City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

Shaf, ah, there we go. Dan Shaf from our consultant Shaf and Wheeler is also present in the event. Commission has technical questions. Here's an outline for tonight. I'll begin with a brief refresher on the stormwater master plan, including the overall purpose of the plan, as well as key findings from the current efforts. I'll then follow up with a summary of previous commission and council feedback, as well as how those feedback items were addressed. Public engagement was a point of feedback emphasis in the previous presentation, and I'm therefore highlighting it in this follow-up outline. We'll then provide an update on progress before discussing next steps. The city awarded Schaffman-Wheeler a contract to update the city's stormwater master plan on June 17, 2024. As part of the awarded scope, Schaffman-Wheeler was to update the city storm drain model and prepare an update to the city's storm drain master plan. The updated storm drain master plan was to include findings and recommendations for maintenance and improvement of the city's stormwater system. The recommendations therefore included prioritized capital improvement projects for stormwater conveyance elements such as underground pipes, open channels and creeks, pump stations, and storage facilities. The image on the right shows the numerous elements which make up the updated hydraulic model of the city's storm drain system. Before I forget, we'll discuss this on a later slide, but Schaff and Wheeler also looked at projecting estimated costs from accommodating projected 2050 and 2100 climate change. Stormwater fee was presented to voters in late 2023 and approved in 2024. It provides a stable and predictable funding source, but it's not sufficient on its own to fund all recommended capital improvements. When climate change impacts are considered, approximately $49 million is added to the capital improvements program, bringing the total estimated cost to about $289 million. WHEN STAFF INITIALLY PRESENTED THE ESTIMATED COST TO COMMISSION AND COUNCIL, THE TOTAL PROGRAM COST, INCLUDING CLIMATE CHANGE, WAS 267 MILLION, SO THE PROJECT ESTIMATES HAVE BEEN ADJUSTED UPWARD AFTER ADDITIONAL REFINEMENT BETWEEN JANUARY AND TODAY. IMPROVEMENTS TO THE MARINA LAGOON PUMP STATION ALONE STILL ACCOUNT FOR APPROXIMATELY 121 MILLION OF THAT TOTAL. And at the time of this January presentation, staff shared that it was actively evaluating grant opportunities, bonding, and other financing strategies to address these large-scale investments. City staff presented the preliminary findings of the storm drain master plan to the commission and council in January of this year. Staff also requested feedback on several topics, including one, addressing localized flooding that does not rate highly using the parameters established for the storm drain master plan. Two, incorporating updated requirements for storm drain management for private developments. And three, appropriate levels of public engagement. So we'll start with the localized flooding. While the majority of investment on the storm drain master plan will likely be focused on high-risk locations delivering the greatest system-wide benefit per dollar spent, staff presented the option of maintaining a strategic $250,000 annual budget for addressing localized flooding projects. These projects may not rate highly based on the factors used to score the projects for prioritized implementation, but could still be strategically prioritized. While the selection criteria has not yet been finalized, localized flooding projects which could be selected for design and construction may be prioritized based on ponding severity and improvement impact, prioritization of vulnerable communities, community feedback, and requests from operation and maintenance staff. This isn't listed on the slide, but another option of deploying an annual $250,000 budget may be with something like an inlet replacement program. While staff hasn't yet fully evaluated how effective an inlet replacement program would be, conceptually, the program could identify storm drain inlets that are undersized or susceptible to clogging and replace those inlets. both commission and council supported this budget allotment and selection criteria and product development efforts will commence in fiscal year 2026 to 2027. staff also presented strengthening runoff management requirements for private developments specifically aligning private improvements with city system capacity and climate impacts commission and council supported this proposal as a result staff has asked the consultant preparing the storm drain master plan to prepare storm drain design standards for private developers to adhere to Once the draft design standards are available, staff will review and coordinate with the Development Services Division. That coordination is expected to begin in fiscal year 2026 to 2027 as well. Staff also received feedback from both council and commission on public engagement efforts prior to the adoption of the storm drain master plan. Staff therefore published an online mapping tool in January, 2026, and also published the draft storm drain master plan in March, 2026 through the city newsletter. The online mapping tool allowed users to report areas of observed historic flooding and the draft storm drain master plan was available for public comment. Staff also held three outreach meetings in April, 2026, including two in-person meetings and one virtual meeting. Staff found that the community preferred to engage most with the online mapping tool and received 48 total reports through usage of the tool. Comments on the master plan were limited to individuals requesting additional clarifications on projects occurring by their residences and staff responded to those comments. Attendance at the outreach meetings was generally low and staff believes the lower in-person engagement is because one, the storm drain master plan provides a roadmap to an outcome which is generally not controversial, less flooding. The project impacts will generally be temporary in nature and not result in permanent loss of other services or facilities. Three, flood reduction projects generally are higher on residents' minds after historic storms and most recent wet seasons did not generate the widespread flooding which occurred as part of the 2022 to 2023 winter storms when nine atmospheric rivers hit San Mateo. And four, The storm drain master plan is a technical document and technical documents generally receive less engagement. These reflections aside, staff believes residents still had an avenue to voice concerns about specific areas. Through the online mapping tool, as previously mentioned, a total of 48 reports were received between January and May 2026. Of these reported sites, 17 sites are already slated to be addressed through the capital improvement projects listed in the storm drain master plan, although they are not necessarily overlapping with areas noted as very high priority. Of the remainder 31 reports, 14 of the reported sites, 14 reported sites of observed flooding are consistent with predicted flooding due to a 10-year storm, while 17 reported sites are not. That doesn't mean these 17 locations are devoid of flooding, but that the observed flooding is likely attributable to storms more intense than the 10-year design storm the master plan is based on. At this time, council has requested the online mapping tool to be made available for the foreseeable future, and staff is therefore in the process of porting the tool into the city's GIS management. Future reports will be reviewed and validated against the master plan, and this would be a continuation of past efforts by staff where residents would report storm-related complaints as a category of a service request. To reiterate the overall public engagement, staff observed that the majority of engagement that did occur was through the mapping tool. Residents' feedback on stormwater conveyance tends to center around what is going on in front of my front door. That feedback will likely not stop at the master plan adoption and will continue beyond the master plan adoption in the form of the localized flood initiative. On the previous slide was a global view of user submissions to the online mapping tool. And so on this slide, I provided two submissions from the tool. As you can see, residents are able to submit the date, photos, description, and location of observed flooding. and areas of higher public interest are generally more easily viewed by the concentration of pin drops around the area as noted previously at council direction the city will maintain this tool for the foreseeable future Moving on to progress updates. Staff directed the consultant to move forward with conceptual designs for six very high priority projects out of the 10 identified in the draft master plan. These projects comprise a variety of pump station projects, underground pipe projects, and creek projects. These conceptual designs are expected to be complete by fall 2026. The purpose of initiating the conceptual design for these projects is in part to support future funding opportunities similar to a case we'll discuss on the next slide. From a funding perspective, staff is currently evaluating revenue projections from the city's recently approved stormwater fee and developing cash flow scenarios to implement very high priority projects. At this time, a seven to 10 year initial implementation period is being considered. In addition to forecasting deployment of the established funding source, staff is continuing to evaluate external funding opportunities. Most recently, the city received notice that a $500,000 federal earmark request for the 4000 Pacific Boulevard Pump Station Improvement Project will advance for consideration by the Appropriations Committee. Should the Appropriations Committee advance the request, the House, Senate, and President would also need to sign it. As a final progress update, city staff continues to advance stormwater system improvements, which were previously identified as priorities. These include the Marina Lagoon Spot Dredging Project, which will remove up to 2,000 cubic yards of accumulated sediment from Marina Lagoon, which is the primary stormwater retention facility for the city. The Marina Lagoon Pump Station Modeling Project was also awarded to build and test the model of the Marina Lagoon Pump Station. The model is currently undergoing tests to determine what improvements must be made to this pump station in order for it to properly operate at various lagoon levels. The photo to the right of this slide is a model of the existing Marina Lagoon Pump Station. Several other projects are listed, including a slope stabilization project alongside Laurel Creek known as 57 Ote Slope Stabilization Project, improvements to a storm drain outfall near 3387 Countryside Drive, and improvements to the storm drain infrastructure at 2nd Avenue and Delaware Street. The projects listed above are all anticipated to be constructed later this year. We're now at the last slide of the presentation, which is to discuss next steps. At this time, staff anticipates presenting the StormJ master plan to council on July 20th for adoption. Staff also anticipates that of the six projects advanced to conceptual design this year, two projects will advance into full design as part of fiscal year 2026 to 2027 capital improvement program activities. At this time, $3 million is allotted for fiscal year 2026 to 2027. Finally, staff will continue evaluating funding and financing options to augment the existing stormwater fee and ultimately use the funding to construct identified capital improvements. That concludes the staff presentation. We're happy to answer any questions or discuss any aspect of the presentation.

Well, thank you so much for that. That was really informative. Appreciate all your engineering expertise. Does anybody have any questions? Who would like to go first?

Mr. Chair, we need to open up for public comment first, although I'm not sure that we have any since I don't think we have anybody online.

correct yeah so just for clarification after after presentations it usually goes to public comment and then we round it up to questions and comments okay so i'll take a plan uh so but we do not have any public comments so i think we can go ahead and close public comment okay we're closing public comments would any of the commissioners like to comment question

THAT'S A FIRST.

I KNOW. I USUALLY DON'T GO FIRST. I'M HAPPY TO GO FIRST. HI, JAMES. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE PRESENTATION. REALLY APPRECIATE IT. OKAY. SO A COUPLE QUESTIONS. REALLY APPRECIATE I SENT SOME QUESTIONS INTO STAFF BEFOREHAND SO I MIGHT REPEAT SOME. COMMISSION'S BENEFIT AS WELL. BUT LET'S START WITH THE PUBLIC BUT LET'S START WITH THE PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT PROCESS, JAMES. ENGAGEMENT PROCESS, JAMES. SO WHEN THINKING ABOUT PUBLIC SO WHEN THINKING ABOUT PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT, IT WAS GREAT TO SEE THE ENGAGEMENT ENGAGEMENT, IT WAS GREAT TO SEE THE ENGAGEMENT ON THE ONLINE TOOL AND VERY ON THE ONLINE TOOL AND VERY GRATEFUL THAT THE CITY WILL BE a lot of legs in terms of providing us with real-time data in the community and an opportunity for regular touchpoints on that front. I was a little surprised about the stakeholder engagement, public engagement process on this. When creating the stormwater master plan, Is it because it's a technical document, does it go through a different kind of public engagement strategy than something maybe more public friendly like the bike master plan? And could staff maybe explain the distinction between a technical document versus a non-technical document and how those are distinguished when it comes to public engagement?

I can take a shot at that and James may have something to add. But I mean, I think all of our master plans are technical documents, but some of them are more technical than others, I think, and some of them get more into some deep engineering stuff that is not generally accessible to the general public. And I think this is an example of that where we've got, you know, pretty complex hydraulic and hydrologic modeling that's going on. But you know if we have a bike master plan, it's equally technical in terms of talking about You know some of the engineering features that go into roadway design and things like that So I think we just generally have found that with some of our utility master plans that there's just less public engagement on those and some of it is I think because you know those systems are out of sight when they're working you know you don't really even know that they're there as opposed to things like a bike master plan or something where you know as James mentioned you know we have cases where you're putting something in the public right-of-way that may be taking something away from somebody like parking or a lane of travel and so we get MORE ENGAGEMENT. IT'S CHANGING THE WAY PEOPLE MAY IT'S CHANGING THE WAY PEOPLE MAY GET AROUND ON A ROADWAY, GET AROUND ON A ROADWAY, WHEREAS THESE PROJECTS, AS JAMES WHEREAS THESE PROJECTS, AS JAMES SAID, ARE MOSTLY TRYING TO MAKE SAID, ARE MOSTLY TRYING TO MAKE SURE THAT OUR STORM DRAINING SURE THAT OUR STORM DRAINING SYSTEM WORKS PROPERLY. SYSTEM WORKS PROPERLY. WE WERE A LITTLE SURPRISED THAT WE WERE A LITTLE SURPRISED THAT WE DIDN'T GET MORE ENGAGEMENT ON WE DIDN'T GET MORE ENGAGEMENT ON THIS, JUST GIVEN LIKE WITH THE THIS, JUST GIVEN LIKE WITH THE FLOOD-FREE SAN MATEO GROUP THAT FLOOD-FREE SAN MAT THE COMMUNITY FLOOD AND STORM PROTECTION FEE BUT I THINK AT THE PREVIOUS SIC MEETING WHERE WE PRESENTED ON THIS AND AT THE COUNCIL MEETING WE HAD ZERO PUBLIC COMMENT TONIGHT ZERO PEOPLE ATTENDING FOR THIS SO WE HAVE MEETINGS THAT ARE YOU KNOW WELL PUBLICIZED THAT PEOPLE ARE STILL NOT SHOWING UP TO AND WE HAD THE MULTIPLE PUBLIC MEETINGS THAT WE ONLY HAD HANDFUL OF PEOPLE I THINK THAT SHOWED UP TO THOSE MEETINGS SO HANDFUL OF PEOPLE I THINK THAT SHOWED UP TO THOSE MEETINGS SO WE DO OUR BEST TO TRY TO GET WE DO OUR BEST TO TRY TO GET PEOPLE THERE BUT SOMETIMES IT'S PEOPLE THERE BUT SOMETIMES IT'S CHALLENGING ESPECIALLY IF IT'S A CHALLENGING ESPECIALLY IF IT'S A CITYWIDE SOMETIMES IF WE'RE DOING A CITYWIDE SOMETIMES IF WE'RE DOING A PROJECT IN A SPECIFIC LOCATION IT'S PROJECT IN A SPECIFIC LOCATION IT'S EASIER TO GET PEOPLE THERE BECAUSE EASIER TO GET PEOPLE THERE BECAUSE YOU CAN DO MORE FOCUSED OUTREACH YOU CAN DO MORE FOCUSED OUTREACH WHERE

I mean, the only thing that I would really add is that the majority of engagement that we did receive was through the online mapping tool. And I think it did highlight a little bit of maybe a little less interest in the technical aspects of the document and a little bit more of, well, is the flooding in front of my place going to be addressed or not? So that's something that staff is seeking to try and address while also balancing the reality that we need to try to deploy dollars in the most effective cost-effective ways to reduce flooding and also increase capacity for the system.

Got it. Yeah, that's a good point. Thank you so much. And that's a good point, director, in terms of the flood-free San Mateo group and the effort to get the regular money. I forget the technical term of that, but the regular budget allocation for stormwater. Was there more targeted stakeholder outreach that was done beyond just the more general approaches on city socials or posting it on the website? Was there any targeted?

STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT I'M GOING TO HAVE TO DEFER TO STAFF IN TERMS OF I DON'T KNOW THE DETAILS I DON'T THINK THERE WAS ANY ADDITIONAL TARGETED ENGAGEMENT BEYOND YOU KNOW UTILIZING THE THE CITY NEWSLETTER AND SO AND MAKING THE PUBLIC OUTREACH MEETINGS AVAILABLE BUT OTHER THAN THAT I DON'T THINK THERE WAS A SPECIFIC TARGETED ENGAGING OF GROUPS OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT

Well, one group that we did reach out to was the Marina Lagoon Ad Hoc, which is a group that we engage with on a regular basis just to let them know about the progress of the master plan and also about the mapping tool. And they were actually really helpful in raising awareness about the mapping tool and kind of as community ambassadors kind of showing others how to use the tool. At least we did know that that was happening. So it may have contributed to just the more widespread use of the tool. ALSO, I GUESS WE DON'T, WE ALSO THINK THAT THE COMMUNITY CONVERSATION DOESN'T STOP HERE. THERE'S ALSO GOING TO BE OPPORTUNITIES TO ENGAGE NOT JUST THROUGH THE MAPPING TOOL BUT ALSO THROUGH THE REGIONAL SHORELINE ADAPTATION PLAN OR SEA LEVEL RISE PLAN. AND THE CONVERSATIONS THAT WE'LL HAVE THROUGH THAT ARE MORE NUANCED. YOU KNOW, HOW DO WE USE OUR SPACES? WHAT DO WE PROTECT? What do we prioritize, whether it's nature-based solutions or other types of solutions? So I think there are still dialogues to happen around stormwater and flooding. It's just maybe the conversations that people want to have, we just haven't had them yet.

Yeah, thank you. I think that makes a lot of sense, and that's totally fair. I also think, and maybe for a future, would consider how to make a technical document more user-friendly. At the moment, I went on the website, I read all 258 pages of this technical document. I did not understand all 258 pages, but I did look at them. And one of the things that struck me was, oh, you had all these, you know, the public meetings. Were there slide decks? Could the slide deck have been posted on the website? Currently it's not. The very high list of projects is buried on page 241 of the 258 page document but it's not listed on the website you know as separately that could potentially like catch someone's eye in terms of like why would I care because if you click on the document I can understand why someone might scan through it and just be like never mind I don't you know this is this is not my vibe but in fact like it could be someone it could be interesting if some of the more more critical pieces that staff identified could benefit from insights or thoughts from the public or also from the sheer political reason of wanting to make sure that things are accessible to the public and easily digestible ways to share that high list or some other nuggets of information in a more user-friendly way utilizing the website. So those are just some things to consider because this document was much more technical than other technical documents created. And to me, it's not necessarily that THE PUBLIC MIGHT STILL HAVE AN AVENUE TO PROVIDE THEIR AVENUE TO PROVIDE THEIR FEEDBACK. FEEDBACK. IT'S THAT THE POSTURE OF THE CITY IT'S THAT THE POSTURE OF THE CITY I WOULD RECOMMEND IS NO, WE I WOULD RECOMMEND IS NO, WE GENUINELY VALUE YOUR FEEDBACK ON GENUINELY VALUE YOUR FEEDBACK ON THIS EVEN IF IT'S TECHNICAL AND THIS EVEN IF IT'S TECHNICAL AND WE'RE GOING TO TRY TO MAKE IT AS WE'RE GOING TO TRY TO MAKE IT AS USER-FRIENDLY AS POSSIBLE TO USER-FRIENDLY AS POSSIBLE TO SOLICIT THAT FEEDBACK. SOLICIT THAT FEEDBACK. BECAUSE I JUST DON'T THINK WE BECAUSE I JUST DON'T THINK WE QUITE GOT THERE the council and the commission was emphasizing how to make something more user-friendly to solicit that feedback. And I think because the tool was more user-friendly, you saw that in that way. I'll just be curious, as things unfold with the very high list and the ponding lists, how that manifests in maybe project-specific feedback that we'll get. Why is this priority? I don't know if you're going to get any of that feedback or not. But that'll be a curiosity I hold as things evolve. OK. So in terms of other questions, that was my comment on public engagement and stakeholder engagement. In terms of other questions, I was curious to better understand the issue of the lagoon. And Commissioner Chair Krantz, you are an expert on the lagoon, so I'll just . But so I'm going to ask my super basic question, but I'm sure the chair will have more sophisticated questions here. But essentially, the lagoon is a significant amount of the cost associated with this. What would be the plan to actually achieve IT'S A LARGE PORTION OF WHAT NEEDS TO BE ACHIEVED FOR THE IT'S A LARGE PORTION OF WHAT NEEDS TO BE ACHIEVED FOR THE LAGOON GIVEN THE FACT THERE'S LAGOON GIVEN THE FACT THERE'S LAGOON GIVEN THE FACT THERE'S THE TENSION THAT EVERY YEAR THE TENSION THAT EVERY YEAR THE TENSION THAT EVERY YEAR THERE'S ONLY THREE TO FOUR MILLION THERE'S ONLY THREE TO FOUR MILLION THERE'S ONLY THREE TO FOUR MILLION DOLLARS ADLOCATED FOR ALL STORMWATER DOLLARS ADLOCATED FOR ALL STORMWATER DOLLARS ADLOCATED FOR ALL STORMWATER WORK AND IF WE'RE VERY GRATEFUL WORK AND IF WE'RE VERY GRATEFUL WORK AND IF WE'RE VERY GRATEFUL THAT IT'S MOVING T uh over a hundred million dollars so what would be like a path forward there and is that something that the staff will be taking up in a different agenda item sometime in the future or is this the time to really dig in on the lagoon

I mean, we could definitely talk a little bit about it, but I don't think that we have a detailed plan at this point of how we're going to tackle that. But I think there are some things that are happening that are going to help inform us about that. I think the physical modeling that James talked about that showed the picture of the physical model, I think that that's an important piece of understanding you know what can we achieve with our existing pump station as it is or what could we achieve with the existing pump station with some modifications that would allow us to operate that station differently that may give us some additional pumping capacity than what we have right now so I think we're going to have results on that later this year that will be you know, insightful for that. But I think we've also, you know, some some of this, I think if we're talking about $120 million project is it is going to require outside funding. We're going to have to be looking at state and federal funding. And so part of the way that you get to some of those dollars is that you have to start, you know, a partnership and move down a path of engaging with an entity like the Army Corps of Engineers. And so we are also continuing down that process where we have, you know, at this point we have a project listed in the Water Resources Development Act that allows us to do a study with the Army Corps of Engineers, but we need to get the funding allocated for that. And so we continue talking to the Corps on an annual basis. We continue talking with our federal legislative advocate in terms of, you know, how can we put things forward in terms of trying to get funding to do those studies? Unfortunately, the current situation at the federal level is NOT AS CONDUCIVE TO SOME OF THOSE STUDIES THAT WE WANT TO DO. STUDIES THAT WE WANT TO DO. SO SOME OF IT IS GOING TO TAKE SO SOME OF IT IS GOING TO TAKE TIME TO CONTINUE HAVING THOSE TIME TO CONTINUE HAVING THOSE DISCUSSIONS AND TRY TO DEVELOP DISCUSSIONS AND TRY TO DEVELOP THOSE PARTNERSHIPS. THOSE PARTNERSHIPS. BUT I THINK WE ALSO HAVE TO LOOK BUT I THINK WE ALSO HAVE TO LOOK AT WHAT CAN WE DO WITH OUR EXISTING AT WHAT CAN WE DO WITH OUR EXISTING FUNDING GIVEN THAT WE'VE ONLY HAD FUNDING GIVEN THAT WE'VE ONLY HAD THE COMMUNITY FLOOD AND STORM THE COMMUNITY FLOOD AND STORM PROTECTION FEE FOR A COUPLE OF PROTECTION WRAPPING OUR HEADS AROUND HOW MUCH OF THAT MONEY DO WE NEED TO PUT TOWARDS OUR ONGOING OPERATIONS AND MAINTENANCE ACTIVITIES AND HOW MUCH CAN WE REASONABLY DEDICATE TO CAPITAL PROJECTS GOING FORWARD. I THINK WE ALSO WANT TO TALK ABOUT, YOU KNOW, DO WE PAY AS WE GO WITH THAT FUNDING OR DO WE WANT TO DO SOME SORT OF A FINANCING MECHANISM WHERE WE WOULD BOND AGAINST THAT AND POTENTIALLY DO LIKE WE DID WITH THE MEASURE S AND THE SMOOTH STREETS PROGRAM AND WHEN WE DID THE LEVY IMPROVEMENTS WHERE WE GOT $50 MILLION UP FRONT AND THEN WE'RE PAYING THAT BACK OVER TIME. from the revenue from Measure S. So that's the challenge is if we do some sort of financing with our existing fee, then we're dedicating a chunk of that to debt repayment over a 30-year period or something. And then that reduces how much that you have available from that revenue stream to keep going towards uh, other projects. So there's a lot that we still need to figure out. And some of it, I think we're going to have to, you know, work on it over time. I think this is a key part of it is, is getting this master plan put together that gives us sort of a much better sense of what's needed. But I think we know, um, from the master plan that ultimately that lagoon pump station is going to be inadequate in terms of climate change and the longterm and that we will have to, um, add on capacity for that. And so, um, We're just going to have to keep working towards that. I don't know if Dan's our expert online that he may have some other comments from his thoughts of how we put that together and potentially move that forward. But I think that's sort of where we're at. And I think there definitely could be additional future conversations in front of the commission in terms of as we get into the details of how we would move that. So I guess I'd ask Dan if he has anything he'd want to add.

I think you have it right. I think the long-term strategy is to find a federal partner and have them pay a big chunk of it, but that goes to the people who are prepared. I think getting ready for that, uh, doing the studies necessary to, uh, get those, uh, dollars is, is, uh, uh, an ideal approach to that. Uh, again, there's the short-term improvements, you know, at about $2 million just to keep the station running and reliable. And then there is the, uh, at some point the station needs to be replaced and that is your hun a hundred million dollar project. So, um, two big things happening.

Yeah, I think that as Dan is saying, I think that the fact that we have the storm drain master plan now that provides us some of that technical background of what needs to happen and why it needs to happen is sometimes that's the piece that you need to be able to go and talk to these other agencies. Say this is why we need to do it, you know, and so it's important to have those documents. So it's sometimes a lengthy stepwise process to get to these things that can sometimes take years or decades. But we're trying to make sure that we're moving down the steps in terms of the federal partnerships on that.

Thank you. I have a clarifying question. So is the 120 million, does that need to be done all at one time or are there chunks that can be done or is that just like the cost of replacing the full project and we just have to do it all in one go?

Yeah, my understanding is it's not a phased project. I think that would be one large capital project. Dan, I don't think it's a stage project, right?

uh correct there i mean there's some a little bit that can be done phase but the biggest chunk of that is a brand new station and we have to have a you it's going to take so long to construct we need a reliable existing station um so the two both basically have to be done um

OK. OK, awesome. And then the short-term one, in doing the $1.93 million short-term lagoon, if that's done once, does that have to be done every year in terms of maintenance improvements? Or is it like, no, we invest the $1.9 million and will buy us x number of years to get a research grant, to get a modeling grant, whatever we need in order to then get ready for the bigger capital outlay?

I'll defer again to Dan, but I believe that that's a one-time cost and it does buy some years of design life, but it's not meant to replace or make the larger project something that the city doesn't have to do.

Yeah, no, we've kicked this can down the road for like 25 years, 40 years, 40 years, Chair Kranz says. So yeah, no, that's, we're not trying to, I don't want to kick it down any further. Okay. excellent and then I have another question when it comes to The ponding and also the capital, the CIP. So you have 250 allocated, but I got a little confused when you were mentioning, James, a potential inlet idea. Could you, is that, would that replace the ponding idea in terms of using the 250K, or is that like an additional idea out beyond the 250K, like?

Yeah, staff hasn't fully evaluated whether there would be a percentage allocated one way or the other, but an inlet replacement program if, you know, that does make sense would, If enough, inlets are identified as regularly becoming catch basin inlets. So when you walk on the sidewalk, you might see right on the curb, a little inlet where storm drain runs into. Oftentimes, a lot of the localized flooding that residents do see sometimes can be just due to the fact that those inlets are undersized. And so what might be a cost-effective way to address some of these areas where residents are seeing some ponding issues recur is to upsize those end lists. Those would be relatively manageable projects to do. So that's an idea that potentially staff could evaluate. If we did do a project-by-project approach, let's say at one particular address there's a project that staff would need to have designed and implement, we're looking at probably being able to implement somewhere between one to three projects with that $250,000 allotment. Whereas if we did do an inlet replacement program, we might be able to hit many more locations with that budget.

Okay. Got it. That's really helpful. Thanks. And that sounds very strategic and thoughtful because it kind of would address a more root cause issue of the ponding in a certain neighborhood. Is that accurate?

It could if that area, if the inlet is what's undersized and not the pipes that are below ground.

and sometimes sometimes we have cases where it's it's the water's not even getting to the inlet you know you've got areas where you've developed sags within the gutter system or something like that so some of those are not going to be solved by an inlet correction because the water isn't even getting to the inlet in the first place so there's going to be some of those issues that have to be addressed separate from that approach but in the in the case where inlet capacity is part of the root cause of the issue then i think it's a it's a It's something we need to look at in terms of a cost effective way of deploying our money so that we can fix more problems more quickly.

Great. Thank you. And my last question. So going back to the fee amount, the three million slash four million, it seems to be around that range available every year. Director, you mentioned that, you know, there's a tension with potentially having to use some of that for operations. THAT SURPRISES ME BECAUSE I THOUGHT THE FEE WAS MEANT TO BE FOR THE ACTUAL PROJECTS. SO WHAT COULD BE DIFFERENT STRATEGIES USED TO ENSURE THAT AS MUCH AS THAT FEE AMOUNT IS PRESERVED FOR PROJECTS? ARE THERE THINGS THAT NEED TO BE DONE OR IS THE COUNCIL NEED TO BASICALLY APPROVE the budget for operations to be outside of the fee or you know other things like that because it does concern me to have to eat into the three million when we now know we need so much to be able to even just address the 10 high very high projects yeah so um i think as it was presented in the engineering report that was done in terms of developing the fee it did talk about both our operational

So it was presented to the public as both addressing operational issues and maintenance issues as well as capital. And what the operational funding has allowed us is it allowed us to hire two additional staff that are dedicated to dealing with storm drainage systems. And so we've got those folks that are out on a daily basis cleaning catch basins that we have seen a lot of benefit from over the last two years that we've gone going out and cleaning all of our catch basins that we hadn't done in many years and so our staff has said that that's made a big difference over the last couple years where we haven't had nearly as many problems because we're cleaning out the catch basins and then this last year we actually added on jetting the pipelines between the catch basins so we're removing a lot of the material that's accumulated in the pipelines as well so So there are aspects of the operational piece of it that is also helping us to maintain a system that prevents flooding. So all of the pieces together between the operation and maintenance activities as well as the capital is all intended to make sure that the system is functioning as well as it can and minimize any potential threats to life and property. PART OF THE APPROVAL OF THAT FEE, AND THIS WAS BEFORE MY TIME IN THE DIRECTOR'S ROLE AND I WASN'T INVOLVED, BUT MY UNDERSTANDING IS THAT THE DISCUSSIONS WITH COUNCIL WAS THAT WHAT WE REALLY NEEDED WAS, I BELIEVE, $9 MILLION A YEAR. THE POLLING THAT WENT OUT TO THE COMMUNITY IN TERMS OF WHAT LEVEL OF FEE WOULD PEOPLE POTENTIALLY SUPPORT AT A LEVEL THAT WOULD BE PASSABLE IN TERMS OF THE BALLOT INITIATIVE. SHOWED THAT WE COULD ONLY GO WITH ABOUT 4 MILLION SO PART OF WHAT COUNCIL AGREED TO WAS THAT THEY WOULD CONTINUE PROVIDING I BELIEVE IT'S AROUND THREE MILLION DOLLARS OF GENERAL FUND THAT HAD BEEN GOING TO SUPPORT OUR STORM DRAIN MANAGEMENT'S EFFORTS IN THE PAST AND SO SO WE ARE CONTINUING TO HAVE A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF GENERAL FUND CONTRIBUTION THAT REMAINS THAT HAS BEEN THERE PREVIOUSLY AND THEN THE FOUR MILLION IS ON TOP OF THAT BUT IT STILL IS SHY OF WHAT WE DETERMINED THAT WE ACTUALLY NEED AND SO THAT'S PART OF OUR CHALLENGE IS THAT WE'RE STILL at a deficit of where we needed to be but a lot of that was also based on you know a large-scale lagoon dredging project and so you know we still have to wrestle with that as well which is um james correct me if i'm if i'm wrong i don't think the large-scale lagoon dredging is is included in the 289 million um yeah and and so that's you know another large chunk of money but that's also part of what we want to look at in terms of a holistic look and working like with the army corps of engineers is how can we do multi-benefit dredging project that potentially can help us with shoreline resilience and not have to haul all of that dredge material off to a landfill which is a big part of the cost and so so i think that's part of what we're trying to do is have a holistic look at how can we manage all these things together in conjunction with as catherine mentioned our climate adaptation plan that's looking at the shoreline resilience pieces so um so that's sort of how we're we're looking at the money but there are definitely operational aspects of our um needs with the system that we have to do and that we haven't been able to do with the existing funding and that's why you know we're putting a chunk of it but we're trying to minimize the amount that we're putting towards operation and maintenance so that we can maintain as much as we can towards the capital side of things and catherine can probably correct me if i'm wrong i think that we are at this point limiting um operational is less than a million a year

I don't think I would be able to say offhand.

So I could be wrong, but I think it's generally, you know, you know, looking at a million out of the 4 million that comes in and it is a little over 4 million, I think that comes in from the fee is going to operational and then 3 million or so. Don't quote me on the exact numbers, but that's sort of generally where we're at in terms of the operation versus capital.

Great. Okay. Thank you so much for that thorough answer. That's it for questions and comments.

Well, thanks, Kim. That was really thoughtful and insightful. Hey, just a quick question. You talked about the technical paper that's kind of hard to understand. Is it possible to do an abstract of it, like sometimes you see in legal briefs or in pharmaceuticals? They have an abstract of what's about to be written. And to save staff time, you could possibly run it through AI just to get something that's more readable, right?

SO IT'S A YEAH WE CAN TAKE THAT FEEDBACK WE COULD LOOK AT HAVING AN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY THAT WOULD PROVIDE A MORE UM PUBLIC-FACING SUMMARY OF WHAT'S IN THE DOCUMENT AS WE BRING THIS FORWARD TO COUNCIL SURE YEAH UH COMMISSIONER THERE IS AN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY UH IN THE DRAFT MASTER PLAN RIGHT NOW BUT I THINK UH ARE YOU SUGGESTING MAYBE SOMETHING ELSE JUST TO MAKE IT A LITTLE BIT MORE LAY PERSON FRIENDLY RIGHT OKAY WHO ELSE WHO ELSE WOULD LIKE TO GO AND ASK QUESTIONS

I don't have any questions. I just wanted to comment that I really appreciate the map. I do think, like you said, even though you may not have gotten a lot of public input at this time, now that tool is up there for people to know that it is available and the transparency of it is, I think, You don't have a problem until you have a problem. So being able to look for that online and seeing that there is a resource available to make a complaint or see where else it occurred is really valuable. So I just wanted to comment on that. Thank you.

Yeah, I'll be also rather brief. Thank you very much for your hard work and Dan as well. I underscore all the comments that were made about the accessibility of having the public being able to understand this and be able to interact with this. I had one quick question, I think, and it was actually was just inspired by your slide on the localized flooding about there was a photo. There's a photo and it sparked a question about what in the localized flooding conversation, what would you define as flooding?

Uh, localized flooding, I think, uh, classically, uh, when staff reviews a complaint that comes in from a resident is, is the storm drain functioning as expected for, uh, a 10 year design storm. And so, uh, one way that the system may not be functioning as intended is there might be water that exceeds the gutter, uh, maybe, uh, encroaching into the sidewalk, uh, But not necessarily providing a severe safety element, more of a nuisance element, right? But it's visible and it's something that still bothers residents and they call in asking, hey, can this be fixed? A lot of times residents will call in and ask, hey, all you need to do is add a catch basin here. And so those are the types of projects that are localized flooding projects. They still might include some level of maybe property damage, like let's say it might encroach into someone's yard and cause some minor damage, but generally we're talking about those level of projects.

And so when you talk about this $250,000 fund to address some of these, property damage, like what would be prioritized, right? Like if there's property damage, obviously, can you explain a little bit about what the thinking would be, how to prioritize a 250?

Yeah, I think there's a couple elements that, I mean, staff would be evaluating how to select those projects moving forward. But some of the items that I think we would evaluate is the visibility of the project. Like, is it located near a school or a facility where a lot of pedestrians walk around? Is it located in an area that serves underserved community members? I think those would be another factor that right now, because the master plan is trying to prioritize the projects that increase or preserve the capacity of the system overall, those factors don't weigh as heavily for these more localized projects. When we're talking about localized projects, we're trying to be as strategic as possible. I mean, Commissioner, you mentioned also about the operational needs. I think some of the residents have called in saying, I've seen people cleaning out the catch basins. It's these products that might be a little bit more visible and help with the public buying into the fact that the city is committed to improving the stormwater system.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Yeah.

GREAT. DO YOU HAVE QUESTIONS, DO YOU HAVE QUESTIONS, COMMENTS? COMMENTS? FEEL FREE. FEEL FREE. JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE A NEW GUY JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE A NEW GUY DOESN'T MEAN. DOESN'T MEAN.

I APPRECIATE. I APPRECIATE. I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE WE I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE WE DON'T FORGET ABOUT OUR YOUTH DON'T FORGET ABOUT OUR YOUTH COMMISSIONER EVEN THOUGH SHE'S WAY COMMISSIONER EVEN THOUGH SHE'S WAY OVER THERE.

OVER THERE. THE CURVE OF THE EARTH.

Yeah, sorry, this screen isn't working. So I've been in that corner. But yeah, I don't really have any questions. Thank you for presenting with us today. And I was glad to see that a lot of the feedback that you did get from the online tool did already overlap with what you planned for this project. And yeah, just keep up the work. Thank you.

Perfect. Yeah, I appreciate your technical expertise, all your engineering background, and your just attention to detail on this. This is a safety-oriented organization that we've got here. And sometimes lack of an accident doesn't mean you're safe. Sometimes it means you just got lucky. I shared with Director Fabry a couple of weeks ago, Richmond, had a storm much like our New Year's Eve storm, stall over the top of Richmond, and for four hours just beat them to death with water. Could have been us. And especially with the atmosphere, you already know this, it's a very fluid, very, you know, hard to predict. And thank you guys so much for being so upfront with all this. So what is the ratio with money we're spending on sea level rise, so like one shoreline kind of stuff, and the transit time down the face of the Santa Cruz Mountain into our lagoon? Are we spending more money on the infrastructure we have, the creeks and inlets, and less on sea level rise? I'm curious.

Um, I think right now the expenditures on, uh, improving, uh, stormwater, the stormwater system is higher at this moment in time, but I think past expenditures on products that I wasn't involved in, but levy improvements, those tend to be extremely expensive improvements to make. Uh, right now the city is working with a consultant to create a sea level rise adaptation plan, um, that would, I think we're one of the first cities to be initiating this effort with BCDC using Caltrans sustainable transportation planning grant funds. Out of that planning effort, I'm sure there are going to be products that come out of that which have high capital expenditures as well. But at this moment, I'm not aware that sea level rise efforts are outpacing stormwater efforts.

Got it. Exactly. Okay. How are we doing with the LIDAR study? Are we getting any information from that? Any useful information from the LIDAR study?

Dan, I might defer to you on that. I think we do have an updated bathymetry, which is the bottom of the lagoon elevations. We have that updated information. I think the LIDAR that initially we tried wasn't able to penetrate as deeply as we had hoped. But I think we are using LIDAR to inform our hydraulic model for the storm drain master plan right now. Dan, have I... Spoken incorrectly there.

No, you got it right. So for the lagoon, we thought we would use the newest flavor of LIDAR called Green Wave. Wasn't able to penetrate the lagoon turbidity. So that was surveyed traditionally. in a boat with lots of shots. But still, we have really good information about the lagoon that's informing a lot of decisions. And then the county itself has recent LIDAR data that's been instrumental in doing our modeling and making decisions. So it's great stuff.

Right. So Dan, was it strictly turbidity from particulate in the water, or was it the grass, the seagrass that's growing?

My understanding, it's the turbidity. It just, you know, it could not read through there because, you know, that is aerial-based, you know. It's not a drone, but it's not on a drone. It's on an actual airplane, I believe. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. It's a very large instrument. I don't think a drone can support it.

Okay. So a couple of questions. This could be a good one. So is there, Dan, is there a difference between dredging the lagoon and removing the spoils and dredging the lagoon and moving that spoils to a different area of the lagoon? Does that give us, put us in better stead with the government, with the feds, with the Army Corps of Engineers in terms of permits?

You know, I am not an environmental person. I'm a water person. Okay. But... You know, it really depends. There's been a lot of beneficial reuses of spoils these days. And I know the permitting agencies love that. So I think you're onto something that being selective in where you put those spoils could make or break the project.

Right. And I thought just so we don't get... Ahead of ourselves, if we were to take the spoils and simply move them to a different part of the lagoon, would it technically not be a full-on dredging that would require an Army Corps of Engineer permit? We're taking soil out of the lagoon. We're simply like that back bay area over where the guys used to park for- We don't have an answer to that at this point.

Okay. We'd have to ask the regulatory agencies about that.

Okay. And I think you already know it's one of my pet ideas, and it could be wrong, and Dan, maybe you want to weigh in on this, is to take the spoils and save it. So instead of having to buy dirt for the one shoreline is to save that spoils and reuse it later for building up a levee. Does that square with you? Does that sound reasonable?

It seems like it's got potential. Maybe you can save enough spoils to pay for the Marina Lagoon pump station.

There you go. So speaking of which, how are we doing with the scale model we were doing with the pump station, with the wet wells?

Um, I, I can share an update on that right now. Uh, our consultant Northwest hydraulic consultants, they're based out of Canada, uh, finished performing, uh, uh, building a scale model, uh, of Marina lagoon. And so, uh, they've invited, uh, staff to remotely witness, uh, the existing conditions of how the pump station right now functions at varying Murray, uh, lagoon water levels. And they're all, they will also present. how the model performs with some of the recommended improvements. Got it. Now, those recommended improvements would still require some planning and execution in the future because to get inside the actual wet well, you're going to have to make sure it's dry to make any sort of improvements. And so we haven't gotten that far yet, but those modeling efforts are moving forward and it was really, really cool to see the models that this consultant had to prepare.

Okay. Uh, brought this up a while ago. I'll bring it up again. Does it make sense for us to buy a small dredge for us to do our own, almost like a street sweeper, not a new Orleans, Louisiana dredge, not a big one, but just a small dredge that we could do spot dredging. And we would be more economical than trying to go with an RFP.

I don't know if we've explored that yet. Uh, but so I can't comment on this time unless, uh,

Yeah, I don't know that we have an answer on that. I think we're going through our first spot dredging this summer. And so I think we'll get a lot of experience based on how that goes. And then we may have a better sense of what it takes and what's involved and can probably weigh in more intelligently on that after we go through that process.

Absolutely. Pick their brains and what can we learn from it? I think that's about it. I'm very... OPTIMISTIC. THE WHOLE CITY IS VERY THE WHOLE CITY IS VERY HOLISTIC. HOLISTIC. EVERYTHING WORKS TOGETHER AND EVERYTHING WORKS TOGETHER AND WE'VE CHANGED THE LEAF BLOWER WE'VE CHANGED THE LEAF BLOWER REGULATIONS AND LAWS. REGULATIONS AND LAWS. PEOPLE ARE NOW BEING MADE MORE PEOPLE ARE NOW BEING MADE MORE AWARE NOT TO BLOW CLIPPINGS AWARE NOT TO BLOW CLIPPINGS INTO THE DRAINS AND HOPEFULLY INTO THE DRAINS AND HOPEFULLY WE'LL SEE AN INCREASE IN THROUGHPUT WE'LL SEE AN INCREASE IN THROUGHPUT THROUGH THE DRAINS AND LESS THROUGH THE DRAINS AND LESS FLOODING. FLOODING. THAT'S ALL I HAVE. THAT'S ALL I HAVE. OKAY. OKAY. WELL, WHERE SHALL WE GO NEXT? WELL, WHERE SHALL WE GO NEXT?

NEXT WOULD BE REPORTS AND NEXT WOULD BE REPORTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS. ANNOUNCEMENTS. MATT, DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING?

MATT, DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING? JUST LOOKING AT UPCOMING JUST LOOKING AT UPCOMING MEETINGS, WE DON'T HAVE MEETINGS, WE DON'T HAVE ANYTHING CURRENTLY SCHEDULED FOR THE uh july meeting so we may be looking at canceling the july meeting and then august meeting um i apologize my computer messed up on me i had the crystal ball open we have um the yeah i think we're having the transportation authority potentially coming back in terms of the central el camino plan as well as i think we had the annual annual transportation management association report for the rail corridor tma zone in terms of the trip generation I THINK THAT'S WHAT WE HAD. I THINK THAT'S WHAT WE HAD. SO THAT'S WHAT WE HAVE FOR AUGUST SO THAT'S WHAT WE HAVE FOR AUGUST AND WE DON'T HAVE ANYTHING AND WE DON'T HAVE ANYTHING FURTHER OUT BEYOND THAT AT THIS FURTHER OUT BEYOND THAT AT THIS POINT YET.

POINT YET. JUST A REMINDER THROUGH THE JUST A REMINDER THROUGH THE CHAIR, AUGUST WILL LIKELY BE IN CHAIR, AUGUST WILL LIKELY BE IN THE LIBRARY AGAIN AS WE DO THE FINAL THE LIBRARY AGAIN AS WE DO THE FINAL PHASE OF THE CHAIRS AND THE PHASE OF THE CHAIRS AND THE CARPETING IN CHAMBERS.

CARPETING IN CHAMBERS.

SO WE MIGHT BE BACK AT THE SO WE MIGHT BE BACK AT THE LIBRARY? LIBRARY?

YES. YES. department head. Do we have any volunteer opportunities that you can think of for Public Works that we can get some community engagement with? keeping drains clean, keeping even, I know creeks is kind of dicey because it's, it's dicey. It just is.

We do have our adopt a drain program that we always encourage people to sign up and adopt, uh, storm drains, um, keep those clean. So we have that opportunity. Yes. Cleaning creeks. Um, other than when we do our, you know, Bayfront cleanup events in the spring and in the fall and in those, uh, events, there is a certain amount of people that go up, SAMMITALE CREEK AND DO SOME CLEANING IN THERE. CLEANING IN THERE. GENERALLY, YEAH, IT'S A LITTLE BIT GENERALLY, YEAH, IT'S A LITTLE BIT MORE DIFFICULT TO HAVE VOLUNTEERS MORE DIFFICULT TO HAVE VOLUNTEERS GETTING OUT IN THE CREEKS JUST GETTING OUT IN THE CREEKS JUST BECAUSE THERE ARE SAFETY CONCERNS BECAUSE THERE ARE SAFETY CONCERNS AND SOME OF IT IS PRIVATE AND SOME OF IT IS PRIVATE PROPERTY AND WHATNOT. PROPERTY AND WHATNOT. SO I THINK THE BEST OPPORTUNITY SO I THINK THE BEST OPPORTUNITY IS ENGAGING IN OUR ADOPT A DRAIN IS ENGAGING IN OUR ADOPT A DRAIN PROGRAM WHERE YOU CAN LOOK ONLINE. PLACE WHERE YOU CAN SEE ALL THE DRAINS IN THE CITY AND YOU CAN PLACE WHERE YOU CAN SEE ALL THE DRAINS IN THE CITY AND YOU CAN FIND WHICH DRAINS HAVE ALREADY BEEN FIND WHICH DRAINS HAVE ALREADY BEEN ADOPTED WHICH ONES HAVE NOT BEEN ADOPTED ADOPTED WHICH ONES HAVE NOT BEEN ADOPTED AND YOU CAN SIGN UP TO KEEP THAT AND YOU CAN SIGN UP TO KEEP THAT DRAIN CLEAN AND GO THROUGH THE DRAIN CLEAN AND GO THROUGH THE PAPERWORK KATHERINE MIGHT HAVE MORE PAPERWORK KATHERINE MIGHT HAVE MORE DETAILS ON ON HOW THAT HAPPENS DETAILS ON ON HOW THAT HAPPENS BUT I THINK THAT WOULD BE THE BEST BUT I THINK THAT WOULD BE THE BEST OKAY FREQUENTLY WHEN I DO OUTRE

and a quick kudos to our lagoon dashboard we get a lot of thumbs up from people that they can when it rains they can see that pumps are running the water is going down it's really gone a long way to uh assuage people's fears that you know might never flood again so anyway so thank you for that yes ma'am i just wanted to comment that i most likely won't be able to make the july 8th meeting so i support if that was cancelled All righty. Well, if there's nothing else.

I guess one other announcement is just we have a Women in Engineering Storytime event at the main library that's on June 20th. It's our second annual. So it's going to be a lot of women engineers from Public Works. So bring kids. We'll have giveaways, interactive Public Works equipment guessing game, reading books, taking pictures, all sorts of stuff. It's fun.

OK. So I'm not sure if this would, this might not be, I might come offline and ask you, the question was going to be starting a mentorship program for kids that want to work in public works in some point, some sort of a mentorship, even up at CSM. I mean, they do it for the fire department. I don't know if you're interested in that, is to try and make a career pathway for kids to come out of high school and then have a career path with our public works program.

Happy to take that offline. We have had some discussions about trying to work with CSM on a process in terms of getting folks that would be a pipeline of folks to work in the wastewater treatment plant world and getting certifications, whatnot, having a certification program up there. So we have talked initially about some of that, but we haven't engaged a great deal, but happy to talk with you offline.

Right, cool. Okay. Well, if nothing else, meeting adjourned? Meeting adjourned. Yay. Well, thanks, everyone.