not here tonight. She is in charge of the equitable libraries division which includes mobile and outreach services, our bookmo and other activities, the education and literacy services department, and some staff working on other special projects. So, I always like to start with some numbers. And since we're approaching our 5-year anniversary, I thought I would show you how things have been going over the last 5 years. We opened the new library August 2021 with Sunday hours funded by the city of Newark starting in July 2023. Thank you. And as you can see, we've seen some steady growth. um average daily average visitors the hourly rate as well. I wanted to highlight a few specific numbers not on the chart. So for example last year during the win the school winter break we saw almost 5,000 visitors in the library including 783 on Saturday January 3rd.

Christmas Eve, we had 333 visitors. New Year's Eve, we had almost 400 visitors. So, even during the holidays, people are coming to the library. Our busiest day was Saturday, November 15th, when we had over,300 visitors, the day of our second annual Palestinian Olive Harvest Festival. for our Sundays. Uh Sundays are typically our busiest day per hour. So, we're open four hours, one o'clock to 5 o'clock. And you can see our hourly average is almost 50% above the hourly average for the whole year. Another number that we track closely are our book checkouts or what we call circulation. So you can see those numbers were trending upward. We're we're kind of stable now. I would say um for 2026 those numbers include through March through the end of March. This year I also wanted to include our ebook checkouts. So we're not tracking those specifically by branch location. So, I took the Newark library percentage of total visitors to Alama County and also looked at our our percentage of total physical checkouts, which are they're very similar, about 11% of each. So, that would be about 162,000 ebook, e audio checkouts through the Libby app or there's also digital magazines and a variety of other electronic items people can check out. And now the drum roll. So in the new library, we have seen just over 600,000 visitors since we opened. I wanted to mention if if the carpet and the paint is looking a little worn already, that's

why. And we also by the end of March passed uh 1.1 million checkouts. And again, these are only physical items housed in the New York library. This does not include the uh digital collection. I included this photo here just as a sample of the variety of ways people use the library. Every day we're open. A wide range of activities you can see there. And on the second floor, we call this the overlook. Some days we have twice this many people in this area. A lot of remote workers, college students studying. Uh this is one of the quieter areas of the library. So there are some other numbers we track including the number of new library cards issued. And this last year I was honored to issue a card to Mayor Hannon. Great memories of that day. And since we were standing in front of Oh, we got a question.

Was that a new a new library card or was that a replacement card? That was a new library card. And

since we were standing in front of our our public printing and copying station, I thought we would uh mention these numbers here. So, um lots of printing and computer use happening in the library. We have wireless printing available so people can print from their phones or their own devices. With a library card, you get 10 pages of free black and white printing every day. You do have to pay 15 cents for copies or additional printouts and 35 cents for color, but we have offer all of those services. I skipped over the second item, our our meeting room bookings. So, this is specifically the Newark room, which is right in the the front of the library, the first floor. Last year, we had 454 bookings. Many of those are from library staff but also from community members. So that amounted to 68% of our open hours that that room was in use. We also have three public study rooms on the second floor that anyone can reserve online through the library website and I checked those numbers. We had 3,400 bookings of those three rooms which means they're booked constantly. So, we'll talk a little bit more about our programs that we offer. Um, last year, Newark Library offered or presented the staff presented 756 programs, total attendance of over 16,000. This is interesting to me. I I had never thought about it quite this way, but across all of our libraries, our program attendance is approximately 10% of our total library visitor count. And so planning and presenting programs does take a lot of staff time. And yet you see there's a lot of other activities

happening in the library, too. um the the casual use that people have when they come in to borrow books, to study, to do remote work, all of those things. But I want to feature just a few of our our programs I'm especially proud of. We were recently uh written up on the nonprofit news site, Eltempono, for the Spanish language adult book club that Newark Library hosts. This was started, this was an outgrowth of the Newark Promatorus group and I don't think there's another group quite like this happening anywhere in the US to my knowledge. Um, this is a Spanish language book club, but they meet every single week. They're reading Spanish self-help books together. There are 30 or more people showing up, almost all women. We had I counted 40 this morning including the kids who were there, one one man in the audience. Um, but it's it's such a powerful group. Lena, who is the leader of the group, talks about it. It really is a an emotional support group in addition to to reading and discussing books together. And with monetary donations, we're able to purchase uh books to give to all of the participants so they have their own copy to read. And speaking of reading, so coming up, um it's already starting, but um this year is the first time libraries all up the West Coast are doing one book, one coast, featuring George Teay's book, They Called Us Enemy. And at Newark Library on May 30th, we're hinging hosting a live watch party when George Decay will be interviewed by the LA County Library. So, it'll be on Zoom

here, but live in LA. Another partnership that I'm really excited about is with uh the nonprofit Our Cause. So, they're working to um raise mental health awareness specifically in the South Asian community. They have a a women's support group that meets at the library every month. Recently, we also hosted a uh a panel featuring a local marriage and family therapist um talk about how to improve communication between teens and their parents. And I I sat in on the session and it was it was incredibly insightful. It was it was a really great program. Another program that I'm I'm really proud that we're able to offer um and and how it came about as well. So, this was a a proposal from a community member who is here in the audience tonight. Lupita brought this to my attention. This is a uh a support group for parents with special needs children that's organized by Laafamilia, the nonprofit La Familia. They've been doing groups like this for decades, but there had not been one in Newark. And so we're hosting this at the library once a month and there are over 20 parents already showing up to this um sharing resources and information just to to how they can help their their families better. So this year we also had a special Lunar New Year celebration co-organized by Council Member Julie Delc Katansio. Thank you. With uh Senator Dr. Isha Wahhab. And here we have the council

member feeding the the lion. This was a a ritual feeding of the the lion. I also wanted to talk a little bit about our library volunteers. So I captured these uh screenshots uh a week where I think we set a record for the total number of volunteer opportunities. This is not typical, but for a moment there, we had 18 different ways that people could volunteer at the library. Um, we have most of the time over 400 people who have applied to be volunteers at the Newark Library. The majority are are teens. Um, one of our, you know, consistent ways we have teen volunteers is with our homework help program. Um but uh moving along. So this is kind of a summary of a lot of our ongoing programs that we offer at the library. We uh have a grand piano, which I'm very proud of. So we feature a lot of music programs. We have five English conversation groups. Four for adults, one for teens that are all for uh people learning English to to be able to practice conversing in a comfortable space. I want to extend my invitation to everyone here. I think this is one of the most most fundamental ways we build community is by getting to know each other. And this is a great way if you want to come and visit one of our conversation groups. It's a great way to to learn about our community members. But I also want to highlight some of the the really um ingenious ways our community members are

using the library meeting room. So the next few slides are programs that library staff did not organize. All all I did was accept uh a community member's application to use the Newark Room. And this particular day uh this this concert just blew me away. I would call it kind of a a Chinese language pop rock choir. If you've ever heard of the group the Polyonic Spree, it was it was kind of like that. uh a number of professional musicians participating in this. We also had a community group present a Chinese art symposium. So they had a number of speakers talking about different um types of Chinese art. I also wanted to highlight one of our our closest partners, the nonprofit Eternity Band. So, they bring students from all over the Tri-C area together to perform in music groups. They're organized by Johnny Cho. If you look in the the lower left photo, he's playing guitar there. First time I've ever heard him perform publicly, by the way. Um, but these groups perform about a hundred times a year all around the Bay Area at county fairs and BART stations. This was the annual Lunar New Year variety show at the Silon Center gym. They've also organized a Dvali celebration of dancers and performers. I think this particular program had about two dozen different groups performing. Um we're just really grateful to them for all they do to bring music to Newark Library and the community. So, I did want to touch on um one of the

closest ways we partner with the Newark Unified School District is by providing free lunches at the library. Last spring, I think we they were able to give out almost 7,000 after school snacks uh in the library lobby over the summer, about 150 a day, so around 5,000. this fall. Uh I was told the percentage of students who qualify for free and reduced lunch as reported has has declined to a point where they were not able to provide the meals in the library, but they will be able to again this summer. It's just how all the funding for that works. But I also wanted to compare to what other libraries around the state are able to do. So the the state library has a free summer lunch program. Their average is about 1,800 meals per location. So, you can see at Newark Library, we're we're vastly outpacing what a typical library lunch program does. And I have one more reminder before we have time for questions. So, with your library card, anyone can search the library website for discover and go. You can get free or discounted prices to a lot of Bay Area museums and zoos and other cultural venues. And we also have California State Park passes. About 200 of those available to reserve or check out that give free admission to most, but not quite all California state parks. Another benefit of your library card. Thank you. Any questions?

I I got my pin re uh reissued yesterday, Joe. Just want to let you know that. Uh before I turn it over to my colleagues, is there anybody in the audience that would like to speak to this item? Anybody in the audience that would like to speak to this item? Okay, I'll turn it over to my council colleagues. I'll start with Council Member Grenal.

Great. Thank you. Um sorry. Um okay for um Mr. Stoner very very very pleased with your presentation as always clear and um informative um and the work you do in our community is just so highly appreciated. I mean it's it's great that your boss is here cuz you're doing a great job. You um you know you don't just throw up a library and and open the doors. you you have to you have to do programs and you make those programs real for our community by engaging with the community. So, we I just so appreciate your um your efforts and the reason we're the we have the best library in um probably the world is largely on your shoulders and really appreciate that. And um I I do I do have the the privilege of serving on the Alama County Library Commission and um we were able to show off our library just la just this month and so that's very exciting. But I I just wanted to thank you for all the work you're doing and uh we really appreciate what you're doing with our community. Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member. And I I must give some credit to my staff as well. We have outstanding library staff. Council Little.

Um so I just want to say, you know, I'm a huge fan of you. You know, number one, I think you should definitely get a raise or something like that. You're just amazing at what you do. Um but but the thing is what I love about what you do and what every and your staff members are incredible. Everything does. The point is you understand what community is about and one of the biggest needs that the community needs is space. And so when someone wants to host an event or something like that, especially nonprofits, they don't have money to rent a location, $5, $800, things of that sort. And it's something simple that they're not even charging. And if they have to charge, it rolls over to the guests coming in. So now we cause problems with equity and then having to charge and things of that sort. So thanks to you, we were able to host two senior citizen, you know, uh, seminars that we had coming up talking about cyber security. We had the FBI come out and they did a big presentation on it. It was really, really good. And so, but it would not have happened and it would not have been free to the New York residents if it hadn't been for what you guys are doing. So, I'm a direct example of the positive things that you guys are doing. So, I want to tell you for that. Um, I also wanted to say thank you for the teen support sessions. He was laughing with me because I have a teenager and I wish I had known that there was help and therapy for that. So I I would have liked to know about that. Um but I do think what something else we do definitely need to know and I think it's important is I love how you guys continue to keep it for nonprofits only and you understand to rent out that room and things that sort and a lot of people don't have internet and people don't have ways to make a simple copy or two. So just having those simple things can take so much stress off someone's life. So it's not just a library. It is really a community center and I think it's really important that people understand that are available and things of that sort. Um I'm just really pleased that it was made a decision to name the library after Algi. Al Neggi believes in education. Algi believes in libraries and books and people can learn through books. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you for choosing that individual to be the one that you highlight for that and things that sort. So um do you have anything planned coming up? Any events coming up in end of September or August you want to talk about? There there is a special event that you tell

me a little more about it. August Saturday, August 29th, 1 to 4 pm will be our first annual recreation, wellness, and sport fair co-organized by council member Eve Little. Oh my gosh, that's so crazy. Could you tell us a little more what it's going to be about? Well, we're we're bringing in a lot of nonprofit vendors, uh, highlighting sports teams, scouting, um, uh, nonprofit healthcare providers. We're going to have some special performers. We're going to do a little fifth anniversary celebration for the library at the same time. Did I miss anything?

Yeah. And we're also going to make sure that you guys know about what's opportunity for wellness, helping senior citizens, giving them different things and just making it a resource opportunity for people to be aware of what's available for their health and wellness and what we can do to help get people off their electronics and get them outside. So, you're so awesome. Thank you for letting me know that. Thank you so much, Council Member Doug Katanchio.

Yes. Thank you so much um for your presentation and I'm really excited that not only am I able to also work with you but that the community is able to see you out there as a pioneer really because I know that you've even gone above and beyond by reaching out to community members and nonprofits. Thank you as well um not only for organizing but also being on top of all the amounts of volunteers that you have not only from Newark but also from the high schools of other surrounding cities.

So I really appreciate everything that you're doing um as well as not only um organizing with other libraries. So, I know that's Alama County Library. Um, but of course, we have a special um idea that New Works is our library, but I really love that you're also um able to coordinate things with other librarians as well. Um, so thank you for having the foresight for planning because we all know that hindsight's always 2020, but you're always able to have everything on target and thank you for everything that you're doing.

Thank you, Council Member Vice Mayor Jorgens. You know, I want to thank you for the presentation. It was a great presentation, which is, you know, just scratches the surface of the great work that's being done. Uh, one thing I do want to especially thank you for is, you know, I I stop into the library at various times, various days throughout the week, and doesn't seem to matter when I stop by. There's something going on that's giving life to that space. And that's something that programmatically is very challenging to figure out. Okay. You know, throughout the day, we're going to have things going on that makes the library feel like this vibrant place, that feels like this, you know, necessary community space. So, I I just want to uh you know, highlight that for you. And I think what you're hearing from, you know, this council is keep it up. There's great things happening at the Newark Library. Mr. Stony, you really do uh exemplify what is the best in public service. uh your commitment to the New York library. Um for those that have not uh been around long enough to remember, when this city council was considering the civic center project here, we did not have the library initially at the corner of Thornton and Newark Boulevard. We had city hall there and the library was going to be the the back building. But when we realized the amount of volume and activity at the library and you showed that with a number with over 600,000, we clearly understood that the library needed to be at the corner. It really did exemplify not just the library services, but as council member Little mentioned, it's really a community center where people get together irrespective of what your beliefs are. We have events for Chinese, for Muslims, for Hindus, for Spanish, for Chinese. It doesn't matter what your ethnic background is. There's events there for all ages and all ethnicities. It really is a community space and uh

we're really proud of it. Drive by uh at nighttime at 8:30, 9:00 and you see all the lights on at the library and a lot of activity at the library. People are using it. Um I'm not sure what else you can do that you haven't done already. you've you've transformed the space into a space where everybody feels welcome and uh for that we thank you and I'm glad your your bosses are here to see how much we appreciate you and the service you're doing for our community because uh this is probably one of the most um enjoyable and appreciated um presentations we get every year and the numbers uh always for some reason cease to amaze me when you think about Newark and the size of our community but the volume of activity ity relative to the size of the county, how well we're doing. U it's it's a great space. It's one that our kids love to to use. I'm so pleased that this council saw the foresight to increase and and actually renew the Sunday hours. We knew that those were popular, but sometimes in tough times, you have to make economic decisions that you're not excited about, but the fact that we were able to return those Sunday hours um and see the volume of activity on Sundays, I think we hit a home run with that as well. So, thank you for the presentation. Keep up the good work. You know, you have our support uh for the work you're doing. And uh thank you for coming tonight.

Thank you, Mayor. I I need to clarify one small point. Uh if the lights are on after 8:00 p.m., that's because the library is being cleaned.

They're cleaning it quickly. A lot of activity. So, again, thanks, Joe. Appreciate it. again. I recently uh with the assistance of the manager, I recently downloaded the app Libby and uh and want to uh listen to some audio books, but I'll tell you those audio books are in demand. There's a waiting list for a lot of the very popular books on audio. So, um, I may have to go back and and look at some books that are dated in terms of that might be available. So, uh,

find some good ones. Take take advantage of that as well. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm going to go to the public comment section of our agenda. This is an opportunity for the public to speak on any item that is not on the agenda this evening. Um, so if you'd like to speak to the council on any item that's not on the agenda, we welcome you to come up to the podium. Is there anybody here that would like to speak to the council on an item not on the agenda? Yes, ma'am. Good evening. Good evening. Um, your name, please.

Yes. My name is Diane Calbury. Say, good evening, Mayor Hannon. Um, council members, city manager, and um staff in the community. I'm with AC Transit. Just trying to provide kind of a public service announcement. So, I'm here to share a critical update regarding the future of our service. Um, on Wednesday, June 10th at 5:00 p.m., the AC Transit Board of Directors will consider um two scenarios to potentially reduce service due to significant budget shortfalls. Um, while a state loan has stabilized our immediate budget for this year, AC Transit is facing a $200 million deficit over the next four years. Um, so without new sustainable revenue, we are facing the possibility of service reductions of over 16% and the loss of up to 300 jobs. AC Transit has started to prepare for this worst case scenario. If no new funding is secured, service reductions will likely take place in June 2027. Um I want to be clear though that um no decision has been made yet about which routes will be affected. However, every bus line in the district is currently under review. Um while our priority is to preserve current service levels, we also want to be transparent about the challenges we face. The AC Transit Board of Directors will consider two potential service reduction scenarios. Um, again, that's on Wednesday, June 10th at 5:00 p.m. We invite the community to attend an open house to review the possible service changes and provide feedback. The open house will be held prior to the June 10th board meeting at AC Transit's main office located in the 1600 Franklin Street in downtown Oakland. We will also be out in the community as well as in Newark. Um, so you'll be we'll have a a list of where we'll be um posted on our website and we'll send that out to all of you so that you'll have that as well so you don't have to come all the way to downtown Oakland. Um, the the um and then I will provide details in the coming weeks and we look forward to working with you to share this information with your community. And lastly, I just want to um thank the the

the mayor and the city council. Um uh we'll be having our first um South County inter agency leaison committee sometime in June. We're just trying to secure the location. Um, and that's with the city of Fremont as well as city of Newark and our AC transit board of directors. So, um, that concludes my remarks and thank you very much. Thank you for being here this evening. Uh, mass transportation is an important uh, mode of transportation for many of our residents. So, I thank you for bringing that issue to our attention. And please do share with our city manager the date, time, location for the um folks in Newark area to be able to attend and participate uh on that June 10th event. Thank you. Okay. Thank you.

Is there anybody else here from the public that would like to speak to the council on an item not on the agenda? You know, mayor, the four of us actually have a presentation that we would like to make. Okay. I didn't see this coming. city attorney. This is not on our agenda. This is okay. This presentation.

Uh so we give these you know proclamations to people who contribute a lot to the city of Newark and mayor on the occasion of your 70th birthday. uh we want to uh provide a proclamation to you as well. Whereas Mayor Hannon has dedicated his career to public service, including 27 years with the city of San Jose, retiring as deputy director in the planning, building, and public works department, demonstrating strong leadership and commitment to the community. And whereas Mayor Hannon joined the city of Newark Planning Commission in I'm sorry, thank you. Um whereas Mayor Hannon joined the city of Newark planning commission in 2013 serving as vice chairman and was elected to the New York City council in 2014. And whereas in November 2022, Mayor Hannon became Newark's fourth directly elected mayor and in November 2024 was reelected in recognition of his continued leadership and and whereas Mayor Hannon has advanced Newark's quality of life through support of public safety, infrastructure, housing, and community services and has contributed to community beautifification efforts. And whereas Mayor Hannon serves the community beyond City Hall through volunteer work with life elder care, leadership in the Newark Rotary Club, and participation in St. Edwards men's club. And whereas Mayor Hammond represents Newark on regional boards and committees. Let me see. I'm going to look at him too. Okay. Including transport, let me see. Including transportation, housing, waste reduction, and inter agency advisory bodies. And whereas Mayor Mike Cannon is also a devoted husband to deeply in love with Miss Kathleen Hinnon, married for 47 years, father of seven, and

grandfather of 11, reflecting his deep commitment to family and services. And and whereas Mayor Hannon celebrates his 70th birthday, uh the city of Newark uh recognizes leadership, dedication, and lasting contributions to the community. Now, therefore, the city council of the city of Newark on behalf of his residents and everyone here um hereby honors the honorable mayor, Michael K. Hannon for his exemplary service and leadership congratulates him on his 70th birthday and extends best wishes for his continued health, happiness and success.

21st birthday Lots of kids.

Thank you. Have a seat. Um, first of all, I want to thank my colleagues. Uh, I don't know how if you know how much this means to me. Um, I've always always taken public service to be so important. You know, we're here to serve the public. Uh, sometimes it's a thankless job because you make decisions that people are not always excited about or you're asking people to do things that they really don't want to do. But if you love your community and you want to do what's right for your community, the job becomes that much more rewarding and refreshing. And it's with these folks that makes the job that much easier. We don't always agree and my prior councils we didn't always agree but we're always going to be respectful and we respect the fact that each one of us comes to this job with a different perspective different viewpoint different idea and all of them are valuable because we represent the entire community and so I'm just a small part of this council and uh the decisions that we make they're always made from the heart they're always made because We believe whether we agree or don't agree with each other, we're we're we're making the decision that we think is in the best interest of our community. And how can you not appreciate that? We do. And if we had our state and federal government working the way we do, this country would be in a much different situation. Um, but I've been in public service now for almost 40 years. 40 years. And uh before I uh continue, let me c certainly introduce those people that are most important to me. My wife, KATHLEEN,

my oldest son, David, who obviously came down from Portland for this event.

Wow. my son Matthew, uh his partner Jason, Teresa, my daughter-in-law, her kids Owen and Eve, my son James, my son-in-law Adam, and of course my daughter So 60% of my kids are here. No, I'm sorry. Five of the seven kids are here, but 60% of the lawyers are here. So I need to be careful about what I say from here on. I'll look to my city attorney to caution me when necessary. Um, and of course my granddaughter, Hazel. Hazel.

June. I said June, didn't I? I think. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, when you got seven kids and 11 grandkids, someone's going to get forgotten. I recommend a brief recess so you can

I will for a moment. I want to recognize our former council colleagues, Council Member Louie Freighus. 29 years. 29 years. Not once, but twice. Council member Anna Aphadaka. Council member I always have to tell the story about council member Apadaka. It was just hilarious in my mind because uh I've been on the council longer than these folks and we brought council member Apadaka back and she was so gracious to serve and we were in a close session and we were discussing an issue and uh council member Apadaka I I thought we talked about this the last time I was on the council you know so appreciated her leadership and of course this city wouldn't be who it is today without council member Susie Coyaso and the community that Thank you. Thank you.

And council member, I continue to emphasize shop Newark. Shop. Shop Newark. So, we'll take a fivem minute recess. Um, I'm honored and uh, you know, words can't really express um, my gratitude to my colleagues for recognizing this uh, this important day. Uh, I haven't hit 70 yet, so let's knock on wood, right? Let's knock on wood to make sure that that day actually happens. Uh, if not, uh, congratulations. No, that's why we put health there in writing. So, we'll go ahead and take a fiveminute recess. Thank you, folks.

Actually, your honor, your honor, if I may, we do have a little bit of a reception out in the lobby complete with cupcakes along with the typical festivities of singing happy birthday. You lied to me. I would never lie, sir. Was asking what that was all about. It was innovation on the spot to secure a secret. Yes. Um, but we do have a few members in the audience here who I believe are here to speak about quiet zones which appears later on the agenda. Since we do have a bit of a reception outside for about 15 20 minutes, perhaps it would make sense to take that those comments first before we Yeah,

we'll do that. All right, let's take those comments and we'll take a break. Okay, colleagues. Kathleen and I live in a um culde-sac with the seven kids. And uh it was always interesting and this is my segue to quiet zones. Uh my segue to when my neighbor was selling his property and he indicated that it was on a quiet culde-sac. I thought he obviously didn't tell the prospective buyers that there's a family of seven children next door. So, um, ladies and gentlemen, it's it's unusual that we will call for public comment on agendaized items, uh, in advance, but we're very sensitive as this council is to the your time and the value of your time and making sure that you're heard on an issue that's important to you. So, we will be hearing some discussion on quiet zones when we get to the um, capital improvement plan. So, I thank you for being here. If you'd identify yourself and Yes, my name is Julio Lines. I uh obviously live in New York and uh maybe I I bought the house you're talking about. Uh and our house does back to the railroad tracks. So, uh I from what I understand, the proposal has been turned in and you're waiting for the railroad uh company to accept it. And I tell you from the bottom of my heart, I thank you because you have no idea how horrible it is at 3:00 in the morning to be awoken by a train that's just like, "Hey guys, wake up. It's time to uh get up, I guess." So, thank you for, you know, having started that project. It'll be great, greatly

appreciated. I can tell you that. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you. And call We can comment on comments here made because it is on the agenda, I would imagine. Yes, sir. City attorney. Yeah. Yeah. So, thank you for for coming. It it's an import it's been an important issue in our community for a number of years and we're really uh thankful to the assembly member who gave the city of New York several I think it was $2 million or close to it to help us with the quiet zone. So, it's it's one of our priorities and I would anticipate not um kind of reading the tea leaves. I I would anticipate the council is going to approve this this item fairly fairly easily. So, thank you. Appreciate it. You're welcome, sir.

Thank you. Other comments regarding the quiet zone or let's say any other comments on any other item on the agenda since we're going to be taking a break. Yes, sir. Please come up and identify uh who you are, please. Uh hello council members. Uh my name is Ashton Tang. Um I live around two blocks from here. Um this is my first time in this meeting and so I apologize I I don't know a lot of the context as well as how to present myself in such meetings. Um, I just wanted to say, um, yeah, I've been I've been living in New York since, uh, 2022. Um, and, um, everything about the community is great. I love living here. I love to see how the city is improving very very quickly. Uh, but the issue of the quiet zones and the train horns has been deep my heart. Um yeah, I I I suffer from insomnia and um I'm a light sleeper and so uh this is something that I wasn't aware of when joining the community was the you know the middle of night uh train horns and I believe there's like around nine different intersections where there's uh there's like close to me with train horns and um yeah initially uh especially during the winter the sound is especially um loud and I've had to um buy special uh uh white noise machines uh blowing white noise into my ears so that I can sleep and um and you know every winter I'm thinking about I should really move out of the city and so I've been thinking about moving away for many many times but I do like everything else about here and so obviously I was really heartened to hear about the $2 million plan but then uh I was a little bit unclear about what um are the action items or the current uh progress I have been corresponding with um I someone on the city council um about this um through email. Um but I have to say that I would love to see like what is the timeline um what are some more details

um what additional funding needs to be gotten and so this way I I can um have like some kind of um estimate in my mind like for example within two years what is the probability that there will be quiet zones so that I can plan whether I continue living in this community for the long term. Thank you. Well, first of all, you conducted yourself very well, Ashton. Thank you for coming tonight. Uh, you know, when you're a small community like Newark, you know, we want folks to look at us as just other residents in the community. And, um, the issue that's important to you is important to us. Uh, I'll ask the city manager if you could maybe at a high level maybe kind of capture kind of the timeline that assuming that the capital improvement plan is approved as it relates to the quiet zones, what residents might anticipate.

Sure. In the presentation this evening, there will be a slide about this and it does provide a very brief timeline. Um, we are looking at finalizing design in the next year or two. Uh, it is a laborious process because we do have to deal with Union Pacific Railroad and there's a lot of forms that we have to work on and coordinate with them. Um, and then after that then we'll go ahead and construct them. Uh, when we celebrate the mayor's birthday, you're welcome, of course, enjoy a cupcake. Uh, you're also welcome to speak with Mr. Mickey Sabota who's the city's civil engineer and be happy to give you more detail. Cool. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Ben. Thank you. Are there other folks? Yes, Mr. Grenal. Council member, you can ask for the public first. No, go ahead, sir.

Oh, I I just wanted to uh to note and I appreciate the the community's input on this that um as it's it's a it's a double it's a double positive because when we go through the quiet zone process, the way we're able to achieve quiet zones is by improving the safety at our crossing. So, not only do we address noise pollution in our community, but we're also making it safer for people to to be pedest particularly pedestrians crossing our our railroad lines. So, so this council is very interested in safety and so just wanted to indicate that in addition to the noise issue, it it's an important safety element as well.

There there was one thing I wanted to add if that was okay. Um, so one thing that we're our city's working on that I really really like is that when we're putting our website, we're updating all of the updates of the projects that are going on. So David can give you a little more information about that. But if you want, you can Google it, look up the project and when you click on it, it actually tells you we're at this point, we're at this point, at this point. So we're being very transparent with that information so you're aware of where we are in the stage. So he can definitely give you that information. Council member Delatio.

Yes, your honor. Thank you. And also thank you to the public members who have come out um regarding the quiet zone. You're definitely welcome to stay during the presentation so that way you could receive a little bit more knowledge but also to keep in touch not only with us here at city council but also with our city staff as well. I definitely understand um because I grew up in the area that there are trains that go at random different times. Even though it feels like it's random, it is on a schedule. So I can understand that as well. Um, but it sounds like we are having our steps. Like step one, we do have the $2 million that was secured from our assembly member. Step two, tonight we're going to be discussing our capital improvement plan. And step three, we're planning to also work with uh Union Pacific Railroad. And so those steps are in place. Thank you.

Other public comments on any item that's on the agenda, not just quiet zones, but if there is any item you'd like to discuss, we're here to listen. Thank you for those that made their comments. We're going to take a five minute, maybe a 15-minute break. All right, we're in recess for 15 minutes.

Again, huge thanks to my council colleagues and my family for coordinating a celebration of my birthday to come. And I appreciate that. Um, again, that's what Newark's about. We celebrate we celebrate each other, and that's what uh that's what we do. The next item on the agenda is our consent calendar. These are items that are considered to be routine and may be approved by one motion. There will be no separate discussion on these items unless there is a request by a council member, staff member or member of the public to remove an item for separate discussion and you certainly uh are encouraged or um have our permission to do so. So the consent calendar will consist of the following. One is the approval of audited demands. Two, the approval of the April 9, 2026 city council minutes for the regular meeting. Three, wave further reading and adopt an ordinance amending the chapter 2.14 public art committee of the New York Municipal Code. Four, adopt resolution initiating proceedings for the formation of landscaping and lighting district number 21, track 8665 and ordering preparation of the required engineers report pursuant to the landscaping and lighting act of 1972 and section 4 of article X111D of the California Constitution. Five, adopt a resolution initiating the 2026 weed abatement program and setting June 11 for a public hearing. Six, adopt a resolution approving a contractual services agreement with WSPUSA, Inc. to conduct storm water inspection services as required by the city's storm water discharge permit. Seven, adopt a resolution approving a contractual services agreement with Verdantas uh Inc. to conduct storm water inspection services as required by the city's storm water discharge permit. Eight, adopt a resolution awarding a contract to

plumber build, Inc. for construction of the service center fueling facility CIP 1310 consolidating related CIP projects 13304 and 1335 and amend the FY 2024 2026 budget is there any item Mr. Mr. Benoon, you want pulled from the consent calendar? Not this evening, your honor. Ladies and gentlemen, having read the consent calendar, is there any item that you would like pulled for further discussion? Staff are here to answer any questions or provide further input. Anybody would like to pull on any of those items? Colleagues, any items you want pulled from the consent calendar? I would just like a little bit more clarification on number three. Just is that just to we we've voted, we've adopted, we agree, we're moving forward.

One we pull and we'll discuss. I'm sorry. Okay, perfect. Okay. So, we're going to pull item number three. Any other items to be pulled? Can I get a motion and approval to accept every other item on the consent calendar other than item three? So, moved by council member delio, seconded by council member Gindal. Please vote.

It's birthday thing. I would vote yes. So that passes with five eyes. I knew there was something I forgot there. Okay. Um, city manager, item three, please.

Yes, your honor. This is the second reading of the municipal code, uh, chapter 2.14, certain amendments relating to the public art committee. If the council may recall, uh, this ordinance was introduced at the previous council meeting. Uh, this amends the, um, number of committee members for the public art committee. Uh pursuant to state law, there has to be a second reading of that ordinance. Um we typically place these items on the consent calendar since the council's already decided these items at a previous council meeting. Uh the ordinance would take effect 30 days after the second reading. It's more of a legal formality from our perspective. Just wanted to double check it had to do with the five the five to nine. Yes, correct. Perfect. Thank you.

No, thank you. And I think it's always important to ask the question while we pull the item. That way if other council members have questions, they can ask them as well. So, with Council Member Little's questions being answered, can I get a motion to accept item uh D3, please? I'll motion it by Council Member Little. Second by the vice mayor. Please vote.

And that passes unanimously. Thank you very much. An ordinance of the city council of the city of Newmending Chapter 2.14, Public Art Committee of New York Municipal Code. Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to return to our public hearings. And the first public hearing is to consider adoption of the fiscal year 2026 2027 master fee schedule and related fee adjustments. Uh Mr. Benoon.

Yes. Good evening honor members of the council. This is a public hearing to consider staff's recommended changes to the city's master fee schedule. Uh to provide some brief background. Uh each year staff reviews our fees to ensure that they are aligned uh with the actual cost of delivering services. Uh this is a collaborative process between various city departments and that includes a comprehensive analysis. We have a brief presentation uh this evening by one of our accountants uh Mr. Ivan Quan. Uh Mr. Quan will provide an overview of the methodology and explain the significant changes to the master fee schedule. Uh Mr. Quan, you have the floor. All right. And there is no PowerPoint presentation. This is for item F1. He just has about a three or four minute u oral report. Mr. Quan, thank you.

Thank you. welcome this evening.

Thank you, Mr. Brun. Good evening, your honor and city council. My name is Ivan Quan, accountant from the finance department. Tonight, I'm presenting for your consideration a proposed amendment to the city of Newark master fee schedule for fiscal year 2027. Each year, the city conducts a comprehensive review of the master fee schedule to ensure fees align with the cost of providing services. This review is conducted across departments and includes both indirect indirect cost analysis consistent with the city's cost recovery policy. The last comprehensive update of the master fee schedule took place in June 2025. For the proposed master fee schedule for fiscal year 2027, a 3% consumer price index was applied to all applicable fees. A detail of the proposed fees is in exhibit A in the staff report. Highlight of the proposed changes in exhibit A includes addition addition of new fees such as adding a legal fee fee to recover costs when reimbursement agreements are not in place. Adjustment of fees to align with market rates and staff time. Update fee. Update fee description for clarity and update Newark municipal code references for recreation and community service fees. A comp a comprehensive cost of service and market analysis is underway. So as of right now, not all recreation and community service fees are being updated. Staff will return to council in three to four months with a comprehensive recreation fee update and

recommended adjustment consistent with the city cost recovery policy. If re if approved, the master fee schedule will be effective July 1st, 2026. Staff recommends city council adopts the resolution approving the master fee schedule for fiscal year 2027. And with that, thank you your honor and members of the council. This concludes my presentation. Staff representative from various departments are here to answer any further questions. Thank you for the presentation. Just to clarify, the fee schedule will go into effect for fiscal year 2627. Is that correct, Mr. Bon? That's correct, your honor.

Thank you very much. Is there anybody in the audience that has questions regarding the master fee schedule? And uh just before we open up for council comments and and discussion, I want to make sure I understand because one of the most important uh and impactful fees, Mr. Bon, to our residents is certainly the cost for recreational services. Um it's it's the services we provide at the Silman Center and other recreational amenities throughout the city. So if I understand the report, uh those fees will come back for further council uh discussion, consideration probably in the next 3 4 months. That's correct.

Thank you. Questions, comments on the fee schedule? I'll start to my right this time. Council member Delatanio, questions. I don't have questions at this time, but I do thank you for your presentation. Okay. Thank you. Uh Vice Mayor, any questions, comments at this point? Uh no questions. Thank you for the clear presentation. Council member Little, any questions at this point? No. Thank you for coming out. I think this is your first time. Yeah. I about to say you did a really good job. Thank you so much. Thank you. And any deficiency in any of our fees, by the way, we'll be chit cchatting with you, by the way. Did they tell you that? I think it's coming out of his paycheck, right? Yeah. Uh, Council Gindell,

funny you mentioned that. the um the um so and there's a long-standing issue I've had with our with our fees for the Solomon Center for Recreation Services. Um we have a very minor increase in for non-residents and these are particularly in the case of the aquatic center. This these are programs that that require a a dramatic general fund subsidy and um we really should be doing a closer job of cost recovery in that case. And I understand there's going to be an analysis of it. However, um the the increase over o over residents to non-residents is only about 14% right now. It it varies by few decimal points but around that amount. And I believe we should we should while we're going through this process, I think that we should increase the non-resident fee to be 25% higher than the resident fee. Um when you when you see when you see a line of people trying to get into the aquatic center, most of them being res people from other cities um and and knowing that our tax dollars are New York tax dollars are are subsidizing that and Newark people are waiting in line. Um I really would like to see that changed immediately. I mean, I certainly I can change for the for the fiscal year, but I I don't I don't I I applaud the city staff for um for addressing this and analyzing it. But in the meantime, I think we should increase that we should increase our fees for non-residents to be at least 25% above the um the um resident fee. So, um, so I I' I'd like to I'd like to include that in in a motion even or or how how are we handle like to handle that, Mr. Mr. Mayor, but, um, I I do want to I do want to make that make progress in that area

right now.

And I think the intent tonight, Mr. Man, correct me if I'm wrong, is really to accept council feedback on this item as it it moves forward as it relates to the recreation fees. Council Grend Doll has made a suggestion that we as we study that issue, maybe we come back with a fee schedule that looks like what it currently looks like in terms of that 14% differential as he's alluded to and then what it would look like with a 25% fee adjustment. Is that something that you can come back and report to the council in terms of what that dollar differential would look like and we as a council can then vote on whether or not we want to go with the higher or the current or is that something we need to make a decision on this evening? I think the council has discretion on the approach on this item. Uh the recommendation from staff is to uh approve the uh fees as presented in the uh attachment agent resolution. Uh if the council would like to provide policy direction to staff to increase uh to a general baseline of 25% across the board for all recreation or silon center. Um we can certainly do that. Uh we can make those changes this evening. Uh we can also bring it back for clarity at the at the next council meeting. Uh what staff is currently doing is evaluating uh doing a full comprehensive analysis uh in terms of the market. Uh what do our services that services that we provide? How does that relate to fees that other agencies or other amenities are offering to the community? And uh that part of it and part of that analysis is to say okay well if you have a resident non-resident excuse me who is frequenting one of our facilities what are their other options? What are the costs associated with that? uh would they then choose and elect to go to another facility instead of the city of of Newark's facility? Uh council member is absolutely correct that uh there's general fund subsidy of recreation programming. Um that is very much true. That's the case uh as well as it should be. These are public facilities and we're not here to to make money off these sorts of things. We're here to serve the community. So I I

don't dispute that. Don't disagree with that in any way, shape, or form. Uh the the staff's position on this is we'd like to make sure we do the proper homework and analysis to see uh what that impact would be, whether it's 14 25 uh so on and so forth. But on the face of it, certainly 14% does not appear to be uh equitable in terms of there being an increased fee for non-residents. Council member for is correct. For the most part, these these fees are uh generally paid by city of New York taxpayer dollars. So, um, that's our position and happy to answer any questions that the council provides and we're happy.

I have a question. I do have a question. I'm sorry. Um, I have a question for rec for recreation and leisure services. So, Roy, if you may the question of one of your staff members know what what is our occupancy rate of the average class? So, average class, are they completely full? Are they 80% full? Are they 10% full? like on I know every class is different, but this will give us an idea of of how we're doing with revenue.

Thank you. Good evening, mayor, council members. Um I I don't have the occupancy rate available with me tonight. I'd be happy to get back to you on that. What I do know is that uh city of Newark residents have one week of registration availability before it opens up to non-residents. And so those classes that um our residents want to sign up for, they are getting access to that. Um I do know that there are many classes that are not full and we depend on the registration of non-residents to make them feasible. So um we have started that analysis. I don't have data that is prepared to to share with you this evening, but we've started to look on that what what classes would be effective if the rates increased and non-residents would no longer like to

I think we I mean I I see his point of view, but I think it's important that we also see because if it's going to knock it down, then our revenue management and maximization opportunities are not being utilized correctly. And and correct me if I'm wrong, Council Member Grendal, it sounds like you're willing at this point to have staff study the issue and when they come back with kind of the more comprehensive look at the fee schedule, including Silamon Center, are you willing to defer that request for the increase until that study comes back to us?

I I would rather give the policy direction right now. However, given the comment from council member um Little um I think we could limit it to the aquatic center um which is clearly overs subscribed and um that would that could avoid any impact like I I just think it's important for us to see our occupancy in in the classes because if we're at 60% on some classes by us increasing the cost we're going to actually missing out on money but if we're booking and solid and you know touching the numbers you know it it's highly dependent on the class. Um, there are some classes that are at full capacity and there's some classes that are not. Um, I'm happy to do that research and bring it back to council. Vice Mayor Jorgens,

um, this isn't because the aquatic center, the fees there aren't addressed in the staff report. I I wouldn't feel super comfortable making decisions this evening. Uh, just for that reason, I I think that should be something that we when we discuss it, it's something that is clearly um, you know, we have a staff report behind what we're saying. Um that said, um you know, if we did want to come bring it back before that timeline, right now we're doing a lot of studies on, you know, what works. If we were to change our fees midstudy, um city manager, do you think that would impact this? Would that make the study less valuable?

And for clarity, when you say study, you're talking about the analysis that staff is performing. I I think this the study is going to operate no matter what the council's direction here this evening. Well, my question was more if we are, you know, making an analysis based on our fees versus other cities fees versus what it could be. Correct. If we change what we're doing in the middle of that process, will that impact the analysis in a way that will make it less clear? It go ahead. I I I don't think so. Uh we're going to be looking at, you know, cost recovery. We're going to be looking at the neighboring cities, comparing what the neighboring cities are are charging to make sure that we are competitive. Um, so it'll play a piece of it, but I don't think it'll impact the analysis that we're doing. Yes, Council Dantio.

Yes. Thank you. Um, after hearing from everyone here, how long do you believe that we would need uh or you would need uh in order for us to have clarity regarding comparative analysis if we did change the rate from 14% to something like 20% or 25%? Um, our recommendation is that um, we we take another three to four months, do a comprehensive assessment, look at all of the things, including Council Member Grind's suggestion, and then come to come back to council with options and recommendations on what to how to increase those fees.

And if we come back in three or four months, that's basically just after the beginning of the fiscal year. So, we really haven't missed that much time. Um, I would rather we we as a council did not have an opportunity to discuss and review the fee structure as a result as it relates to the Silman Center. So, I agree with uh the vice mayor's initial point. I would prefer to wait until I see that analysis and we're only talking a short period of time after July probably. Anyway, uh did you want to make a motion that we vote on or you want to wait until July? What would you like to do?

I want to add one more thing in all this. I think it's important that we we really look at the numbers the summer and find out how much you're paying for in residency and outside residency. Our only competition if you do an evaluation is the water park in free in Fremont, you know. So, and and we want to see the difference in their fees as well and of course how much more they charge and stuff like that. But I think really finding out how many come in from out of town versus here I I agree. I think it's a good idea because it's always packed solid in the summers and I don't think that the demand is going to fall that much and if if we can increase it to you know two three four dollars more for out of town people I think I I and if it if it decreases the amount of people there awesome in many ways too. So I think it's a great suggestion

and and I agree and I don't disagree with what uh what you've said but I'd rather wait for that analysis to be done. Do we currently track as people come in to use the aquatic center? Do we know what percentage of those are non Newark residents at this point? So, we have many different um admission fees. The drop in rate right now does not currently have a resident non-resident rate. Um if they're buying passes, then we do collect that information. So, for the drop in rate, we don't um have that information. Okay. So, I I personally like to see more of an analysis done on this. Council member Gindoll.

Yeah. I I I'm very um I'm very respectful of the vice mayor's point about this not having not been on the agenda and um but I don't I don't want to wait two or three months to address this. So um if if the um if staff can bring um a interim increase of 25% back to our next meeting, I'm I'm fine with going forward with this tonight. Whatever we'll take direction from the council on on however the council wants to I I want a thorough analysis done on this on this process just to make sure I don't want to be coming back and forth in terms of

you know now that we've done a more comprehensive analysis the fee should have been this versus that I'd rather we're only talking the the fee structure remember goes into effect July one we're only now in just in April mid April so we're going to see this analysis done by mid July we can make those rates then go into effect soon thereafter so we're not looking at we're not losing a substantial period of time on this. Vice Mayor,

I I'll I'll second the motion uh with the caveat that, you know, this isn't something that I've thought about before. So, a second on this motion shouldn't be taken. Um as any indication of how I would feel about doing an interim, uh you know, it's something that, you know, can be put on agenda later and I can think about it more and that's why you only vote on things that are agenda. So, this is second. So, you're going to second the council uh council member Grend Doll's request some kind of interim

with it, but I'm not sure if I'm going to vote no on this to be honest with you folks only because um I don't want staff to rush forward with an analysis that doesn't get give me a complete picture of what the other communities are charging for use of their facilities by non-residents. I want to make sure that uh and I agree with at the end of the day with the principle that Council Grindall is making that folks that are coming into the city of Newark should pay a higher fee. I'm just not sure today I want to vote on what that fee should be without having some additional information. But we do have a motion on the on on the floor that asks staff to come back at the next meeting with an analysis as to what the fee would be for a 20 or 25% increase on access to the aquatics center if I recall understand correctly. So that's the that's the motion on the board. Um, are there any other questions or comments on that motion? I'm I'm going to indicate, as I mentioned, I'm not going to support that motion. Other comments before we vote,

your honor, I assume, your honor, I assume the motion also includes adopting the fees as presented this evening. Correct. Yes. Uh, but before we No, I want to take it separately if we may. My second was as an understanding this was a motion. It was a separate motion um as a amendment to a staff's recommendation. That's what I was seconding. Okay. Um, so to me what I would be voting on would be an amendment to that and then we could come back later and vote on the master schedule. Correct.

Because I have a couple questions on the master schedule that we haven't had a chance to get to as of yet. So the only issue is as I mentioned uh the vote to have staff come back in the next meeting with an analysis as to what the fee would be on a 20 or 25% uh increase over and above what Newark residents pay currently to use the aquatic center. That would be the motion. Any other questions or comments on the motion? Everybody clear on that? This is to requesting for the for the information to be here next meeting, right? To have them come back with an analysis as to what that person for the next meeting. For the next meeting. And uh any other questions on that? Okay. Let's go ahead and vote on that motion.

Well, well, I just before we vote, just if staff could just make some comments in terms of putting together that analysis, is this something that we can reasonably do in the next two weeks? uh staff report would be we do have an extra week between council meetings so to speak. There's a fifth Thursday in the month of May, excuse me, April. Would this be something we'd be able to generate a simple policy direction on x amount of above uh the existing baseline for that's something we could if it if if my understanding is correct that it's just a um analysis on what it looks like for 20% above and 25% above then then only on the aquatic center and and what information would the council need I think what they're looking for is what would be the what's the current rate for example effective

if it's simple math we can do that within the week that's not a problem.

And and again, the reason I'm not going to support this is, you know, we have so limited staff time to focus on reports and analysis and things of that nature, we're going to do a comprehensive report as it relates to all of the fees that are charged at the Silman Center. So rather than start to peacemeal this because I don't want to get down the road and say, well, you know, what are we charging for the basketball courts? Maybe I need a separate analysis on the basketball court for residents versus non-residents. said, "Let's do a separate analysis on that. Let's just wait for the full analysis. We're talking about a report that'll come to us probably in Julyish, August, or we're close in August, Julyish, and we'll have an opportunity to make a vote on this in September, probably." So, um, any last comments, Council Member Gindall?

Just to address just to address your and I I appreciate your concerns, Mr. Mayor. However, by the time this would be effective, we would have lost the the whole summer period, which is which is a substantial chunk of when we're when we're getting the revenue. So just just to put that out there. No, I appreciate that. I just want to ask a simple math question if I may. So currently a person New York resident if they came in for a day pass. Oh, you said there's no difference between a resident and a non-resident. That's correct.

On a drop in. I want to understand the math. I mean, are we talking a substantial amount of money or we really talking about a small amount of money? So if I buy, let's say, a I guess a season pass. I mean, you may not know the answer to this. If I buy a season pass as a resident and I buy a season pass as a non-resident and my purpose is to use the aquatic center, do you have any idea what that dollar differential might be between the two? Uh I I don't they might know in the back. Yeah, it it it's a uh council member Gindall's right. It's about 14%. I don't have the dollar amount in in front of me. Um but I'm happy to get that information. Okay. Okay. A question. Yes, ma'am. Council Del Katanchio,

is it possible um during our summer months to be able to document and find out for the day passes who is from Newark and who is not since we don't have that? It it is possible. Yes. I I just want to um mention that, you know, we we have um temporary part-time young students working at the um front desk. And as you've um mentioned, there is often a long line. So adding an additional step uh would would be would add a lot to their plate. Um we're happy to do that if that's council's direction, but I I just wanted to bring that point forward.

Well, to council member Gen Doll's points, maybe that's one of the points as we come back with the analysis. We look at the daily drop in rate. It doesn't make sense, you know, if we're looking at equity that a Newark resident who drops in pays the same as a, you know, non Newark resident on the same drop in fee. So maybe that's something as you come back with a more detailed analysis, we look at a modest increase on the non-resident fee on the daily drop in as well. So I mean those are things that we can certainly consider as well. Yes. All righty. I think we've talked to this uh issue enough. Let's go ahead and vote on the issue. Oh, good. It it lost on a two and three of us president. Do you like the way that works, Mr. IT director?

Also, your honor, it does list my name twice. Yeah. Is there a reason? Uh I'm Oh, yeah. I'm Julie right now. All right. I It looks like we have to reprogram this uh after tonight's meeting. I don't think we could do this on the fly. Correct. note on the last vote or any vote that um council member delanchio voted the way she did reflect that. Of course, double vote. It probably would be best to do a roll call vote. Is that correct, city clerk? That's correct. Okay. All right. So, we know the motion on the floor from Council Member Gandalf, seconded by um Council Member or Vice Mayor Jorgens. How do you vote? Council member Little. Yes.

Grindall. Yes. I vote no. Yes. No. Okay. So, that motion by council Gallal, seconded by the vice mayor, passes on a three to two. Um, it sounds like you're going to be able to come back at the next meeting with an analysis as to the differential on those fees for the use of the aquatic center. And that's really it's just a math question. Yep. And for the council to consider at that point. Okay. Yep. All right. Any last comments on this? Um, city manager? Okay. Uh, I was just clarifying a couple issues with the city attorney and I think we are good to go. Any last comments on this? Uh, no, your honor. Okay. Any other comments on the master fee schedule? I'd like to make a motion to approve it.

Before you do that, I do have a couple comments if I may. Of course.

Um, one is, um, I really appreciate all the work that staff has done on the master fee schedule. Uh, in the future, I would appreciate if if we have certain fees that are not 100% cost recoverable. If we could put an asterk or some kind of a notation next to it. Most of the development fees and things of that nature are all cost recoverable, I appreciate that. But if there's any fees that we don't that we support by the general fund, and I imagine this predominantly at the Silman Center, correct? If we could just simply asterisk those that these are supported by the general fund, I would appreciate that. That'll help. Um, I'd also like to ask staff to maybe consider at some point, uh, and it doesn't need to be done as part of this approval, maybe as we look at the next master fee schedule, if we could look at the, um, a fee for expedited development services or expedited permit services. There's a number of cities that I know that you can kind of step to the front of the line if you want an expedited building inspection or development review, but you pay a premium for that. Um, I'd like to I know some cities do that. If we could do an analysis on that for the next time we visit the master fee schedule, I would appreciate that.

Any other comments on the master fee schedule? I do. Yes.

I would like to give a suggestion to the staff at at Silman Center. One idea we could do is put a sign at the front and just say, "Hey, if you're a New York resident, please have your ID ready to go." And I think that would help save a couple things just a suggestion just if we're going to be including the cost to for out of out of area. Just have them ready and say if you you know if you want to get this price please have your ID out and ready to go and I think that would help some of the teenagers with the because I did think about that's a good point and having an ID and requesting for them to have it ready to go would take some stress off or make it a little bit quicker. My two cents. No, but you I know that you did raise a good question um in terms of the folks that we have working at the desk and if we start to separate a fee for dropins, whether they be Newark or non- Newark, it's going to create a backlog. It may be more trouble than it's worth.

Sorry, I think we're drifting away from the fee schedule conversation. Um well, they are going to come back though with at some point with a more comprehensive fee schedule on the other portions of the Silman Center. Yes. And so I had suggested that we look at the resident non-resident drop in. I I think I'm going to take that off the table. It's it's more trouble than it's worth. I I wouldn't worry about that. So yes, ma'am. I'm sorry. Is there someone? Yes, please. Building official, please come forward. Welcome. Thank you, mayor and council. I just want clarification for the expedited services you're requesting. Is that both entitlement side and permit side? Yes. Okay.

Yeah. But I'm not looking at a change on this master schedule. I'm looking at the next time we come around if we can do kind of a study as to what other cities are doing, whether that makes whether it even makes sense. Okay. Just so everyone's aware, uh, building we already have an expedited service, but it's only contingent based on our consultants availabilities, but I will work on other programs that we can do to look at what we can offer as well. Great. And you have plenty of time to do it. Thank you. Thank you. So, we have a motion by Council Member Grindal to accept the master fee schedule, which I'll happily second. And seconded by the vice mayor, please vote. We're going to do a I'm sorry. Roll call vote. We're not going to try. No, because we have council delo listed twice. So, we're going to do a roll call vote, right?

I don't think it's been reset yet, has it? I'm sorry. It hasn't been reset, has it? No, it hasn't. It has to be done after the meeting. Council Little on the master schedule. Yes. Yes. Yes, Council Gundall. Yes. I vote yes. I vote yes. Yes. All right. So, that passes unanimously. Thank you for the presentation. Well done.

Find my agenda. Was that my magic? All right, ladies and gentlemen. Now, we're going to um move on to the agenda and uh the next item is the consideration of projects to be included in the drought 5-year capital improvement plan. Uh city manager.

Yes. Good evening, your honor, members of the council. Uh items F1 through F4 on tonight's agenda relate to the development of the city's 2027 through 2031 capital improvement plan. Item F1 is what we are referring to as the main presentation. Uh items F2, F3, and F4 are separate agenda items that involve projects in which council members may have conflicts of interest. When we reach those agenda items, the affected council members will be asked to step outside of the chambers after, of course, announcing the basis of the recusal. Uh this year is exciting as we are transitioning from a two-year capital improvement plan that was historically prepared as part of the bannual budget to a new 5-year capital improvement plan that will be reviewed and updated annually. There are several benefits to the approach as staff will explain uh momentarily. Uh the projects presented tonight fall into five general categories. This includes infrastructure projects, park projects, facility projects, equipment, and studies. During the presentation, staff will explain the methodology used to both fund and prioritize the various projects that we recommend uh being included in the CIP as well as provide an overview of the funding sources. Uh the purpose of tonight's presentation is to provide the council with an overview of staff's initial recommendations on what project should be included in the CIP and to solicit feedback from the council on those recommendations. Staff will return to the council in May with a draft capital improvement plan that incorporates the council's feedback. Additionally, since this is a new process for us, we expect changes in the future as we make necessary adjud adjustments. We welcome any ideas that the council may have regarding this new CIP process. Before I turn it over to staff for our presentation, I'd like to acknowledge and thank all the city staff for their considerable work in preparing for tonight's presentation. uh converting a two-year CIP into a five-year CIP and doing the proper accounting associated with that is by no means an easy task. We have new staff

reviewing hundreds of line item projects uh many of which go back several decades. So, I thank staff for their exemplary efforts. With that in mind, I'll turn it over to our city engineer, Mr. Mickey Sabotto.

Thank you, city manager Benoon. Good evening, honorable mayor, vice mayor, and council members. Mickey Sabot, city engineer. Uh as mentioned, we are very excited to be back before you uh to present the preliminary or draft list of proposed projects. Uh as mentioned, this was a quite a herculean effort. I do want to also acknowledge staff. We have a entire team uh behind me to to assist. I'm just the speech or the figurehead here. If if I have a blank stare and I slowly turn, I might be uh sending a lifeline to help answer any technical questions about specific projects. Um but again we've got a whole team here to help uh support this effort. Uh as mentioned this is the first of four presentations. Uh these areformational items so there's no action particularly uh needed. Of course we welcome council feedback and feedback for from the public as well on uh the proposed list of projects. So let's get going. Uh this is the agenda for our first presentation. Again this is the the big or the main presentation. We're going to cover most of the projects as part of this first presentation. I'm going to go through an overview of the CIP uh process, CIP projects. Uh then we're going to talk about funding and expenditures, and then we're going to get into the meat of the presentations, which is really the projects. Um I will have slides of all 100 or so projects. I won't go through each one in detail, uh but I I will certainly hit the highlights. Uh I'll pause throughout the presentation if there are any questions or comments from council members and then we'll conclude with next steps. So, first an overview of the the five-year CIP. So, I've said I've been here before talking about CIP projects, the CIP plan. Um, we are very excited about the new 5-year CIP. This is truly a work plan as opposed to a wish list. Um, historically, we've been uh here at the city using a two-year CIP that included a whole list of both funded and unfunded projects. and every year more

requests would come in and we would just add it to the long list of unfunded projects. So, it's really backwards looking. Um, the new 5-year CIP is really forwardlooking. Uh, starting July 1 of this year with the new CIP, we're we're extinguishing, we're expiring everything that happened uh before July 1, it's going to be a brand new forward-looking 5-year CIP. All the projects we're proposing are are funded or have a potential source of funding identified over the next five years. Um, so it's really truly a work plan versus a wish list. Uh, we will be effectively utilizing funding. So I'll go through one of the slides or a couple of slides later on the presentation showing that we do plan to utilize a bulk of the available funding for CAP projects over the next 5 years. We do have over a 100 projects identified value that uh well north of 200 million. It's closer to 240ish uh give or take. So, it's a very uh I would say it's a very robust aggressive plan. Uh you've average that out, it's between 40 to $50 million a year that staff intends to execute on projects. So, very exciting, very robust. It's also a living document. So, as mentioned, uh this is a snapshot of proposed projects as of uh when we published this report. So, as of last week, uh this these also include the numbers and the various analysis in here. These are snapshots. The numbers will change, the projects will change. Um, as projects is completed, we'll remove them. We may finish some projects this current fiscal year and remove them from the list. We may come up with new projects again. So, this is a living document. We do plan uh to take this CIP um uh to review the CIP on an annual basis as part of our regular budget review and do a whole uh comprehensive update of the CIP as part of the uh the bianual budget. So every two years we'll be fully updating the CIP. We'll be

re-evaluating be re-evaluating projects or scoring the prioritization funding and forecast over the next 5 years. So this is a rolling five-year CIP. Um and I mentioned it will be approved concurrently with the budget. I do want to remind um uh council so I did talk about uh what constitutes a CIP project. That was one of the hardest things we had to do is define what a CIP project and it required five items. um council approved it had to be needed a study or a project involving a capitalized asset that we could uh complete or at least reasonably start in the next five years. So those are the five required elements for uh a true CIP project. Uh this is a table taken from the staff report. I do want to give kudos and credit to the uh government finance officers association for providing clear uh and descriptive formulaic guidelines on how we prioritize and score projects. Um it's a very rigorous process. Uh if you look on this list here, I'm not going to go through each of them, but there are eight identified criteria that we utilize to score projects. These are both old projects, existing projects, and new projects. So every project's uh gets a score. We go through each one of these criteria and we score them one one to five for every project. What makes this more complicated is that the criteria are weighted differently. So at the very top if you look at public safety regulatory compliance that has a heavier weight than at the very bottom of the list project readiness. So we go through each project we score them on the eight criteria. We multiply by the weight. Um, and without going into too much detail on the formulaic process, the the nutshell is that every project ultimately gets a priority score anywhere from 25 to 125. So that's the range of scoring uh that you'll see for

for every project between 95 and 125. We classified those as critical. And we'll we'll we'll show you through the slides that we did color coordinate the projects or critical or red projects. Um then we've got high priority projects 70 94 medium priority 45 and 69 and we don't have to worry about low priority. There are no low priority projects proposed in the CIP. Um I did want to mention uh one thing. Um just going through the scoring is the first step. Um there were some old projects or unfunded projects that may have scored moderate, medium or high. we go through a further evaluation and there's a couple reasons why projects that may score medium or high don't necessarily make it to the final list. U one is that it doesn't meet the five criteria. It may be operating instead of capital. So a good example is let's say there was a project to um paint city hall, right? Painting doesn't necessarily add capital so it fails one of the five criteria. It's not it doesn't mean that we're not going to do it or that it's not important. It just means that we're going to transition that work from a capital project into an operating pro project and we'll just handle that as part of our regular ongoing operating expense. The other reason is that um a project may be redundant um or may be incorporated into another CIP or superseded by another CIP. Uh a good example is that uh I found an old old project to uh replace the leaking roof of fire station 27 which is a very important project. You know we should be replacing the roof of fire stations but that is superseded by another project that we recently approved or council recently approved which is to do a complete overhaul deconstruction and reconstruction of that fire station. So again important project but superseded by something else. Uh a third reason is that uh a project uh that scored medium or high may uh be

dependent on an upcoming study or analysis that we're aware of that could impact the scoring. Um a good example of this uh there are several intersection improvements in the city that were identified through the general SQL plan process. Um they're also included in the traffic impact fee analysis. Um, the reason we may be holding off on those projects is because we know that in the next few, five years, we're going to be updating the general plan. There's going to be a whole new traffic analysis citywide of every single major intersection. We're also in the process of updating the traffic impact fee program that may identify or change projects. So, we'll put those projects on hold until we know that these these new assessments are done because we don't want to spend good money on bad projects. And then the final reason that it may not meet or get on the list is just just due to resources, staffing and funding. Again, we have a very robust tenative list of projects. You know, 200 $250 million over five years, $50 million a year. It's a lot. It's very robust, very aggressive, but we think that we can reasonably get that done. Uh before I go into funding, maybe I should pause and see if there are any questions. Okay, great. So, now let's talk about funding. Uh, I've talked before about how there are many different ways to color money to color funding. Uh, funding for projects come in um they can be restricted for specific uses or unrestricted for almost any government use. Uh, funding can come from different sources. So there's federal sources, state sources, regional sources, local sources here, right in here in the city. Uh funding can be one-time such as grants. Uh they can come annually on a regular basis. So looking at all the various funding sources, this was our attempt to really summarize uh what's going to be shown on the next slide. Uh

so capital funds is a category. It's kind of a hodgepodge. It's it funds most of our projects. We have a lot of different funding sources that feed into capital funds. Um these include local funds. These are discretionary transfers from general fund. You'll hear us talk a lot about excess measure revenue revenue from G measure GG, measure LL. There may be other discretionary funds that feed into capital funds. These also include um onetime funds from federal, state, regional, local grants, uh legislative appropriations. These all feed into capital funds. Up on the slide, you see I've got OAG, which stands for one barrier grant. These are federal funds for transportation projects. I've got ARM three, which stands for regional measure three. These are uh regional barrier toll funds to help pay for regional transportation projects. I've got FLAP, which stands for federal land access program, which funds a program or a project here in the city. So, we have a lot of different uh grants and uh one-time funding to help pay for projects. Uh last time I was here, we talked about uh staff considering borrowing money or going to debt to pay for the largest project, which is the cultural art center project. So debt financing is thrown into capital funds. Um and the last time we also talked about reallocation of transportation funding from the Central Avenue overpass project to other potential projects. So all that's thrown into capital funds as well. The second category is transportation funds. These are our our ongoing revenues we get on a regular basis on annual basis. These are commonly referred to as gas tax but they can be comprised of multiple state and regional sources. as I've listed measure BB, vehicle registration fees, highway user tax, state road maintenance and rehabilitation account. So these are state and regional sources of funding that we get on a regular basis and we use these funds for things like our annual overlay slurry seal or annual concrete repair work. Um so that's transportation funds. Uh impact fees, these are development uh impact fees that developers pay when they come pull

building permits. These are restricted funds for specific uses. So, we've got different categories such as public safety, community service, traffic, and parks. And we'll talk about park impact fees uh quite a bit today. And then finally, we've got a other other fees. So, we've got public education and government uh cable franchise fees or PEG fees that pay for a couple projects. Uh community development fees help pays for studies related to general plan implementation. So, those are our funding sources. uh all all the funding related to all our projects can basically be summarized by this this one table I think um funding and expenditures and estimated balances so going down the lefth hand column these are the various funding sources that pay for our various CIP projects they range from capital fund at the very top you can see they've got large dollar amounts uh we've got various transportation related funding we've got impact fees and miscellaneous funds all identified on the lefth hand column next column is our estimated balance as of uh for July 1, 2026. Uh these numbers are fuzzy. These are numbers are based on what we project is going to be in the balance as of last week. So these numbers may change. They may be adjusted. We'll constantly monitor where we stand fiscally and financially as we get closer to the end of this fiscal year, the beginning of next fiscal year. So right now we're estimating roughly 35 a.5 million. uh there is a hidden plus or minus behind that. So it's it's somewhat fuzzy. Uh the middle column is our estimated funding over the next five years. So this is our revenue projections over the next five years for each of these categories. Um these numbers are are very fuzzy. It's it's very difficult to know with certainty financial conditions and revenues over the next 5 years uh much less 5 days. So the numbers here do show that we do anticipate somewhere on the order of$90 to $200 million. Again, these numbers are real rough and estimated.

Next column is estimated project costs over the next five years. So, if you look at all 100 plus projects and their funding sources and you can see where um where we expect to spend about 221 give or take million dollars over the next 5 years. And the final column is our estimated fund balance uh five years from now. Uh and you can see that uh we do a pretty good job of spending or thinking that we're going to spend almost all the money available. That 7.9 million at the very end in the right hand column is a very fuzzy number. Um keep in mind that when we talk about projects in general, when we think about like construction and planning and design, usually we have like a typically it's like a 10% contingency. If you look at the totality of the full CIP list of tenative list of projects that 7.9 represents less than 5%. So it's a very it's a very tight schedule uh aggressive schedule and and somewhat fuzzy. Uh let's

let's talk fuzzy for a moment.

Yes, let's talk fuzzy. So, um I would imagine that there's some way to historically look at the inflationary costs for construction over a long period of time. And I would assume that we've done kind of that financial analysis as to what those costs have typically been over a certain period of time. And that's where we have factored in the um estimated cost for these projects over the next five years. So, I know it's fuzzy, but I think we've done a pretty good analysis, have we not? terms of anticipating what those inflationary costs on construction might be under current rates or or average current rates, things of that nature over the over the last decade or two.

Yeah. Yes, we have. Especially for the larger projects, what we do when we think of a cost estimate is not the cost estimate today. It's a cost estimate at the midpoint of construction. So, we we've got a project that we're expecting to build uh 3 years from now, we escalate the number and that's the number we put in our CIP. And as this these projects come back to the council, I think you indicated we're going to look at this every two years. Is that what I heard you say? At minimum two years.

Every two years. So it'd be interesting to see as we adjust our uh expectations or analysis every two years. I'd like to see the council, Mr. Bon put, you know, what we anticipated the cost would be today for example on the project versus what it will what it is now two years from now in terms of how close were we in terms of anticipating that cost. You know, did we hit it right on the nail? Were we were we overly conservative and it's going to cost us less? Were we were we way off and it's cost us a lot more which necessitates different decisions that need to be made as we look at the different projects that that are moving forward. I would I would hope to see that u analysis at that point if we could. That's a simple table. I'd be happy to add that.

Great. And as we look at the estimated funding, because I want to make sure our audience who's watching at home, as we look at the estimated funding over the five years, the $ 160.9 million, uh what percentage or what million dollar numbers uh of that uh are consisting of measure GG and measure LL?

I will ask finance to double check my math. My understanding is that as of let's see we are projecting measure GG fund balance to be approximately 23 million um for end of this fiscal year. So July one we're rough roughly 23 million going forward in the next five years excess revenue for measure GG roughly is about $3 million a year every year. excess measure excess revenue for measure LL is roughly $2 million a year. Okay. So that's where and that that comprises a significant amount of that estimated funding I would imagine over the next five years.

Yes.

And and uh welcome finance director. Um, by the way, it's uh, you know, we've taken a fairly conservative approach to how we've repaid that debt and we've done such a good job that we've enabled we've been able to accumulate a fund balance as has been mentioned here of just under $24 million in excess of the debt obligation that we have. uh looking over the last 12 months for example in terms of the excess amount of sales tax that we've received uh um over and above the debt u requirement uh is that number fairly where you thought it would be or are we seeing actually additional revenue over and above what you thought it would be uh for example in other words can we anticipate as a council that maybe as we look at our conservative uh budget and our funding that X dollars is what we hope to anticipate, but really as the as we're seeing those additional revenues over and above debt, it actually could be a little bit more than that. What What's your opinion? I think that's what I'm asking.

Uh yes, it's actually much better than what we had anticipated. Um u but that's mainly due to just a lot of the measure GG um spending habits have changed since um co and so um also you know we have a very uh favorable rate and our uh debt services it's structured so that it was higher at the beginning and it does continue to decrease in the outy years and so that um helps with our excess amount getting larger.

Good. So, my hope is that that funding that we're looking at five years from now or the five years it's maybe a little bit higher than the 160.9. That would be my hope. Um, we hope so as well. I do. Any other questions on funding at this point? Okay. Please.

Great. I did want to mention, if I haven't already, that the estimated uh funding revenues is are reasonably conservative. So, we do have a reasonable conservatism built in the fuzziness. Okay, let's see. Oh, so at the the last uh council meeting, we talked about stopping all work on the Central Avenue overpass re and re directing staff to reallocate or see if we how much we can reallocate funding to other transportation related projects. There's about four or so different projects. Two of them are up here on the slide. We'll talk about two later on tonight. The first is the quiet zone implementation. Uh this is for the actual construction of the quiet zone projects. We do have funding for the design. In fact, we've gone through um approximately 30% completion on the design of most of the crossing locations that are listed up there. You'll notice that we did include Central Avenue after last council meeting that I attended. Uh we've talked to UPR about including Central Avenue and trying to get Central Avenue caught up in terms of design and processing the other crossings. Uh we actually have an infield diagnostic meeting with UPR to look at Central Avenue uh next month. Um you can see the preliminary timeline for the design uh the approval process and and construction. Uh designating a quiet zone is a very laborious and timeconsuming process. Um it's not only going through the design and working with the railroad, but we do need to work with the state um the CPU for the approval for modification of rail railway to actually designate these zones as quiet after construction. So it's a very long time frame. Obviously, it's a high priority project for council and for staff. We'll keep um updates appraised on our website and through the 5-year CIP.

The second project is for Cedar Boulevard complete streets. This is Yes, Council Little. So, with all due respect, what can we do to speed this up? I mean, it's we're talking two years here. This seems to be a little It's a train. Let's go a little faster. I mean, what could we do to speed this up a little bit?

It's it's very difficult. Um, the railroad is not incentivized to really do quiet zones. They would actually have us do more grade separations all over the place. Um, that being said, we have been pushing them. They have been responsive. Um it is just a long process and I don't know if there's an easy way to speed that process up. Um we're trying to do what we can with combining quiet zone locations. We did split out Thornton Avenue just because that's tied to the Oldtown Streetscape, but we're trying to combine projects and try to expedite them all together as one.

Okay. And and to that point, um the fact that the council decided to forstall the central pass, the central overpass, that freed up a substantial amount of money that we hope to uh utilize uh by a reallocation of ACTC funds that have been realloc that had been allocated for that project. But for that, we probably would not have been in a position financially to be able to move forward as quickly as we are moving forward on this project. Is that would that be a correct statement? We would have to find alternative funding sources to pay for the quiet zone implementation. Yeah. Council Gindoll, did you have a comment? Yes. So, um, you you've you added the Central Avenue to the to the list of projects?

Yes. Um, did you also increase funding or you just spread it a little thinner? We we've increased funding. So the 13 13 million represent again escalated funding or escalated cost of constructing this uh I believe it's two or three years out. Um I also want to echo council member Little's comment. Um this this has been this has been moving very slowly o over time. It's good that we're close to the 30% design, but if there's you know I'd be interested in seeing this move forward more quickly.

Understood. And again, and as indicated in my earlier comment, it's this is an issue that's not just about noise. It's also about safety so that so that our our our citizens, our residents are not being hit by trains. Yeah. I if we can if it if you think it would be smart for us to reach out and to talk to the United, you know, railroad or something like that, I wouldn't mind going and knocking on their door at 3 in the morning or something. I mean, I'm happy to do whatever because we need to kind of move forward with this. This this is I mean honestly 2000 2030 is too late. Let's go. I mean if we could get this 2028 would be great. Please please this is actually important. Thank you.

Appreciate it. And you'll see later on when we show the actual projects the quiet zone scored among the highest in terms of priorities for for the city.

We're we're going to get let me be honest with you. I'm sorry. We're going to get no cooperation from the railroads. Let me be honest. I dealt with the railroads when I was in my last government job. uh in the minds of the railroad, they'll do what they want to do when they want to do it. And any leverage you think you have against the railroads, uh they simply ignore. Uh we we find them, we levy that it didn't matter. They do what they want to do when they want to do it. And certainly um uh I appreciate the fact that um you know, we're moving as quickly as we can. Staff certainly know that this is a priority for the community. We know it's a priority. Um, you know, if we could get it done quicker, we'd get it done quicker, but we're we're it's certainly identified as the first priority as we look at transportation fund reallocation. So, Council Delatio.

Yes. Thank you for having this as a high priority. I did notice that it says startup construction 2030. Do we know around how long that it would be estimated to complete?

It it shouldn't the construction shouldn't take very long. Probably a year at most or one construction cycle. the scope of work is really to do uh safety improvements at the eight or nine different locations. So the scope of work isn't long, it's the processing that takes a long time. And what we've found out is one of the best ways to really keep the momentum going is the relationship building we do with UPR and the various staff there. And and just again to keep it in context, I was at the Alama County Transportation Commission today where it was approved to do some um work around railroads in Hayward and Liverour and that was approved. But those projects have been on the books for years in Hayward and Liverour and there's a backlog of other railroad improvements for pedestrians in Berkeley, San Leandro, and other communities that are, you know, down the road. So, you know, ACTC is a fairly formidable um commission and those projects in and of themselves are taking years to get accomplished as well. So, I I I actually think we're going to get our projects done much sooner than most of those ACT projects that are in the pipeline. Okay. To continue my um on this slide, I also want to mention the Cedar Boulevard complete streets pro project for $24 million. This is a broad range of improvements along the Cedar Boulevard corridor from Stevenson to Thornton. Uh pavement reconstruction, uh restriping, improved pedestrian and bicycle facilities, landscaping and other associated streetscape improvements. Um preliminary timeline plan timeline has planning in 2029, construction and design in 2031 and beyond. This is one of those projects where we anticipate starting as part of the 5-year CIP, but we'll likely won't implement until beyond that 5-year window. U, one of the uh potential benefits of this project is that um I know there's been talk from

presentations from the Urban Land Institute about improving economic uh vitality in the um New Park Mall area. Even though Cedar Boulevard is not part of that specific plan, it does border that area. And so to the extent that we can improve Cedar Boulevard that is just on the west side of Dup Park Mall, there might be some synergistic benefits for for that area. Um so these are two two of the two of the four projects we're looking to reallocate uh funding from Central Avenue. Uh we've already had conversations with staff at ACTC. They are they are supportive of this. There's some paperwork we've got to do. Obviously it's going to take several months, but we are working on on that front. Council Gandalf.

So th this um project would include a a quiet zone crossing as well. Um Cedar near Thornton has has another railroad uh crossing. Is that is that not one of the

That's one of the Yeah. So that's part of the quiet zone project. Yes. I'm I'm what I'm assuming that well I'm I'm I'm asking um wouldn't it make sense to do that construction for the quiet zone in concert with the these other improvements rather than having a a separate construction period altogether in the ca in the for for example in the case of the oldtown improvements that's what's indicated it it would make sense for for us to try to exhibit the the quiet zone project will likely get approved um independent of Cedar Boulevard complete streets because there's more uncertainty with Cedar Boulevard complete streets in terms of funding and scope of work. So if you look at the scope of Cedar Boulevard, it is a broad range from Stevenson all the way to Thorne. If we don't get the full 24 million, if you only get half of that, we would probably focus only on the new park frontage portion of Cedar Boulevard. So there's more uncertainty on Cedar Boulevard compared to quiet zones. Thank you. Any other questions?

Vice Mayor? Yeah, I would just like to uh you know with Cedar Boulevard complete streets, any uncertainty that we do have there to focus on the area that you were focusing on. The other benefit there is Newark Memorial High School and as kids are going to and from school, keeping those uh street designs as safe as we can for those students is going to be a real benefit. So, you know, as we think about navigating that uncertainty, I I would like to see, you know, the area in front of a, you know, large school be, you know, one of the things that we prioritize as well. So, it's, you know, for me, it seems like we're on the right track there,

right? And there are u I don't know if there's been a safe route to school assessment for that school, but that is part of the thinking for this particular project. Not only school frontage improvements, but uh Cisgrove Park fronts this area as well, and it needs some um sidewalk and other improvements as well. Okay, now we're going to get into the meat of the presentation. Uh we're going to talk about infrastructure first. So let's see list of 15 projects proposed. These are again tenative projects proposed to be included in the five-year CIP. They are colorcoordinated. So critical or red high we it's kind of a gold brown color and then medium priority projects in green. I did want to note that we do have quiet zone implementation design. It's the highest priority project. U a little bit down the list on number six you also see quiet zone implementation for for construction for $14 million. Obviously you guys um know about this particular project. Um if going down on the lefth hand side, you'll you'll notice that we have a lot of annual any project with the word annual in it. Uh annual citywide uh accessible pedestrian ramp. Number two, number three, annual traffic calming measures, curb and gutter, um annual street overlay. These are our ongoing yearly projects we do within our road right away. And a lot of this is is based on the community survey feedback we got. The committee really wants the city to focus on I would say back to basics like focus on our streets, right? Fix the potholes, resurface the streets, restripe the streets, design, you know, put in bike lanes, um fix all the curb and gutter, fix the cracked sidewalk, improve the improve the traffic signals and traffic flow. So these are a lot of back to basics and that's why we have a lot of high priority projects identified with the word annual in it. Um let's see going on on the lefth hand side um you'll also notice uh project number five which is the oldtown PDA

streetscape improvement that's an ongoing project has carried over from this year into next year uh that project it's mostly been designed um all the projects uh down Thornton which includes Oldtown PDA those involve federal funds and anytime you involve federal funds there's a very again a very laborious uh agreement and documentation process we need to go through with Cal Calrans. So even though the design is mostly done, we have to submit documentation to CALR. Again, that also requires a quiet zone designation. So we're working with UPR on that as well. Oldtown PDA streetscape, as of right now, we are still anticipating uh going out to bid later this year on that project. On the right hand side, we do have Thornton Avenue uh pavement overlay phase two just just next door to the Oldtown PDA uh project. Thornton Avenue is also carryover project from this fiscal year to the next fiscal year. The design for that project is mostly done. Uh similar to Old Down PDA, we've submitted all documents to Calr and we've got to work with CALR over the next several months on funding paperwork and agreements. We do uh again plan to bid that project later this year as well. Uh we already talked about Cedar Boulevard complete streets. Uh I do I want to highlight uh project number 13 as well. So we last time I was here we were talking about killing sorry stopping all work on the central overpass project and what are we going to do with the temporary hokei traffic signal at sycamore and central project 13 is to convert that to a permanent signal system. And uh before I continue are there any questions about infrastructure projects?

I'm going to start to my right. Any questions on the item in province? No questions. Council member Gdal, I'm I'm assuming the um the the actual modern intersection at at Central and Sycamore would also include sidewalks. Um right now the 750,000 is only for the signals.

If council wants us to put put in some more money to accommodate sidewalks, we can certainly do that. So, right now there's actually a bus stop in the middle of that intersection. They they the uh they people people have the pleasure of stepping right out of the bus into the weeds and trash that that are thrown there. So, um unless unless AC Transit's going to relocate that bus stop, I think that needs to be taken into account. Okay. Noted. Correct my memory. U because we have that development over there with Pro Lodges. Was there some infrastructure that was approved as part of that project? I know that, you know, we didn't include the signal, but uh how about other infrastructure? Do we recall off hand? I'm inviting our community u development director, Mr. Turner.

Mr. Turner. Yes. Good evening. Uh honorable may council member Steven Turner, community development director. Get the propest project that council approved last year includes infrastructure on their side of Central Avenue. So that includes a sidewalk that would go the length of that project. That project is in for building permit and expected to start construction later um this year. um in infrastructure improvements on the other side are not part of the provogologist project. So that remains um still to be determined.

If if I could sure yeah the the the issue is on that provogologist side of the the main issue is the portal logic side there is um there's also sporadic sidewalks on the other side. However, there's rightway for it and it's not as big of an issue. Um, so I just wanted to I just wanted to indicate that the the real issue in terms of unsightly unsightly and unsafe is on is on the prologes side of the project. Okay. So, yeah, we'll certainly take a look at that. Thank you.

A couple comments I have on this. Um, Mr. Benoon, correct me if I'm wrong. I think we received notification from Congressman Roana's office that he's put in for additional funding for the city of Newark that might help uh offset some of the costs on, if I recall correctly, on the Thornton Avenue project. Can you provide some insight on that? Yes, we did receive some news from the congressman's office that they will request funding for Newark projects. Um, it does have to go through the committee process and of course uh be signed in the federal law. Uh, one of those projects I believe uh Mr. Sabata, if I'm not mistaken, is the uh was it the beacon? Which item is that? 11. I think you believe it's item 11. The pedestrian hybrid beacon installation.

It's project number 11. ped pedestrian hybrid hybrid beacon installations. That was one of the two projects that I think he had submitted for this. Correct. The other one I believe is not infrastructure related. It was affordable housing request. Okay. Thank you. By the way, I love the pedestrian hybrid beacon because as I understand it, what that is is what a lot of our residents have been calling for in a long time is some type of a flashing mechanism at an intersection to alert vehicles that somebody is crossing or preparing to cross the street. Is that my understanding? That that is correct. And we've identified a number of intersections where that would be valuable. Uh that is correct. And we're actually working with the safe routes to school program to work with schools to identify more locations.

Great. And if this council or we have input as to intersections that should be considered, we can certainly provide that information to the city uh city manager.

Yes. The other question I have and this is really for future councils u and I I'll take partial blame on number 13 you know when we approve that prologus project you know we we had not made a decision on the overpass at that point but I certainly would love to have had us have the foresight to have them condition that traffic signal is part of their project uh irrespective of what we may or may not do on the central overpass. uh it was the cart before the horse and uh so as we look at future development in our city. Let's look you know more broadly and futuristic in terms of what we might think might be some future needs that we can maybe conditioned upon the developer should certain things happen. I think we missed an opportunity at some point and getting prolist put in that traffic signal for us. Council member Grenell.

Uh yes this this has to do with the beacons. I just wanted to I just wanted to understand and clarify this is not the in ground flashing. No. Um, which can become serious maintenance issues. This is this this is a a pedestrian sign that has a flashing beacon on it to draw drivers attention. That is correct. Thank you.

Any other questions on this item? I think we're ready to move forward. Oh, I'm sorry. One other question, Mr. Manune, if I may. Um, I see as I review the CIP, there's a lot of projects that are relatively small dollar amounts. Uh assuming that this council approves, let's say, for example, the annual citywide accessible pedestrian ramp at $75,000 per year, that that's an item that doesn't necessarily need to come back to the council for for review and approval. That's something that you would be able to approve once we approve the CIP. Is that what I understand?

Uh correct, your honor. So, in terms of implementing these projects, um the city manager does have uh signing authority up to $75,000. Uh that's for general city contracts. Uh there's a few of these projects that are $70,000 $75,000 or less. In addition, some of these uh projects uh would qualify for as construction contracts within the definition of the uniform cost accounting act. So that would be $200 plus,000 would be the city manager signing authority. And as you can see, there's a few of those projects that would qualify uh for that as well. Excellent. Thank you.

Let's talk about parks. Very exciting. Uh again, same uh tiered color criteria for parks as well with other projects. We see a lot of red here for critical projects. Uh a couple high priority projects and the medium priority project. Um uh also looking through here, you'll see a lot of playground replacement projects. So obviously if you starting on the left hand side, top to bottom, the first four projects are the playground replacement projects we've already presented to council uh a couple times. We do plan to take those back to council when we're ready to award construction. Uh going down, um you can see at number six and number seven and number eight, we've got more playground replacement projects. Uh number five, the softball uh field retrofit scoreboards. I believe one of the scoreboards has already been done. It's at the uh those two scoreboards are at Birch U and the other one's at um

Sportsport. Yes. Um, so that that project may get completed before the end of this fiscal year. So we'll we'll keep an eye on on that one. Uh, on the right hand side, you'll see a lot of, uh, or not, you'll see a handful of restroom replacement projects, uh, new restroom projects, uh, and projects related to sports facilities, uh, striping of turf, uh, pathway lighting and other amenities. Um, in terms of dollar amount, number 12, you've got Sportsfield Park Sports Facilities. So, that is a a suite of uh lighting uh and striping field improvements to accommodate baseball, soccer, and multi-use sports. And that's towards the get I get the direction right. The the south southwesterly portion of that entire complex. Uh let's see. We've got community pathway lighting. Uh other improvements as well. Yes. If just while you're going down that list, so does that include the presently dirt area of the uh of the Sportsville Park that is has no grass or or anything?

I believe so. I believe so. Yes. Thank you. And thank you. Um, are there any other questions before I continue? I mean, these are the the 16 projects we're proposing to be included as part of the CIP. I have a quick question for number four for the all abilities play area. Do you have a contractor for that? We don't have a contractor for one through four yet. Um we did open bids for one through three earlier this week. We plan to bring those to city council next month for recommendation for award.

Okay. I I would just like on the record to request that we don't use that all ability park that when we had the situation with the wetlands that was paying people to come out and uh protest or be for it. I would prefer that company not to be involved with that project please. Well, I would expect staff will do their their normal analysis on the RFP process or the RFQ process, whatever the process is, uh and bring the best uh provider to us for consideration. Right. There there there's a process we need to abide by when we do public bidding for projects. So, correct. Correct. But I just

don't want us to be involved with somebody that's doing stuff behind the scenes and involved in corruption and things of that sort. I'd like to keep it clean. Thank you, Council Gall. Yes. Um, sorry. I thought you had a question. I do. Okay. Thank you. Actually, I have a bunch, but I'm trying to limit myself. The You have You have three more. I'm counting. Uh oh. I I need more than that. Um so the the new park signage that um and this is not new park. This is new park signage. That is correct. There's a space between the I got just want to be clear about that. Um so I I I should new parks

replacing existing park signage of all the city parks. That wasn't my question, but I was I was just making a crack. But um the um this 1.1 million this this does this include landscaping the area, irrigation um is it for 1.1 million do we get new signs as approved by the previous council um out the door or or are there more follow-on costs? These this represents a rough cost of the larger sign that was approved by previous council. I don't know if it necessarily includes a whole lot of landscaping or irrigation improvements, but this is a ballpark cost,

right? Well, the it was a previous council, but they the the drawings that they approved showed lowlevel landscaping as a part of the as a part of the drawing. Was there some I'm going to defer to No, no, no worries. Thank you. Howard Young, public works director, honor mayor and council members. uh at that time the si the cost is only of the signs. It does not include any landscaping, electrical work or irrigation. Okay. So there's so there's there's more cost involved in that than than just the 1.1 million.

Well, there could be there could be. I mean it depends. I mean let me put some perspective on this. Uh the previous council, as Council Grindall mentioned, went through a laborious process on Were you part of the council vice mayor? We went through a laborious process looking at a variety of different new signs for all of our various parks. Our park signs are in many cases in very poor condition. Uh this council weighed in a number of different u options for signage for these parks and weighed in on what we felt really kind of represented what we wanted uh to show our community in terms of highlighting this park. Not to the point not only the sign, but as you may recall uh the vice mayor can correct me. There was actually some notation as to the uniqueness of this particular park in this neighborhood that that made it different than the sign at the next park. So, there were some unique features to each and every one of these signs. My recollection was I don't recall any uh any landscaping or any other needs necessary at that time for the council to consider. We were simply looking at considering the sign and I think that's all we considered. And uh

yeah, that's true. And I think where we landed um and city manager, you can correct me if I'm incorrect, um was not on unique features for each parks, but for the parks that were named for an individual with a plaque talking about who that individual was. And you know, I will say that while that was approved by, you know, past council, there's nothing wrong with relooking at it to see if there's a different way to do something, you know, a different way to do it better to make it fit into the CIP. Right now, you know, it's pretty low on the priority list. And you know, if there's, you know, if as a council, we want to come back and kind of look at that and see if there's ways to make it work. And I think we shouldn't be bound by, you know, the exact um the exact description of what a past council did.

No. And I look at it, but there's also some value there's also some value in in uh trying to proceed with kind of the the good work, right? We shouldn't try to change what we're doing every two years, but you know, especially with this project where it's, you know, much lower priority, maybe that's an opportunity for us to come back and see if there's, you know, another angle to look at it where we can do it a little bit better.

Continue. Yes. And so where I understand what got left off is that the full design was not complete. there was still a design fee associated with that that would finish the design of the signs and in addition the landscaping, lighting, electrical and irrigation with it too. So that was that was not complete. That is still a phase if we move forward with it. The landscaping needs to be incorporated with it also the landscaping, grading, irrigation and lighting or any electrical.

Well, I look forward to this project coming to us in the future. I um I I I am actually sympathetic to the mayor's comment about um honoring the work and the effort that the city council did in the past. My comments are really about trying to make sure that that the price tag is actually the whole the whole project instead of the already starting down the road where we have we have a a a major increase that's coming. Um, so that that was really the my point not not to not to um not to redo what was what the previous council did or but let's be let's be honest and straight as well. They our existing signs are terrible. Um they're some of them are in in really poor maintenance conditions. They they're hard to read. So h having a higher having a a a more um attractive signs at our parks is a is a good thing. Um, it's also the broken window syndrome. When you when you have something that looks nice, people treat it nicer. So, um, so I just wanted to be clear that my my concern is is about making sure the price tag is is covers everything and not not about trying to redo what the council did.

And and just to that point, uh, thank you council. I agree with you 100%. You know, let's remember some of these signs recognize historical figures from our community. And we want to certainly represent a capital project to which has been named after one of our historical leaders, whether it be, you know, someone that served in our parks department like Mel Nunes or someone like Council Member Susan Johnson or others that have served the community. We want to make sure we we recognize their contributions to our community in a in a way that represents um really who those individuals were. And I do like your reminder to me because I think that's something we did discuss that I do want and hope that if and when this comes back to us that we put some kind of a historical marker there to kind of identify who that person was. We might be able to get those as historical questions maybe over the next 10 to 12 weeks. U but you know maybe recognize who those folks were and their contributions to our community. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions on parks? Uh, one thing I I do want to mention is that uh what you don't see in any of the slides or the presentations is that we have a parks master plan that is identified another 70 projects are awaiting behind these 16 up here. So once as we go through and finish projects in advance of 5year CIP over the next several years, we'll continue to add more projects subject to funding and resource availability.

Is it Mickey? Is this the entire parks projects that you're going to present to the council this evening? I mean, you're you're mentioning there's other park amenities improvements that that we can see. This is Yeah. What you're going to highlight? This is No, this is this is it. This is a 16 projects park parks projects that we're considering to put in the 5-year CIP. What I'm what I'm saying is that uh there are a whole other list of projects down the pipeline in the future that we would like to implement subject to resources. The reason I asked that is because as I heard today at the senior advisory committee and I saw in the CIP report, one of the projects that we were talking about, Mr. Benoon, was a temporary restroom facility. Correct. That's under item F4. We have a conflict. Do Oh, do we?

Right. So, we'll get to that one in a little bit. Great. Did you have another question? Um, no. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Let's talk about facilities. This is the first of two slides looking at our uh recommended or draft list of facilities to incorporate in the five-year CIP. Again, critical in red uh high priority projects in what do you call it? Gold uh no no medium projects on on this list. The facilities master plan identified uh the three highest priority projects were to replace fire stations 27, 29 and the cultural arts center. So these are shown up here uh projects 1, three and 10. Uh, one is just for the planning and preliminary design efforts that we've already awarded to MAC 5. They're already starting that work. Number three is for the actual construction of the fire station. Um, number 10 is for the construction of the cultural arts center. Last council meeting I presented, we talked about a $63 million plus or minus uh capacity for that particular project. We do have other projects on the lefth hand side. You'll notice uh actually on both both columns you'll see sllamon a lot. There are a lot of ongoing projects, existing ongoing projects at uh Silon, both the activity in the aquatic center. Many of these projects are uh are in bidding, some are in construction, some are in design, some we anticipate getting done later this year. So, we have a variety of of smallalish size projects over at the Silman Silman Center. Um in addition to the three highest priority projects uh the fire stations 27 29 and cultural arts center the next trunch of high priority projects identified in the facilities master plan includes uh improvements to fire station number 28. So these are safety and operational improvements. That's project number seven on this list as well as uh numerous projects needed over at the public works service center and that's actually going to be shown on the next slide. Council

Vindal I know you're going to go over the the projects that are being cut at some point, but um I do want to I do want to call out that and this is more of a just a comment for staff that um as we're developing the cultural arts center. Um well, I the comment the project that was cut that I'm concerned about is the Watkins Hall history museum for for Newark. Um, and it's not unusual for comm community centers or cultural arts centers to include uh a room or a or a wing or a section that that celebrates the history of an area. So, I'm I'm I'm hoping we can um and again, I think this is just a comment for staff. I hope I'm hoping we can incorporate um the history of Newark as a part of as a part of that facility. Um some sometimes cities do it where it's a multi-use room. It's a it's a room that can be used for meetings and also has displays of historical information. So, um would just I would as the Watkins Hall project is not being proposed for funding, I I I think the um a physical celebration of our history is something we should consider.

Is the the Watkins home, Mr. Benoon, is that characterized as as a national historic structure? It's not. Okay. Any other questions or comments on this uh section? Council member Little, I do. Um, so one big thing that we've been discussing quietly is uh Newark, the old Newark library, and that's, you know, it's in a great location, stuff like that. You know, I've been chatting with different citizens and things of that sort. And I think something that we should really consider doing, I know the main thing is the roof. Is that correct? Uh, there's a lot of issu is issues associated with that building. So, it's a tired part of it. There's mechanical, electrical, plumbing. There's a whole host of issues, but besides that, it's great.

Okay, great. Um, I think something we may want to consider doing is possibly doing like a history museum and inviting a couple of nonprofits and things of that sort to make it a history museum and and everyone can we have we have so many different parts. We could put the history of Yol Life there. We could do something like love, things of that sort. So, I would like that idea to be considered. Not today or tomorrow, but we do already have a building and I think it's a prime location. Another option to do with that building is maybe make it like a senior citizen, you know, gathering space or something of that sort. I know it's there and something just I mean not today, not tomorrow. I understand that, but that's something we need to consider what we want to do with that building.

Thank you for your comments. One of the proposed projects we have here is to actually do an assessment of the three the the three buildings, the the library, the old Watkins Hall, and the old fire station. So, those three facilities will put through a process to determine the best use for those. amenities. So that I think that'll get to your question. I want to look down here. Any questions or comments on this side of the Okay, Council Gindoll. I was just going to staying with the with the with the former library. My understanding is that the the renovation cost is probably equal or or less or more than new construction. Is that that accurate?

That is likely to be a true statement. Yes. Um, as a part of this assessment, we will look at what are potential uses for these facilities, what are the potential reuses for these facilities, and what potential uses could replace the existing facilities. Um, when we do that assessment, we will put together an analysis on what it would cost to rehabilitate the mechanical, electrical, plumbing, as well as the roof. Um, this will not be a small dollar amount. It'll be several millions of dollars. Um, but we will make that a part of our analysis. And and to council member Grend Doll's point, I I don't I certainly agree with him in terms of demonstrating and showcasing kind of the history of Newark, whether it's at Watkins Hall or any other city facility, the resource center, the foyer out here, the library. We have a number of places where we can begin showcasing some of the history of our community. So, uh, I'm not suggesting we necessarily wait and see if the Watan Watkins Hall is the best location for something like that, but maybe in the interim we can look at various locations around our city where we can begin displaying some of the city's history over over the past. So, that would be my thought, please. Slide two of two for facilities. So, this shows the remaining facilities uh on our tenative list. Um we do have a uh again we have more projects related to Silon Center. We got the locker room shower tile gym floor refernishing. Many of these projects again we we plan to either uh start construction or complete sometime later this year. We do have some exciting um projects. Uh oh I should mention that I I previously I mentioned u the next trunch of high priority projects in the facilities master plan. I talked about fire station number 28. Um, there's a couple projects on here that have been identified from the facilities master plan. Project number 18, which is a service center admin building replacement. If you've ever been out to the public works corpyard, the admin building is an old

trailer. It's dilapidated. It's got a lot of it's literally coming apart. So, replacing that building is a high priority project. Also, I believe we have a project number 31, the service center locker room improvements. That was identified as a high priority project. There are other high priority projects that we just couldn't accommodate as part of this list. Similar to the parks master plan, we have a long list that we plan to hopefully implement following or beyond the five-year subject to available funding and resources. Um, but I do also want to talk about we do have some IT related uh projects, smaller size projects. Um, police has got some projects here as well. And I don't think there's anything in uh I want to highlight unless again unless council's got questions about projects in particular.

My only question, Mr. Bon, is as we look at kind of the aging of the Silon Center and you know, we set aside money every year for, you know, paving, we set aside money for specific ongoing improvements around the city. thoughts on maybe kind of creating a reserve at some point for just ongoing costs at the Silon Center so that uh we set aside a certain dollar amount every year just in anticipation of work that is either going to need to be ongoing or things that are just going to need to be upgraded as as we go along. Thoughts on that? Yes, your honor. Uh we did create a maintenance reserve fund. Uh I believe that balance is above 7 million approximately 7 million. 6 to 7 million.

8 million. 8 million. So it's at $8 million. Okay. Excellent. Right. Excellent. Other questions or comments on this item, Vice Mayor? Okay. Other questions, comments? Okay. Please.

Excellent. So, now let's talk about equipment. um not as exciting as as parks or facilities or infrastructure, but we certainly have a whole host of equipment that we'll need. Again, critical, medium, and high priority projects. These are all new equipment. Um I did want to note that we have a lot of vehicles in here. Many of these are police and public works. Many of these were carryovers from the previously approved projects. So, these are funded projects that or vehicles that we haven't purchased yet or in the process of purchasing. So, we have a whole host of public works related vehicles, police vehicles. Um, I do want to note a couple unique uh pieces of equipment that are not vehicle related. Uh, number one, you can see police drones as a first responder program. So, this is the expansion of PD's uh pilot, no pun intended, pilot program uh for drones. Um, we've got uh police number four, police GPS tracking system. So, this is the in pursuit vehicle uh tracking system. We've got a couple other items that are safety related. Number eight, the police portable barrier system. These are portable uh barriers that they can deploy uh during large events to protect crowds from uh incoming vehicles. Uh number 10, you've got the police expansion of the police incar automated license plate readers in some of their vehicles. So there are a lot of police and safety related uh projects shown on the slide. This is the first of two slides. Before I continue, does anyone have any questions?

This is the first two of two slides on the projects of new equipment. Okay. Um, I'm just going to make a quick comment real quickly. I love item number one, the police drone as first responder program. You know, as we've indicated from this council in the past, we recognize the use of new technology when it comes to uh responding and uh combating crime throughout our community. Uh my understanding, Mr. Man, if I if I understand correctly, this would raise the number of drones that we have available, I think, to four. Am I correct in that a in that number? I'll invite our police chief.

Good evening, Chief.

Uh good evening, Mr. Mayor's Council. Uh thank you for the question. Uh this would increase our our current number but uh more uh importantly it would increase the capability of the drones. Uh we currently have drones that are uh carried by personnel out in the field by police officers and uh pelican type cases uh that have to be deployed in the field with direct line of sight. Uh this program would provide the ability for staff to deploy drones uh that are statically placed uh for example at the police department uh as a call for service comes in uh without direct line of sight. So completely expanding or a different program really uh to respond to a scene uh quickly uh and operated from uh the information that information or from the information center that information is then relayed to the field personnel uh that are responding to the call or investigating that that crime.

So possibly next year, Mr. Manoon, when the chief comes back and does a report on on the police um activity, I'd love to hear more about the drones and the success on the drone program. I know we have a number of officers that are trained pilots to be able to um utilize these drones, but it's amazing how quickly we're going to be able to get up and get to a location in terms of understanding the nature of the activity that's going on. uh one it's a certainly it's officer safety issue you know in first and foremost and to be able to assess kind of what the situation looks like from above but then secondly it gives us an opportunity to be able to identify quickly those folks that are involved in whatever the activity may be involved in. So uh continued use of new technology um I think is is paramount to uh continuing to keep our uh incredible response times where they're at. So thank you for that. Other comments on this slide council Grendal.

Yes. I think it's for the I think it's for the chiefs if you don't mind hanging out. Um so the um project number 10 police car automated license plate readers which I'm strongly supportive. Does this does this amount does it add a number of cars? Does it what percentage of our of our of our police cars have this in it now? And what what does this bring us? Sure. Uh so the currently we have uh 13 of our vehicles equipped. Uh we secured that through grant funding. Uh this would complete the rest of our patrol our marked patrol fleet uh to have the uh in-car cameras with the automated license plate readers but but not your not your motorcycles. Uh currently not not the motorcycles.

No, I just wanted I just wanted to understand. Thank you. Sure. You bet. Excellent. Please continue Mickey. I do want to show this is my UAV FAA license. So there may be an opportunity to expand drone use in public works at some point. So we're very excited about that. in in my formal for former life, we did have license plate readers and drones used in public works as well. So very excited. Um this slide two of new equipment. Um again, not a whole lot of uh excitement. These are these are vehicles and equipment. Um I don't have a whole lot to say about this. I I welcome any comments about this particular list.

I I just have one comment and maybe I missed it, Mickey. There was a um one of the police items that uh that I remember seeing in the CIP which allows them to um shoot off a projectile. Yes. What did I miss that? No, it is it is item number four. Project number four, police GPS tracking system. This is Oh, that's under the GPS tracking system. Yes. Is that what it is? Okay, perfect. Perfect. Thank you. I I support that one as well. Uh, go back to the screen you were on. Other questions, comments? I have a question. Council Little, what is a car a barn car patrol vehicle?

I I had to admit that I I had the same question. I asked did I, by the way, Oh, you did? Okay. I mean, I I'm from Texas, so I need to know what a barn carried to Google this. And I I will defer to the police to correct me if I'm wrong, but a barn car. He's coming. He's coming. They turn for a spare vehicle. Correct. Yes. uh the the turn time in general.

She's a test. Yeah, speaking my language. Appreciate the the question. you know, uh, contrary, it's it's not one we just keep in in the barn ready to, uh, have a special event there or anything like that as a prop, but, uh, the turn time to to get, uh, vehicles once you order them with all the specialty equipment from the manufacturers can be anywhere from 6 months to 9 months, sometimes longer. Sometimes orders get cancelled. And so uh it's very important if you have uh vehicles that uh get become inoperable because of collisions or other mechanical issues uh that you have a spare ready to go because it takes so long to get a new one even if you wanted to get it. So it's a it's a backup backup sitting there ready ready to go. We don't put it in some place

uh and we like to call it Yeah. in the barn at the courtyard.

I feel like Santa Claus like all this like I want the honeydew list like like we're going through like a big list. This is more of just a a side comment. It seems some of these items are really not appropriate for a for the CIP a $16,000 um item so on so forth. So maybe you could I know this goes back to your second slide or something like that, but maybe you could talk a little bit about why some of these small projects are are considered CIP projects. We would love to it it it's really that again the five the five five points council approved needed study or project that can be capitalized and the capitalized limit is right now $10,000. So if it's $10,000 or more and it's a new piece of equipment it's a CIP project although I welcome any discussions about changing my definition but that's the definition we're living with right now. So to to that point, if the definition were to be increased from 10,000, let's say, to I don't know, 50,000, for example, that would take away the necessity for a police utility vehicle andor a public works robotic mower and some of these other smaller items to be in the CIP process,

right? We would probably transition that over to an operational cost. And is that something we would need to do? I mean, can we put a policy forward and and request that that be made available or I don't know what the state I don't know if there's state law issues implicating that or not? Uh I think we'd be happy to take a look at this and provide that analysis and update to the council when we return in May with uh further recommendations. Uh if we take it out of the CIP, then we'd have to pay for it in another uh avenue and that of course would be the banual budget. So whether we pay from out of that document or or the CIP document, uh I don't know to what extent that really makes a difference, but we'd be happy to talk that through and and and speak about that.

Why don't we leave it why don't we leave it at that and and whatever process you believe makes it easier to get some of these things done without the bureaucracy kind of associated with some of these minor uh cap what are identified as capital projects. I think this council would certainly be interested in that information. and it may be something that's done in two years when when we do this in more detail. I' I'd hate this this this comment was just intended to streamline it, not to not to make you redo things. So, it it may make sense for us just to adopt a policy um when as we in two years when we start looking at that. So, thank you and and I'm and I support that as well. Great. Great. Any other questions, comments?

You're talking about two government guys that are looking to minimize bureaucracy. I mean, uh

I'm a fan. I'm excited. Again the final category are studies. So we have uh uh one slide uh 13 studies. Many of these are existing studies. Uh I do want to go through some of these in particular because they do really impact what we put into or don't put into the CIP. Um the the first is the active transportation plan, otherwise known as the pedestrian bike plan. Um this is an effort that is is ongoing. Uh we've already reviewed a draft of this plan. We do plan to take this to council later this year for full adoption. This will assess citywide bicycle and pedestrian facilities that are needed. We do anticipate that as a result of this plan, it will identify a whole host of of needed projects related to bike and pedestrian safety. So be on the lookout for that. Um again based on the the result of this plan we do anticipate that we may need to add small projects to the CIP later this year or next year. Sea level rise vulnerability assessment. The um the report findings were presented to council uh July of last year. I believe that we have an adaptation plan coming to council next month or so to finalize that um that document. It will likely identify needed infrastructure to deal with sea level rise as well. Uh the ADA transition plan, that contract consultant award was completed, that work is started. That assessment probably won't be done until later next year. Um we do anticipate that again as a result of that assessment they'll it'll identify a whole host of needed improvements to improve or to reduce barriers um and improve access to all city facilities and within city rightway. So these are things like uh handicap ramps u sidewalks uh including improvements to buildings and other

facilities. Uh number five is a general plan update. largest uh from a dollar standpoint, probably one of the more important items. Uh plan to kick that off in the next couple of years. This will be a long multi-year um extensive community engagement process. We do anticipate as part of that it'll go through a sequel process, a lot of studies, a lot of traffic studies and that will result in a lot of identified mitigation measures and projects needed for the buildout of the city. uh the urban forest ma master plan uh that project has been has kicked off. Um we have a couple other planning related uh uh efforts that are that are ongoing. We got housing related items on the right hand side. Um we talked about number 11, the vacant building assessment. Those are for the three three buildings. It's a new project. And I think that's all I really have to say about this slide. I welcome any comments or questions. The only comment I would have Mickey and um is that as we look at these plans and maybe it's the next time this comes back to us or in a supplemental memo is to kind of give an indication as to the time when you anticipate the uh the plan will be presented to council. Other questions, comments? Uh council member Gandalf.

Yes. Sorry to be on so much time. the um what I'm I'm I have a project that I that I'm later when I there's an opportunity to to add projects I want to I want to add and um and I guess I'll just talk about it right now. Um the one of the most critical elements of our comm of our community development is our educational system. um many um cities or some cities, let's at least say I haven't I haven't counted noses or anything like that have an element of their general plan that is for is for education uh is an education element of the general plan. Um, I think that I think this should be a a a priority for our for our community to work with our library, to work with our Aloney College, to work with our school district and coordinate coordinate our our activities. Um the the general plan the general plan education element would include an action plan that the um that the that the different parties would agree to which who was doing what where how they're working together. Um th this is something that that could be paid paid for by it's about $200,000 I would think it could be paid for by delaying the general plan update and we have a very nice general plan right now. if you developed if you delayed the general plan update by by a year that would it would free up the money to to do this. So I I I think this is really critical. It is one of it is a high priority for our community. It's it's the biggest issue we have in our community. And I I think if it's not the city's issue, but our but our development, our our growth as a community, not I don't mean just growth in terms of physical growth, but intellectual growth um is is tied

closely to this. So I'm I' I'd like to see I'm going to be looking to I don't know when the appropriate time to do that is. Maybe you can help me with that, mayor. But I'd like to see a project a a education element being added to the CIP to to the general plan, education element to the general. It would be general plan education element, but it would be a standalone similar to the similar to the open space element. In fact, it could be done simultaneously. But um the good news is the education element would not have um would not have any uh would not have any squa implications usually.

Couple couple comments. Um council member Gandal, first of all, I'm not aware of any general plan that includes an educational element to their general plan. Mr. Benoon, do you have any thoughts on that issue? An educational element to their general plan. And as Mr. Turner comes up. Um, I'm I'm I'm not necessarily opposed to the concept in terms of education and the importance of education in our community. I'm certainly not opposed to that, but I I just don't understand how how it's going to be um what the implementation looks like as you look at Aloney College, the New York Unified School District. Um I I don't I don't see how that that's all going to come together. But let me take the first thought on the educational element. Are you aware of any general plan that includes an educational element as part of that general plan?

Yes. Well, thank you for the question. It's not common to have educational elements as part of the general plan. Within our existing general plan, we have existing goals, policies, and actions that relate to uh our work with the school district and other educational institutions and they're sprinkled throughout the general plan in different elements. uh you could see to have an educational element that brings all of those together uh and perhaps add to it based upon direction from council. So that might be one organizing way to bring all of those together into one clear element or chapter uh for the for the general plan. So that is a possibility. Um I think other cities throughout the country um look at their comprehensive and general plans with an educational um focus to it. Um, and so that's something we could certainly look into.

And we had this conversation not on this educational element a number of months ago at the council meeting. And I'm certainly not opposed to entertaining uh innovative ideas, but but it needs to come with some meat on the bones. I I really just don't know what you're asking for, what we anticipate the participation will be from these other educational institutions, whether or not they even want to participate at all. I I think there's a lot of leg work that needs to be done and I would certainly ask you to do it council GDL if you're asking the city to commit $200,000 of its money on a concept to which I'm not sure or certain whether or not the school district college or any of the others are interested even in participating with us on whatever and I I'm not even sure what the out desired outcomes would be at the end of the day. Um, so I are are you willing to come back with a little bit more of an analysis for the council to consider as a rel and and certainly do your homework in terms of checking in with these other educational institutions to see you know how you see their participation to be and you know what you hope the desired outcomes to be. Um I'm certainly not opposed to looking at education and the importance in our community. I'm just not sure conceptually what you're asking this council to do.

Sure. Um well th this is a this is a capital improvement plan so um there obviously needs to be meat on the bones just as there would need to be a lot of meat on the bones of what a general plan update was in general. Um so this is this is an allocation of resources for it and and certainly the um there certainly before any work was done was actually done before there was any expenditure you would you would need to you would need to work you need to work out the details and with the partners to to do that. I I I do want to say Hayward has an education element in the general plan and so does Richmond. This this I found out with a um 15-second chat GPT search. So um but so it's not that hard to it's not that hard to see and um and and particularly in in our community, I think given that our school our school district boundaries and our school district boundary and our and our city boundaries are cerminous um and that we really are one community. They're they're they're not they're not the district's kids. They're all of our kids.

Yeah. I don't I don't disagree with that. I don't disagree with that. But remember, we have a separate elected school board and uh their goal and our goal are similar in terms of the quality of education of our kids. Nobody disputes that. I'm just not certain what our what what is our desired outcome on the expenditure of $200,000. What would we hope to accomplish? Assuming, let's keep in mind, we have a brand new superintendent that is coming in on July 1. So, he hasn't got his feet wet yet. We have an election coming up in November where we may have new board seats opening up. Um, I'm not opposed to this idea. I just think it's premature at this point. Uh, I'd certainly be willing to reexamine this after the new superintendent has an opportunity to kind of come in and survey the land and kind of see what's going on. I mean, they're dealing with budget deficits. They're dealing with declining enrollments. We'd be asking them undoubtedly for a dedication of staff time to invest in helping us develop whatever this educational element looks like at the end of the day. Is this something that uh you'd be willing to put off for for another year to give the superintendent opportunity to come in and kind of survey this survey the land and see what's going on? Well, I I think I'd like to I'd like to see the the project included in the CIP and then and then with that moving forward, obviously we would want to work out the details, work work with our partners and do that, but I' I'd like to see it added to the CIP. It's a it's a higher priority than um updating a uh a already well functioning general plan.

I'm not a planner by profession, Mr. Benoon, but are we is there a statutory requirement for periodic updates of the general plan? Is this something that can be deferred if necessary? Mr. Attorney,

the only element um that's required to be updated regularly is the housing element. Uh all other elements of the general plan are uh follow you know direction of the city in terms of their update schedule or as you know our last uh general plan update was in 2013. So that was 13 years or so ago. We're about kind of midway through. So, it's probably appropriate time to think about an update and start to plan for it. And I think that's one of the reasons why we have it on the CIP. But in terms of exactly when it starts and what the scope of work is, certainly that's to be determined through council's direction.

So, if I may uh summarize, council member Gandalf, sounds like you'd like to put an item on the uh project studies of $200,000 for what you're calling an educational element component. Um, and I think 200,000 is what you've indicated. Uh, I would prefer not to put it on the uh CIP at this point. We're going to come back in two years.

By then, you know, the superintendent has had an opportunity to kind of in assess the situation at the school district. You have had a better opportunity in my mind to kind of articulate what this whole element looks like. Uh maybe bring in some examples from Richmond and Hayward as to what they're doing, how they're doing it. Undoubtedly, we would be hiring a consultant. I would imagine we certainly don't have staff time to be doing this project. So, it just I I think it's a worthy project because I think at the end of the day, the education and quality of education is important to all of us, but uh at this point I I can't support putting $200,000 set aside when I'm not really sure what the project looks like at the end of the day. Other comments, thoughts? Yeah, I guess when I when I look at Hayward as one of our examples, you know, Hayward is unique or at least different from Newark in that it has a you know large prestigious university at the center that creates very different needs on city services. Um so I guess you know in these cities that you've looked at you know what kind of stuff is included? What what what are we what are the things that we don't know that we don't know with our current studies? Um, well, I'm h I'm happy to go into more depth about it. I I I have I have done this. What I'm what I'm looking for at this point is to have to have it in the CIP and and I would be more than happy to work with staff to and with the entire council to flesh that out. I can give it more detail. I I I did develop a proposal and sent it to the to the city manager and that has some more information. I can I can go over that right now if you'd prefer. What I'm looking for really is to have to have a cap item which serves a purpose of reflecting the the vision reflecting the direction of the council. And it's and it sends it sends a message to the community that we value it. It doesn't say that we're going to redo what

Hayward has or what Richmond has or or any other community. It says we're we're we're going to work together with our partners and come up with with ways we can work together. But if you'd like me to, I can go over. Well, to me, it seems too conceptual to invest, you know, a significant amount of dollars towards something that is really just I mean, if the goal is to send a message that we're doing something that we're already trying to, you know, doing our best to do, I I I'm not really sure.

And I wouldn't be opposed as we come back with a general plan update to maybe include an element in our general plan. And I think Mr. attorney mentioned that there is a component that focuses somewhat on education. I wouldn't be opposed to certainly flushing that out to maybe um incorporate some of the concepts that Council Member Gandalf is suggesting and draw upon, you know, um good ideas uh from Hayward, Richmond, whatever the case may be, and and put that right in our general plan. You know, that would certainly synthesize kind of this council's vision of what we think a quality education system looks like in the community. and we can certainly broadcast that to our various educational partners or bring them in to participate in terms of helping draft that language. I'm certainly not opposed to any of that.

Yeah. Again, uh not to be re I just I I don't agree with that. I I think it's a more urgent um issue and um reasonable people can disagree. Oh yeah. But um but I I don't agree with that. I think I think we need I think we need to put our money where our mouth is. if it's an important element for our community, we need to we need to step up and make it happen. Well, why don't we go ahead and vote on that? Okay, so we have a a motion by Council Grindall that we add a $200,000 item to our project studies list to include an item uh identified as an educational element component um of the general plan of the general plan.

Your honor, if I may, I don't think we need to take a formal motion. This is a work session to provide direction to city staff as to what we should include and not include in the CIP. So, I think just a simple consensus and discussion um and and each council member indicating what their preference is is sufficient. I think that's what we'll do. We simply indicate uh Oh, so okay. So, we don't need to take a formal vote. Just our preference. Okay. So, u uh we know certainly council member Grenal's preference is is yes. Uh Council Little, no. Uh I'm a no as well. Vice Mayor, I I I don't know what it would be, so I I I don't wouldn't want to go forward with it. Council Decontachio,

I also do agree that education is important. Um I would much rather prefer to see it in the general plan update mainly because I'm not sure exactly what we're what we would be spending the 200,000 on so that way we could define it better then and then we could revisit it. So I would say no. Okay. Thank you. Please. Oh, I'm sorry. There any other comments on the projects listed here? Please continue.

Great. Well, we're going straight into next steps. Um, next month we plan to come back to city council the draft of the or complete draft of the full CIP with uh obviously response to comments from council and public. May June we do uh plan to go to planning commission for general plan conformance of the draft CIP and then back to city council in June for adoption of the full CIP along with the budget. That actually concludes my presentation. and I welcome if questions, feedback, suggestions for new projects.

Before I return it back to the council, uh is there anybody in the audience who would like to comment on what you just heard as it re u relates to the CIP and the projects that we've identified as giving council or uh staff direction in terms of our priorities. Any comments? C manager? Any comments before I turn over to the C council? Last comments on this item? Uh vice mayor? Uh, no, no last comments. Just um I I do really appreciate the uh presentation. Obviously, it was a lengthy presentation and um that's a small drop in the bucket compared to the uh length of work that was done putting it together. So, I do want to thank you on that. Thank you. Comments on this side?

Yes, Council Gall. So, is this is this is this time for me to mention projects that were that were cut out and I think should be included or modified instead?

Yes. Um so the um there there are two that I that I that I'm willing to highlight. Um first of all the the there's a project called the Bayside TOD transit transit station design. Um I I don't remember the amount that was that was indicated. um as a part the key element of this project um is to make a to make a pedestrian bridge between the Bayside development and the Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge. um the and and to and to design that project, not to build a transit station um as is envisioned here, but I'd like to see this this project modified to um to to highlight the that transit connection so we can with with that with that bridge, you would be able to you'd be able to go from Alama Creek, the the whole length of it to to through the Bayside development um and and never cross a roadway. Um, it would be great for recreational uses and commuters. And, um, as it is now, people, by the way, I should I do want to clear clarify this is not this has nothing to do with the project that I'm conflicted on. This has to do with an a bridge that would occur um more than 1500 feet from my from my house. I should have made that clear when I started. You've started to sweat, I know. Um, so, um, help help me help me understand in the in the binder I have. Where would I find where would we find that project?

It's in the It's in the brown ones. It would be in tab 12. So, 12 contains the um uh the spreadsheet number 14. Thank you. No, I'm sorry. No, that's No, that's that's the other one. That would be project five is the number for $700,000 for this. And I don't see the construction phase of that. I'm I'm suggesting the design phase, not the construction. Correct. Okay.

And council member, you mentioned this actually includes the train platform and other associated capital projects. You're you're looking to kind of parse those out. Is that it? I'm I'm the the um the the pedestrian bridge, the pedestrian crossing should be built and designed to be compatible with a future station, but but this this language be modified to focus on the pedestrian bridge itself. Well, let me get staff's comments on this.

I've have a slide up here for the FMC Willow site. I'm imagining I anticipate that what you're talking about is a pedestrian bridge from the far upper leftand corner of this image which is a northerly portion of Grand Park that goes up and over the railroad and you can see the railroad at the very top that goes up and over the railroad and the flood zone and connects to the existing trail. Is that that is correct.

Okay. U I did want to note that FMC Willow project does anticipate the interim trail to go around along Enterprise Drive. at up Willow Street on the right hand side of this image. And I do want to note that Grand Park has actually been designed. I believe they do plan to break ground uh this year for construction. So to accommodate a pedestrian bridge to go up and over and meet ADA could be challenging, but we can certainly take a look at that,

which is why the design is important. So, I was down that area just a few days ago, and as you look at the housing development, I think that is up here at the top uh of the screen here, there's actually a dirt road that goes down that pathway along the um the pipeline for the uh what is it? The SFPC. Yeah, the Hychi aqueduct. So that you'd be looking to kind of cross over that whole area there. Correct. Well, it's not it's not just me looking forward to this. This this was what was envisioned in the in the specific plan.

And and the other element is the with the with the with the to plan, every house pays a um pays a special fee, $2,500, I believe. And that fee is to be used for TOD areawide improvements or the Central Avenue overcrossing project. It was it was specifically called out in case there was any question about that being too far away from the location. That's correct.

So, um it's a there's a $3.25 million balance, which the city manager confirmed for me already. Um there's a $3.25 million balance in in that in that account right now. Um, so I'm suggesting that that that that that funding be used for the design of this project, which would then position the city to be able to go after grant funding to do it. There there are a lot of grants that help with pedestrian activities that don't really compete with our other other things that are going on. So, so, so I I I think when you suggest a new project, you um it's it's helpful to actually suggest where the funding source is. And so I wanted to I wanted to do that for you as well.

Okay. And only for the design. I think it's appropriate for the design. Um first of all the the um cost would be a wild guess with without the design being completed. So I think having the design done and then in two years if if we um if we if we want to prioritize it or if we're able to get grant funding or or an earmark or whatever then we can address that then. Um, but I' I'd like to I'd like to see us go forward with that design. Now, any uh educated guess as to what a design of something of that nature might cost? Low low millions sounds reasonable. I I imagine the actual construction of a pedestrian. Sorry about the design.

Just the design. Low low milling sounds very reasonable. Okay. Any idea why? I mean, this project came on board back in 1995, so it's been around for 30 plus years. No council ever thought that this was something that needed to be moved forward with. I'm not sure what the process wasn't housing back there. That's true.

The connection to housing back there is very recent. I think we need to look at some of the, you know, ways to improve that area. we've got, you know, a funding source dedicated for projects, you know, like that for that community. I think it makes a lot of sense to do that design work. Um, and, you know, if the design then sits there while we wait for funding, then that's, you know, disappointing. Um, but I think the opportunity there is going to be much greater use for our dollars, um, than, you know, other uses there. So, I think there's a real opportunity there. I think, you know, with that community being a new community, there's going we're going to need to look at some of our old ideas again. And this is one of those old ideas that probably didn't make sense in 1995, but could make sense now.

Um, well, and I would want to point out that the council did approve the specific plan, which which did reference this. Um so and as well as the council approved the um citywide um bay trail uh realignment study which also referenced a crossing at well and to be very you know hypothetical here when the first general plan was done in '92 which imagined this area for housing you know at some point they started thinking about okay if there's housing over here what are some other things that we need to do to really you know make that housing you know a great you know Newark neighborhood and one of the things that came up was connecting it through to Don Edwards.

So, Mr. Bon, I would imagine then if the council uh gives direction to simply elevate this project in essence uh to a design stage, it would simply then go from kind of a brown to more of a more of a color that is more of a priority for the council. Is that and then staff would come back with kind of a financial analysis as to what the design portion will cost. We just simply incorporate that into the CIP. Is that is that how the process would work? Well, it sounds like the council member is requesting that this project be funded. Then we have a design. So, if the council provides a direction to do that, we'd be happy to come back and incorporate that in the draft plan that would be present to the council next month.

And just just to be clear, not the not the not the text that's in the plan, but to to focus this on specifically the bridge. It needs to be it would need to be designed so it didn't preclude a transit station at some point. But correct. But I I just want to be clear about that. Yeah, that'll happen. I think we would probably be safe, but I do agree with you. Yeah. Um, any other comments on that? I I don't I don't have an objection to that. I I think that's okay to put that in there and and come back with a modified uh uh pro, you know, amount in terms of what that design might look like. I'm I have one more. Sure. Go ahead. Or I can we can hear from others if you're tired of hearing me talk. I never get tired of hearing you talk. Go ahead. Um, okay. So, um,

as long as you don't get tired of hearing me talk. Oh, certainly not. Not not not as we celebrate your birthday.

Yeah, exactly. Um, so, um, that there's a project number. I don't remember the number, but there's there's a discussion of adding adding transit shelters in our community. Um we have um we have very low transit writership in in Newark, but the people who are are using transit are doing a social good and they're suffering for it by standing in the sun, standing in the rain. There's no there's no there's no electronic updates about what's happening with the buses and the bus frequency is so low. If people knew at least that the bus if they got to the bus shelter and it was and it said your next bus is an hour, they could make choices at least in in their whether they actually wanted to make the trip or use Uber or something like that. So, um, bus shelters when you when you have an active an active and an and effective transit district, they they work to develop these bus shelters with a um with a partner with with a partner who provides um um outdoor advertising in return for the for the shelters. We have we have a number of shelters in this in the city. A a few um and some of them are in quite poor repair and they're not built in a way to be easy to repair to maintain. So um this really isn't looking for funding for um this isn't looking for funding to build the shelters. It's an we need funding to and we need and staff effort to work to work and push AC transit and if and if if necessary take it on ourselves so that we can because so that we can get um some weather protection and information to the people of our community who are um standing out on the

side of the road um in just a very bleak environment that they they should at least be able to be out of the sun and out of the rain. You know, it's it's interesting you make that comment today as HC Transit comes to the council tonight to say, "Oh, by the way, uh your services are going may be cut in the near future uh but for the saving the governor with the funding that he provided to these transportations, but we have a significant measure on the ballot come November that we've heard certainly from BART and AC Transit that if those if that does not pass, there's going to be significant reduction in uh transportation. Um, is this an item that we identified in the CIP in terms of cost analysis, things of that nature? I don't remember seeing that.

It's in there. This is uh the project I believe the council member is referencing is contained on page five of tab 12. This would be the brown spreadsheet. These are the projects that are not being recommended for funding. Uh, it looks like it's project number 20. Project what?

Project number 20. Uh, it's on page five. This the original estimate from 2018 was 2.4 million for 100 uh bus stops uh with shelters, benches and I and I by the way I think this the amount going forward would be substantially below this shouldn't this shouldn't be construction funds. There should be an the ability to for staff or and consultants to um to to look at how we can do how we can get find a way to push AC Transit to do it or to do it ourselves, but not to construct it. You need you want to find a partner who's willing to build the shelters in return for um in return for outdoor advertising.

Well, I I just don't see AC Transit having the money. They simply do not have the money. They've already cut back on services. Uh even with the funding that they received from the government governor, they're cutting back on services.

Uh if if and I'm not downgrading our community by any stretch of the imagination, if we were San Francisco, Berkeley, where there is a specific need, whether because of it's a college town or whatever the case may be, there's a specific need for mass transportation. Absolutely. But we're as I drive around our city and I see our city buses and I drive around, I see very few people, if any waiting for buses and I say as I see my the buses driving down our street, it's not uncommon for me to look in those buses and see absolutely nobody in there other than the driver. Uh in my mind, uh I don't disagree with you to say I don't want to see because my grandmother used to take the bus when we lived in Caster Valley. I don't want to see seniors or those that are handicapped, you know, sitting in the sun, sitting in the rain. I just don't see this being one of the priorities that I've heard from the community that we need to begin funding. Um, those would be my preliminary thoughts. Other thoughts on this project?

Um, I do. My son actually takes the bus frequently cuz I won't drive him everywhere. And, uh, so he tells me that he can actually get on the app and he can let you know where the bus is. So if you're on the app, it can actually give you 7 minutes, 5 minutes. So it's actually pretty efficient for that type of thing. So I don't think we would have to do something like that. I mean, honestly, we're we're in the Bay Area. We're gorgeous. We're incredible. We have sunny times all the time. I don't think there's really that much of a need for a shelter for the prices. I can see your point, parents, and what you're trying to say and stuff like that, but I just think there's other things that I think our residents are a more priority on. But so I but I'm letting you know my son uses the bus regularly and he uses the app without a problem.

Other thoughts, comments, counsel kind of problem. I think it's something that I would love to see. I just don't see a feasible way forward to getting where we need to make real improvements there. Um I just don't see that way forward on this. and and and maybe council member Grenal, maybe um when we see what happens with the uh bond in November and and what it does to our service model, you know, maybe again we we reexamine this issue, you know, down the road kind of when we know what the landscape now looks like in terms of transportation through our community. But at this point, I just don't see um expending this this kind of money for for this purpose. Other thoughts? Um, we have a request by Council Member Grindal to consider the bus shelters. Again, more of a let's kind of study the issue and see, you know, really how many are necessary out there in the community. It may not be that it certainly can't be the 2.4 million. No.

Um, but let's study the issue and and see what it looks like uh down the road. Um, I'm not going to support that moving forward. Council member Little, I'm not I'm I I'm not going to support I think the money could be used in better ways. Vice Mayor and Council Del Kachio, I haven't seen many people um taking the bus and I am out there at different commute hours and so because of that, I do also feel that we could use the money in other ways. So, no. Great. Let's go. You didn't ask me, but

Oh, no. I mean, we Um, I did want to make I wanted to make a comment that um, just just because it's hard and just because it doesn't affect a lot of people doesn't mean we don't we don't have we don't set higher standards and try to and try to accomplish it.

Thank you. Uh, this is the opportunity for other questions and comments. I'm going I'm going to go and start with some questions if I may. Um, first of all, I want to talk about uh some some of the discussion uh in the CIP was whether or not we go with the 15-year model, which then coincides with the um expiration of measure GG. Um, and right now we're paying on that debt about 4.3 million. Uh the other opportunity was to look at going to 17 years I believe it was. Uh and in either case because of the amount of money involved I think that the debt would be going up to 5.4 million if I recall correctly and certainly I'll be um willing to stand uh corrected. U is there any any um reason not to go to 17 years? I know we have a very favorable interest rate and I'm not a bond expert so excuse my uh ignorance in this area. By tapping into additional opportunities for bond funds for capital projects, do we forgo that interest rate or are we allowed to continue with that interest rate but just kind of include our uh increase our line of credit kind of thing?

Thank you for that question, Mayor. Um, apologies. Could you repeat the last part of your question? So, by uh currently we're on a very favorable interest rate on our measure GG. Would we we would be tapping in for additional bond. It'd be a separate bond. It would be a separate bond and it and that would not then of course be under that same favorable interest rate. The separate bond then would that that wouldn't touch the current bond or would we have to kind of refinance? We wouldn't have to refinance that bond, would we? only refinance the existing bond if we obtained more favorable uh finance uh rates at that time at that time

which is what we did. We took advantage of that favorable opportunity uh with the debt on the syllabus and we rolled that into the debt financing for this facility because we had very favorable bond rates at that time and and current interest rates as we look today we wouldn't anticipate those very favorable interest rates would no. So, okay, then then I I'll take back my suggestion. Um, and and let's keep it then consistent with Well, either way, we're going to have to refinance the bond for additional money, right? Um, it would be new bond. It' be separate. I mean, it's going to be a new bond anyway, right? Correct.

And so those Okay. And mayor, if I may just clarify, um why we have the 15 to 17year term was because um we weren't sure when the projects would actually start and so we did several scenarios of the financing structure. Um the goal originally was to align the um terms along with the measure GG term limits um sorry the the term and so at the time when we looked at the scenarios it was 17 years. If we look at the scenarios now, it'd be closer to 15 or 16 years. And then of course when we start the project um and of course shorter term, higher payments upfront, but um long-term we save a lot more interest. Um and there could be a possibility that we do get um a little bit more favorable rates when it's a shorter term. Um we also did uh hybrid scenarios where we would like to balance um both affordability as well as um taking into consideration what cash we would have saved um by the time we're ready to issue the bonds. And so that could give us also um uh better better leverage when we have like a higher cash contribution on hand. So, do we need to would we need to provide that direction today or we would do that at the time when we come in to do the new bond? Okay. Correct, your honor.

I'll wait I'll wait and wait I'll wait and have that conversation at that point and I know you'll do a great job in terms of analyzing the pros and the cons. Uh, thank you. Other questions or comments? Council Little,

I just have one request and I know this sounds silly and it's going to be very minor expenses, but one thing I would really like to do and something a lot of constituents have told me is I would like to align the lights, the traffic lights from Newark and Cedar all the way to Thornton and Cedar. It just sometimes seems like a stop and go and go. It'd be really nice if we could get it so it just if you're going the speed limit, you can go nice and smooth the whole way without stopping. That would be I think that would be just a I'm sorry, council member. Um, that is a conflicted project. So, that's coming up uh in a matter of minutes. So, perfect. Are we all conflicting on that one? No. Other comments, questions?

Comments, questions down here.

Um, Mr. Manoon, thank you to you and all your staff for all the hard work that you did uh on the CIP. You know, this is really a benefit to our community going from two years to five years as you articulated at the beginning of this process because as we see these projects are going to take years in some cases to actually get completed. I think it's a more realistic approach to looking at projects as we as we examine kind of the future. And uh I'm comforted with the fact that every two years you're going to come back and kind of give us a score sheet on how we're doing, where we're at in terms of where we thought we would be in terms of the funding and and the cost uh for these projects. So I look forward to those next presentations. Uh thank you for the work that you did, Mickey, on this and uh and I think you have the direction from the council on this item moving forward. Okay.

Thank you. Um, no voting required. I like that. So, the next item is item F2. Vice Mayor Jorgens may need to recuse yourself. The item, let me read the item is consideration of the Thornton Avenue pavement overlay phase one interstate 88 to Olive Street and traffic signal interconnect interconnect construction projects to be included in the draft 5-year capital improvement plan. Vice Mayor, uh yes, uh thank you. I will be recusing myself on this item because I have a real property leaseold interest within uh proximity of Thornton Avenue and the traffic signal interconnect project. Uh and that uh real property leaseold interest is my residence.

City manager.

Yes. Good evening, your honor and members of the council. Uh this item item F2 consists of two projects that we recommend including in the CIP. One of which is the traffic signal interconnectedness. Mr. Sabotto will provide the brief presentation on both these projects. Great. Um good evening. We are still excited to be here. It's well it's almost 11:00. So again, this is just to go over two proposed projects to include as in the draft CIP. Uh the first is the Thornton Avenue pavement overlay phase one. This is an ongoing project um to repave uh Thornton Avenue from Interstate 880 all the way to Olive Street. This is an existing CIP project. Um this project uh cost is approximately $4 million coming from regional and federal funding sources. The project is in the midst of design. In fact, the design is essentially done. I mentioned earlier that this uh there are federal funds tied to this project which causes a lot of delays related to processing funding agreements and documentations with Calrans. So, all those documentations uh were submitted to CALR a few weeks ago. We're going to work with Calrans to try to expedite those those documents and those funding agreements. Our goal is to get this project uh out to bid later this year. Uh that concludes this particular slide. I want to hold and see if there's any questions. Yes. Just real quickly, and I know we have this conversation, uh, pref briefly describe what our residents can anticipate in terms of traffic delays and things of that nature because I know that that's certainly going to be an issue and we're going to hear about it. Uh, maybe you can briefly describe what residents can anticipate.

There will be significant traffic issues with this work. If if you recall last year, there was work um done by the water district to replace a pipeline in anticipation of this project. We needed to make sure that that pipeline replacement work was completed before we were start any pavement work. You may recall a lot of the traffic issues associated with that pipeline replacement. This project will not be much different. This project is a considerable amount of pavement reconstruction. There will be traffic detours and lane closures. um and other traffic uh or construction related impacts. So, it will be significant. We'll try to minimize that as much as possible and do a lot of community outreach.

And I would imagine over the period of time, it'll be segmented, right, Mickey? They're going to do, you know, this quarter, this quarter, you know, they'll they'll break it into segments, I would assume. Yes. Not only broken up into segments as part of this project, but along the entire Thornton corridor. So, this is Thornton phase one. There's other phases of work along Thornton, including Oldtown Streetscape. Other questions or comments? Yes, I have a question. Maybe I've just maybe I'm tired, but does Mayhew does it have two E's in the middle or is it one E in the middle? Wow. I caught that as well. There's only Okay, so I'm not I'm not too tired. I'm trying to see if I should have saw that.

Okay, good. So, I'm I'm Okay. I didn't know if I was just too tired or what not. So, okay. So, Okay. So, I don't know if I'd been spelling it wrong or something. Okay.

Okay. The second project is the traffic s signal interconnect. This is uh the purpose is to really um to install technology to provide adaptive live uh realtime adjustment to optimize traffic signal timing and to really improve traffic flow along three major corridors along Cherry Street, Newark Boulevard and Thornton Avenue. This is a carryover project. Um the design is 100% done. Um, this is one of the projects that we are looking to transition funding from Central Avenue to this particular project to pay for the construction. We've got about a million dollars uh estimated for this project. Hopefully, we're very optimistic that we'll be able to get that money transferred over so that we can actually get this constructed.

Okay. Okay. I have a question. How can it be $10 million to line up some lights? I mean, give me give a kid a joystick or something or or or a program. I'm not being rude. I'm not being rude. How could it be $10 million to redo the lights? We are going to need to install conduit that connects all these lights along the all those to connect all the signals. So, I forget how many signals there are, but we're going to need to install conduit and connect fiber to all these signals. Couldn't we just program it and just like someone drive and say, "Okay, it takes 32 seconds and then we can just light it." I'm not being I'm not I'm just $10 million is a lot of money. All these things cost a lot of money. Like what's going on? How is it 10?

It's It's not just It's not just the the cabling and the programming, but it is also includes uh a lot of the we've got um cameras that we're planning to put on all these signals to do traffic monitoring as well.

Other questions or comments? Okay. I think we're done with this item. I think we can call Council Member Jorgens back or Vice Mayor Jorgens back. The next item, I'm going to read it as he enters the room. The next item, F3, will be consideration of the Thornton Avenue Complete Streets Hickory to Gateway project to be included in the draft 5-year capital improvement plan. Council member Grenal.

Yes. Um um I'm recusing myself because I have a real property interest within proximity of the Thornton Avenue Complete Streets Hickory to Gateway project and it's my home. Um so I'm going to I'm going to go in the other room and I'll be back. Great. Thank you.

Proceed. Great. So this is the third of four presentations. We are still excited to be here. Uh one project for consideration in uh the draft uh CIP. This project is about a mileong construction of a um two-way cycle track as well as pedestrian pathway along the westerly or I guess this is the southwesterly portion of Thornton Avenue from Hickory all the way to Gateway Boulevard. Uh this is the flap or the federal lands access program grant funded project that we're working with the federal government on. Uh cost estate is approximately $12 million. Again, we see a mix of federal and state funding. Um the state funding, the 3.2 million is uh one of those uh generally unrestricted funds. So, one of our strategies is to see if we can use some of the funding from the Central Avenue overpass to pay this 3.2 million and then use the 3.2 million state funding to other uh more local projects here within the city. The project is roughly 30% completed in design. We anticipate construction to be several years out. Uh and that pretty much concludes the presentation for this project. So the this capital project, we don't actually we're not doing any work on the marshlands road.

Correct. Okay, that is correct. And my only request on the Thornton Avenue to gateway. We're not looking at sidewalk gutters and curbs along that way. Are we? We are looking at widening Thornton Avenue to design a two-way cycle track and widening it further for pedestrians. But no, I don't believe we have curb gutters. I think I think the walkway for pedestrians is going to be uh asphalt if I recall correctly. I believe that's correct.

Okay. Um I walk that road and um I always make sure I walk as cars coming at me versus hitting me from behind. Will this be in your estimation safer for pedestrians based on the work that's going to be done? Will there be ballards separating pedestrians from tra? How will it be safer for pedestrians? I believe the tenative plan does include installing ballards to separate the bike lane and the bike lanes from the traffic.

Okay. Okay. Other questions, comments? All right. I look forward to um continuing my walks. Oh, I I did have I'm sorry, one more question. I'm sorry. Assistant city manager. I think we're also talking about a traffic signal upgrades at Gateway. If I recall correctly, the this project includes a pedestrian crossing signal, not particularly at Gateway, but uh just about a couple hundred feet north of Hickory Street. So where you see the the label for Thornon Avenue, right at the E of Avenue, this project proposes to install one of those pedestrian activated Hawk. Uh

so this area, if I'm not mistaken, because I've walked down this road as well, is this the road that uh basically was never operational? Like is that central? What road is that? Cedar. Cedar. Is that Cedar? So, would this be a walkway like like at the Cedar where Cedar meets Thornton or beyond that? Well, you said it's at Hickory. It's just north of Hickory Street near the E near the E of the label of Thornton Avenue.

So, do you know where I'm talking about, Mickey? The where the Cedar Road ends kind of that unfinished street and there's a walkway that then continues on towards Thornton Avenue. Are you talking about then that crossing lane at that point. Ah, yes, you are correct. So, if if Cedar were to continue all the way to Thorn Avenue, that at that location is where the pedestrian beacon will be. I like that location. Other questions, comments? Two intersections of Cedar and Dorton. And Great. I think we're done with this one.

Okay. Oh, now we're to the bathrooms. Finally got to the bathrooms. So, the next item is F4 and this is consideration of the Lakeshore Park projects to be included in the draft 5-year capital improvement plan. Council member Deontio. Yes, I'm recusing myself because I have a real property interest within proximity of the Lakeshore Park project which is my residence.

And your honor, I do own real property within 500 ft of the boundaries of Lakeshore Park. I too will recuse myself. I took no part in the preparation of the staff report or directing any staff on this item. And uh I think ladies and gentlemen, I want to apologize maybe because it's late. Uh I did not ask for public comment on items F2, F3, and certainly I will on F4. If anybody would like to speak on any one of those items, F2, three, and four, I'm going to open up for public comment as soon as staff has completed their um presentation on F4.

Great. Home stretch. We're still excited. This is the last item before you. Uh we have two proposed projects to be considered in the five-year draft CIP along Lakeshore Park. The first is for uh new pathway and lighting improvements. Um this project was identified and prioritized through the parks facility or the park's master plan update. The second project is for the installation of an interim restroom somewhere along Lakeshore Park. You can see the estimated costs up on the screen. 200,000 for pathway lighting and 800,000 estimate for a two-year rental or lease for an interim restroom facilities. Both of these are paid for by park impact fees. This pretty much concludes my presentation on this last item. I welcome any comments or questions.

Is there anybody in the public that would like to comment on either item F2, F3, or F4? Colleagues, any comments on F4? Use myself again. Oh yeah. No, I wouldn't I wouldn't ask you to recuse yourself. Any comments on this side? Yes. I just have a quick question. When do we expect to put the interim restroom out? 2026 2037 246. It would be installed on the fourth year of the 5-year CIP. So what is that? 27.

There we go. 2030 23 2030 2030 2030 Okay. Yes.

Uh that item was applauded at the senior advisory committee today when folks that live in the lake area heard because this has been an issue for the lake folks for a long time. the need for restroom facilities out there. And we've talked about it forever. And when they heard that there was going to be an interim restroom facility available and we would study the use of that and whether or not it necessitated a full construction of a brand new restroom. They applauded that. So, um, this is something that that community has been asking for for some time. So, I appreciate this this item being uh on on the CIP list. It's possible if you don't mind.

Yes. It's possible your applause might have been muted if you told them 2030 2030. Is there any way to Is there any way to speed that up? We can. Well, the seniors, they want to they want to see the day. We can we can re-evaluate and see what we can do to see what we can do to expedite or adjust this project. Council Gal and Council Little if we can move that time period up to 2027 or something. Yeah, I think that would be greatly appreciated.

I think it was tied in with some other restroom improvements um within the CIP in terms of the timing if if memory serves correctly. Um I think this is kind of a different project because it is kind of interim. We're looking at you know what it might be. So I think expediting the timeline on this project because it is an interim restroom that you know when we whenever whoever's on the council makes the next 5year CIP it would be better for them if they had more than a year of data to make uh determinations on you know whether that's something that would be continued or they would want to grow just because it is something that you know we're kind of doing as a trial or as an interim. Um I I think it would be good to push that to earlier in the process just for that reason so we could have some good data going into the next process.

Mhm. Yeah. And and I wanted to clarify I think it's in line with what the vice mayor said but that that this has to do with the interim bathroom not the lighting project. I understand that's going to take time to design and so on so forth. So in terms of trying to push the time forward the interim restroom is what I was talking about. Understood. Yeah. Agree. All right. Any other comments? I I I'm genuinely asking, can't we just get a porta potty or a honey bucket and put it out there just starting Monday? I mean, can we do it quicker? Uh I've been in the honey buckets. Um I'll leave it at that. It's not that sweet. I'm saying I wish there's a way we you can do the luxury port.

No, because you got to make them, you know, they got to be ADA accessible. Yes. Things of that nature. You have seniors, you have folks that have dis you got to make them that anybody can use them. And these honey buckets are they're not designed for that purpose. So I think the staff has the understanding that we'd like to see this sooner than later. And we appreciate that. Understand. And and just uh one comment if I may, mayor. Uh this is uh a project that we will likely do some community outreach first because while there are folks that are for it, we understand in the past when this has come up that there has been Yes. um also some vocalization against the project. So we will take some time to do some community outreach before placing it there.

Yeah, we we've heard those comments, you know, kind of people hanging around and, you know, bringing folks into the community that, you know, might not normally be visiting that location, etc. So, we've we've heard those comments. So, I think reaching out to that community and getting them to weigh in would be a good thing. So, but I think we could still probably accomplish this sometime next year. Great. All right. Any other thoughts? Thank you. Thank you. And we're still happy. Lots to be happy about. How much did we just spend, Mickey? $240 million. There we go. Had that number ready to go.

Welcome back, city manager. So, you're uh want to be thanking you in advance that fact that we the council have suggested that you open up your home to those that need to use restroom facilities just how you know how gracious you are, you know, and um we're hopeful that that if I recall, assistant city manager, that that'll take place beginning next week. I would be happy to include that fee in the master fee schedule.

All right. Um, and uh, city manager, I did go back and and ask folks in the audience if they wanted to comment because I did not open it up for public um, comments. So, I opened it up for F2, three, and four, and there were no comments on those items. So, we're now at city manager reports. Yes. Good evening, your honor, members of the council. We have eight announcements for you and the public this evening. First one, slurry seal update. Oh, let me make sure on I do see all the road closures. Slurry seal update.

Oh, there we go. Nice little transition. Thank you. So, um, yes, uh, as the public is aware that we have a a fairly robust slurry seal, uh, program this year, uh, thanks to the council for allocating, uh, considerable amount of monies, uh, towards this project. Uh, certainly more than what we've done in the past. Uh, they're out and making their rounds. We have 80 locations, excuse me, 80 street locations throughout town. And, uh, we're making progress. Residents do receive notices at least 72 hours in advance on their doorstep uh as well as a couple weeks in advance too. And uh we did have some rain delays because of the extensive rain. And those streets that were affected will go to the back of the project schedule. Uh new information update information is contained on our website and we look forward to finishing this project next month. All right. And the second announcement, city solar solar installation project. We are installing solar panels at both the Sllamon activity center as well as city hall. Uh work begins on May 4th for the Sllamon Center. Uh it takes place in June for uh civic center. Project will last in total about 12 weeks. It'll be done in phases. Parking lots will be affected and we'll be sure to uh engage our community in typical uh outreach channels uh so that we can all navigate uh the parking situation for the next few months. Uh the next one is we do have a survey out there for our urban forest uh management plan. Uh we encourage the public to take the survey. It's posted right there on the website. Link is there on the screen. Uh we encourage the public to share their thoughts on trees, tree protection measures, and tree maintenance priorities uh in your neighborhood by taking the community survey. And the survey is available in multiple languages. Uh the next one is also a survey. We're asking the community to inform Newark's future housing options. Uh we're currently exploring ways to create more

housing choices for our residents, including homes of different sizes and styles that can meet a variety of needs. The public's invited to take the survey and share their thoughts. Uh and that way we can learn how the community uh views new homes uh in our uh in the city's future. The website is listed there on the screen. survey does close at the end of May. Oh, thank you. Uh the fifth announcement, we have an upcoming free emergency preparedness workshop for businesses. We have two of them. They're both listed there on the screen. Monday, April 27th from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. and Monday, May 4th from 6:00 to 7:30. The first one is CPR and thrust maneuver and the second one is PEP, personal emergency preparedness. Uh both of these trainings are free. Um they are being held at the Newark Library community meeting room and uh the public is invited to register on the website listed right there and again the workshops are available in uh multiple languages. The sixth announcement is Asht Street summer camp registration opens May 4th. Um this is exclusively to Newark residents for uh the program is exclusive to Newark residents. This affordable program offers a fun and engaging environment for youth to explore creativity, enjoy outdoor activities, and make the most of summer. The camp runs from Monday through Friday from June 22nd to July 24th and is open to kindergarten graduates through age 11. Uh must register in person at the senior center and provide proof of Newark residency. Next slide, please. And then the seventh announcement, run for fun family run and 4K race on Saturday, May 2nd. uh meet at the boat house at Lakeshore Park. Check-in is at 9:30 a.m. uh early bird uh before April 15th. Costs are listed right there on the

screen and the public can register on our website. And last but not least, Hearts Smart Walking Challenge. May is National Walking Month, so there's never been a better time to join the Hearts Smart Walking Challenge. On the first Wednesday of each month, we host a community health walk. Uh and we take turns hosting in Newark uh and Union City. Uh this particular event is in Union City at the Mark Green Sports Center on Wednesday, May 6th at 9:00 a.m. And the public is uh encouraged to register on our website listed right there. And that concludes city manager updates for this evening.

Thank you, city manager. Appreciate that. Uh, council comments. I'll start with council member Kangio.

Yes. Thank you, your honor, and thank you everyone for your presentations. Since our last meeting, I was able to attend the state of the city address here in New York, and that was a great event. I also wanted to mention that at Newark's Lakeshore Park, we do have new arrivals of baby ducklings. So, while you're out there exercising um and checking out the lake, um please remember to observe but not feed the wildlife. And so, we also have some signs out there as well to remind us um that it'd be better for the wildlife to feed themselves as opposed to us giving them extra foods. Uh, additionally, please shop in New York. Thank you,

Vice Mayor Jorgens.

Yes. Thank you, uh city manager. I appreciate you uh bringing up the 4K race coming up in a week and a half now. I will be running that one. Like to remind our community, the slower you run, the more money, the more bang you get for your buck in terms of being out there for uh uh the run. So, I'm looking forward to that. Um you know, as we were uh discussing our capital improvement plan, um you know, I've been reflecting on, you know, how some of the community buildings were built, you know, prior to our city's incorporation. Um there were basically you know before New York was a city there were basically three ways that you could build um you know community space. First one is you could rely on individual donations and that's how the first school in Newark was built. Uh there was a rancher who chose or was bullied into donating uh his land and then uh the school was built there and you know there were several other buildings that were built that way by you know an individual just choosing to build a community space. Uh second and probably most common in the early days of the town of Newark was that the railroad would come in and construct something because they knew they needed to build a community around their business interests. And that's how we ended up actually with the original St. Edwards Church which was funded in large part by Sam Davis who was the manager of the Pacific Investment Company and the brother of the railroads president. You know, you need workers, you need to build a town and all the things that go along with the town. And then third, communities within Newark could come together to raise money themselves to construct place for their communities and then share those spaces. And that's what you see with the Newark Pavilion and Swiss Park and both places that you know predate the city's incorporation remain essential to the Newark community. The work of building community, you know, it has to happen within physical spaces. And you know, Newark today is fortunate to inherit the strong community that was built in those early community places. And it's incredibly exciting to continue that work with this year's phenomenal CIP and just to be able to continue to build and support the places that will continue to strengthen the New York community for the coming decades.

Council member Little, it's too late for comments for me. I'll I'll call it a night. Okay. Council Gundall.

Um I was able to attend the housing debate conference with uh with the mayor and and key staff. It was very uh very informative and interesting um presentations. Um and so I was very happy to be able to be a part of that. Um on April 26th, I'm going to be h having my coffee with the council member um event at this at the Oldtown Starbucks. That's April 26, 9:30. Um, and lastly, I want to congratulate Mayor Hannon on his birthday, but also on a fantastic state of the city. I'm sorry I couldn't I couldn't make it, but um want to congratulate you on a on a very successful event and um very interesting presentation. So, thank you.

Thank you very much, Council Member, and thank you to my colleagues again for really a pleasant surprise tonight. I certainly did not expect it. Um uh and I apologize that my event made us go until 11:15. I apologize, Council Member Little, for that. Um I know I can count on you to forgive me for that at some point. Um to Council Member uh Jorg, Vice Mayor Jorgan's thought on Watkins Hall. You know, we talked about kind of community uh participation and community involvement. You know, I don't know when the last time Newark had a building drive, for example, where we we looked at one of our historical buildings in our community and asked the community, you know, this is kind of our vision. This is what we think it's going to cost to do and implement that vision and see, you know, what success we might have in our community and maybe broaden it to um other parts of the bay that might benefit from that. terms of looking at a community drive to help fund whatever improvements we have uh for the Watkins Hall because that hall has been vacant for so long and it's such an important part of our community. I certainly wouldn't be opposed to looking at that as an opportunity down the road. But just just put that there as a thought. But again, thank you for tonight and um with that being said, we are ajourned. Thank you.