City Council - Regular Meeting

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.

Great. We have a very busy agenda, and I'm going to go ahead and actually change the order, as is my prerogative. We are going to begin with our presentations this evening. Have four presentations, and then we are going to do our public forum immediately following the presentations. So our first presentation this evening is a proclamation recognizing May as Jewish American heritage month.

And we have both Daniel Sherman and Jennifer Alderman here to accept. So I'm going go ahead and read it, and then I'll invite you up to share comments with us, if you would be so kind. Okay. Whereas Jewish American Heritage Month is observed each May to honor the history, culture, and achievements of Jewish Americans who have helped shape American experience for over three hundred and seventy years. Whereas generations of Jews have fled to The United States in search of a better life for themselves and their families and Jewish immigrants have made invaluable contributions in support of equality and civil rights through their leadership and achievements.

And whereas the Jewish community of Piedmont has been a vibrant and integral part of our city's fabric contributing to its civic life, educational excellence, and cultural diversity through leadership and volunteer efforts at every level of city government, partnership and support of our schools and contributions to Piedmont's robust cultural and sports programs. And whereas the Jewish community of Piedmont has enriched our understanding of history and culture by leading initiatives such as the Mobile Museum of Tolerance and the Truth and Remembrance exhibit and benefits from the leadership of our young Jewish residents through the Piedmont High School Jewish Student Union. And whereas in the face of rising anti Semitism, the city of Piedmont reaffirms its commitments to standing against all forms of hate and ensuring our community remains a safe, inclusive, and welcoming home for all Jewish neighbors. Now therefore, I, Betsy Smigel Anderson, mayor of the city of Piedmont, proclaim the month of May 2026, Jewish American Heritage Month. Thank you.

And if we have anyone who wants to make any comments and then we'll come up and do a little photo. Please go. And if you could just make sure the mic is on green. Great. Thank you.

Hi, counsel. I'm Jennifer Alderman. I'm with the Jewish community of Piedmont. This is very meaningful for us. I wanna thank you mayor and vice mayor and and the whole council for doing this.

Mayor and vice mayor, you have specifically done a lot of outreach to us, met with us, been interested in our concerns, and we really appreciate it. This positive appreciation for our Jewish community is very much appreciated and needed sadly at this time, both from a time point of view, but also in terms of what our East Bay community is like for Jewish people these days. I want to recognize specifically the police department and chief Chaveez. Hi. Chief Chaveez is newish to the community, but immediately made a priority of working with us reaching out and has been very proactive on making sure that he he comes with a deep knowledge of safety issues for Jewish people and has brought that wisdom with him, but has also been very proactive in working with us.

And, I also want to recognize specifically our schools too and our school district, which has become a very has always been a leader in becoming in being a welcoming environment, has become a bit of a safe haven for Jewish students from other districts where it's become hostile environment for them. We have a lot of Jewish students who have transferred in and are now enjoying equitable, excellent education in the in the Piedmont schools. I also want to recognize also city staff, the city manager, and Anna for helping to make this happen too. And I Dan is here. Dan, do you want to say anything?

Dan is the do you He's want say Jewish community Piedmont's representative to the schools, and he brought along some samples.

Some energetic.

I love it. But welcome.

Well

Thank you for being here.

I just want to say that in the current air sometimes of the Bay Area, it has been really an amazing collaboration to work with the Piedmont School Unified School District. It's a partnership to make sure that everybody feels safe. And the Jewish community of Piedmont is recognized as an affinity group within the DEIB groups where we both can share culture and feel our culture is respected and protected. And that is such a big deal for I mean, look at it. They don't know.

They're they're happy. They're comfortable. And they they feel like they can talk about their Jewish heritage. And that is not everywhere. So thank you all so much and thank the Unified School District as well. Thank you.

Okay. We're going to come up if the council wants to join us, we'll do a photo. Okay. Our next proclamation is recognizing Piedmont planning and building director Kevin Jackson. I'm gonna try not to cry.

Kevin is retiring after twenty three years of service to the city of Piedmont, and this is maybe the smallest font I've ever had to read on a proclamation. So settle in, get comfortable. Here we go. CDP mock proclamation. Whereas a native of Houston, Texas, Kevin Jackson grew up alongside his three siblings before pursuing an impressive academic path, earning a bachelor's degree in architecture from the University of Texas at Austin and a master's degree in geography from San Francisco State University.

And whereas before dedicating himself to public service, Kevin followed a passion for the arts, gracing stages off stages of Off Broadway theaters in New York and contributing to the vibrant San Francisco theater scene. And whereas Kevin's diverse professional journey included impactful roles with the Mid Peninsula Open Space District, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission before discovering his true professional calling in the field of planning. And whereas Kevin joined the city of Piedmont in 2004 as a planning technician, where his dedication and expertise led to a series of well deserved promotions to assistant planner in 2005, senior planner in 2014, and ultimately to his appointment as planning and building director in July 2016. And whereas Kevin's leadership transformed the department's community engagement by launching the Piedmont Is Home website, implementing the eTrackit online permit review system, and collaborating with the Housing Advisory Committee. Kevin further fostered civic participation through numerous workshops and town halls, the creation of the city's design and sustainability awards, which later expanded to include wildfire resilience category.

And whereas throughout Kevin's tenure, the Piedmont Planning and Building Department accomplished numerous critical initiatives, most notably comprehensive updates to the general plan and zoning code, the adoption of the Moraga Canyon specific plan and objective design standards and the implementation of the Climate Action two point zero. And whereas Kevin is widely respected for his professional excellence and dedication to planning, his leadership is highlighted by the 2015 APA California Award for Merit for his ADU incentive program as well as the 2023 ILG Beacon Vanguard Platinum Award, which recognized the city's major milestones in energy savings, sustainability, and greenhouse gas reduction. And whereas Kevin's colleagues and the city council hold him in the highest regard, expressing sincere gratitude for the joy he brings and brought to the workplace through his sharp wit, infectious sense of humor and the constant welcome presence of his faithful canine companion, Tulabel. And whereas Kevin has led with integrity, compassion, and unwavering dedication to our community. Okay.

I can do this. Now, therefore, I, Betsy Smigel Anderson, mayor of the city of Piedmont, do hereby proclaim today as Kevin Jackson Day. Congratulations. So on behalf of the entire city council, I want to extend our deepest gratitude to you for your twenty three years, as I mentioned, of exemplary service to our community, and I we wish you the very best in a long and happy retirement.

Well, thank you very much. I'd just say that any success I had was really due to a great staff that did most of the work that I helped guide, But also, without the support of the city administrator's office and city council planning commission, we really wouldn't have gotten any of this done. So, you know, it's a combination of a lot of hard work and great leadership. So, I, you know, just throw it right back and say thank you that for all the support. And it's been a good year, twenty two years. So, it's ready to end.

So Well, this honoring is not ready to end because we do have some people here who would like to speak Alright. To this momentous occasion. And I'm going to turn

I'll fill out a speaker card.

You don't have

to fill out a speaker card. But I do think we have some folks in the room who'd like to share some thoughts.

Yes. Madam Mayor, we have three members of the community in the chambers, John Tullock, Bob McVane and Andy Madera. Perhaps John could come up first.

I think

Mayor Bob McBain is coming up presently. Well,

you. All that stuff that was said in that proclamation is probably true. Everything I observe with Kevin is definitely true. But you know what struck me about that and it's key in keeping with Kevin's personality is that I had no idea he did all that other stuff. Know, he's not someone who says, well, you know, remember when I was on broad Remember when I did this? Remember when I did that? And I worked for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. That's big time stuff. You know, not here. So, he never got that feeling, Kevin, because he was just attentive to what he needed to do and listening to you.

So, again, actually it was interesting to hear all that. But my point of view on this is something kind of personal in the sense of people ask me often, like what do you miss about being on council and being mayor. I miss the gavel actually but but actually I've got it. But I always said many people find the same thing. You'll miss the people more than anything else.

And working with the staff and fellow council member, particularly the staff on it, if not daily basis, but frequently basis was always among the most rewarding parts of the job. And in that context, working with Kevin was really a big part of that because whenever I come down to council, I come down to City Hall and no one else would meet with me, Kevin would always meet with me. And we had a lot of great conversations through the years. And sitting with him, getting to know him, becoming friends with Kevin was really one of the great parts of the position. And along the way, I actually did learn a lot about what was going on in the city, which was always very helpful.

And I missed that. And even after I was thrown out of office, I would come down here. I do other things and come down here. I would always swing by Kevin's office and see what he was doing. And it was great. However, he did have to say after a while, Bob, I have a job. And people are wondering why you keep coming around. But no, even after all the years, was so gracious and interesting and was great to talk as what's going on in the city, but also as friends. So I'm going to offer Kevin, if you want to come into my house, sit down and talk, you're more than welcome. And the other thing I'll say is a personal note.

One thing about Kevin I always noticed and this thing that's important at times. Whatever day it was, Kevin always looked the part of a full professional. He had no doubt how he was professional and he had that down and he just looked the right way and he dressed the right way and I was always impressed by that. So and even tonight he is. Anyway, thank you and Kevin, Citi will miss you.

Great. Thank you. Thank you, Mary Jane. So I think John Tullock, you're going to come up, our former city clerk and long time Piedmont city of Piedmont employee and now recreation commissioner.

Yes, indeed. Good evening.

Lots of lots of hats.

Lots of hats just like when I was working here. Good evening, madam mayor, members of council. I'm really happy to be here to speak and congratulate Kevin on his impending retirement. The the one thing that I've heard that I never got to experience are the days of Tula Bell being in the office. I left just before that happened and that would have been a tremendously fun thing to experience.

But I want to congratulate Kevin and really commend him for the innovation and progress he brought to the city organization. Everything that he did, there was intention behind and it was how do we serve our residents better, how do we make our staff more efficient and effective and how do we keep things moving forward. And everything he did was driven by that. And it was mentioned in the proclamation going to electronic permitting applications and submissions, moving the planning commission to electronic packets. The project that's been going on more recently of getting the thousands and thousands of pages of files we have downstairs in this building scanned and into electronic format.

So they're easier both for staff and homeowners to access. Those things are pushing us forward and have been. Also though Kevin passed a lot of credit on to staff, I really want to commend the work that he did in particular on some of the more challenging applications that came through, wireless being one of them. And on the housing element and the update of the general plan and the update of Chapter 17, all of those things are not the fanciest things. They're not the things that will get notice, but they help the organization and the community move forward.

So Kevin, thank you very much and congratulate.

Thank

you, John. Welcome, Andy Madera. Good

evening council members, Kevin. It's pretty cool to actually have a day, a Kevin Day, I'm glad to be a part of that. On my behalf, on behalf of PREC, we just want to say congratulations to you. Twenty three years is a and it's much longer really because you had all that previous stuff that you were doing. I I think it it was great for me actually to hear not just about, you know, the Off Broadway stuff, but also, you know, really hear from people on the inside really applauding you.

You know, we're on the outside. We don't really see the guts of and I talk to both at the same time. We don't really see the the the guts of what happens, but so much I know of of any staff's work is really the guts of the inside. And it's it's underappreciated by us. And just wanna acknowledge that it really has made it.

I've seen a difference and and you have made a great deal of difference. I also want to just acknowledge that people have mentioned sort of the personality thing and just you're squished, right? As staff, you have planning commission, you have staff, you have the city council of your electeds, you have everyday homeowners coming in, you have people like me coming in. And you know, your job is to advise. Your job is to take that input.

Your job is to treat everybody with fairness. Treat everybody equally under the law and really to push the ball forward. And I feel like with the specific plan, with the housing element, with all that stuff, that was a hell of a ball. And we have moved that ball considerably up the hill. We ain't done and you know, you're retired and maybe maybe you'll have some neat things that you need to do and, you know. But so we aren't done and I think we have more to do, but you have done an amazing job in leading your department forward and leading this council forward in order to get that ball up the hill. So thank you very much.

Okay. I wanna make sure we haven't missed anyone in the audience. If anybody else wanted to speak, now is the time and then I'm to bring it back to the dais. Okay. I'm bringing it back to the dais for my colleagues if anyone wants to share any remarks. Council member Rizzi, what is shocker that our former Planning Commissioner, Commission Chair wants to share remarks?

You know, it's been over a decade, Kevin. And I'm thinking every month for a decade, I've had a meeting with you, right, either counsel or Planning Commission. So and I think I started the planning commission the same when you started director, so we started that together. And I can plus one on all of the people talk about the volume of work, the quality of work, you know, but I really want to talk more about the professional your professionalism that you bring and not just the way you dress, very good. And Bob Bob kind of covered that for us.

But, you know, I've seen lots of instances. I won't go into too detail on some of those planning commission meetings or other even site visits that we used to do too, where your patience and professionalism was really tested. And I think you as your leadership, your that professional calm, you know, demeanor, you know, topped off with a little sense of humor, you know, I think think the world of that. I think that set the tone really get through a lot of those tough moments that Andy was talking about too. So I have a world of respect for you, but in particular, you know, the professionalism that you brought every day for the decade, you know, that I've known and worked with you.

It's it's been a honor. So congratulations.

Okay. Vice mayor.

I'm not sure everyone knows this, but when you're a new council member with the exception of Ramsey, your first assignment is to be liaison to the planning commission and that's because it's a heavy load. There's a lot of preparation for those meetings. So Kevin really was the first staff interaction, friendship, informative person that each council member when they come on gets to know. So I have very good memories of those early days, you may not. And of course, we were just getting ready with the housing element and it was information overload from my perspective who didn't have the background that you had and you were so gracious and answered every phone call, answered every text, sat there patiently with questions and repeated questions like a week later that we probably talked about the week before, and gave so much time to helping us become informed council members so we could make those really hard decisions along the way.

So I would describe you and then all of those meetings, many of those meetings on housing were very emotional and probably more emotional meetings to come and you were unflappable, steady, and so willing to share information in a very understandable way not just with council but with everyone who spoke to in the community. So I just wanna share my early memories and appreciation for how you helped me develop as a council member early on and just if you ever do Broadway again or any regional theater, I think you would have an audience immediately. So let us keep us in the loop on that one.

Okay. Did you want

say anything? Okay. Just wishing you the best, Kevin. I mean, it feels, you know, it's always hard to see somebody go, but when it feels complete for them and they're looking forward to the next chapter, it makes it a lot easier. So just wishing you all the very best.

Okay. I can't not wish you all the best. And I have to agree with kinda like coming in and being sort of clueless about things. I really appreciate your always answering questions and giving me a little SP nine tutorial and other things.

So I

yeah. I do wish you all the best. I wish even more that you were staying for a little bit longer,

but yeah.

Good luck to you.

Yeah. And I would just echo those remarks too. I feel like oh. Oh, where's Sandy? Wanna go first? Okay.

I do have some comments on behalf of

the Oh, do. Former Yes, why don't you give those and then I'll make my comments.

Sounds great. So former Mayor Jen Kavanaugh does send her regrets that she couldn't join this evening and would like to share the following. Mayor Anderson, council members and staff, I'm sorry I can't be with you tonight as we celebrate Kevin Jackson's retirement and provide our collective thanks for his years of service. These are the special moments I cherish. Twenty three years is remarkable in any profession.

In city planning, in a community like ours, it's extraordinary. Ours is a community with strong opinions, high expectations and surprising complexity and Kevin showed up for all of it, meeting controversy with professionalism and grace every time. To elected officials, Kevin's efforts served us in foundational ways. We rotated in and out, we learned on the job and Kevin was there patient, thorough, always ready to make sure we understood what was needed to get policy right. That is the quiet work that makes good governance possible.

I remember sitting in a strategic planning session late in my tenure and looking around the room. Of everyone at the table, Kevin was almost the only person who had been serving Piedmont longer than I had. That moment has stayed with me. He was the institutional memory, the steady hand, the one who had seen it all and still showed up the next day ready to do it again. Kevin, I have deep respect for what you've given this community. I hope this next chapter holds wide horizons and knowing you, I suspect it will probably on multiple continents. With gratitude and admiration, Jen Kavanaugh.

So as usual the former mayor is a tough act to follow. I would just say, I just want to echo what my colleagues have said, which is you are really the first staff member that new council members have a chance to interact with on a really truly regular basis. And I feel like little ducklings, like we all kind of imprint on you, like you're our, you know, the ideal you set the high bar for what a public servant should be and and the rest of our, you know, careers is just sort of living up to the role model that you set for all of us and how you interact with the public and how you handle yourself in meetings. And I one thing that is is so and other people have mentioned this is your patience is unmatched. And I think about the questions I asked when I was a newbie, and I almost was like I hate to say this, but I like a city council toddler because I'd like, well, why?

Well, why? Well, why? Well, why does that happen that way? Why do we have that rule? Why does the, you know, house why why why why why? And you were just so wonderful and patient, and I'm sure you answered all of my questions multiple times, like maybe if I answer it this way, she'll understand me.

If I answer it that

way, she'll understand. Anyway, just that took a tremendous amount of patience. And when I think of you and the legacy you've left, for all of us, it's that patience and that just sort of thoughtful interaction with our community who we all represent, and I'm just so grateful. So thank you. Okay.

Let's a photo. Okay. We, we have one more city Piedmont proclamation this evening, and then we're gonna have a presentation from some of our student students in the audience. But our final proclamation is recognizing this week, the week that we're in no. Not this week.

It's actually May. Is that right? That's coming up. Recognizing public service recognition week and someone else can get back to me. Oh, it is this week.

Sorry, the dates don't match. It's May 3 through May 9 and this is really expanding upon what we've just been talking about, which is amazing public service. We've been focused on Kevin, but we have a whole, you know, whole staff here of almost a 100 people who are all amazing public servants. So I'm gonna go ahead and read this, and then I think chief Chaveys is going come up and accept it on behalf of all of our employees. So whereas Public Service Recognition Week is celebrated the May since 1985 to honor the people who serve our nation as federal, state, county, local, and tribal government employees, and whereas every single day public servants provide services to the people of The United States and do the work that keep our nation functioning and whereas government employees in many cases serve under oaths of office and whereas many public servants including military personnel, police officers, firefighters, embassy professionals, healthcare professionals and others risk their lives each day in service to the people of The United States and around the world.

And whereas public servants include city administrators, finance directors, human resource officers, planning and building professionals, police officers, public works professionals, firefighters, as well as countless other occupations who day in and day out provide the diverse services demanded by the people of The United States, including people in the city of Piedmont. And whereas public servants hope to make a difference and they do every day. They also hope that those they serve understand and appreciate the contributions public servants make to our nation, our states, and our community. Now therefore I, Betsy Smegle Anderson, Mayor of the City Of Piedmont, do hereby proclaim May 3 through May 9 as Public Service Recognition Week and encourage everyone in our community to recognize the accomplishments, contribution and service of government employees at all levels, federal, state and of course local. Thank you.

Okay. Chief, are you ready?

I don't have anything to say to that, okay?

That's okay. So I'll just reiterate that we here at council, current and former council really truly appreciate all of our public servants here doing work on behalf of the citizens of Piedmont. It is these are not easy jobs. They try to make them look easy, but they're not. So we appreciate what

you do.

Thank you. You. That is fine. We're we're the camera. We're so well trained up here.

I love that. Okay. Our final item in our presentation section this evening is a presentation from tobacco use prevention educators. This is a student group, who are not going to be under a timer because this is a presentation as opposed to public comment. And we know you have a presentation that you have put together for us this evening.

So I want to welcome you now up to the podium whoever is going to do the presenting and just make sure the microphone is on green. And if you could also introduce yourselves that would be awesome. Thank you. If you turn the mic on and then just introduce if you could just let us know your names. Great. If you are you all Piomet High students? Great. Thank you.

I'm Diego.

I'm Olivia.

I'm Mina.

And I'm Manson.

Great. Thank you.

Good evening, everyone. We're here to present a proposal to prohibit the sale of tobacco products here in Piedmont. So we're the tobacco, as you said. We are the tobacco use prevention education club at Piedmont High School, and we basically give students prevention resources and provide addicted teens with support.

Yeah. So, we've all heard about the dangers of tobacco, which include many types of cancer and tar buildup in your lungs. But child tobacco use in particular is a huge problem because ninety percent of adults who smoke begin under the age of 18, and a third of those who start before 18 will die prematurely from tobacco use. E cigarettes and vapes have only been around for about fifteen years, so scientists are still waiting to see what the long term health effects will be for those. And another form of nicotine that's pretty common at PHS is Zins, which are small nicotine pouches containing over 42 toxic or deadly chemicals, which would fall under this tobacco ban.

And these tobacco products are actually a could you slip me? Are actually a very pervasive issue here in Piedmont. According to the Piedmont California Healthy Kids survey, around seventeen percent of Piedmont Piedmont high school seniors have smoked a whole cigarette. Meanwhile, this Piedmont PHS senior use of nicotine pouches like Zins has actually doubled in 2025, and this use has quadrupled among the student body in three years. Could you move to the next slide, please?

One reason we want tobacco sales to be prohibited is that the tobacco industry continuously targets use in designs and sweet flavors. One issue is tobacco products typically come in these bright colorful pouches, which intentionally try to grab the attention of youths who may be shopping at retailers. Next slide, please. And Piedmont has already taken some action to protect our community, starting with numerous policies and the flavored tobacco ban, which was the first step in preventing students from using these products and wanting these products in the first place. While there currently is only one tobacco retailer in Piedmont, this policy is important because it could prevent future and current retailers from selling tobacco products.

This graph shows how many kids in each grade at PHS have ever used a vape. The orange bar is pre or before the flavor ban, while the yellow bar is after the flavor ban. As you can see, the ban caused a major drop in use of vapes. Next slide, please. The second graph is similar, but it shows the perceived ease of getting a vape. So, how easy kids in each grade think it would be to get a vape as an underaged minor. This also dropped after the ban.

There is local president, president for tobacco sale bans. These cities include Ross, Tiburon, Beverly Hills and Manhattan Beach. They have all banned the sale of nicotine and tobacco products in their communities.

Our proposal would amend the city code to stop current and future tobacco sales by prohibiting the sale of tobacco and preventing future retailers from starting sales in Piedmont.

Next slide, please. Thank you. So, more specifically, this is exactly what this policy ending all tobacco sales in Piedmont would aim to achieve. What it would do is stop the sales of tobacco and nicotine products, which would protect future residents, particularly youth, from the harms of tobacco. Overall, it it would also promote a a healthy community, particularly by raising awareness about the dangers of tobacco and encouraging current users to reduce their use. The the ban would complement tobacco prevention education as well as setting a positive example for neighboring communities.

Our policy would not prohibit adults from using tobacco or penalize individuals for processing, using, or purchasing tobacco in Piedmont. The sale of FDA approved smoking cessation products would not be stopped, and it would not prevent the traditional use of tobacco for religious or ceremonial purposes.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for that presentation. It was actually very informative. And I think as I mentioned, it's you'd have to stay till the end of the meeting to see when we talk about new agenda items to see if this is something that the council might want to take up in the future. But you don't actually have to stay for the whole meeting. I'm sure we can report get that information back to you in some fashion. But thank you so much for coming and making that presentation to us. Oh, yes, of course.

Yes. I just want to commend you all on that presentation. We see a lot of presentations, and you all did something that very skilled presenters do. They don't just necessarily read directly from their slides. So really just wanted to commend you all on presenting something in a very sophisticated way.

Wonderful. Okay. Any other comments? Great. Thank you again so much. We are going to now move on from the presentation section, and we are going to

Madam Mayer? Yes. I believe there might be someone online who wants to make a comment about the presentation.

Oh, yes. Absolutely. Thank you for flagging me. Great. Let's go ahead and have a comment.

So I actually see three hands online. Are all three of those hands for this presentation? I see a fourth. So if you're okay with that.

I am. If I if we could we're trying to move along now.

Really? Folks

can limit their comments to try to, to two minutes that would be great.

Two minutes? Okay. So the first person I'll allow to talk is Luis Santos. If you could limit your comments to two minutes please And just unmute your microphone. Thank

you. Thank you. Yes. So my name is Luis. I'm with Eden Youth, and I'll be reading this public comment on behalf of Youth Advisory Council member. So I'll go ahead and try to say it as quick as I can. Good evening, mayor Anderson and city council. My name is Vanessa Hernandez, and I'm an Oakland resident and a member of the Eden Youth Advisory Council. I'm in seventh grade, and I go to Northern Light School in Oakland. I would like to give public comments today because Piedmont can be a front runner in the fight against big tobacco by ending the sale of all commercial tobacco products citywide.

Please act now to inspire other cities to join this effort to protect youth and residents from a lifetime of addiction to tobacco. As a student and member of the Youth Advisory Council, I've seen and heard what the effects of tobacco use and secondhand smoke have on people. Piedmont currently has no tobacco retailers as the one tobacco retailer is currently closed for renovations. This provides us a perfect opportunity to prevent tobacco sales from happening rather than having to stop them once the store has already restocked tobacco products. Plus, ending tobacco sales now would encourage the single retailer to consider alternatives to tobacco and its business model when it reopens.

Although most people who use tobacco begin in their youth, ending the sale of tobacco products can have a big benefit to adults who currently smoke by encouraging them to quit. The majority of people who smoke want to quit, wish they never started and do not want their kids to start. I ask that the City Council of Piedmont join other California cities in not allowing the sale of commercial tobacco products to protect youth, resident and future generations. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Thank you. Next speaker is Isaela Velasquez.

Hello?

We can hear you. Go ahead. Please continue.

Good evening, mayor Anderson and city council. My name is Isela Velasquez, and I am the president of the youth advisory council at Eden Youth. I am a student at Mauiidan High School in Hayward, and I would like to provide supporting evidence regarding the end of commercial tobacco product sales in the city of Piedmont. California only banned the sale of most flavored tobacco products after many cities and counties across the straight a state had already done so through local ordinances. While a top down solution would be nice, we know that local action can lead to broader change.

Four Californian cities have already ended the sale of tobacco products in their stores. Piedmont can be the fifth in the state to make this bold change towards public health and motivate others to follow suit. Ending tobacco sales would not prohibit the possession, use, or purchase of tobacco products in Piedmont just as Piedmont does not have cannabis dispensaries but does not individually pro prohibit people from banning from using cannabis. It only stops stores from selling tobaccos and would regulate the retail environment, not punishing individuals for using tobacco. The intent of this policy is to remove the tobacco industry's presence from Piedmont rather than criminalize individuals for being addicted to its products.

So in summary, I ask that the city council takes action by ending the sale of commercial tobacco products in Piedmont.

Okay. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please.

Next speaker is Chandler Kim.

Hi, everyone. Thank you so much. My name is Chandler Kim, and I'm also here with Eden Youth. And I will be providing comment on behalf of Ashley Hernandez, other local youth. And her comment reads, to mayor Anderson and to city council, my name is Ashley Hernandez, and I'm a sophomore at Holy Name's High School in Oakland.

I'm also an Oakland resident and a member of Girls Incorporated. While Piedmont has shown tremendous leadership in the past to limit the sale of flavored tobacco that's targeted to kids, the next step in the right direction is a shift from simply controlling the negative impact of tobacco to ending the tobacco epidemic altogether. While ending tobacco sales in Piedmont may not eliminate all access to tobacco products by youth in the city, this will at least make it more difficult because tobacco would no longer be sold in close proximity to where youth live and the places they usually go to. There are a variety of ways that tobacco gets into the hands of youth, but that shouldn't stop the city from doing what it can to limit local access. People experiencing poor mental health have been sold a lie that tobacco products is an effective way to manage symptoms.

While it may provide temporary relief, using tobacco products creates an addiction, which itself is a mental health diagnosis. In fact, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, SAMHSA, suggests that smoking predicts depression and psychosis and that quitting is associated with positive mental health outcomes by reducing stress, anxiety, and depression. In summary, I ask that the city council consider eliminating the sale of all commercial tobacco products in Piedmont to protect the youth and the community. Restricting youth access to tobacco products in Piedmont would be a huge move for public health and could encourage other cities in Alameda County and beyond to do the same. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Next speaker is Jenny Tran.

Hi. Good morning. My name is Jenny. I'm currently a UC Berkeley student studying public health. I'm providing a public comment because it really stood out to me how easy tobacco products were to access for the youth, especially in a study like Piedmont. According to recent data, surveys show that I that twelfth graders say it's fairly easy for them to obtain vape products and nearly half say the same about cigarettes. That matters because tobacco addiction does not start in adulthood, but rather starts in early impressionable teenagers. The easier it is to access these products locally, the more likely young people are to experiment and get addicted. Right now, Piedmont has a rare opportunity with one active tobacco retailer. You can act by protecting these accessibilities.

This isn't about taking tobacco away from the community itself, but preventing new generations from getting hooked on in the first place. Adding tobacco sales is one of the most direct ways to reduce youth exposure and protecting students from long term health impacts. I hope that Piedmont could be an example and a model to the Alameda County to restrict sales of tobacco products to motivate others to follow in the same footsteps. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. You have any

other Last speaker. Yes. Sean Sean Trey Finks. Chantre, you can go ahead.

Hi. To mayor Anderson and city council, my name is Chantre Finckis, and I am a student of Hiller High and a member of the Hiller High Five Night Live chapter. I would like to provide supporting evidence regarding the end of commercial tobacco sales in Piedmont. While Piedmont currently has no tobacco retailers, right now, there is an opportunity where Piedmont could be a leader in Alameda County by refusing to allow current and future retailers to sell addictive and harmful tobacco products. Access to tobacco products by youth is still a problem in Piedmont.

According to the twenty twenty four to twenty twenty five California Healthy Kids survey, 64 of Piedmont trophotos it's fairly or very easy to obtain vape products, and nearly half believe it is fairly or very easy to obtain cigarettes. Over one in four Piedmont trophotos used a cigarette product, and 13% are currently using tobacco products. Any short term revenue loss from adding the sale the sale of tobacco products in Albany would pale in comparison to the long term saving associated with a healthier population. Government should not depend on sales of products that addict and kill the citizens. In conclusion, I ask that Piedmont be a leader by eliminating the sale of commercial tobacco products to prioritize the health of current and future generations.

Thank you.

Great. Thank you for your comments.

That is all.

Okay. So and anyone in the audience that didn't get a chance to speak who wanted to speak on this topic? Okay. I want to thank again all the students who called in to share their comments with us as well as the student presenters, Olivia, Diego, Mina and Anson, thank you so much for coming. Your presentation was excellent, and we will take it under advisement too. We are now now we're gonna move on to our cons no. We're gonna move on to public forum because we we arranged the order. And public forum, this is an opportunity for members of the audience to speak on an item that is not on the agenda. I'm gonna go ahead and read our opening statement. This portion of the meeting is, as I said, is when members of the public can speak to the council on any item that is not on tonight's agenda.

If you would like to speak on a matter that is on the agenda, please reserve your comments for when that agenda item is called. The purpose of public forum is to provide the public with an opportunity to be heard. However, if your comments do not address a topic that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the city or if your comments are disruptive, I will provide a warning. If the warning is not followed, I will direct the city clerk to cut off the microphone. Each speaker is usually given three minutes, but I think this evening we're going to shorten it to two since we have other media agenda items that we have to get to.

So this time is I'm going to say maybe adjusted to my discretion. We've decided it's two minutes. If you asked questions during public forum or during public comment with respect to an agenda item, those questions will not be answered during your allotted time. So it's not a Q and A. It's just really providing information to us. We'll receive the information. A member of council may at the conclusion of all of the public comments may direct question to staff for response. Pursuant to state law, the council may not discuss issues brought up at public forum, The council members or staff may provide brief responses to statements made. So hopefully that is super clear. And now we are moving on to public forum. And how many speaker cards do we have?

Madam Mayor, I have five speakers in the chambers. I have speakers online, but they have not raised their hands, so I don't believe they want to speak at public forum. If there's anyone who wants to speak at public forum online, please raise your hand. No. So just the five in the chambers.

Great. So we'll stick with the three I mean, sorry, with the two minutes per speaker. And then I'm gonna have the great. Okay. So if you wanna go ahead and call those in whichever order.

First speaker in the chambers is Jillian Bailey.

Thank you, miss Bailey. Nice to see you. Hello.

My name is Jillian Bailey. Thank you for hearing my comments. I am here to speak about the parking designations that have recently been done. I've been a teacher here in Piedmont for fifteen years, and every construction project permit a parking has decreased. We are now at a point where you have employees, almost none of which live in Piedmont, few of which can commute, many work more than one job, and there is no parking.

I am fortunate enough to be able to walk to school, but that does mean that I will no longer be able to cart all of the student projects home to grade, That I see my colleagues in the custodial staff using their lunch break to go move their car. That I have students leaving classes to go move their car with the brunt of the parking loss being completely on the shoulders of faculty, staff, and custodial. I I really hope that you will reconsider more parking for permit a employees as we celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week as well as public employee week. Please do reconsider. We are a huge part of this community and currently do not feel appreciated because of this parking reinstatement.

Okay. We I know you wanna applaud, but at public forum, we don't do applause.

So

so thank you for understanding. Next speaker, please.

Thank you. Let me set my timer. Difficulties. Yeah, my apologies. That's okay. Let's try that. So next speaker is Grace Alonagreen.

Great. Welcome.

Thank you. Good evening council members and thank you for hearing my comments. I also would like to speak about the recent parking updates. I am a senior at the high school. I've been at the high school for three years, and I also happen to be an employee at our new pool.

It's super amazing. I actually just hosted our first two parties in the Smigel Family Room. I have noticed that there have been a large increase in tickets as well as the decrease of parking, and a lot of students have been blindsided by these tickets, not being aware that the parking was changed, or there have been situations that I've heard of where people are being ticketed in locations that have historically not been ticketed, which is, you know, of course, understandable that the students can be confused. And I also wanted to speak on the permit a parking for the teachers. I've noticed it's been moved very, very far away from the school and decreased in number of spots.

And I think that with the additional two hour parking that has been added in for the pool, it's to my understanding. And the basically, all of the public spots being decreased, I think that it, to me, feels a little bit disrespectful to all of the wonderful staff at our school and also all of the people who come to Piedmont because even for visitors coming to our pool, a lot of them are there longer than two hours and leaving to go move their cars and checking back in. It can be a huge hassle. And I also just wanna add that I have noticed a lot of stress with students needing to go move their cars because they have nowhere else to park. A lot of our students don't live in Piedmont, and they have no choice but to commute.

And it's also a huge danger if all of our students are leaving during class or during passing periods and all rushing to move their cars, which also we only have off campus, capabilities during lunch, which is past the two hour mark. So please reconsider the parking situation for everyone in the city. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Next speaker, Vivian Burke.

Good evening. Hi. Welcome.

Hi. I'm also a senior from Piedmont High School. I'm also I don't mean to repeat what they say, but I'm also here to talk about the parking issue. I brought these just to show. This is in the past week. These are $200 tickets. In the past semester to year alone, I've got over 10 tickets, which is over $1,000. I know that my brother who graduated two years ago has paid way over a thousand dollars in tickets, and I myself have to pay for them. Sorry for what I'm wearing. I just got off a work shift, so I can pay for them.

But kind of what Grace was saying is that we're legally not allowed to leave class or school during like, outside of lunchtime. And if we do leave, we get a referral. And if we get a referral, then we have to go to detention. So it kinda creates a hard pattern of, okay. Am I gonna get a ticket, or am I gonna get a referral? What happens if I get caught? And it's kind of just a cycle of repetition that seems to be something that a lot of students are struggling with. Any parking that's not two hours is extremely far away. I don't live in Piedmont. I have to already leave twenty minutes earlier than a lot of the other students I know, and it really affects the my morning and what time I have to wake up.

And I know that the teachers are extremely inconvenienced by it, and I as they've all said, it's it's it's not fair to all that they do, and it is teacher appreciation week. And I'm an ASP, and we're trying our best to help as many people as possible. But, yeah, I don't know. I've been inconvenienced by the parking and the two hour parking since sophomore year when I got my license. And every senior, every junior, every sophomore that I've known since I've been at Piedmont has been inconvenienced by it, and it's definitely been heightened recently. And I don't know how many students get their tickets paid for them, but a $100 tickets maybe once or twice a week because I don't wanna get a detention isn't awesome. And yeah, thank you so much for listening.

Okay. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience. Next speaker, Welcome. Hi. Hi.

Okay. I'm Dahlia Osman, and I'm also here to speak out about the parking situation. I don't personally drive to school. I'm able to walk, but I've seen this affect all of my friends. Countless of times, like, they've said they've had to leave during passing period to change their parking spots, and I'm, like, their person who's there to have to tell our teachers why they're gonna be late and what they're doing during passing period to their next class.

And this isn't fair to our teachers because us students should be there on time and give them our full attentions, like, designated to their class and not have to be worrying about getting a ticket. And this also isn't fair to my friends, like Vivien said, who have to choose between a tardy or a referral or getting a $100 parking ticket. I know it doesn't affect me personally, but when it affects every single one of my friends and people around school and teachers, I think something needs to change. That's all. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments. Next speaker, please.

Maria Henderson from AC Transit.

Hi, welcome. Hi, well thank you for having me. Madam Mayor, good to see you. Council members, thank you for having me. Good evening. Maria Henderson with AC Transit. I'm here to just give a brief update on our AC Transit's financial challenges to come. So on Wednesday, June 10 at five p. M, the AC Transit Board of Directors will consider reducing service due to future significant budget shortfalls. While state loan has stabilized our financial situation for the next fiscal year, over the we are facing over $200,000,000 budget deficit over the next four years.

Without new sustainable revenue, we are facing the possibility of service reductions of over 16% and the loss of up to 300 jobs. AC Transit has started to prepare for this worst case scenario. If no new funding is secured, service rejections will likely take effect in June 2027. I want to be clear, no decision has been made yet about which routes will be cut. However, every bus line in our service area is currently under review.

While our priority is to preserve current service levels, we also want to be transparent about the challenges that we're facing. The AC Transit Board of Directors will consider an option to reduce service on Wednesday, June 10 at 5PM at the AC Transit general offices in Downtown Oakland, that's on the 2nd Floor. We invite the community to intend an open house before the meeting, to review the possible service reductions and provide feedback. The open house will be held immediately prior to the June 10 board meeting at AC Transit's main office, again located at 1600 Franklin Street in Downtown Oakland.

Thank you so much for coming. Thank Thank you. Mary Really appreciate you coming to let us know. And do we have any other speakers for public forum at this time?

One last speaker, Elise Marks. Thanks.

Mary Okay. Hi, Doctor. Marks.

Mary Hello.

Mary Nice to see you.

Good evening. This feels a little surreal. Here a lot talking to a different group, but good evening Mayor Anderson and City Council members. I'm Elise Marks. If you don't know, I'm the President of the Association of Piedmont Teachers, and I am also here to talk about parking. We have been desperately, desperately waiting for the end of all these years of construction to get more of our parking back. Even before the pool opened, if you didn't arrive by eight a. M, you really had to go all the way up to the very far end of the community parking lot. By 08:15, you're lucky to find a space even up by Sheridan. Get here any later than that and you're walking halfway from Wildwood.

As people have said, very few teachers live anywhere near Piedmont. We have to drive here. We're also loaded down like pack horses. It's books, it's papers, it's student projects, it's teaching supplies. Just this afternoon, one of our science teachers who's taken to pulling her lab materials on a little wagon, her wagon tipped over on a bumpy sidewalk and her lab materials went all over the place.

Personally, I have seriously injured my back twice in the past few years, carrying heavy things up and down the stairs and the hills through the park. Once it was a load of books. Once it was boxes of colonial donuts for my AP English students to celebrate the national exam. I've thrown out my ankles and knees more times than I can count. We've been holding on for dear life, hoping for more parking spots to come back.

Imagine our surprise when more parking spots went away. And now there's literally nothing. If you drive up the main corridor in front of the schools, which is where most of us have to come in from other places, there are 12 spots by my account, permit A. There are 17 city employee parking spots there, I think there are well north of 150 district employees at the middle school, high schools and the district office who needs somewhere to park. We cannot afford those $100 parking tickets, that's a week of groceries for most of us and we're hoping that perhaps the two hour spots which are really not being used very much could be permitted during the day and become two hour after school hours.

Thank Thank you. Marks, thank you. Any more speakers for public forum? I think we had said six at the beginning and that was six. So we're good.

I see no more speakers.

Okay. I want to thank everyone who came to speak at public forum. We heard you. So we are not allowed, as I said at the beginning, to comment at this time. So I just wanna let you know that you have been heard. So thank you so much for coming to share your thoughts. We are now gonna go ahead and close the

Microphone, please.

Oh, sorry. Thank you so much. A secret exemption. Item number three is approval of a license agreement with new singular wireless PCS for wireless communication facilities at 120 Vista Avenue with AT and T. The fourth consent item is an award of contract for the Bonita Avenue accessible parking and striping projects to Dees General Engineering in the amount of a $142,236. And that also has an approval of an overall construction budget and CEQA exemption finding. And then item five is acceptance of improvements for the truss pipe sewer rehabilitation project. Okay. With all of that, do my colleagues have any items they want to pull from the consent calendar at this time?

I'll move consent. Okay. We're going to

turn to public comment to see if there are any members of the public either in the room or online who are here to comment on items one through five, any of those items.

Thank you, madam mayor. If there's anybody online who wants to make a comment regarding the consent calendar, please raise your hand. I see no hands raised.

Okay. Closing public comments, bringing it back to council. We have a motion by the vice mayor. We have a second by council member Long. Do you have anyone that wants to make a comment before we vote? Okay. We're gonna go ahead and vote on the consent calendar. Aye.

Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. The consent calendar passes unanimously. And we are now moving on to regular agenda item number six. We have our Parks Commission Chair, Tom here to present the Park Commission's annual report of 2026. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you, Mayor Anderson and members of council. Tom Smagle, as you probably know, Chair of the Park Commission. Here to give some highlights from our annual report, which I think should have been included in the agenda packet.

It was in my packet. Was it in everybody's packet? Yes. So we've all had a chance to

read it.

If not, we'd be happy to

send some more copies around. We have Thank you.

This past year was productive at the Park Commission. We fulfilled our duties, making decisions about street trees and providing advice to the city on park projects. Some of the items that we are particularly proud of that we did this last year. First was the city's completion of the new bridge in the lower section of Piedmont Park that was first suggested by the Park Commission in 2022. And that was done, as you all know, with Prop 68 funding, fabulous new bridge, worthy of our parks.

Finally or second, major progress and public dialogue on the park sustainability planning process, which was suggested by the Parks Commission in 2023. And we thank you for pursuing that and we'll look forward to seeing that to its conclusion next year. We had significant efforts in 2025 creating a subcommittee to identify new species of street trees that could be planted in Piedmont that would be climate adaptive, that would diversify the urban forest and also add habitat value. And so the we have I think about 1,000 empty street tree spaces in town. Many are filled of course.

We have maybe 90% coverage of street trees, but there are opportunities to plant new trees and we looked at a new species that could be used to plant in areas that have not been planted before. We also advised on new plantings and projects including the Nova Magnolia Island, the Fairview Green Infrastructure project and the replacement of Piedmont's first Christmas tree at the Mountain And Bellevue Intersection. So coming up next year, coming up well, this year and next year, we are excited to work to the completion of the sustainability plan and advise staff and the community about how best in our expertise to implement projects and practices that will see Piedmont's parks meeting the community needs for many more future generations. We look forward to working with city staff on implementation of AB fifteen seventy two, which is the nonfunctional turf ban on city property that goes into effect January 1. We are continuing if you've read the report to press for the budgeting of a replacement for the main park irrigation system.

That's been a priority of our park commission for some number of years. And finally, also in the report again this year, we as individuals, as members of the Park Commission and the Park Commission also generally have an interest in seeing volunteerism in our parks. And I know that is difficult for staff. I know it's difficult with liability and forms and all of those things, although some of our neighboring communities have been successful in doing this. We have invasive species that are in main park, particularly a little bit in Dracena Park as well.

And I'm talking about Acacia and Broom and Ivy that are in the wilder areas of those parks and community members would be thrilled to help with hand tools, pick up trash and do those sorts of things. So I just mentioned that again as a thing we'd love to work with the city staff, the rec department staff, city attorney on ways to implement volunteerism in the parks. So I'm happy to take any questions anyone has.

Great. Thank you so much for the very thorough report. I enjoy reading it very much. Do we have any questions for our Parks Commission Chair at this time? I had a question. So I was surprised to learn that we have maybe a thousand open street tree planting locations. And I'm curious as to why that might be. Do we know?

Well, I did mention that we're worried about 90% covered. So there's a lot of opportunity there's a lot of street trees already in town as you know. I think we did the street tree survey program. So there's actually a database the city staff now has that records the place and the type and the condition of all the trees on streets in Piedmont. And so through that process and that was concluded I think in late twenty twenty three, early twenty twenty four That was where it was identified these vacant spots.

And some would be where a tree would needed to be taken out and then it was not replaced right away. And so there's an actual empty spot. Some I believe are in some of the higher elevation parts of town kind of by the reservoir area there. I feel like there's fewer trees in that area. There were some sections of town that had fewer trees, but it is an opportunity. And again, if we were to make sure that the budget could cover 20 or 30 more trees a year to be planted, a we'd lot of the way toward completing that filling that gap.

Great, thank you. Any other questions at this time? I did receive a written comment just about off leash dog park space. And I guess my question to the commission is, are you getting a lot of public input about off leash dog?

So I will say that has been our number one area of public comment at the Park Commission in part because of the closure of the Linda off leash dog area that's steeply sloped area that we've now we're now revegetating as an Oak Woodland that's kind of by the Oakland Avenue Bridge. And so there was some concern from members of the community around that particular issue. It's certainly since COVID and since there's probably been an increase in dogs since COVID, I think there is an interest in that from the community. As we wrote in the report, if the council is willing to entertain and interested in looking for additional areas for off leash dog parks or looking to reset the rules or reset the areas in some way, the Park Commission is your avenue to help create a public forum for that type of activity. We're not going to take that as an initiative of our own.

That's going to have to come from counsel. But if there's an interest, we'll be happy to participate in and run a process for you.

Great. Okay. Super. That makes sense. Any okay. Any public comment on this item?

I don't have any speaker cards in the chambers, but I see a raised hand with for Garrett Keating.

Oh, okay. Great. So

Garrett, you can speak. Mister Keating, welcome.

Hello, madam mayor and council. I'll be quick. I think I have only two minutes, but, you know, I wanna congratulate the Park Commission on the sustainability plan, you know, thinking about it and then engaging in it. And I would just ask you to respect that they'd have time to comment on it. The because I understand that it was gonna be completed this June.

And if it's under some budget constraint to get completed by then, I hope you will give them time to comment. Nothing substantive has really come out yet, but all these commissioners have had great ideas on projects around town, and I think they'll wanna weigh in on the plan. So I hope that when it does come out, it won't be a one and done, so to speak, at the park commission. I suspect it won't. And then accept the commission's offered to engage the community on the dog runs.

I mean and I say that because if you saw the community survey that was conducted for the plan, I mean, there's a lot of different takes on our parks, different things they like, they don't like, and features of use. And if we all keep our cool on this, we can have a very good design charrette in town on how we implement this plan and redesign our parks and expand it. So, you know, you don't have to jump into citing new parks right away, but really let the park commission work with this plan, identify the things that have to be controlled, and then, let them work with the community, except for an off fenced off leash area at the bridge. I mean, I think a majority of council was in support of this. It's not gonna be looked at in the master plan as I understand it, but, I think this commission is excellent to work on this.

It's not a sustainability issue down there. It's hardscape. But it's an aesthetic one and an ADA one, and I think you have experts on this current commission who can work on that. So I hope you will direct them on that. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you for your comments. Any other public speakers at this time?

See no other raised hands.

No. I'm gonna go ahead and close public comment and bring it back to the council. I just wanted to commend and you mentioned in the report the folks to thank for the very successful Earth Day Arbor Day celebration that was recently hosted by in coordination with our Parks Commission and that special thanks to Nancy Kent, Nick Milosevic, Denise Ergun Echischneider and all the city staff for planning, supporting and publicizing that event and then the heritage trees, which is fun. We had three new heritage trees this year. Any other comments at this time on our report from our parks chair?

Yes. Rosemar.

Well, I just want to say thank you for such a thorough report. I had the pleasure. You make me miss it when you talk about these things, being the liaison to Park Commission. I just want to shine some light on this sustainability consulting thing and Nancy Kent released, there you are, really spearheaded this and I think it's going to be very beneficial informing us going forward with how we are good stewards of our parks and how we use them to the best use for all our community members. So I'm very excited about this process. So thank you all for that.

And if you just pass along our appreciation to the commission for all of your hard work collectively, it's an impressive group. So thank you. All right. With that, did you want to say anything?

Oh, sorry, go ahead.

I'd like to thank you for the commission for actually doing the report. I mean, there's been some years where it slipped and you guys are on it. Thank you very And one takeaway, there's a lot to talk about. But one takeaway from the sustainability that there's a lot of thorough in-depth discussions with that group. And one of them with Nancy's leadership too is just this thought of how our parks might how we can prepare for climate change by what how we deal with our parks now.

And that's something that, you know, it's a big issue and I applaud the commission for really thinking far ahead into what we plant now and what the environment is going to be like, you know, decades here. So we still have a thriving parks in this town. Thank you.

Great. Okay. Thank you so much. And that was an informational item. No action at this time. And we are now going to move on to agenda item number seven, which is our consideration of appointment of Jeff Bond as interim planning and building director and authorizing the city administrator to execute the employment agreement.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor Anderson. So as we heard a little earlier this evening, our planning and building director Kevin Jackson is retiring effective May 8. As a result of his announcement, recruitment is underway And in order to provide for continuity of leadership, within the department, we are moving forward with an interim arrangement. Jeff Bond is a seasoned professional with more than thirty years of experience. In July, he retired from the city of Albany where he served for twenty years, the last fourteen of which he was the Director of Community Development.

He has a Master's degree in Economics and is certified as a Chief Building Official, Resident Building Inspector and an American Institute Certified Planner. As Mr. Bond is a CalPERS retiree, his appointment as Interim Planning and Building Director is subject to specific employment restrictions, including but not limited to an appointment of limited duration and specific skills, a finite number of work hours and a rate of pay not to exceed the holder of the permanent position. In addition, the pay rate and hours worked must be reported to CalPERS by the City of Piedmont. So the salary for this position is $106.86 per hour for up to nine sixty hours per fiscal year.

This evening Mr. Bond is here in the audience. I would like to invite him up to the podium for just a moment to introduce himself.

Thank you. Welcome, Mr. Bond.

Good evening, Mary Anderson and council members. Jeff Bond, it is an honor to be considered for this appointment. You have a lovely community. I live not too far away. And I look forward to the chance to work with your wonderful staff and keep the momentum going that you've already started. I'd be happy to answer any questions about my background if you'd like.

Great. Thank you. I do not have any questions at this time. Does anyone on council have any questions? No. Just thank you so much.

You're welcome.

Appreciate you being here.

Great.

Wonderful. Okay. So this is an action item and we should take public comment. So is there any public comment on this agenda item number seven?

I see no hands raised online. I have no cards in the chambers.

Great. Okay. We're gonna bring it back to the dais.

Yes. I I have one comment. I just would like to point out

mister that

Bond is very well qualified, so it's it's great to welcome him. Also pointing out that he was a planning director that was retired and came back. I just

thought I'd

just point that.

Are you

listening, Kevin?

Oh, good.

It's the

only comment

I have. Thank you.

What an insightful comment. That was great.

Thank you.

Thank you for sharing that. Okay. Again thank you so much for being here. I'm glad that we have a transition plan to keep our service to our community going strong through this transition. So thank you.

I think I could take a motion at this time.

Yes. So moved.

So moved. Moved by Council Member Long. Second. Second by the Vice Mayor. Any other comments? No. Let's go ahead and vote.

Aye. Aye.

Aye. Wonderful. Thank you so much. And Mr. Baum, welcome on board.

Okay. We are moving on to our last two agenda items are informational that that means we should roll up our sleeves because these are very media items and they are very important to our community, not only for our greenhouse gas emissions goals, but also for our residents who are making financial, practical, and environmental decisions or decisions that have environmental consequences with their typically older homes here in Piedmont. So this is a informational update on the home electrification strategy. I know there's a task force working hard on this and I just want to express my appreciation to the task force and look forward to receiving this information this evening.

So our program manager of sustainability Denise Ergen has been hard at work under the supervision of our planning and building director. Really excited to report out on some incredible work product and we're so grateful for all that's been underway. So with that, I will hand it off to Denise.

Thank you so much, and good evening, mayor and council. Today, I am here to provide you all with an update and hopefully garner some feedback on some initial drafts and program concepts for the home electrification strategy. Before I get into that, I wanted to set the stage. And actually, our conversation tonight has been a really great introduction. We've talked about adapting to climate change, and now we can shift gears into mitigating our impacts on climate change.

The city has taken a lot of leadership in this regard over many, many years, and we had noted that in the proclamation for Kevin Day earlier. But a city council adopted a climate action plan in 02/2000 in 2018, which we have been actively implementing and reporting annually to council. But we also have been regularly measuring and tracking and reporting on our greenhouse gas emissions. And so while we have this set of robust programs that reflect the action items in the climate action plan two point o and also align with best practices that we're seeing around the Bay Area, we can see that we still have a long way to go to meet our inevitable goal of carbon neutrality by 2045. And so today, we're here to talk about the green band in the chart that you see on the screen, and that's our residential energy emissions.

We have a number of existing programs, including our reach codes, which were just updated earlier this or in the last fall. We have our home electrification rebate program, which we're going to discuss more in detail later this evening. And those are just to name a few. I've included some more in the report as well. But we can still see here that this continues to persist as almost half of our community wide in boundary emissions.

And we know when we look in further that almost all of that is from natural gas consumption and use at home, primarily for heating our homes and for heating our hot water water. So as a as a response to this in 2023, council passed a resolution to direct the city administrator to convene a task force and to develop an electrification strategy and to engage the community and educate the community during the process and come back with a final report at its conclusion. At the time, the discussion was an emphasis on ensuring that the task force really reflected a diversity of perspectives and not just those with an environmental focus, and also to implement along the way, which not to wait for the finalization of the strategy. And so I hope as I discuss some of these program concepts, can see that we've really taken that to heart. Also, the discussion was to make sure that the strategy helped encourage homeowners to make these choices for electrification, recognizing that the city has a role and where we're best positioned to support homeowners and renters making the choices for themselves without further mandating.

And we'll talk a little bit also about the regional and state sort of landscape that complements that effort as well. Before I get into the strategy development process, I just wanted to clarify some terminology. We talk about electrification, but what we're really talking about is the full spectrum of decarbonization, which is energy efficiency, adopting electric appliances, and then also ensuring that our electricity is from zero emission sources or in an ideal world, fully renewable sources. The and this is a discussion we had with the task force on, should we call this a decarbonization strategy or an electrification strategy, and we ultimately landed on the term electrification resonates more with people and is less technical than decarbonization decarbonization as well. But it is we're using it as sort of the same term with the same meaning.

We the city administrator convened the task force in 2024, and I just wanted to highlight that this is a group of volunteers from our community. We took counsel's direction to heart, ensuring that they represented a variety of geographies across our community, perspectives, priorities, stages of life. I've listed the task force there, and I just want to thank them for their dedication, the amount of time that they've contributed to this effort. The task force was really asked to advise city staff on the direction of the strategy, the direction of the programs, how to best engage the community, but then also to ground truth some of the results and feedback that we were getting through our data analysis, as well as what we were hearing from the community as well. They were also asked to contextualize this detail, and this was really the forum to get into those deeper discussions of this is what we've heard from community.

What do you think this means? Why do you think that we're hearing this? I did want to highlight that meeting summaries and presentations can be found on our website for those that are interested in learning more. I won't go too into detail with the process, which will be further outlined in a draft report once it's written. But we started off the process with a housing stock analysis, looking at our demographics, our socioeconomic factors as well as an environmental analysis.

And then we also, at that time, did a community survey. That was all used to identify Piedmont's specific pain points when it came to electrification and Piedmont specific barriers, potentially vulnerable groups to electrification, and other social, economic, environmental factors as well. I think as we started this engagement process, it's it's important to understand and what this this initial body of work really highlighted is that in some ways, Piedmont can't lean on the existing electrification strategies in other communities because we have such a unique character. Our homes are older. They are bigger, and they are less energy efficient.

They also present unique challenges around the mechanics of electrification with electric panels. 25% of our community has undergrounded electric service, which presents its own set of financial and technical challenges as well. And so it really validated the need to come up with a Piedmont specific strategy. We also want this strategy when people pick it up to feel like, oh, yes, This really speaks to to my barriers, my issues, and what's holding me back from electrification as well. Once we compiled that, we did a literature review of best practices primarily in the Bay Area, but from across the country.

We held more community wide events. I know I bumped into several of you and you in the audience at at different community events last year with my boards and my dots. And we hosted really specific meetings with different community groups as well with the goal of bridging that gap of let's talk to the folks that traditionally engage in the space of environmental interest and sustainability, but those that don't traditionally engage in this space. And so I want to highlight two of these experiences. One was working with a pastor at the Piedmont Community Church who actually integrated some of we worked together on a sermon of his, and then he brought together members of his congregation and invited other faith leaders to attend a specific meeting as well congregation related to this discussion.

And then also working with a Piedmont homeowner who hosted an electrification lunch with real estate agents and then electrification dinner with residents, where he invited them into his home. We talked electrification over dinner over pizza. We had another so once we kind of did this and we had some preliminary program concepts, we went back again to the community with a survey to understand, are we kind of in the right area here? Are these program concepts hitting the mark? With some of the more complex programs, if we could only choose one, which one would we be choosing?

And we got some really great feedback from that. And then I also wanted to highlight that I'm involved in a number of technical committees, which is really important to ensure that we're aligning with best practices and always looking for opportunities to collaborate in recognition that we're a small city and the impact of these programs can always be strengthened if we work together with other neighboring jurisdictions. All of that came together for what I'm going to present after this, which is our draft goal, our objectives, and our draft program concepts. And then I just wanted to highlight that throughout this process that the task force was there, we were meeting, and they were sort of supporting and furthering along that work as well. We actually have a task force member here tonight in Dura Balkansin who I know recently also got recognized.

City volunteer of the year.

Yeah. But she's immensely contributed to the project. And if you attended the planning and building open house last year, you will see that she was actually representing the strategy at that event to connect community to community level. Okay. So the draft electrification strategy.

The goal here is to ensure all Piedmont homeowners and renters can access the benefit of energy efficiency, electric appliances, and renewable energy by reducing barriers to adoption. Within the scope of this is existing homes only. So we're not talking about new construction, we're not talking about transportation, we're talking about municipal buildings, school buildings, commercial buildings. It's incentive based. So we're looking at how do we encourage piedmonters to make these choices themselves.

We're not telling people that they have to do this. And it's a sort of balance, and it's a recognition of the work that we've done. So consolidating, pulling that work that we've already done together, appreciating the work that's already in the climate action plan two point o as a a separate entity, and recognizing what we need to do to help accelerate this work in the future. It has a five year time horizon. And this, you know, upon this was a discussion with the task force to really recognize that the landscape is changing so rapidly.

Also with that is that you'll notice that we've really highlighted program concepts. They're not detailed, and that's intentional. Because at the time that we initiate these processes, we don't know what life's going to look like in two years. And so we wanted to make sure that we have the flexibility to really design the programs, and we haven't cornered ourselves into a promise that no longer makes sense or is relevant. The programs are phased.

So we have our first phase, which is sort of building the foundational capacity. Most of the programs happen in that first phase. And then we have fewer programs in Phase II and III, and those are our more complex programs. Those are the ones that have more time and resource requirements, and we believe we'll have more direct and kind of that profound deep impact, but we need to establish that foundation first. And we also recognizing that, you know, we want to, just like we do with the Climate Action Plan two point zero, come back to council regularly and report on our progress with the right type of performance indicators.

When I was talking about sort of the balance of existing and upcoming programs, I wanted to just touch on what's happening regionally and statewide as well. And so I've just put in a few items here to be aware of. The first is the Bay Area Air District, the Air District's Rule nine, which in its current iteration would effectively ban the sale of natural gas water heaters starting January 2027. Now that's going back to their board this Wednesday for further review and looking at different amendments to that rule. And it would also effectively ban the sale of natural gas furnaces by 2029.

And so there you have that regulatory complement and that kind of thinking of, okay, how can we support Piedmonters and what is going to be a fundamental shift in the way that we're purchasing these types of appliances. Also of interest is SB twelve twenty one, which is a zonal decarbonization legislation. Currently, Piedmont is not being sort of investigated for any of sort of this would be looking at specific neighborhoods and turning off the gas line, pruning the gas line and fully electrifying with only a 67% buy in from that neighborhood. And then finally, the California Heat Pump Partnership, which is a public private partnership to deploy 6,000,000 heat pumps by 2030. Okay.

So our first objective of the strategy is to educate and increase awareness of home electrification benefits, processes, and resources. I won't read through every program for you here, but I think it's important to highlight that this is really a lot of this is in phase one, and this really speaks to a few things that we heard from the community. One, community wants to hear from each other. They want direct recommendations for contractors, best practices, lessons learned. This is the that the city is not best positioned to provide, but we're in a great position to link people to each other and help establish those networks.

We've already started that with our sustainability awards where we highlight folks that are early adopters. And we and the last year and this year, we've actually done a video series where we've given folks opportunity to speak about their experiences. And so you'll see here also that there's a focus on creating communications that are, again, very Piedmont specific, especially through a cost analysis. We've seen cost analysis in other communities, but the homes that they're looking at are built in the 1970s, '80s, '90s. They're, again, just not applicable to the archetypes that we find here.

The second objective really of gets at the heart of it. Let's reduce the time and cost of home electrification. And while we do have some phase one programs here that implementation has already started with the updates to the rebate program being discussed as our next agenda item. We have the phase two and three programs here as well. I think when we're thinking about these phase two and three programs, what you'll notice is that they're not directed to one specific piece of technology, but more so about making homes electric ready and giving people the flexibility of, hey, I need to electrify.

I need to adopt to this specific appliance, or I want to. And now I don't have to spend six months to a year to upgrade all of electrical capacity in order to make that decision. I've already figured out a plan. I already have that capacity. And now that decision spend is a lot easier to make.

Our third objective is to collaborate and promote regional and state efforts that reduce barriers to home electrification. And this really speaks to what I mentioned before, that when we work together, we're stronger. But it also speaks to areas where it's sort of Piedmont doesn't have a strong when we're looking at workforce development, that's not an area where we can have strong input, but we can certainly what happens in the Bay Area will extremely impact Piedmonters that live here. And so if we work with other communities to lift up that work and accelerate it, that's where we can best support our residents here. There's also and I think all of these kind of build on that opportunities of when we're working and we're combining efforts, how can we build out these bigger programs.

So that being said, once we get your feedback this evening, I will write a draft of the electrification strategy. It will be posted publicly for comment. And then once we get that, the electrification task force will sort of and I will digest all of that feedback, and then we will come back to counsel with a final report for approve for your consideration for approval. Thank you. Great.

Thank you. I feel like we should clap. Thank

you.

So thank you so much. Obviously, ton of work has gone into this. Deep appreciation to you and to the electrification task force. I do appreciate the electrification, electrify everything as opposed to decarbonization. I think people sort of it's a little bit easier to understand that we're moving towards electrification and it's also sort of more affirming that this is the direction we're headed as opposed to what we're headed away from.

But I certainly live in an older home as I'm sure many of us do and so these strategies resonate with me, this idea of kind of every home having a game plan for the next thing that needs to be replaced and being kind of ready to make that commitment to electrification. Do we have any questions at this time?

Yeah, thanks. I'm trying to think about where to start. There's so much here, and like you, I mean, I know we all look at our homes. They're not energy efficient. It's the windows. It's all the things, right? So I think it's encompassed in what you put together, but what I'm imagining is sort of like a literal, here's how you can approach your home. Right? Here's phase one for you where you're, you know, maybe it's the windows or the next thing is the electrical panel. And and I'll use my own home as an example.

We had undergrounding, but we needed to upgrade the electrical panel. But the underground was, like, exorbitant because you gotta rip up the street and all of that. So now we have overhead. So there's a lot of details in this that I think, again, bridging on your peer to peer, like how do we create that? I don't know if it's a database on the website that's I don't know. Like, share your story or something. But I would love to hear more about, you know, some of these programs because I think it is, you know, electrification, decarbonization. It's all the things. Mhmm. Right.

I first of all, you are not the first person that I have heard this particular challenge with, and so that's really interesting, the solution that you ultimately came to. I have heard the full spectrum. I have heard that I'm just not making any upgrades because I can't afford to do that trenching work, and so that is my main barrier. And the, idea behind that phase three program here at looking at neighborhood level approaches is really designed for that. So the issues around electrical infrastructure upgrades, I think that's one of our big challenges.

Another thing that we've heard from Piedmont residents is they go to increase their panel capacity, and then all of a sudden now, they're singularly responsible for upgrading the transformer on their street, which is tens of thousands of dollars. And some residents have, you know, done that, and they've just said, okay, I'm fine to invest because this is the home that I want. But not a lot of people would do that. And so, can we find ways to make that whole process more efficient and distribute the cost over multiple neighbors at one time. Mhmm.

Other issue with the trenching work is that once you get PG and E involved with it, this is what I've heard at least, is that it takes a lot of time. So the permitting process, coordinating with them back and forth. I would encourage you all to listen to our sustainability award winner, one of them this year, who had that direct experience and almost had to wait like four more months because one thing just sort of got one detail got misplaced, and one inspection almost didn't happen. And so this is what people face. I mean, I've heard from people this could be like a full time job, managing all of this.

So if the city can help intervene and help coordinate it, maybe it's specific streets. I'm not sure when I'm saying neighborhood, how big that area is. But just to have that work being done sequentially, then it you know, what we're thinking is it might reduce cost, but that it will definitely reduce time. And then for the neighbor to neighbor piece as well, yeah, I think just learn hearing the lessons learned, hearing what's being done, absolutely so important. And so the benefit of this work and having this slow engagement process is that we've built a lot of great relationships, and we've sort of tapped into the community and members of community that are excited about this and saying, Yeah, I don't want to have my home featured in a green homes tour, because I don't want a bunch of strangers here, but I would be happy to talk to my Piedmont neighbors and give them that direct information about my experience.

Yeah. No, it's super helpful. I mean, PG and E, as we know from our own experience with the pool, right? So, you know, it takes and so maybe for them there's an efficiency if there were, hey, we have five neighbors on the street that need this upgrade. Like, that level of coordination, I think, would be tremendously helpful.

And I think for me, like many of the residents, having a guide that, again, sort of gives you the lay of the land on this electrification decarbonization. So and we talked we've talked about, I think, every year, before you get to that decision making point. Right? Because by then, you're, like, so overwhelmed. But if there was some way that we can which we are doing, but, like, to continue to front load the information about what decarbonization electrification looks like.

Absolutely. And thank you so much. You reminded me too that, first of all, the neighborhood level programs, when we went back out to community to ask about their interest in some of these more complex programs, that was by far the most voted on program concept. So I think there is a real demand and interest in this particular concept. With electrification planning, it there it has been directly shown to reduce time and costs for homeowners looking to electrify.

So that is a way of kind of front ending the exercise, figuring out, okay, well, my furnace might be, you know, like we have got five years left, so how can we prepare for this in advance? I also wanted to highlight, I think some of the programs have been sunset now, but there are existing concierge resources where you can tap in and talk to a human being about this. Just recognizing that every home and every situation is different, so we need to kind of work through some of those details. While I don't think that the city has the capacity to develop their own concierge service, I think we can really help promote those existing services that really could benefit Piedmonters.

I was going to ask a follow on question, if I may. Yes, I may. I just decided, yes, I may. So I obviously have a neighbor I need to thank because we do have a new transformer on our street and I did not realize that one of my neighbors had done that. I just thought PG and E was doing that.

So thank you for that. And then I'm just I think about it because there's a project next door to my house and they're waiting on PG and E to come like move the panel by four inches or something. And I thought to myself, I wish I had known that because they could come and move my panel at the same time, right? So I'm wondering if there's a way we could work with PG and E if they're open to it, maybe they're not, maybe they want to do these one one off calls, but it seems like it would be more efficient for PG and E too and a cost saving for them if they just send a notice, hey PG and E is going be in your area, these are the dates, if you want, if you have something you want to talk to us about, here's the deadline, get it into us by that deadline and we'll consider doing it at the same time, right? They're not committing to it, but they're trying to create some efficiencies, I don't know, just an idea.

Maybe not the best to spitball from the deus, okay. Yes, Councilmember Ramsey.

Efficiencies by PG and E, that's good.

I

would like to also follow-up. Councilmember Long, you mentioned decision points. So I was thinking and if you could remind us what we do when somebody comes to the counter because that's a real major decision point, right? Say they have a project that they're doing and they haven't really thought through all the electrification options or programs. They haven't been paying attention to the great outreach that you're doing. But I mean, but that's really an important decision point there. Could you remind us what happens there or what could happen? Is there anything more that could happen at that point?

Yes. If I'm understanding your question correctly, I think what you're tapping into is our ReachCode program. So somebody is undergoing a major renovation in their home, and that depending on the project value of that renovation, that would trigger that individual to have to pick from a menu of energy efficiency options. Some of those do promote electric appliances as well as part of those options, they can select them at that time if they so choose. And then our lower threshold is for $35,000 and our higher threshold is for $135,000 projects, where then the individual would have to pick from two of those energy efficiency options.

So those are sort of you're you're opening up your house, you're doing all this work, here's an opportunity to start thinking about this. We do have a couple of other reach codes related to if you're doing specific electrical work in your kitchen, upgrading some of the conduit things there so that you could support electric ready and same with your laundry room. So those are some of the other things. Also, some work in your garage to support getting you electric ready for EV charging stations. At other points, in the package of our when we're issuing a building permit, we do advertise our existing home electrification rebate program.

So hopefully, that's also serving as a, hey, we're actually offering cash incentives for making these choices at the moment that somebody is getting going through that process as well.

Yeah. That's perfect. That's great. So it encourages even beyond the reach code then by Yeah.

Providing some information during that at that process.

That's great.

First of all, this was a phenomenal report. It was fascinating to read. It was really well written and very understandable. We've also talked a lot at counsel about insurance claims, climate change, and what's happening in people's homes. And, you know, do you have knob and tube wiring? The questions that are coming from insurance companies where people are getting denied coverage because they have knob and tube wiring or they have a certain model of electrical panel? Is there overlap in what you're doing in your outreach and helping folks kind of get on top of those issues before they become more public?

Yeah. I'm so happy you highlighted this and I think this really speaks to the crux of why some of these more complex programs tackle the idea of getting your home electric ready, because there's all these other co benefits when we're talking about Piedmont homes. There's so many reasons why we need to be upgrading our electrical infrastructure within our homes, and you spoke to them there, and then also it sets you up for easier decision making down the line. And so, when we're talking about, and I can go back to some of the phase one programs, but one of them is about creating informational campaigns and really highlighting some of these co benefits. In our initial community survey, we did hear from a lot of people that simply they're just not interested in electrification.

They don't wanna learn more. They're they're just this doesn't speak to them. And so when we think about the other health impacts, those kind of insurance impacts, the other important ways that this can benefit your home and your quality of life, highlighting those at the forefront is actually really important in terms of getting that buy in early on.

Did you have a

second question? I have a second, not a follow-up, Yes, but it's

Catherine Ramsey.

So this is more about we've heard a lot about we have old homes in We this have the highest percentage of historic homes per capita than any other community in California. Great something to be proud of. But it makes it more difficult to make them energy efficient. Is there a narrative about I mean, I can imagine if you do a comparison of the embedded carbon and the efficiency of living in a house that's 100 years old for generations as opposed to say a new construction and maybe a newer town where you build these very efficient homes. However, the carbon use and the energy that goes into that, is there Yeah.

Is that part of the narrative?

Okay. That is so cerebral. Yeah. I

mean, it's more efficient, you know, if we live in Exactly. All their

Right. I hear you.

There is no better way to

Exactly. And I am going to quote one of our sustainability award winners from last year that the most efficient home is the home that already exists. So I think that's what you're speaking to. And so it's how to build off of that. And I I think in this strategy, we're not looking at what we call embodied carbon.

So That that's the carbon involved in, generating the materials and putting a home together. So that's actually, I appreciate that point because I can highlight that within our kind of scope and in and out of scope. But it's about how to now take these existing homes and and really kind of bring them up to the achieving the benefits of of sort of modern building code and modern understanding around energy efficiency.

Right. I mean, there's all of these KPIs, all of these things we're tracking. There's nothing that speaks to that, which I think we rule in that category. Mean, we should mean, think that's important because it's more difficult. But we're investing in this difficult task of upgrading historic homes, but there's something noble about that too because we're stretching these beautiful homes for one hundred years or more.

Good point. Councilor Flamier, did you? Don't have to ask a question.

Most of my questions have been answered in I this do do want to comment, even if we get brownie points for old homes, that should not be an excuse not to undertake the electrification.

No. 100%.

Happy to happy to award brownie points.

Oh my gosh.

I had a I Oh, sorry. Go ahead, please. I was I had some question about the column that has the anticipated costs to the city. And, like, some of them just say staff time, and some of them say staff time and then have a dollar value after it. And I'm wondering what exactly that dollar value signifies and how you arrived at the dollar value.

Yeah. So for each, it's a bit different. So the staff time is to acknowledge that we are going to be having to put more staff resources in the implementation of the strategy. And then on top of that, some of them so for example, program six is looking at developing a study, and so that would be to elicit a consultant to help support doing that work. Whereas an item eight here, when we're looking at or sorry, item 10 here, when we're looking at a pilot project, it's more so about the actual cost of the technology and then creating a buffer there if we were going to provide those at a low cost or no cost to residents as well.

So it's looking more of either consulting costs and eliciting third party to support the research, eliciting third party services. So for electrification planning, that would be to have an expert be available for residents to develop those plans. And then also looking at and and and or the direct technology costs specifically. How I came up with those was a little bit of research and a lot of leaning on the task force to say, do these numbers make sense? We do have, again, a wide perspective of expertise on the task force, and so they were able to say, yep, that looks like a ball that looks like an acceptable number given the range that you've presented.

So in some of these instances, you're actually suggesting the city is going to provide some sort of equipment. So particularly with Concept 10, it would be to provide a limited at a limited offer, a smart panel for interested residents. And so that would be the actual equipment and then the installation of the equipment.

Okay. And that would be something like, we would get a bulk some sort of bulk purchase or work in collaboration with the neighboring community potentially?

Yeah. So the the right now, there well, there's some efforts in anticipation of rule nine, so that's the Bay Area Air District rule of broadening what we can offer from a bulk purchasing perspective. So currently, the city partners with the SunShares program to offer bulk purchasing prices at around a 15% discount for solar and batteries. But that's the scope of it. So how can we broaden out some of these to more of the technologies that we want uptake for now?

So that's an ongoing effort that I think could impact this as well. But smart panels are also just very new technology. And so I think I'm not sure if we could get a bulk purchase benefit, perhaps. We would have to investigate deeper to see what that financially would look like for the city. Mhmm.

And I also get that, like, by the time you're implement implementing phase three, there may be some other new technology, you know, it's hard to stay on

top of it. Thank you. Yeah. Okay.

Vice mayor. When you were describing, and it may have been what council member Long started with the experience on her block, can you describe a little better the neighborhood I'm sorry. Reading my phone.

It's all

my notes. Sorry. A level electric the neighborhood level electrical upgrades, a direct install program is part of phase three.

Is that

what was being described earlier?

Exactly. Yes. So again, sort of left intentionally broad, I think what we've heard from folks is there's a lot of back and forth with PG and E, requires a lot of coordination to get these service upgrades. And so if we could be if the city could support from a coordination perspective, have multiple neighbors do this all at once, Could it save time and cost for the the individual participating? I did leave the language a little bit open to could we also look at other appliances or other technologies?

I think the preference is to have it really focused on electric panels and service upgrades, but again just kind of broaden it because this would be a phase three program. So let's see what the reality looks like then.

Right. Yeah. Well, there's a lot to organize before we get there.

Exactly. Exactly.

Yeah. Thank you. Okay. We're gonna take a pause here and turn to public comments, if you have any public comment either in the room or online for this agenda item number eight.

Thank you. Yes, I do have a public comment online from Garrett Keating. And if there's anyone else on the line who wants to speak on this item, please raise your hand. I see no other hands, so just Gary Keating.

Okay. We'll give Garrett the full three minutes if you would like three minutes on this topic. Okay.

You. Denise has done a lot of deep thought on this. I've seen the commission handouts, but this is a lot more extensive. But is it electrification or is it decarbonization? I get electrification.

It sounds nicer, but the carbon level matters. And also, would just say the Bay Area the Air District rule is predicated on health effects. So I think that is something that I think you should fold into your communication, and that might get people's attention more than electrification would. And in that vein, I'd like concept nine, but I would accelerate that in the in in relation to what rule nine is bringing to the Bay Area. Mean, you're talking about smart panels and a Phase III, but a lot of residents I speak to, they're going to load up on gas water heaters before the deadline.

And I think if you were to do a group neighborhood install of gas heaters, it's probably not a big draw on the panel. That would be some low hanging fruit that can make a big difference in the output. And then the recommendation is just to do the the inventory every two years. And I understand that with a lot of the complexity here. I guess that's a good idea.

I would just say at least publish the gas data. Right? That's I think that's a hard number you get from PG and E. It shouldn't take a lot of computation, and it gives an indicator of how our programs are doing. I think, you know, if you want this to be front and center for people, I think you need to do an annual if that time of year, good or bad news, it has to come to the community and keep it in front of people's, mindset. Piedmonters support electrification. The survey showed this, and I think, the electrification curve will always go up because there will be something going on. But I think you need to focus on, but we're not doing good enough and you have to bring in the carbon element to that. That's it. Thank you.

Great. Thank you very much. Any other public comment at this time?

There are no other hands. No. Thank you.

Okay. Bringing it back to counsel. This is informational item. We don't have to take any action. I am looking at our sustainability program manager to see, have you gotten the input that you were seeking? Is there anything else with respect to this would be helpful to hear from the counsel

this time?

This has been incredibly helpful. Yes. I think I was hoping to understand if there were any major red flags or significant concerns with anything presented up into this date. And so I really appreciate all of your feedback and thoughtful input. Great.

And if I could just make one comment. So when I joined council in 2017, we did not have a sustainability program manager. So we have made a real commitment as a council, not just this current council, but the councils that have come before to reducing our carbon footprint and I really appreciate all the work that you're doing with our community to achieve these very lofty and important goals.

Likewise, see you. Thank you. Okay,

we are now moving on to regular agenda item number nine. This is our last agenda item of the evening. This is another informational update on our what was referenced in our last item of the rebate program, City of Piedmont home electrification rebate program and looking ahead to the next fiscal year. Great.

Well, hello everyone again.

Our

very small but very mighty sustainability division, you're gonna get to hear from both of us tonight. In parallel to the work that we've been doing to update the air to develop an electrification strategy, it really gave us an opportunity to look back on our current home electrification rebate program. We also were able to garner so much great new data to help figure out how can we best position ourselves for implementation of this program. And so when Emma Grossman joined us this year, she started off on a very deep analysis of the performance of our current rebate program. And in collaboration with Director Kevin Jackson and Building Official Paki Muthig, myself and Emma, we developed what we're presenting tonight as potential program updates that would go into effect 07/01/2026.

So with that, I'll hand it off to Emma to lead the rest of the presentation.

Great. Thank you, Emma.

Good evening, mayor and city council members. I'm very excited to be with you here this evening to present on some upcoming updates to our home electrification rebate program. And just like Denise for the development of our electrification strategy, we're really looking for council feedback so that we can implement that going forward as we solidify the program changes. Alright. So the program was launched in January 2023, and it provides cash rebates to Piedmont property owners who are transitioning from natural gas to electric appliances in their home.

So the current program supports property owners in getting heat pump water heaters, heat pump space heating and cooling systems, which you'll see there are the two middle sections, the central air source heat pump and mini split heat pump systems, as well as any necessary main electrical panel service upgrades. And the program goal is really to advance the adoption of electrical appliances in Piedmont homes, kind of in support of achieving our city's climate action plan, CAP two point o climate goals. So from the program launch in January 2023 through 04/01/2026, the city has distributed nearly a $100,000 in rebates to 64 Piedmont property owners. This has supported 90 electric appliance installations and electrical panel upgrades, including 49 heat pumps, 25 heat pump water heaters, and 16 main panel service upgrades. So a little bit about what our city permitting data shows about local electrification trends in Piedmont.

Overall, city permit data shows that adoption of electric appliances is increasing in Piedmont. And for the first time in 2025, both heat pumps and heat pump water heaters surpassed their natural gas equivalents and new installations. And additionally, our data indicates that Piedmont appears to be performing ahead of both regional and statewide benchmarks in adoption of electric appliances. Nevertheless, as Denise told you a little bit in her last presentation, greenhouse gas emissions data shows that the city is not on track to meeting either our 2,030 or '25 2045 climate action goals. And as you can see with these charts, natural gas appliances continue to represent a significant share of installations in the city, and electric appliance installations will need to increase pretty substantially in order to meet our goals.

So given program success in its inaugural years and also through community engagement during the ongoing development of the electrification strategy, staff identified an opportunity to update the program to better align with community needs, expand program reach and impact, and also to respond to evolving market conditions. So the 2026 program updates are going to include updating incentive values where needed, adding time bound eligibility measures, adding additional income qualification tiers, and also adding new eligible appliance categories. So in the following slides, I'll kind of go through these core changes with you. So the first program update is that we are going to be installing a time bound eligibility requirement, which will require applications to be submitted within four months of permit issuance. This change is really designed to help reduce uncertainty both for program staff as well as for our applicants, and it will also help prioritize funding for projects where the availability of rebate funds influences project decisions.

The next program update is going to be adding an income tier based on 120% of Alameda County's area median income. So the current program uses structure with one standard tier and one income qualified tier that's based on the California alternative rates for energy and family electric rate assistance program. That's what's shown as CARE and FARA on the screen. And these eligibility baselines are based on 200250% of federal poverty guidelines respectively, and only about 2% of Piedmont residents qualify for these incentive groups. So as such, since the program's launch in January 2023, only one income qualified incentive has been distributed.

On the other hand, approximately 22% of Piedmont households are what we consider cost burdened, which means that they're spending 30% or more of their household income on their housing cost. And this indicates to us that there's a broader population of Piedmont residents that may face of work affordability constraints to home electrification. So to better capture these Piedmont residents that may face those affordability constraints, a third income tier aimed at moderate income household households earning at or below 120% of Alameda County's area medium income will be added to the program. And the incentive structure will remain tiered, so we'll offer distinctive rebate amounts at the standard, moderate, and low income tiers. Alright.

The next program update is restricting heat pumps for space heating and cooling to income qualified households. So this will help us better target program funds for residents who experience those affordability constraints, and standard rebates for this specific appliance will be sunset beginning July 20 07/01/2026. This change, again, will direct funding towards residents who face those greater financial barriers and will also facilitate the program expansion that we'll be talking about at the end of this presentation. And this also is consistent with what other cities have done. So in 2025, the city of Albany also reallocated funds from standard rebates in their program to facilitate expansion to also a 120% AMI tier.

And then I just also wanted to touch on the fact that this is consistent with what we've seen in terms of program utilization data. So what we've seen is that from 2023 to 2025, approximately 35% of permit recipients for heat pumps for space heating and cooling also applied for a rebate, whereas about 74% of permit recipients getting a heat pump water heater permit applied for a rebate. What it this indicates to us is that many Piedmont property owners will proceed with heat pumps for space heating and cooling even without those additional incentives, whereas incentives may be more important to Piedmonters installing heat pump water heaters in their home. Going along with that, we will not be updating the heat pump water heater rebate. We'll be keeping that at the same amount, And this is both because of that strong program utilization data as I just covered and also because our analysis shows that of eligible appliances switching from natural gas to heat pump water heaters has the greatest greenhouse gas emissions reduction potential in Piedmont homes.

So we really wanna make sure to protect that rebate and ensure that Piedmont residents can, yeah, receive financial incentives for these appliances. And as you'll see, the standard income tier will remain the same, and then we're updating incentives values just to make sure that we maintain that clearly tiered incentive structure with the addition of the 120% AMI income tier. Now the next update is going to be adding a gas meter removal incentive. So this will help encourage the complete disconnection of Piedmont homes from natural gas, which also incentivizes whole home electrification. And, really, this incentive will help to offset the costs that we see associated with utility coordination, PG and E, infrastructure removal, and also any of those additional last products that will get a home to be fully electrified and not need gas service anymore.

Then the next program update will be to add a solar and battery incentive. So these incentives will be added to also support a more comprehensive approach to whole home electrification while simultaneously supporting energy resiliency and affordability for Piedmonters who are making the switch. So this program addition is also responsive to council's direction to city staff to allocate additional funding to the program specifically for solar incentives following council's adoption of a 100% cost recovery model for solar permits.

Okay.

Okay. Then our final program addition is going to be adding smart panel eligibility to our existing electrical panel upgrade rebate. So common feedback as we discussed during the presentation of the strategies development is that in Piedmont, upgrading home main home service panel capacity can be costly. It can be time intensive. We see a lot of delays with PG and E, and this is a big barrier to people to electrify their homes fully.

So smart panels, which dynamically dynamically manage electrical loads are an effective alternative to traditional service upgrades and can enable whole whole home electrification without requiring those costly, time intensive main panel service upgrades. So, we wanted to encourage ped monitors to explore this alternative technology and also really help provide alternative pathways to whole home electrification, which is why we've proposed adding smart panel eligibility into the program. So in terms of fiscal impact, city staff are asking for a program budget increase to 50,000, which is fifth $15,000 more than the fiscal year twenty twenty five, twenty six budget. And this increased program budget will accommodate for program upgrades that updates that include a broader program scope and also that additional support for a moderate income group. And it also responds to council's direction as discussed to allocate additional funding following that 100% cost recovery model.

So in terms of next steps, upon receiving feedback from the program, staff will proceed with updating and finalizing program and application materials, coordinating with the city's communication division on community engagement, information sharing, and program promotion, and then also finalizing internal data monitoring processes, data keeping procedures, and application intake protocols. And then, of course, we will be continuously monitoring the program's success and impacts for the community and continuously trying to improve the program and make sure that Piedmont's needs are really incorporated into the program. Yeah.

Okay. Great presentation. Thank you for the thoughtfulness. I guess I had a question just right off the bat. Piedmont are there other rebate programs that they can also apply for and can residents potentially stack rebates or is this if they apply for a rebate from the city of Piedmont, they are excluded from other rebates?

So there are some other regional incentive programs. However, most of them are aimed at that low income group. So a lot of Piedmonters won't qualify for some of those other rebates. Also, we've seen in the past few years both sunsetting of other rebate programs as well as some instability in terms of statewide level programs like the type clean California rebates. So, there is opportunity for Piedmonters to get more than one rebate depending on state and regional availability, but this really provides a rebate structure that is reliable for residents, that residents really understand and can work with, and is oftentimes a lot quicker than a lot of those other rebates.

Councilmember Long.

Hi. Thank you for this presentation. So, I guess one of the questions that came up for me, I know we're opening this tier. Help me understand again how we evaluated that opening up a new tier is that we basically have an audience for it, right? Like how do we know what income level, what size of home, if you can clarify for me, that would be greatly appreciated.

Yeah. It's us trying to figure out how to direct more incentives to that group that experienced cost burden. So in our engagement for the electrification strategy, you know, just people had said to us quite frankly, like, oh, well, we spent so much money just to buy into this community. And so, while we make very good salaries, we don't have additional funds to be doing these costly upgrades. And so there is no easy way to address cost burdened folks, which we have a high percentage of.

Emma had mentioned 22% of piedmoners are either cost burdened or extremely cost burdened. So a portion of that are people spending more than 50% of their income on housing costs. But what we've seen from other communities is this is sort of the best practice. And so I think we're going to try this out, see how it fits within our community. Are we able to appeal to more Piedmonters, get more uptake? Because our care and FARA income tier was just getting such low uptake. And then we can kind of work from there and evolve based on the results of that.

Okay, thank you.

Can I ask a follow-up to So that we had previously done the care category and then had another category that was available to everybody, yes? And now we're taking away that category that was available to everybody and adding a category that's for this moderate certain percent, 120% over AMI. But looking at our income stats based on census data or I'm not sure exactly where you get the data from, That's a very small percentage of people. And I'm just wondering how flexible is the program? How set in stone is it if we end up not having anyone applying for rebates because those people are not doing the work and this thousand dollar incentive isn't going to get them to do the work, can we expand it to add back a broader category?

Yeah. First of all, I would just like to address that the only category in our whole rebate program that we are sunsetting the standard rebate for is just for heat pump, space heating, and cooling. And every other incentive offered through the program will continue to offer that standard rebate tier. So we're not completely doing away with a standard rebate tier. And, again, that's really the decision we came to in terms of that is to free up a little bit more program budget for those other rebates and to accommodate for the addition of that income tier.

And again, that follows what the city of Albany did when they added a 120% income tier. Yes.

And then just to add, it also reflects what our data is showing us is that people are buying heat pumps and a smaller percentage of them are asking us for rebates for those heat pumps. And in fact, I think as the in this kind of year of the program, as we've been engaging with folks, they're like, oh, I bought a heat pump. Can I get a rebate for it? And they've already installed it. And it's almost becoming a prize for doing the work, rather than being at the point of decision making of whether or not they're going to do it.

I personally think it's reflective of the value proposition is there with heat pumps. People want air conditioning. Our our years are becoming warmer and warmer and all of a sudden now you have one appliance that can do both heating and cooling and it's more energy efficient. The market is also stronger for heat pumps, just generally. There's more information available for them. There's more contractor awareness. So I think we have more of them sort of pushing the idea of, hey, you can get this technology.

Go ahead. Just to sort of tie it all together, I think what I hear you saying, you both saying is that we're gonna try this out and we're gonna see what happens and if it turns out that this is not the right path, we'll pivot. I don't know what the duration is going to be for evaluation, but we can pivot if it's not yielding any rebates.

Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, just in our next steps, just continuous monitoring and evaluation is so important to us, and we really want to make sure that we are supporting ped monitors in electrifying. Yeah. So we that will absolutely be a part of the calculation. And then I also just want to touch on the fact that none of the program funds are reserved specifically for any income tier.

So, it's all first come first served. It's all going into one application pool and program funds are expended on a first come first served basis. So, it's also not as though we're reserving, you know, 50 of program funds just for those income qualified tiers. It's for everyone.

And is it first come, first served as in I've applied for a permit to do this work, it ends up taking me six months or something to do it, I'm still in

the

queue, and will get a rebate even if the funds sort of expire before I finish the work.

Yeah. So I think that's something that we're still kind of finalizing our internal processes on. Currently, you know, to date, we have never had to deny anybody a rebate. And the current way that we're expending our funds is based on program final date. So well, it's based on when an applicant gets their permit final and then sends us their completed application package.

And so the date that that completed application package is sent and received by us is treated as, like, the day of their, yeah, their completed application, and that's when funds are released. Moving forward with the new program structure, I think we're still trying to decide at what point, you know, we cut off people if we end up going past the program budget. Mhmm. I don't think that we have a formalized process for that

yet. Mhmm. I mean, that'd be a good problem to have. Yes. Yes.

So I have a question and it comes from kind of where I sit being involved in Eva Community Energy and my understanding that we don't actually need more solar panels. What we need is solar panels paired with batteries and that's really going to help the grid and if residents or businesses simply put on solar panels that actually makes electricity more expensive for the rest of us. So I would love to just talk and like maybe explore a little bit having an incentive linked to both and and not providing an incentive for standalone solar knowing that that just makes makes electricity more expensive for everybody else. So could you if you could speak to that, that'd be great.

I'm gonna be so honest. This was new information to me received today. I actually haven't heard about this dilemma with standalone solar. But I think we are certainly open to limiting program funds to either solar and battery combined projects only or adding battery onto existing solar. I think if that is the direction that council would like to go, we're absolutely happy to take the program in that direction.

Great. Okay. Good to hear. Any other questions at this time? No? We'll turn to public comment.

If there's anyone in the virtual audience who would like to make a comment on this item, please raise your hand. No hands raised.

Okay. I'll just bring it back and and say the the comment that I would make is this is amazing and I love it and I love the expansion. My only request would be to link the incentives related to solar to either as you said adding a battery to existing solar or installing both solar with a battery component to it. I do think that is important to incentivize and I would not be in favor of just incentivizing solar panels. This is informational, we're not voting. I don't know if other people feel the same way or if you want more information on

I think we could use more information, but certainly we trust that your experience on AIVA tells you something that maybe we have not been privy to that you know.

I would say you can share your title, what you're doing for

April. Exactly.

Oh, yeah. No, I'm not Chair of the Board.

Exactly. So she is a reliable resource.

No, and it's one of the

things we're struggling with, right, because people are sort of oriented towards, oh, I should add solar. But at this point, unless you're also adding a battery, it doesn't make sense economically. So

And and and, you know, again, this is these cultural shifts that that need to be elevated and highlighted, right, because, you know, solar may be doing something energetically, but financially, it's cost burning. So, you know, it's the balancing, but but these are all things that we need to keep abreast of. Thank you. Totally.

I'm happy to facilitate a conversation with staff at AVA, you can maybe expert to expert as opposed to having me in the middle.

Yes, that would definitely be great. I would personally love to learn more information and hear more about that.

Awesome. Great. Okay. And as I said, this is an informational item. Ms. Grossman, thank you so much. This is a terrific presentation. I appreciate our whole sustainability division. This is exciting to have this presentation this evening from everyone. As I said, we are light years ahead of where we were when I joined council and I'm just super proud. So thank you both. Okay. We are moving on now to announcements, reports from council members, and discussion of future agenda items. Who would like to go first? Council member Wong.

Sure. So the fifth annual Play Like a Girl Plus event was yesterday at Witter Complex. The event was spectacular and had over 1,300 participants, which is record attendance. Each year,

it gets better and better.

And there were 31 different sports stations for the girls to try. For the first time ever, participants had the option of starting the day up at the brand new Piedmont Community Pool to watch swimming, water polo, diving demonstrations, and we had a five time Olympic medal swimmer, Dana Vollmer Grant, got

in

the water to demonstrate the butterfly. So Yeah. It was super cute. Really spectacular.

And I might add, I had that great joy of volunteering at the event and I was handing out t shirts to participants. And I this everyone was thankful. Not they weren't saying thank you for the t shirt.

I mean,

I'm sure they appreciated the t shirt. But just thank you to the city of Piedmont for the event. They just everybody had a great time. So thank you. Yeah. Any other announcements at this time?

I will announce that next Monday at 05:30 there is a planning commission meeting and one of the items on the agenda is a study session on housing element programs. So in case folks are interested in that they will be talking about lot mergers on and off-site improvements, subdivision standards and inclusionary ordinance. Great. And is this where we do the agenda suggestions?

Let's pause on that for just a minute

and come back.

Let's just do announcements right now. I'm good. Okay. So I was just going announce as we mentioned earlier Earth Day Arbor Day was a great success. I also want to give a shout out to Food Fest. I think we had I don't know if it was record attendance but certainly robust attendance despite the rain and kind of dreary weather. It was a fabulous event. I mean, was a great music, amazing food, really happy crowd. So I feel like these types of events really show our community at its best. And I'm just as I said, I'm super, super proud and appreciate all the work that goes in behind the scenes, only from our recreation department, from our public safety, police and fire and also from public works.

And Daniel Gonzalez, I'm praising you and your department because you guys do an awesome job with all of these public events. So thank you so much. Okay. Let's now turn oh, I have one other announcement. Oops. There was a little thing that got lost on my desk, which I apologize for, and this is, actually from our congresswoman, Latifa Simon. And yes, I'm looking at you, Kevin. So Latifah Simon sent you this gorgeous certificate of special congressional recognition. And it's in recognition of your retirement as Planning and Building Director for the City Of Piedmont. I, in this case, the I is not me, it's Congresswoman Simon, celebrate your twenty three years of incredible service and all you've accomplished for your community.

Congresswoman Simon wishes you health and happiness in the years to come. So I will give this to you after the meeting. So Thank you. Sorry. Sorry. I didn't give this to you earlier. It's buried here. My fault. Okay. Let's turn now to discussion of future agenda items.

Did you have one or do you want?

I would like to request that we put the banning of sale of tobacco products onto a future agenda.

Yes, and I would nod my head and agree with you with the caveat that I do think we need to check with our legal counsel first because this is not a new subject for the city council. We did talk about this back when we banned the flavored tobacco. So I just want to make sure this is something within our jurisdiction legally that we can do without creating issues for ourselves as a municipality. It sounds like other towns have done it, so maybe we can look to see how they did it. But yes, I would agree that I'd like to like to hear more. I think we all would. Right?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. All head nods.

Great. And that was a terrific presentation from the students who came. Seems like a long time ago now, but just earlier in this earlier in this meeting. Okay. Any other new agenda items? Any other announcements? I'm looking at our city administrator. Any announcements from

Let's see, Thursday of this week, I believe we have a budget advisory committee meeting scheduled for at least I have an invite. I know we're still working on confirming a date. I believe it will be at 6PM here in the council chambers, should there be any interest from members of the public to join. It will be tentatively six to 8PM and we should have an agenda posted out here outside of council chambers. It will be a follow-up discussion on the funding mechanisms initiated by the subcommittee, the Budget Advisory and Financial Planning Committee.

Great, super. Also want to give a shout out to everyone who attended and participated in the City of Humonte Volunteer Reception. That was really fun, fun event. And we talked earlier about our city Volunteer of the Year Enduro Balkassen, but we also had our first young volunteer of the year award. And now I'm blanking, it was Chloe, but now I'm blanking on her last name, so I apologize Chloe. But that was really a fabulous new addition and I know Anna Brown is not here, but I just wanted to appreciate her for making that all happen. Okay. And with that, we'll go ahead and adjourn the meeting at 08:42PM.

Oh, here.