City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to the regular meeting of the joint meeting of the Oakley City Council. The Oakley City Council acting as a successor agency to the Oakley Redevelopment Agency, the Oakley Public Finance Authority. This meeting is called to order. It's at 6.30 p.m. Will the clerk please call roll call?

Council Member Fuller?

Here.

Council Member Shaw? Here. Council Member Williams? Here. Vice Mayor Meadows? Here. Mayor Henderson?

Here. Item 1.2, Pledge of Allegiance. If Sire Jones would please come up and assist us with the Pledge of Allegiance. Twelve-year-old Sire Jones is a creative and innovative sixth grader at Delta Vista Middle School. He loves to make others laugh. A natural debater and student leader, Sire has earned numerous advocates, including a certificate of recognition from the city council leadership, a math award, and an honor roll status. Being hand-selected by Principal Urich as a representative of Delta Vista is a highlight of his journey of supporting by a loving family, including his sister, a 12-year-old stepbrother, and a courageous mom and grandmother that have both survived breast cancer. In the classroom, Sire thrives on reading, writing. While outside of school, his focus shifts to his passion of sports, video games, and swimming. A dedicated soccer player since the age of six, Sire celebrates a recent league championship with the Cobras, an Oakley-based team. He's driven by a strong faith of Jesus Christ. Sire is committed to honoring God and making a meaningful difference in the world, regardless of the profession and journey he pursues.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Item 1.3, Delta update. And we'll have our resident Delta expert from Oakley come up. Roger.

Good evening, Mayor Henderson and City Council. Thank you for the opportunity to update you on events going on in our Delta. Back on February 12, Assemblymember Rhodesia Ransom out of Stockton formally submitted a request to audit the Department of Water Resources and the Delta Conveyance Project. The request was submitted to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee. However, the request was postponed to later this year. The purpose of the audit is to examine DWR's financial analysis, funding plan, and project, given that DWR does not have authority to issue bonds to finance the project. Prior deficiencies in the 2016 audit $700 million has already been spent over the last 15 years on multiple iterations of the project. And it's estimated that $1 million a day is being spent for this project. why DWR has not provided a complete historical water use record within its permit condition, why longstanding water right issues have not remained unresolved, why the agency is relying on incomplete data records ending in 2015 to model the future project and its costs and operations. In March, a lawsuit was filed by the San Francisco Baykeeper Center for Biologic Diversity, Friends of the River, and other non-government organizations against the Trump administration for violating the Endangered Species Act as the Bureau of Reclamation plans to increase water exports from an already compromised delta. The Delta Stewardship Council in February heard public comment on DWR's certificate of compliance with the delta plan for the delta conveyance project. It is an appeals process, and the Delta Stewardship Council must determine if the certificate of compliance complies with all the aspects of the delta plan, including the co-equal goals and protections of the delta. Their decision at the time of the meeting was going to be forthcoming, and I learned just before coming here that they will be issuing their decision on their April 23rd and 24th meeting. On March 24, the California State Parks and California Coastal Commission held a free freshwater aquatic invasive species prevention workshop. It covered impacts of aquatic invasive species have on our environment, recreation, and economy of the Delta. Covered were quagga mussels, zebra mussels, golden mussels, floating and submerged aquatic weeds and the management and control methods being used. There will be a second meeting for a free saltwater and freshwater invasive species prevention and virtual workshop scheduled for May 14 at 9 AM. Advanced registration is required. It is a Zoom meeting. And I do have the Zoom link here. I'll give it to Kim. Water infrastructure under strain. The main canal transporting water south of the delta is breaking down in places due to over pumping groundwater, which is causing land subsidence. A 2025 Department of Water Resource study found that without action, subsidence could reduce state water project delivery capacity by 87% by 2043, threatening water supplies for 27 million people. Billions of dollars would be required to repair the damage to the existing infrastructure, a reality that may defer attention from the Delta Tunnel to more immediate failures in the system. A coalition recall calls on policymakers to reject Vice Chair D'Adamo's reappointment to the State Water Resources Control Board. A coalition of tribes and environmental advocates submitted a letter to the California State Rules Committee opposing the reappointment of Doreen D'Adamo to the State Water Resources Control Board. The coalition argues that the board has abandoned key regulatory responsibilities during vice chair's tenure, allowing unchecked ecological decline in the Delta and failing to protect communities that depend on the waterway. The coalition members say that under Diodama's leadership, the board has prioritized large agricultural and urban water interests, while native fish populations decline and our communities bear the consequences. The California Water Board issued a draft decision for the widely opposed Sites Reservoir project. The Administrative Hearing Office of the State Water Resources Control Board issued a draft water rights decision for the proposed Sites Reservoir project that spiked longstanding concerns by tribes, fishing groups, and environmental organizations about the project's environmental impact, high cost, and limited benefits. The conditions proposed in the draft include annual diversions of the Sacramento River of 986,000 acre feet. That is roughly the equivalent of two Folsom Lakes. The requirement is to align the proposed water right with the planning process underway for the Delta Watershed. Operate criteria at the division facilities to protect fishes. Estimated cost for the 1.5 million acre foot offsite reservoir is estimated at $6.2 to $6.8 billion. The California Water Impact Network said there is no business for storing water for delivery to big water contractors on river system that is already oversubscribed and needs more flow to sustain fish populations and ecological qualities. Sites is located near Maxwell in the heat of the valley and essentially would take cold water out of the Sacramento River. It would stand in that lake warming up to be released into the Sacramento River, increasing its temperature, which is a recipe for bacteria, parasites, and it's fatal for salmon. Tribes and environmental groups criticize the legislative office's report updated Bay Delta plan. A report from the California Legislative Analyst's Office is drawing strong criticism from a board of coalition of environmental organization tribes arguing that the State Water Resources Control Board proposed update to the water quality control plan for San Francisco Bay and San Joaquin Delta falls short, providing lawmakers with a fair and unfair and a complete deception of options. Coalition members argue that the report assumes approval of voluntary agreements and fails to serve as a balanced, neutral valuation of the regulatory alternatives that is grounded in enforceable water quality standards. The voluntary agreements will allow water agencies to self-report compliance with minimal oversight. Coalition's leader further criticized the report's framing of environmental flows, claiming it is a misnomer for unimpaired flows and that those flows are necessary for ecosystem health and should be established through enforceable regulatory standards not negotiated by purchased or purchased by water users. SB 872 unifies support of northern and southern California legislators in environmental groups and water interest. to protect the state's primary water resources. The bill addresses two major threats to California's water supply, aging delta levees in the Sacramento San Joaquin and sinking canals in the State Water Project. Many delta levees are at risk of failure, raising the threat of catastrophic flooding and ecosystem damage, while sinking land is jeopardizing the State Water Project's canal and reliable water districts. SB 872 would dedicate $300 million annually to repair the delta levees and reinforce the state water project canals. U.S. Representative Jared Huffman condemned the Department of Interior's proposal to spend $40 million in taxpayer funds on planning and pre-construction activities to raise Shasta Dam, calling it an unlawful, wasteful, and destructive boondoggle. Raising Shasta Dam is illegal under the California Wild and Scenic River Act, which protects the McLeod River. The proposal has been blocked by the state courts, opposed by the California Attorney General, and rejected by Congress in the past. Coalition urges lawmakers to reject bill threatening water oversight. A coalition of tribes and environmental advocates submitted a letter to the California Assembly Committee of Water, Parks, and Wildlife opposing AB 2215, the bill which seeks to extend the Department of Water Resources' water rights permit for the State Water Project until 2085. is being criticized by bypassing existing regulatory processes managed by the State Water Resources Control Board. The bill would set an extremely dangerous precedent, said Morgan Snyder, director of policy and programs at Restore the Delta. Protecting our waterways and communities that depend on them require maintaining rigorous standards for all water rights holders, granting exceptions that override existing processes, create a system that favors powerful users at the expense of ecosystem and community health. A brighter term, support for the double tunnel is dropping in Kern County. The financial support for the controversial Delta Conveyance Project has been eroding among Kern County agricultural water districts over the past year and lost another significant chunk when the Wheeler Ridge Maricopa Water Storage District opted to recently cut its contributions by nearly 97%, from $5.6 million to $146,000. Four other large state water project contractors in Kern are also considering lowering their participation levels, and the DWR is trying to firm up agreements to collect $300 million from contractors for preparing for the planning and design phase of the $20 billion project. $20 billion is the projection cost for the Delta conveyance project six years ago and hasn't increased what everything else has. The California Water Impact Network analyzed the total cost of the project, and they estimated to be between $60 billion and $100 billion. I learned just the other day that Russo's Marina will no longer be hosting black bass tournaments. And that's because I guess owners are getting old, and they don't want to get up at 3 AM in the morning on weekends. And I also understand one of their ramps is starting to sink. It seems like most of the tournaments in held in the Delta now will either be out of big break marina here in Oakley or lads out of Stockton Thank you any questions Any questions vice mayor Meadows Thank You Roger for that.

Would we be able to get a copy?

Thank you Thank You Roger Item 1.4

Diablo Water District Update, Dan Murath, General Manager.

Good evening, Mayor Henderson and members of the council. Thank you, Assistant City Manager Navarro, for hosting me this evening. Tonight's water. You heard about water there. We're going to talk about water locally, what it means for the water district, and also what it means for our joint constituents that we serve here in Oakley. So I'm happy to give our annual update to the council tonight. Just as a quick overview of the items we're going to be discussing tonight, we'll take a look at water supply as an overview, more granular than what Roger was talking about. He's talking statewide, but we do have some overlap there. We also will talk about the water demand, both locally here, what trends have been over time, and then talk about impacts of state regulations, some that have been on the books for a little bit, and then there's a relatively newer one that has impacts to non-residential customers here in the town. Talk about the value of water, talk about the projects that we implement, capital improvement projects, and then also some customer tools that we have to help customers keep their bills down. So when I put this slide deck together, it was middle of last week before the systems came through. Historically low snowfall and snowpack. If anybody watched the nightly news, saw the DWR reports, they go out with their, essentially it's like a piece of PVC pipe to go stick in the snow. They showed up. They've already got grouse sprouting. no snow anywhere to be seen. So that's kind of what it looks like in the Sierras. That does have impacts on what it looks like for reservoirs that do feed us. The reservoir that we're most impacted by is actually the Shasta Reservoir, which currently is sitting at about 100% of normal for this time of year. But what we're anticipating is that as the Demands start picking up, and they do have to start releasing out the reservoir. They're not going to get that long-term trickle of snowpack that would normally melt off and come in in May, June, July. So that filling of the reservoirs is going to stop very soon. And that's the water that we count on to come down through the Sacramento River, part of the Central Valley project, which then is ultimately diverted by Contra Costa Water District, our wholesaler. Right now, we're not expecting any impacts from that as far as any supply reductions. That's TBD, but through the summer, we're not expecting that. We'd be looking at something into fall to winter if, again, we have a late start to rainfall, then the state might start ratcheting up requirements on what we'd be looking at. But as always, we do recommend that all of our customers just be efficient and eliminate waste. That's the best way to save on your water bill. Again, locally, Los Vaqueros, 92% of capacity. So that's a very good starting point at the start of the kind of heat up in the irrigation season. And then also our local groundwater aquifer, setting at a full balance right now. And that's another good place because we do, in any given year, we get in between 12 to about 20% of our local water supply from the groundwater aquifer. So on the flip side of it, we remember our economics class. We got supply. We got demand. On the demand side, what we do have over the last two decades is that our water demands on a per connection or per household or per business is going down. It's been going down to about 40% over the last 20 years. And when we have the same amount of pipes in the ground, the same amount of pumps, we have thousands of more customers. What that just means is there's higher pressures on prices per connection because more than 60% of our costs are fixed within the system. We have to replace the pipes. We have to replace the pumps. We have to have the same amount of staff to go and service the pipes, the mains, the meters, back flows, et cetera. Another driver behind that decline is not just that plumbing codes change at the state level. So you can no longer buy five gallon per flush toilets. You can only get a 1.28 gallon per flush or lower. Clothes washers are more efficient. It's also the state mandate. So the state has mandates out to water districts and water purveyors within California, essentially limiting how much, in aggregate, we're supposed to be selling to residential customers, whether you look at it from an indoor standpoint, like these metrics do here. 47 gallons per capita per day is the current metric, moving to 42 gallons per capita per day in 2030. And again, just reiterating, these are in aggregates. There's different reasons why certain households might have higher water use than others. We're not looking to go to each individual customer. We're managing everything on an aggregate basis right now. And so far to date, that's been a successful strategy because we have to report to the state every year. And we're still on track and have been on track with meeting these requirements. Then on the outdoor, this is just, again, the data points. We'd just like to make sure that we're monitoring to the aggregate again. But just thinking about locations that if we're to manage what the state's looking for, it's a maximum of about 9,000 gallons per month for a residence in peak summer. And that's about what our average customer uses right now. We have some over that and some below that. So that average is working out just right for us. And again, these are all statewide standards. It's not just here for Diablo Water District. It's Contra Costa Water District, City of Brentwood. All the local agencies and all 400 water agencies throughout the state have these similar metrics that we're having to manage to. And just to give anybody on council or anybody that's watching the slide deck tonight just an idea of where you would go to try to get these savings is obviously with this pie chart that shows average residential water usage, you'd really want to be looking at outdoor. Bar none, that's about 60% of the water usage is in outdoor. And again, just to let council know, let our common constituents know, we do have resources and tools. They can call us, email us. We can help them set their irrigation controllers, get smart irrigation controllers that will adjust themselves based off of weather. Just want the community to know that we're here as a resource. So we talked about residential and how the state student regulation is there. Flip a little bit and look over at the non-residential side. I know there's a lot of text on the slide, but in general, AB 1572 is about prohibition of non-functional turf. And so I've got two different definitions of non-functional turf. One is showing there, and it says lawns that serve no recreational or community purpose. And again, that's at government, commercial, industrial, institutional, and common areas within HOAs. And so what they're really after is not irrigating those with potable water. You can do alternative water sources, but just not the standard potable water that we serve from our meters. Another definition is just looking at something that if the lawn is purely there for ornamental and not regularly used for recreational or public gatherings is another way to look at it. So just really simple examples that we're looking at there. For the top one is obviously functional turf. That's just showing a sports field. Obviously people are on it, playing there. It could be a park. It doesn't just have to be a dedicated sports field. Those are functional uses where people gather, sit on it, play on it. The other picture that's there is non-functional. It's a turf berm that would go around an industrial complex or a commercial complex. The picture's actually not from here, but it looks very reminiscent to what was over at the Raley Shopping Center over by Carroll Lane. They knew about this legislation coming down, and they actually were over a year in front of this trying to update their landscaping there. So kudos to them on following this stuff and getting ahead of it. Just looking at compliance deadlines, because this does impact government agencies, cities, counties, special districts, is that there's a compliance point of January 1 of 2027. That's looking at the public agencies. And we have been in talks with your city manager, with your public works manager, trying to be a resource. There are some state funds out there for grants to help do any conversions that need to be done. Right now, we have not gotten through the identifying phase of what's out there within your portfolio. And again, we're not making the full decision of what's functional and non-functional. We're trying to interpret the state regulations, but we are not the turf police out there. And then next year, sorry, the year after that, 2028, is commercial industrial institutional. And then one more year after that is HOAs. So right now we're really focusing on what we're calling the audit or the inspection portion of the public facilities. Then we're moving on to the CII and then moving on to HOA after so we can work with those customers as well. So talking about the value of water, this chart is not meant to peg to have a water district or average bill against other locations. It's just a pulse check, looking at what other agencies pay or other customers pay for their average water bill. Everybody has their own story within their water system. Some people use more groundwater than surface water. Some people have less lower water quality. Some have higher water quality. Some districts are older, some are newer. So everybody's got their own story. But as a pulse check, looking at it, we're finding ourselves in the middle-ish of middle to lower end of some of the local agencies. And so what does the actual water bill pay for? That's the value part of it. The water is the cheaper part. It's everything else that gets the water to everybody and gets there clean, safely, reliably. So we've adopted a $35 million five-year CIP plan. We adopt projects year by year, but we have a five-year plan we're ramping up with. And within that, we're doing upgrades to our treatment and distribution systems. The one that's going to be starting hopefully late summer to fall is going to be the 5 million gallon Steel reservoir, if you're going out Laurel, you look up the hill to Antioch direction. We've got two reservoirs up there. One needs to be seismically retrofitted above grade. We already did the below grade foundation. So this one hits right there for resiliency, mitigating natural disasters. We're also finishing the electrification of our light duty trucks. That should happen in our fiscal year 26-27. That will be our third year of doing vehicle replacements. And then as most of you know, if you're trying to redo your fleet to meet the advanced clean fleet rule, which is up in the air of where that's now going to land, it's being challenged where it's going to land. But under the current process, in our medium and heavy duty vehicles, we've switched them all over to diesel if they weren't already. And then also switching them over, we've switched them over to renewable diesel. So it helps with your carbon offsets. And then also an on-site fueling station that we will be looking to build in this upcoming fiscal year, 26, 27. That not only helps us to have the renewable diesel on site, but it also helps us in case of an emergency that we have our own fuel supply there and aren't relying on local gas stations that typically do not have generators to back them up. We're also going to be doing treatment plants. We co-own the Randall Bold Water Treatment Plant. And so there'll be upgrades that we continue to do there. One of the big ones that's just getting wrapped up or just got wrapped up was the conversion from chlorine gas to liquid. And so that's been a huge upgrade that's happened there. General safety improvements for the community. I know that Contra Costa Water District has probably talked to you about that before as well. Now we're looking at additional groundwater well, and then also doing wellhead treatment. So taking that groundwater, which is usually plentiful, but it's hard, and running it through reverse osmosis to generate better water than we even get out of our surface water treatment plants. So we do hear that from our customers from time to time that the water is hard. And so anytime we are looking at new water supply moving forward, we're trying to figure out how to reduce the hardness, how to make it better as we move forward with these projects. And then lastly there on the five here, and again, this is a snapshot. It's not all inclusive. is making sure that all of our pumping and treatment facilities are 100% generated backed up. And that's great for public safety power shutoffs, emergencies, earthquakes, et cetera, that we can continue, as long as the water can get out of the delta, that we can continue to treat it, pump it, and get it to our customers. So looking at the results of that, one thing we always like to highlight is that Tableau Water District is one of the only, if not the only, in the state that's on this 100-year replacement cycle for our assets. These are in-the-ground assets above the great assets. Most agencies are on 200-year, 300-year cycles, which infrastructure in the ground doesn't last that long. You look at your pipe in the ground, it's 80 to 90 years. Your valves, you want them changed every 35 to 50 years. And all of ours fits within that. We call it a 100-year cycle. But everything that has a extended lifespan, we have it budgeted to replace within its lifespan before catastrophic failure. So that's something that doesn't necessarily show up in the rates when you look at a water bill. But that's what we're doing behind the scenes for the community. We're also on track to be carbon neutral by the end of 2027. That's our own internal target that we've set 18 years ahead of the state target. Like I mentioned, 100% power supply backup, long-term water supply reliability, so that's both treatment plant upgrades for the surface water and also additional groundwater wells. And then the reduction in environmental vulnerabilities such as earthquakes is our main environmental vulnerability around here. And just a couple pictures of some recent projects. You all probably remember our Emergency Operations Center. We got that open about a year ago, just slightly across the street over by Iron House there. That's a great facility for us to operate out of. Built to the highest seismic standards so we can operate out of there even after earthquakes. Picture of our fleet with the new signage on it. And then also some upgrades at our Glen Park well, which was both safety, because it's lighting, and also LED. So it's reducing the energy consumption out there. So now what we have for our customers, we have a new website that we put up a couple of months ago. And part of the website when we went to a new platform was also changing to a .gov. That's another state mandate that public agencies, if you weren't already .gov, had to go .gov. So we're now DiabloWater.gov. If you go to the old .org, it will redirect you here. Great resources there for anybody looking for information, rebates, et cetera. We also, every year, launch a different campaign. And so this year, we have the Trust the Tap campaign. And so you'll see it. The city generously works with us on the signboard out here. So it shows up there. You probably see it when you drive in and drive out. But again, it's our way to engage with our customers, a chance to win bill credits, a chance for them to get educated on different resources that we have at the district, and also different ways they can protect the long-term water quality. And we've had PFAS campaigns. We've had microplastic campaigns. So it's just our way of engaging. putting the choice in our customers' hands as well. And then last slide before any questions here. Engagement, recently we do this every year but we engage with the local elementary schools, any teacher that wants to, they sign up for Fix-A-Leak Week and that's something that they can do with their students in class and whoever gets the most participants will do a pizza party for them. So imagine third graders going home being little leak detectives trying to find leaks around the house, report back, that's a fun little assignment. The middle one there is our customer portal. That's the one I mentioned earlier when you looked at that pie chart that showed all the different uses of water. And I think leaks were 6% or 7%. They can go on. Customers can go on to the portal. They can log in, set up thresholds, look for leak alerts, get auto leak alerts. And if that sounds too complicated, just call us or email us. We'll walk you through it, get people signed up. But it can be high bill thresholds. You don't want to spend over $100 a month. Notify me when I'm getting close. And so we have all different ways they can set thresholds. And then last of all, it's our bill assistance program for certain qualifying income individuals. We do have up to a 50% discount on the service charge, trying to keep that in mind and helping our customers where we can. That is it. Thank you.

Questions? Council Member Williams.

I have a couple for you. Okay, so you talked about, I know you guys used to have a program, you maybe still do, about converting lawns to more, can you talk, do you have any measurements on that program, like how successful it's been? And further, could we maybe direct some collaborations between the city and you, right? Because... I've asked for us to update our design standards. So it seems to me that we would have an easy win by making the design standards from new builds be more friendly. So sort of a two-part question. Do you have any data to support how successful that program's been?

I don't have the specific data. We have probably 20 to 30 locations go through it in a given year because it is quite an endeavor to go through. You've got to change it out. You get to rebate money afterwards. But it is a chance that even for customers that don't go through it, we still get to get out there on site, educate them about how to reduce their water use even on their turf if they do decide to keep it. So we can win either direction. But it is a great program. It's our Lawn to Garden program. Information is on the website as well. circle back i will get you the metrics just so you know and then the second part we do have some existing collaboration with the city on kind of the land use water overlap since there is a statewide model water efficient landscape ordinance there is some already statewide structure in place of what can and can't go in on new installations so you won't see any turf going in on new residential homes wouldn't make sense for it to go in and us to pay to take it out but yes we're definitely working there and I've even talked to your city manager about how we can incorporate some stuff potentially into the new library within your own internal design, so just educational outreach efforts.

Cool. Okay. And then one other question. You mentioned that usage is down by 40%, but the cost for maintenance and stuff, it's all still the same. The infrastructure is still there, and I'm sure those costs are going up just like everything else. So how are you rectifying that? How are you making those two things work? Is it just through rate increases, or what's the mechanism to make sure that you're profitable or breaking even at least? Yeah.

Not profitable, yeah. Exactly.

I didn't mean profitable.

So yeah, we operate as essentially nonprofit, but as a government agency, anything that is left at the bottom line moves to reserves. And part of the $35 million of capital projects we're doing, we typically carry reserves for at least one year of capital. We carry reserves for emergency response so that we can fund stuff without having to wait for FEMA. So we don't set it on a ton of reserves. In general, I know I'm deviating a little bit. But when we look at the overall picture, Reasonably, we've kind of been staying kind of flatline on the total water sales because of the new connections. So the new connections are kind of keeping that at a net zero as far as the we're not declining total on water supply. But then again, costs are going up, costs have gone up. You know, chemicals went up over 50% in the pandemic, have not come back down. Infrastructure went up, came down a little bit, but not much. And so we look to be efficient wherever we can within our organization. Part of it is within the carbon neutrality and PG&E savings. not spending as much on gas and such, locking in essentially our fuel prices for all those electric vehicles. We don't have the swings in fuel prices when we're more tied to PG&E, our own solar rates that we're generating our own solar. So we have looked at all those things, but ultimately at the end of the day there is a cost component that just can't be efficiency-ed away. And so that was in our – we do rate studies every five years, and we did our noticing last year. And so I do believe this year the board hasn't –

Fine give their final weigh-in on this year because we adopt a five-year schedule, but they have the ability to adjust We'd be looking at around a five to six dollar per month increase this year if the full amount went through Okay, that just reminded me of one more thing because you said new connections What do you guys have a sense of which connections are the most like The ones that make the most sense for you. Like is it single-family homes? Is it commercial? Is it like what's the connections or does it it's just a number and

Ultimately, it's just a number because when we do the cost studies, we segregate them to commercial properties, have their own cost basis and their own revenue collection and residential the same. And so that even if we had much more commercial customers, it still wouldn't necessarily benefit the residential customers and vice versa because under Prop 218, we'd have those segregated. Yep.

Council Member Fuller.

Yes. My one frustration I have is that during the winter months, my bill runs about $7 or $8 a month for usage. And my service fee is $28. And every time I look at that, I get there. And I'm hoping we're moving. But in the same hand, even in the summer months, it might run all the way up to $12 or $15 a month. So basically what I'm trying to say is my usage I really worked on to getting it down, and now my base one is pretty low to start out with, and you're going to ask for another 40% decrease on top of that? I mean, I don't know. I'm beginning to think, should we wall off a bathroom or... What solution do you see of this when we've already cut back so far that, you know, I get my laundry done and, you know, the dog gets water and the dishes get washed, but yet how are you going to handle that? You can only take away so much water and then you just cut it off to no use. You should still have a service fee. So how are we going to live with that?

Yeah, so it's a good point that you bring up, Councilmember Fuller, is that when the state puts out the conservation numbers, which then we end up working with, is it's not on top of what you've already done. And so a member like yourself, it's already likely down in that below 42 gallons per capita per day indoor below 9 000 gallons in the peak there's no additional requests for customers like that even when we go into droughts that's a common question we get from customers is i've already done everything that's been asked how can i do more and a lot of times there's nothing more that a customer can do that's in that ultra low gallons per capita it's us working with the other customers that haven't done it yet or that have more discretionary water use so We'd like to give some comfort that we're not asking those that are already at that real low baseline to do more. And we're not seeing the state move that direction either. They used to in their messaging. They would just blanket do 10%, do 20%. They've been getting the message back from the water retailers. And that message doesn't work because people have been doing this really since the 70s if they've been slowly moving along with it. Thank you.

Thank you. Item 1.5, we'll receive an update from BART, Director Mark Foley.

Mayor Henderson, members of the City Council, good evening. I am Mark Foley, District 2 representative on the BART Board of Directors. So we had ridden BART recently. I encourage you to jump on board. The new BART, as we are calling it, really has a lot of improvements that we've seen over the last several years. New fare gates are in, which not only have increased our revenue, but have decreased the number of corrective maintenance work orders we've had to do in the system. In fact, it's close to 1,000 hours that have been reduced in corrective work that we've do because of individuals in the system that maybe don't respect the system. We've changed our deployment strategy for our BART police force, and that has resulted in a 41% drop in crime from 24 to 25. So we're on the right track there, and certainly the fair games have helped do that as well. We've doubled the cleaning crews that are in our system, and that has resulted in almost 9 out of 10 riders saying they're satisfied with what they're seeing with BART today. So 89% is a pretty good number, the highest for us in more than a decade. But it doesn't stop there. Tap and Ride, last December, we rolled it out to the entire Bay Area. But back in September, BART started doing Tap and Ride. So you can use your mobile device, your ATM card, your credit card. Tourists coming into San Francisco don't have to buy a Clipper card. They can simply tap in, jump on board, and get into the system. That is becoming a large segment within our actual usage as folks are transitioning away from the Clipper dependency. Improved lighting. Folks want to feel safe with a ride in transit, especially in the evening. And so we're working on improving LED lighting throughout our stations. And escalator repair. In San Francisco specifically, 23 of our 40 escalators have been replaced. And those are the most used escalators in the system. You'll notice if you've been in some of our city stations, like Embarcadero, there's now coverings on top of the escalator. So we're trying to protect them from the elements, but also at the end of day, we can close those so they don't become housing for unhoused individuals. But it also doesn't stop there. We love our BART community and our BART transit enthusiasts. Last month, we had Sketch Fest. We actually had comedians doing their routines on a moving train in the system. We had Valentine, Valentrain, Speed Dating on BART. So we always try to encourage folks to really embrace the BART. Let's Glow, our anime festival in Warm Springs, had over 1,000 attendees. So we're really trying to lean into sort of the branding of BARD and just welcoming folks on board. Clipper Start, if you're not aware of that program, that is a discounted 50% off of fares. And it's focused on income. So if you're less than 200% of the federal poverty level, you're eligible for this. Unlike the other discounts that we offer, which are focused around access or if you're a youth or a senior. So we're really trying to get the other segment of the population. And lastly, our big sync. Twice a year, we make schedule changes. So we work with folks like Rashidi Barnes at Tri Delta or Bill Churchill at County Connection. to work on changes that we're making to our schedule so that they can adjust with their schedules and our common riders and passengers don't have to wait too long for a bus or a train. So that's all the good stuff. Now I turn it into the more challenging stuff. The Bay Area still has the highest adoption of remote work in the country. And it's reflected in the occupancy in commercial buildings in San Francisco and Oakland and San Jose, but also in ridership. In fact, most of our riders have returned. We can see that from our Clipper data. But they're only going in the office one or two days a week. So they're really just not engaging with BART the way they used to because of their employment needs. We are currently exhausting the remaining of our emergency funds from COVID to run the existing service that we have. So starting in July, we will begin running a deficit of somewhere between $350 to $400 million per year for our operating expenses. And as you can see from the chart, pre-pandemic, we counted on around 71% of our operating revenue directly from our fares. That is down to 30%. This next year, 32%. So as we kind of move forward, it's inching up, but it's nowhere near what it needs to be. In fact, ridership would need to double for us just to be close to where we were six years ago. But I will say the good news, March was our highest ridership month since the pandemic. It was also the high ridership week and day, which I happened to be on board when we went to the Giants opening day. That was our highest day since the pandemic, followed closely by the Super Bowl. That was our second highest day. So again, riders are coming back. They're just not utilizing BART the way they did in the past. So trying to figure out how we balance ridership, revenue fair increases, cost controls, it's part of the solution, but we really need long-term sustainable revenue to look at how we fund public transit. So we kind of looked internally at what we're doing. And when you compare us to other agencies, we have one of the lowest operating costs per passenger mile in the country. Our rates grow below inflation. So when we do a rate increase, which we do every two years, we actually look at what the cost of living is and take half a percent off of that. So we're actually increasing a little bit lower than inflation. But as it says here, only 40% of our operating costs scale directly with the service we provide. So as an example, during COVID, we reduced service by 40%. We only saved 12% on our budget. Similar to the update you just heard from Davila Water, there's a lot of fixed costs with running a railroad. Whether or not one train or 50 trains run on a trackway, you still have to maintain it. So what are we focused on now? Well, besides the customer experience and bringing back ridership, as you're aware, Connect Bay Area is moving forward with a ballot measure. It's a five-county measure that will have a half-cent increase, including San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, which are not part of the BART district, but we do service them. This is likely going to be a citizen's initiative. It would provide us with around $310 million. So that still leaves us in the neighborhood of $50 to $70 million short in our annual operating needs. So we're going to have to focus on how we close that gap through efficiencies, rate increases, whatever it is that we can find opportunity to reduce cost and increase revenue. I will say that one change that was made to Senate Bill 63 was specifically identifying Tri Delta Transit and County Connection as recipients for some of this money. Previously, they were going to be part of whatever was left over. Well, there won't be any left over. So it was, in my opinion, a great thing that we were able to get that included in the legislation. Because again, we do rely on each other for ridership needs. And I just wanted to talk a moment about the state loan. Some of you have heard that the governor included a state loan in the budget. And so, hey, Mark, why aren't your problems fixed? Well, the state loan is really a bridge between when a revenue measure would pass and when that revenue would start to come into the agency. So that may take three, four, or five months. During that time, we'd like to continue operating service. So the loan would only be taken if a measure passed and it would only be used to essentially bridge that gap between the end of this calendar year and when we start seeing that revenue. But if it didn't pass, if there wasn't additional operating revenue, we would not apply for any of these loan funds because we'd have no way to pay them back. And it's just not fiduciarily responsible for us to take out a loan that we know we won't be able to repay. So we tasked staff with coming up with two budgets for us for this July. Essentially, focusing on all of our successes, bring us a budget that is as balanced as it can be. It was still $96 million short of balance. So we are taking a short-term loan that we will pay back to balance us through the end of this calendar year. But the reality is beyond December of 2026, that's when there's a lot of uncertainty. So we ask staff to come back with a plan B, if you will. What happens if there is no additional operating revenue, either from a ballot measure or from state assistance or whatever it is? What would we have to do? So we gave them direction back in February to approach this. We adopted this in late February. And they came back with, how do we address that $376 million deficit with cuts in service, increases in parking, fares, layoffs, reduction in support services, and one-time cost-saving measures that we could take. This is not sustainable. This is an opportunity for us to get through and see what the new world looks like at the beginning of calendar 2027. So what would happen if a ballot measure were to fail? The day after, we are scheduled to meet with our labor partners to discuss implementation of the first round of layoffs, which would be 600 employees. Reduction in service to 9 p.m. during the week. We did not touch weekend service because we actually make money on the weekend, Saturday, and Sunday service. But evenings after 9 p.m., we lose money. So we're going to have to shut at 9 p.m. based on that. If you've looked at one of these maps before, you know that there's a five-line map. So we'd have to go to a three-line service, which would mean someone going from, say, Richmond to the airport would have to change trains at downtown Oakland. So we would have to eliminate some of those areas. customer efficient lines to really address the needs that we would have budgetarily. And headways, yellow line during the week, every 10 minutes while you're going to work and coming home. That'll go to 30 minutes. We'd have to increase fares by 30%. And then we look at cutting in areas where we could save some additional funds for non-service, non-customer facing aspects of this. So if that does not help close the budget gap and there is no additional revenue, six months later, FY28 in July of 2027, We'd have to look at potentially a 70% reduction in service, which essentially is the same 9 PM closure, et cetera. But we would have to start looking at potentially closing stations. As you probably heard, staff came back with recommendations for a round of 10 station closures in January and then an additional five in July. We were actually able to tell staff that wasn't going to work and that got shifted. So at this point that is a concept. There's no stations that have been identified and anything that we've adopted and the full board will make a decision about if we need to make some changes like closing stations, which stations would they be. That'll be a decision at the board level. Additionally, We could look at closing a segment of track. If you don't have to run trains through an area, you can essentially shutter that segment of the line and save the money for maintaining those assets. The challenge is if you close, say, a Pittsburgh center and you leave Antioch open, you still have to maintain the trackway. But if you close both Pittsburgh and Antioch, that entire segment can be turned off, if you will. Not what I expected when I wanted to run for the BART board. I was trying to make some positive change. And this feels like a little bit of Sophie's choice here. But not something I'm looking forward to, but something I know I have to do as an elected board member. This would also mean an additional 600 layoffs. So that's about 30% of our staff, our 1,200 employees, would be laid off. The problem becomes, what if that isn't enough to safely run the system or legally run the system? If we can't perform the necessary inspections and track work we need to do, then we honestly have to look at what is the system's future, and can we operate it safely? So that is to be determined where we go with this. But it is something that we have to think about in planning for our future. And with that, I am happy to answer any questions you might have.

Any questions? Thank you very much.

Thank you. Oh.

Oh, no. We've got questions.

I thought the thank you was the excuse. Council Member Shah.

So I know that there was talks of the station closures, and that has now been put to the board. And I just want to say that we out here in Oakley have been paying BART tax for a long time with no BART. And if that becomes a reality and we lose these stations, East Concord and beyond, are we still going to be on the hook for paying BART taxes as residents in Far East County? Yes. I was afraid of that, but I don't find that to be totally fair. Those of us in the newer neighborhoods, our left side of our tax bill is much higher than our right side of our tax bill. So it's something that if this is, you know, it's going to be an uphill battle. Taxes are a nasty word here in Oakley, and there's a lot of people looking for them. So I would just say that hopefully these meetings for us aren't the only conversations that you're having because it's going to be a tough sell.

Understood, and they are not the only conversation.

Thank you.

Council Member Williams.

I'm so sorry. You know me. I can fully appreciate the very tough situation. I feel like the conversation about the closing the line was directly towards conversations that we've had. And I get it. It's just, I mean, Councilmember Shaw tried to steal my thunder here when I talked about, I mean, I know all I've heard from is people who have said they've been paying the BART for 40 years. We don't have jobs in Oakley. And I know the yellow line has been the most stable and the most consistent. And it's because we have residents who depend on it. We have to give a shout out to Assemblymember Lori Wilson for making sure that Tri Delta got that funding. should this pass i mean that's the problem is that it's not just bart that is the problem right i mean highway four does not have the infrastructure to support this so i guess i mean you're just one of i think there's what eight people on the board is that seven people nine members nine members three alameda three san francisco three Okay. So, like, I feel like East County is going to get sort of the short end of the stick, and I think the thing that people need to realize is that Tridel to Transit had to open because we were supposed to be serviced by AC Transit, and we, again, were too far out, not as populated as where it was needed, so it didn't happen. So I think I just have... a lot of concerns about that. I know there's a lot of people who are out here like advocating for it and stuff, but I would also just love to talk further about if we could try and get that, um, town hall set up so that we can have a conversation because I wish this room was packed with people because it doesn't matter if you're a BART writer or not, like this will impact you if you have to go on for, if you have to leave your house for anything really. So, um, I would encourage you to let's, I know you have a really tight timeline because of the election and stuff. Um, So I would just encourage, like, let's try and all work together to get that set up. Because I think this is super important that people realize you don't have to be a writer to do it. I was going to shout out the high ridership. And BART is amazing compared to what it used to be. I mean, I never had any issues really with it. I mean, I definitely, my stop was the one where, you know, somebody's neck got... at MacArthur. So I didn't love that because it was when I was using it. But it's been so much improved. And I think that more of that message has to get out there. And I understand you guys are trying to run and do PR and all of that stuff. But I think the more you invite people in to see how much it's changed, it's going to make a huge difference. Because you can read any post and people say, it's awful, it's terrible. And it's nothing like that. I mean, I would have zero problems letting my kids Take it places now where that wouldn't be the case. I mean, I was definitely writing it younger than them, but I wouldn't have let that before and it's made a huge. So I think if we just keep sending that message because this is a really scary impact to East County specifically.

thank you i appreciate the feedback and the support and i am i am working with staff on town halls that was something we talked about at the workshop and how we could better educate the folks throughout our district so definitely plan on and hope to collaborate on that so thank you vice mayor mountains thank you director foley glad i don't walk in your shoes right now i mean i i understand this the predicament um and i also

understand the sentiment from East Contra Costa County and I mean we paid for BART for many many years and we didn't even get real BART so and I understand if some stations have to be closed but if if all three are closed in East Contra Costa County I would say don't come back asking for money from us because there's no way you're going to get a vote I mean you know that but So keep that in mind if we're having to go in that direction. Thank you.

Understood. And based on staff's plan, I would have no stations in my district. I would be a director with no stations. So you'd be driving. Right. As would Melissa Hernandez. They would have closed all three of her primary stations. So not a future I'm looking forward to and I'm trying to avoid. But I appreciate the feedback.

Thank you for your update tonight. Appreciate it. Have a good evening. Item two, public comment. At this time, the public comments will be heard on items that are not on the agenda. I have a couple online and a couple speaker cards. If you wish to speak, please complete a blue speaker card. They're located in the lobby and submitted to the county, to the city clerk. The time limit for speaking will be three minutes. The limits will be monitored by the timer in front of my seat. When one minute is remaining, the timer will beep. Please refrain from applauding, cheering, booing, so everybody can be heard tonight. I'll do the online speaker first. Marish Perez. Kevin Tindall. Bud Chedick.

Hello. Council and Mayor, thank you for having this forum. Just some interesting things I think people ought to look at, like on the Marsh Creek thing I was walking the other day. The East Bay Regional Park Trail is caving in badly. I saw some kids get near it, playing around it, and it's caved in underneath badly. So there was some safety tape put up. I think a little more needs to be done because people were crawling up and down that. So I know it's basically due to the recharge area that's there. There's also been beaver activity. The other thing, too, is there's Mosquito trap set up and I saw some kids getting near those They're all over their big white cards. They're trying to get Zika and all the other things right now and I Would like to tell parents keep an eye on your kid around those don't let them play with them because this is like a really important thing right now You know to keep track of what's going on with that The other thing is we're going to have a meeting at our bass club next month that's going to have a carbon capture speaker that's going to talk about where the Antioch power plant was, where they want to pump basically waste underneath our river, which will, with the northwest wind, come right into Oakley because it's right over by the bridge if it should ever rupture or do anything funny. I think that's something of concern. So I mean, we will have a speaker. And I think it'd be great if people would be able to come and listen to something that's literally right next door. I think that'd be a wonderful thing for people to educate themselves on what's trying to be passed in the name of tax breaks for certain people. I think that's something that really needs to be understood better and needs to be fought, quite frankly. That's the other thing. The other thing is I got a lot of friends in San Diego. A friend of mine caught some bonito off of Half Moon Bay. Shouldn't be here, especially in this time of year. There's supposed to be a big El Nino this year called the Godzilla El Nino. And the water is going to be exceptionally hot this year. So it's going to be interesting to see what it does with our weather pattern here. It's already affecting fish. That shouldn't be here right now. They're catching more bonita than salmon now because of it. because the upwellings are bad. And so it's pretty interesting. There's 70 degree water in San Diego already. So that's, you know, it comes down to water, again, keeping things cool, like Roger mentioned. We need to fight for the water in our river to keep it cool.

Thank you. That was my last speaker. We'll move to item three, council member comments. Seeing none, we'll move to item four, consent calendar. Do I have anybody that wants anything removed?

4.1.

I move the remainder.

Second.

Call for a roll call vote.

Council Member Fuller?

Aye.

Council Member Shaw? Yes. Council Member Williams? Yes. Vice Mayor Meadows?

Yes.

Mayor Henderson?

Aye.

And that motion carries 5-0.

Item 4.1.

Yes, the same as before. We're improving. We're now identifying that, like, Mr. McMurray had additional comments about the city that he wanted to do, but we're still not getting to where we want. I'll be frank that the hybrid thing frightens me also. because that means the city manager can look at the minutes and put in what he wants to put and remove what he wants to remove and that has not worked so well at least in oakley that i've seen so uh i we need more complete no minutes and i will vote no on this item i move approval 4.1 second so we have a first and a second roll call vote please

Council Member Fuller?

No.

Council Member Shaw? Yes. Council Member Williams? Yes. Vice Mayor Meadows? Yes. Mayor Henderson?

Aye.

The motion passes 4-1.

item five public hearings we have none tonight item six regular calendar item six point one adopt a urgent ordinance imposing a temporary moratorium prohibiting the processing or approval of a new data center land use application within the city to allow time to evaluate the public health and environmental impacts and enhance

the future and appropriate regulations concerning the same uh staff report will be by our city attorney mr cole thank you mayor members of the council this item is brought at your request following a hearing last month in which you considered a land use application that at one point had a data center element attached to it but that was removed at the end of that meeting during request for future agenda items council members requested that we bring an item to impose a moratorium on data centers that is before you we have drafted an urgency ordinance i do want to note that a four-fifths vote is required so four of you will be required to approve this item The purpose of the item is to address what I think many people would acknowledge. Data centers require a lot of power. They require a lot of water. They can have intensive land use impacts. You did hear a lot of comments at your meeting in March that were directed to the data center component of that project. There were certainly some opposition to the other industrial uses, but as I recall, the vast majority of the comments you received were directed to data centers. And they raised a lot of, members of the public, the commenters raised a lot of concerns. And so I think what I interpreted from your comments at the end of that meeting is you wanted to have a mechanism to consider to put a pause on data centers. And that's what's before you tonight. Procedurally, we can only impose this urgency ordinance for 45 days. The way these ordinances work, there's a section in the planning and zoning law that essentially gives you a two-year window. to put a moratorium. There's a whole host of legal and constitutional concepts that have gone into this statute. The statute has been litigated, and the idea is that we can take a pause, we can put in place regulations, consider regulations, and then have a more detailed set of regulations that will allow you to address the unique issue of data centers before you get any further applications or you have to make a further decision regarding an application. But procedurally tonight all we can do is have a 45-day ordinance. We will bring back, if you approve this tonight, we will bring back to you at your second meeting in May an extension that will allow you to extend up to one year from tonight. So essentially 10 months and 15 days. And then at the one-year mark, you can extend for one more year. But the idea is that in those two years, you will be developing and will have developed some resolution of how to deal with the issue. I do want to make clear that this is not something you simply do to do. This is something you do to give yourself a pause. And so tonight, if the pleasure of four-fifths of the council is to approve this, then we will need to start moving forward with some way to address this issue. I think if the pleasure of the council tonight is to approve this moratorium, it would be helpful to staff to receive some direction from you as to how you'd like to develop this uh ordinance what i would suggest is akin to what we do already with general plan amendments which is we have a workshop at the planning commission we have a workshop before the council and then with that input staff and i can work on an ordinance to bring to you within i don't think well i don't want to say i don't want to limit myself i don't think we'll need two years i think we can have this done this year but That would be my proposal is that you simply direct staff to workshop this in our normal manner That will allow you and the Planning Commission to provide input Importantly it will allow the public to come and provide input during those workshops Then that will give staff and myself Something to draft and then we can formally present that to you when we formally present that to you we have to do that as an ordinance and and so the ordinance it's going to be a zoning ordinance so then we formally present the zoning ordinance in a public hearing to the planning commission we formally present that ordinance to your council as well so essentially there's at least four meetings if you follow this that you'd have to have to address this issue and i want to emphasize that if you adopt this tonight you can't approve anything while this is pending So hopefully that gives you enough information to move forward tonight, however you move forward, but I'm happy to answer any questions.

Questions of staff? Council Member Fuller.

Yes. Is there any reason without the moratorium that you can begin to plan plans without any need for a pause, that we have now seen data centers come up. They are throughout the state. They are throughout the nation. Personally, I went and looked in academic journals of that type. There really isn't a whole lot of research of what the impact of data centers are. Yes, they do use a lot of energy. Yes, I can tell you from my own home camera system that such electronic things do have a hum to them. which can be annoying, like white noise, I guess. So I understand that. But in the meantime, we're kind of building up. It reminds me, I hate to say it, I don't know how to say it, but there was a time when people didn't want automobiles on the road because they scared horses, they were noisy, they were disruptive, and so we have something new. And what happened is the industry got them, and so did the state, and we had motor vehicle laws, and we started getting into how we could use that item. But at this one, what I'm seeing and I'm asking is why do we even need a pause? If we know this is coming and has come and gone to it, gone with the opposition to the city, why do we need a pause? Is there something pending or what? And what is, even then, what is this year situation that we go into?

Well, first of all, it's your decision. Those are all policy decisions for you to make. Obviously, as an attorney, it's not my place to decide for you, do you need a pause? What I can tell you is legally, I think you can support a pause if that's the pleasure of the counsel. What the advantage of the moratorium would be is that it gives you something to work with. Council Member Fuller, you mentioned that this is a new area. I will tell you I've been a lawyer for going into my 27th year. I started out not as a municipal lawyer, but as a land use lawyer. And so I've seen and I've done land use and environmental law for my entire career. And there are phases, there are trends, there are always new things. This is the new thing. And the thing about new things is that when they're new, there's not a lot out there for agencies like this to hang their hats on. When you're confronted with a data center or a new use that we're not used to regulating, cannabis is a great example. um cannabis only became legal in 2016 and so before 2016 you really couldn't as a city or a county adopt although some were as of you know 2010 and thereafter starting to regulate land use but because it was so new you didn't have all of the knowledge that you had you didn't have all the consultants working on the subject the way we do now. And now cannabis is 10 years old legal and there's a whole regime for how it's handled. And so if you get a cannabis project today, you have really consistent and verifiable standards that you can work with. We don't have that with data centers right now. And so if you were not to adopt this tonight and someone were to put a data center proposal together, your decision making would be maybe a little more difficult because you wouldn't have things to work with. Everything would be new. And so you wouldn't understand the subject the way you would if maybe you took a pause and you looked at it systemically, not on a case by case basis. So again, I'm trying not to make a policy decision. That's not my role, but I'm suggesting what I think is a defensible decision if you all want to do this.

Thank you. But still, what's this year situation?

I'll be very specific. Get in the weeds. California government code section 68585. No, 58588. I always get it mixed up. it it's it's in the planning and zoning law the planning and zoning law is what requires us to have a general plan requires us to have zoning ordinances and in this particular section of the government code the legislature has given cities like ours the authorization to put a pause because of this exact problem i just mentioned the law recognizes that there's new things that come up and there are problems that come up and we want to give, the law wants to give you policy makers a tool to work proactively, to get ahead of the problem. And so the pause is you have two years. The idea is that you can do this as an urgency ordinance, which means if you adopt this ordinance, it takes effect tonight. And in many cases, sometimes you have to really move fast. But the law says you have to come back in 45 days if you want to extend it. The idea being that if you're going to take a drastic step and you're going to adopt a moratorium that's effective that night, that you should, you know, if you're going to extend it, you should come back within a short period of time. We have to publicly notice the extension hearing. So if we want to extend the moratorium up to the year, we have to do a public hearing notice, which means we have to give extra notice to the public and hold a public hearing and follow our public hearing procedures. So the idea is that in some cases you need 45 days just to get the immediate control, but then if you want to extend beyond those 45 days, you've got to engage the public. You've got to publicly notice. You've got to follow your public hearing procedures, and then you can extend up to the year. then from the year at the year standpoint you can extend for another year so there's three essentially three votes you can take a vote tonight you can take a vote at the 45-day mark and then you can take a vote at the one-year mark okay and one of the things is the 45-day mark in other words that's a moon and a half in the ancient times a moon and a half is all it was it is and

At the end of 45 days, my fear, or maybe you can answer if this is possible, suddenly the staff comes up and says, oh, by the way, I just found out the one that's here, and here it is, guys. Approve it. puts it in front of us we could do that we could approve that whatever they came up with in 45 days and that would that would allow data centers to begin if that were the change in the council I disagree with that because

The moratorium is going to put a pause so there can be no data centers nor the process of an application while the moratorium is in effect. Staff could not just simply come up and say, before those 45 days, here you go, here's an ordinance, adopt it. Because in order for us to do that, we'd have to formulate the ordinance, I'd have to draft it, I'd have to work with Mr. Strelow and our city management team and others. We would then have to take it to the planning commission because it would be a permanent ordinance. And under the zoning ordinance rules, we have to take it to a planning commission. That has to be publicly noticed. then after the planning commission makes a recommendation to you as a council we take it as essentially a zoning amendment that has to come to you and that can't be done in 45 days but just to be sure if you if you follow this proposal that i'm giving you which is require us to do the workshop format that we use for our general plan amendments before we can even formally introduce an ordinance we have to do two workshops And you're going into budget. And I can't speak for the city manager, but I doubt we're going to be able to get this going until probably the summer, just to allow the budget to go forward. I'll work with our planning staff in the meantime, but I don't envision us starting to do these workshops until probably the summer and the fall. So really, there's no way, Council Member Fuller, that we could do something like that on such a short period of time.

Well, let me give you a hypothetical. Not that I've ever, I've read about it, but we put a moratorium on and somebody in that back office that are back there has a great data center that everybody kind of thinks is great, even up here, and says, great. And so we put a moratorium on. As soon as that moratorium goes, out comes the drawer, out comes a plan that's handed to Mr. Strello and says, here's your standards. put it in what this data center says. And so the quick, quick, quick, they write up standards that that data center will take. They have a series of meetings, which may or may not be productive. And suddenly, at the end of 45 days, everything's there. And that's the one thing that I'm looking at. And I have heard of this and read of this. But what is to prevent that type of action taking place at the end of 45 days?

The law.

Yeah, thanks. It's kind of like a censure, right? I don't know. I'll have more comments in the discussion.

Council Member Williams.

Okay, so I know what the standards are for the 45 days and then the one year and then the additional one year extension. I think my fear is I have a little PTSD from our fast food storage gas station. I think that took three years to... We weren't successful in getting a moratorium on that, and then the whole process took three years. I know it was a lot of us back and forth. I think we sent it back to you guys. I didn't look it back up, but I'm pretty sure it came back and forth like six times. So I know it was a lot of that, but that's my only fear. I love the direction of, let's do the workshops. I just, I fear that the two, I know you said it would be enough, and I think potentially we're going to have examples of this, right? Like, not locally, obviously, but I know there's a bunch of states that are coming out with full bans. And I've seen some work even in the California legislature to to really talk about it. So maybe we won't be sort of starting from scratch, but I don't feel like we were either with the storage unit, fast food, car washes. So that's the only fear I have. So what is the fear? How can we alleviate that? Like, I don't want us to get to the two-year mark. Then we get a data center application, and then it becomes this process where we have to just, okay, well, that one's okay, but no future ones, you know?

What I will say is, you mentioned it, that the... Really, the package that we studied that you referred to was really three different uses, car washes, storage facilities, and fast food. And if I remember, we brought workshops for each. So the good news here is really it's one use. So we should be able to do this with one planning commission workshop and one city council workshop. And obviously we went through that. We want to get this done. So I will make sure that I work with community development and our management team. The only thing is I can't speak for our management team, but I know that the budget is really kind of the priority from this point forward. But I think we can have the workshops starting in the summer and have those completed by the early fall. And that way, we can get direction, and we should be able to introduce something towards the end of this year. So, you know, I think we can commit to making sure that that doesn't happen and that it gets done in a timely basis.

Okay, and then one more follow-up. I know tonight needs a supermajority. Both extensions would need a supermajority. But the future zoning or land use change, that's simplemajority?

Yes, that would be a normal ordinance, so it would be three-fifths.

Okay, thank you. That's it for my questions right now.

Ultima Rocha.

So if the Planning Commission has to do a workshop and then they research the ordinance, do a recommendation?

what we would do what what we're proposing is that staff takes the workshop gets the input from the planning commission ideally they would give us that input in the meeting maybe they might want some further analysis and would continue to a second hearing but that we would get that and then we would bring that to you So we certainly want to utilize the expertise and the volunteerism of the Planning Commission, but we will make sure not to keep it bogged down too long before them.

And then the city council would have our own workshop?

Yes.

An ordinance meeting where we would vote. And then the next meeting would be a second, waiving the second reading. And then it would be 30 more days before it would go into effect. So I want to streamline this. I am concerned as well with timing, right? In the summer, we meet once a month, not twice. So our meetings are limited. And I would recommend talking to staff and doing a joint Planning Commission and City Council workshop We've done it before and it would give the opportunity for the citizens to come in have the conversations But we don't have to put another month between the meeting and then when we get to you guys get to start working on this ordinance This land use. I am concerned. I understand that we can only do the 45 days. So that is something we can do, though, is we can potentially do a joint if staff can work that out. OK. And then I asked some questions. So I want to make sure, what steps do we have in place to make sure that there are no gaps in timing? I know there's a very strict timeline, right? I'm assuming you've mapped this out on a calendar.

Yes, we have to have this considered at our second meeting in May to meet the 45 days. So 45 days from tonight puts us basically to Memorial Day. So I mean, it's March 13. No, it's April 14. So there's 17 days. So it puts us to like the 28th or the 29th of May. So we would let me just pull up my calendar we would we would bring this to you at your second meeting in May which is the 26 so I mean we're gonna be cutting it kind of close Do we have to wait the full 45 days bring it to you at the 12th if you?

I say, again, I want this thing as strong as possible. I don't want data centers to come in. I don't want anything to happen and somebody miss a meeting or we don't end up with a quorum. And I want to take every possibility out of this slipping through the cracks.

And that would give you the ability to continue it if you wanted to. In a year. Well, if you approve the ordinance, we would bring this back to you for further extension consideration on the 12th.

at our first meeting in may okay thank you um and then uh i had a couple other questions but i think they got answered by council member williams uh explain i mean i guess i don't need you you kind of already explained it we can't go right now just to a straight if a ban was the intent of this right if that's what the majority of the council wanted to do and we we can't just go straight to that because if an application comes in between now and when that gets approved second reading and um the 30 days we would have to consider that application right so this is giving us that buffer okay yes i'll have more in deliberation thank you

Seeing no further questions from council, we'll move to public comment. I have one public comment on line that wish to speak, which was Sue Ellen Mosley. And then I have one blue card, Deborah Seiden.

Thank you, City Council, Mayor, for the time. Thank you for considering the moratorium. There is, Mr. Fuller, there is a lot of people that are commenting online that live next to these places that are built out in the middle of nowhere where nobody fought it, nobody knew. Look for them. They're a nightmare. So we love our city. I want to ask, if you're doing these things, is there a way to let the entire city of Oakley know, instead of people who may live only 500 feet? I had a CBS guy knock on my door. I don't know how. I didn't really talk to him. I was working. But I find it interesting that nobody really knows about the information or what's coming. Seeing everything with our water district and with Bart There's a lot going on for the city of Oakley, but this is important We had all those beautiful young children here today, and I want Oakley to be What it is now, but bigger and better but without that that stuff here What is a data center? data for who Who's collecting the data and for what? It's ridiculous. They're popping up everywhere. And then what happens when they're done with it? We've got the fulfillment center. What happens if they decide to leave? Then we're stuck with it. So thank you for considering it and making it important. I hope you all are. I'm not a professional speaker. I'm a little nervous, sorry. Thank you for even considering it, because Oakley is special, and we need to take care of it, and we need to take care of our delta and our water and our land. We can build things here that make us prosper, but it doesn't have to be a giant computer. Thank you.

Our next speaker will be David.

Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to speak tonight. Although I believe that a moratorium on data centers is a great start, I feel strongly that battery storage should also be included in this moratorium. I see the battery storage as being just as harmful as the data centers are to our environment. Ms. Williams has posted all over Facebook, do not worry. Oakley will not have any data centers. Oakley City wants jobs. What I want to know is, will this moratorium and new ordinance you are preparing say that the city of Oakley will be the first city in the nation to permanently ban data centers? Or will this be a, as Mr. Cole said, a one to two year pause until the next developer introduces data centers into their proposal, and we're right back to where we started. And just for reference, today, the state of Maine said, passed the first statewide ban on new large data centers, imposing an 18-month moratorium on facilities drawing more than 20 megawatts of power. We could be the first city. Let's give California a chance to get in there. Thank you.

Next speaker is Bud.

Again, thank you for bringing this subject up. It kind of reminds me of the old saying, you know, watching a cowboy movie, and it's like you're going to a gunfight with a knife. That's what I feel that Oakley is to these big companies. You got a knife, we got a gun. Okay? And that's what I feel you're up against. And I feel for you. But the thing is, it needs... No should be no. The thing is, you have your Amazon, your Meta, all this money being invested. You hear it on the stock market constantly. Well, they want their return. People are getting upset. They want their money. What is it really we're getting back for our money, like putting it in a bank? You want your interest. They're not getting it. And some people are getting a little worried. So it's like, OK, all these people propose this stuff. Yes, it may be the future. But we don't need to be the... the German, the Petri dish, okay? I don't think we should be. I think we should be unique that way. Just say no. That's it. You know, the thing is, I feel like we're being set up or rope-a-doped, if you would, boxing, into a corner to where you're going to use that knife and not be able to defend yourself if you don't take action. a fast, direct action. And I think we need to do that. I really do. I mean, I'm worried about our water. I keep hearing Roger talk. I mean, we go to meetings and it's like, yeah, I want them warming up my water and doing that, and what contaminants, you know, there was already dowel there years ago, and now we're going to put this over there on top of it. So, you know, I'm just thinking of water quality and aquifers and things like that, and again, we're going to allow the person that has the gun, and we have a knife. Let's keep going back to that. How do you feel? Do you feel you have a good chance if you just keep prolonging it I know there's probably some protocol. Don't get me wrong. But the thing is, there are a lot of other states that are really just basically saying no. And I think what would make Oakley unique is just that there's other things to do with it. Don't do that. It was once kind of a contaminated area. Let's not make it contaminated again. And I heard battery stuff. Look at Moss Landing, what happened there. And they still can't figure out what's going on, what the toxins going in elk slew over there. OK, it blew up. And OK, well, let's forget about it. Well, it's big money. It's investment. Oh, this and that. Let's let them put it there. I feel like we really are just letting all these bigger companies just say, we say so, so therefore it is. Okay, and I think you have a right to fight them, as does the public. Thank you.

That's my final speaker for tonight. I'll bring it back to council. Council Member Shaw.

um so i just wanted to address a couple of the comments deborah you had mentioned about the um more than just people so many distance from the project being notified because this isn't about a specific project um there wouldn't be that that 500 foot buffer so i would recommend for anyone listening is to sign up online for the Newsletters that show when an agenda has been posted that way that I'm happy to post it online when I see this coming But because it's not for a specific location. There is no buffer as far as who would get notified And mr. Bonson We absolutely agree. I would love to see Oakley be the first so But this is the first step and because of the timing, you know right now we have We have to wait for the workshop to be set up by then we're in June 60 days Another 30 days because we only have one meeting a month now. We're in July second reading is another 30 days We're in August and then the 30-day waiting period after it's approved. We're into September, so I think this Moratorium is really really important first step to make sure that we can get across the finish line so Just I want to I support this wholeheartedly I've said it in meetings. I will say it here tonight and I will scream it from the rooftops I really want to make sure that this is something that we do and we do it, right? Like I said, I want to streamline this process and make it happen as quickly as possible. Let's combine meetings Let's make sure we don't miss a deadline. Let's make sure that there are zero cracks to fall through and and let's get this to the council so we can vote appropriately and put this to bed once and for all.

Council Member Williams.

I was going to point out all those same things. I highly recommend everybody signs up for the newsletter. I know I think that was one of my biggest frustrations was I didn't feel like I knew what was happening. And follow the city page on Facebook. I think there's a next door page. I should know that. There is. I've seen Assistant Manager of City Danielle Navarro as the heading for it. So look for all of those things. Unfortunately, state law does not update as quickly as technology does. And so while I wish... We could figure out a way to hand deliver everything to everybody. I think we do have to sign up for the newsletters and do all of that stuff. And I think there's always going to be things that still surprise us, right? Like I sometimes am bringing something up to my neighbors that they had no idea was impacting. And I think this is going to be my plug for when we get to do virtual as well as in person. I think that's going to help a lot with a lot more people being able to participate. So I'm very excited for July. I can't wait. Um, I also want to echo what council member Shaw said. I mean, obviously I said at the beginning that I have some PTSD from the length of time that it all took for the storage unit ordinance and all of that stuff. So I would like to echo that we we make those timelines work i want people to be able to be involved obviously but the the 30 days between meetings for summer would just i think that would make it where we're getting into risky territory because there's no guarantee that when the first draft of it comes back to us that we're going to accept that right there might be some changes in it that we don't like that we need to do, right? That's what happened with the other ordinances that there was all this negotiations and trading things back and forth and figuring out what works. So that's where my fear is, is that we can have all the best intentions, but that two year mark doesn't actually feel like a lot of time in the way government time works. So my recommendation would be to also consolidate, do the workshops together, So that way we can at least have as much input as possible as quickly as possible. So that was just kind of what I feel on that.

Also, member Fuller.

Yes, Mr. Chaddock, you reminded me in my police days when I had a training officer and I had my probationer and everything, and I always reminded him, remember, we always bring a gun to a knife fight. We bring the gun to the knife fight. and that is basically what it's saying is we have the ability to deescalate or protect ourselves with the information we have and put that together and be able to use it in a manner that allows us to implement data centers or other aspects to it. So I do believe we need to have uh... the protection out there that goes there uh... when we do this when we put this together data centers are going to come about and i'm going to say that because of uh... santa clara university today i believe it was today or yesterday but i believe it was today said nvida just donated to santa clara university twenty five million dollars for a research center there so they can continue to build up the concept of AI and data gathering and putting things together. So if NVIDIA, who has been doing fairly well, comes up with $25 million and put it in there, I do believe they believe it's going to go forward, and they're putting money in it, and it's going to happen. Now, just what you mentioned, where? Will it fit in Oakley? I don't know. I don't know. You mentioned a lot of them are out away. But I don't know how long that's going to last. I was looking at the Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, a couple of days ago put a map of California and where they're located. So right now, they're down in Imperial County. A lot of them are down in Imperial County. work in words which has a lot of area to build but coming up here and that's what we need to be aware of I personally this has come about because staff just basically just I am still upset at the manner that this was introduced the only reason we got concerned about data centers was that suddenly it appeared on the planning commission agenda. And there was a citizen doing the right thing and went through the whole agenda and saw data center and sounded the alarm. Nobody was ready for it. And when I go to the grocery store or anywhere else that's caught talking about it, everybody says it was a surprise. And it was a big surprise. Now, I voted against Bridgehead because I believe it's a toxic environmental cesspool right there. I voted against it. But I probably would have voted against it in the data centers because we didn't prepare anybody for it. So we have to find a way. What's going to fit? It's kind of like the automobile. Okay, the automobile is going to stay. So now how are we going to implement this? Within the community, the safety, you're going to have roads. What's going to be there so we can use it To our benefit, data centers are going to be here. So I agree with that. I am not happy with a 45-day limit. And just like I said, it's subject to abuse. Yes, Mr. Cole says the law will stop it. I actually get a very nice pension from the city of Los Angeles because I went out and found and detected lawbreakers. So lawbreakers come about. The trouble is lawbreakers can do a tremendous amount of damage before we realize the damage that's coming about. So I don't want to see that happen. I want to make sure. And it's a big... And right now, the community is having difficulty with trust of City Hall. And whether they like to hear about that or not, it is true. It's a big leap of faith to go 45 days and then come back together. And as far as timelines, Councilmember Williams, timelines, I don't know if we can have timelines personally. How do you make a timeline for something you know nothing about? You can make a timeline. Oh, yeah, we're going to find about it all here. We're going to find about it all here. We're going to find about it all here. And suddenly, over in Indonesia, it adds another one to it, another factor to it, another leg that you have to deal with. So we have to come about. But we have to come about not trying to cram a round peg into a square hole. We have to make sure this professional comes about. So I would like to see it. Eventually you could go to a year or two years in a pause. But that 45 days, that's going to be a leap of faith. And I think the whole community has to stay on that to make sure that that 45 days is adhered to and it comes back here for further review if that's what we decide to do.

Vice Mayor Meadows.

If you have an issue with the 45 days, you might want to call your state assembly member and state senator, have them change that. So I'm supportive of moving forward with the moratorium. And I want to make sure we're giving staff enough time to do the research that they need to get all the facts. And I want all the information. So I'm supportive, and I want all the information before we make another decision.

Councilmember Williams.

I just wanted to direct a point of clarification because we're hearing about the 45 days and we want it to be longer. Would state law allow us to just say today two-year ban? okay would the ag probably be who comes after you if like landowners i'm assuming would be because technically what we're doing is we're taking away a potential land use and so our job is to demonstrate that we're being thoughtful about that is that sort of the reasoning behind the 45 days then the extension then the other extension

if we wanted to ban something we'd have to go through our zoning code and make sure we take out any authorization for a data center and technically we don't ban data centers currently. They are uses that we really haven't regulated but we've interpreted our code to believe, to interpret that someone can apply for them. So the only way we could We could adopt some emergency ordinance that bans these uses, but we'd have to have good reasons to ban them. And technically, state law gives you the process that I outlined. So I don't believe as a lawyer that we could just adopt an ordinance in one night and ban something and call it a day.

Okay, perfect. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Council Member Shaw.

the way i understand it because we are asking for this to be effective tonight we can only do the 45 days so we take some we're doing it as an emergency and then at the 45 days or earlier which i'm hoping for earlier we can then say we've slept on it we still feel this way and now we want to extend it to the year am i right that that would be the process yes all right thank you any for uh further discussion from the

Just so I'm clear, if there is a successful vote, that's your call, the direction I understand is that staff will schedule a joint planning commission city council meeting at which we would present to you our review um i i mr streelo is not here city city manager is not here so i i envision this would happen in the summer i want to give us all time to as council member meadows indicate so i want to give you guys good work product So the aim would be sometime in the summer to bring that to a joint workshop, and then so that's directional item number one. The directional item number two is to bring the extension back at our first meeting in May so that we can buy up to a year if, again, four-fifths of you vote in favor of the ordinance. So that's what I understand. If there's additional direction you want to give before you take your vote, please let me know.

Can I just get clarity? So if we bring it a little bit earlier, right, the May 12th is technically not quite 45 days. Does that change any of the timelines or everything stays? Like it doesn't shorten even by those 5, 10?

We would extend for up to the year. Got it. It's not the date that you do the extension. It's the amount of time you're given. So we would just take an earlier vote, but we would get the full year.

Okay, great. Thank you.

And then my comments on this, I'd like to see this done before the end of 26, so it's done before the end of this calendar year and then place.

I would like to make a motion to adopt an urgency ordinance of the City Council of the City of Oakley imposing a temporary moratorium prohibiting the processing and approval of new data center land use applications within city limits to allow for evaluation of the public health environmental impacts. I would like to do that with a plan to joint meeting with the Planning Commission and a vote on the extension earlier than the 45 days.

Second. Second. Before we vote, can I have Mr. Cole summarize that or put it into some legalese on what we're voting on?

We are voting on the adoption of the urgency ordinance as is written. If four-fifths of you are in favor, staff will bring back an item. In the summer, a workshop that will occur before the Planning Commission and the City Council, a joint workshop. We will present an extension of the moratorium at your first meeting in May, and pursuant to the Mayor's request, we will aim to have this completed by the end of the calendar year.

I heard a joint meeting, too. Is that included?

The joint meeting would be a workshop meeting with the Planning Commission and the City Council in the summer to give both bodies some policymaking information that will then be used to give staff direction on what ordinance to actually write and introduce. Thank you.

We have a first and a second. I'll call for the clerk for a vote.

Council Member Fuller?

Aye.

Council Member Shaw? Yes. Council Member Williams? Yes. Vice Mayor Meadows? Yes. Mayor Henderson? Aye. The motion carries 5-0.

May I make a comment, even though it's out of order? I want to thank the people in the back who fell for clapping, found a more, less noise. Thank you during the meeting in the back.

Item 7 reports, item 7.1, city manager's report, tonight will be given by our assistant city manager, Danielle.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Mr. Vice Mayor, and council members. I'd like to take this opportunity to remind everyone one more time that our day of service will be on Saturday, April 25th, and we have five exciting projects that volunteers can sign up for. They can do that at www.oakleyca.gov forward slash rec registration, and they go under the events tab to find day of service. That day we will also have a bin at the PD from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. for National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day, and that provides a free local drop-off location for expired or unused medication in partnership with the DEA, and no registration is required for that. The next Mercantile Market by the Makers Boulevard will be on Sunday, April 26th here in the downtown, and the start time for that has changed to 10 a.m. And finally, the agenda packet tonight includes the business license update for March as well as a follow-up memo from Chief Beard in response to questions from his annual police department update. And thank you, and that concludes my report.

Thank you. Questions for, was that a question for staff? No? Okay.

item seven point two council members uh... reports from agencies council member shah uh... yes uh... need to watch since our last meeting uh... on march twenty fifth i attended tried out the transit meeting and councilman williams as always will report on that on the twenty sixth and twenty seventh i was in costa mesa for a policy committee i am uh... appointed to the public safety policy committee and we just discussed a couple items ab 1959 dealing with school shootings and mass shootings ab 1605 as well as sb 1156 which are dui bills discussing limiting alcohol purchase for dui convictions And we also had an update from our e-bike task force addressing licensing speed limits, manufacturing, allowing for stricter local control, identifying markers on bikes for law enforcement identification, whether it's an e-bike, an e-motorcycle, a moped, also working to expand consumer protection for false advertising or incorrect advertising that what is being sold and what is legal. There is a toolkit available to keep track of all e-bike bills, which I think would be great when we do bring back our conversation regarding e-bikes in the future. On March 31st, I attended the East County Services Groundbreaking in Brentwood. On the second, Contra Costa Mayor's Conference in Concord. On the third, Friday Night Bites. Today I attended the swearing in of our newest sergeant. Congratulations again. And as always, emails, meetings, phone calls with constituents. Thank you.

Council Member Williams.

Okay, so I attended Tri-Delta Transit as well. Some interesting facts that we learned are diesel fuel costs have almost doubled since the war in Iran began. I'm sure that's no surprise to anybody in this room if you look at gas stations. Another interesting piece of information is that Anaheim Transit System will be shut down as of March 31st. The city was asked to take it over, and they said they don't have the... to do that, so there will no longer be public transit in Anaheim. We have had to have some tough conversations, and we're going to continue having tough conversations as an agency about how we can remain solvent. We discussed reviewing a fare increase. It hasn't changed since 2012. We're continuously working to right-size service, and they are looking at what the model of service cuts for 10, 20, or 30% would be. In happier news, the Shred It event will be hosted at our Oakley Mobility Hub on May 7th. There will be four trucks now. Sponsorship comes from Assemblymember Lori Wilson, MDRR, the City of Oakley, and some of our... County supervisors bought a fourth truck. It will close when all the trucks are filled. We talked a little bit about SB 1408. That is the Measure J reauthorization, which will permit CCTA to levy up to 1% transactions and a transaction use tax for transportation. And that doesn't matter if that's outside the county's existing combined tax update. So, again, just goes back to sort of those BART conversations and those tax bills. I also went to a policy committee. They urged cities to get our positions on bills in right now because any bills that cost money need to be sent to appropriations by April 26th. Our policy committee was very focused on the role of cities in child care we had a presentation from the president of low-income investment fund and she was specifically talking about how Loans to developers for affordable housing and early childhood education are the best way to get child care improved in your city Let's see Then we did make an update to our policy. We wanted to change our language to say older adults instead of seniors and we also made a change that promotes policies that reflect that older adults are integrated into the economic and civic life of Cities and that's sort of what we stand for. Sorry. I have to go to a different sheet now Okay, so let's see All right, I attended the mayor's conference. We did have a program from South Bay Coalition to end human trafficking. They do see a huge increase around big events like Super Bowl, and they're expecting a big uptick for World Cup. So they wanted to give us ideas for how to prevent that in our cities. And it includes labor exploitation, sex exploitation. And they urged law enforcement to have consistent policies. They also wanted to prevent criminalization of minors being sold for sex because minors can't consent. If you need resources, safetyforthebay.org gives resources for the most common safety issues and links to connect you to help in your county. I did attend the Chamber of Commerce social plus the board meeting. We did get very exciting news that Oakley is going to be featured on an upcoming Zip Trips episode, thanks to our wonderful community collaboration from Brownstone Gardens. We have exciting things coming up there. I did meet with East County Challenger parents regarding their invitation to Pennsylvania to showcase their team. Only two teams across America are invited to play at these exhibition games and it's all abilities up to age 22. This is an incredible opportunity for our local families of kids with disabilities and they need our community to rally around them to make this once in a lifetime trip possible. I can connect anybody who wants more details to the coach and some of the amazing parents because we have to help these folks. I also had a meeting with Oasis Farms, and they want to bring some really exciting farm events to Oakley. So hopefully I'll be able to connect them with Josh and see what different opportunities we can have. But they have some really exciting ideas. So looking forward to that.

Hey, Samara Meadows.

I thought we were going to two minutes. Oh, Mayor's Conference, not here. That must be where I got it. It was at Mayor's Conference that I went to last week. I went to Mayor's Conference last week, and then my other three meetings, supposed to be last week, were canceled. That was TransPlan, East County Fee and Finance Authority, and Highway 4 Bypass Authority. This week will be busy, though.

And since our last meeting, I attended the groundbreaking for the new county building in Brentwood, Mayor's Conference, Friday Night Bites. And today, staff hosted a mock council meeting with the third graders of Oakley Elementary, which was another great event. And with that, we'll move to requests for future agenda items. Seeing none, we have no work sessions, no closed session. We're going to adjourn our regular meeting. We're going to take a five minute recess before we go into our special meeting. So thank you, everybody, for coming.