City Council - Regular Meeting

I call to order the regular meeting of the City Council for April 14th, 2026. Please call the roll.

Council Member Adler. Here. Council Member Joynette.

Present.

Council Member Varos.

Here.

Vice Mayor Rubio is not with us this evening. And Mayor Armstrong.

Here. Okay, please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

All right, thank you, please be seated.

Okay, next item please.

Item three, announcements. There are none. Item 3.1, changes and additions to the agenda. There are none. If you wish to speak under public comments or regarding an item on the agenda, please fill out a speaker card located in the back of the room and submit it to the city clerk.

Okay, we're gonna move on to item four, public comment. I'm gonna open up public comment. At this time, the public is permitted to address the City Council on any non-agenda item related to the business of the City Council. You can speak on items that are on the consent calendar, including a request to pull an item from the consent calendar and the reason why you wish to pull the item or items. Please note that the decision to remove the item from the consent calendar is strictly at the discretion of the City Council. You can speak on requests for future agenda items. You can speak on the special presentation items under section six of tonight's agenda. We have three items there. And you also may speak on items that are not on the agenda but are within the City Council's jurisdiction. Please be reminded that while the city ensures the First Amendment rights of its citizens, we do not accept nor endorse any offensive or hateful comments made during our meetings. The city celebrates the diversity of our community, and we strive to be a welcoming and open community for all. If you wish to speak under public comment or regarding an agenda item, please fill out a speaker card located in the back of the room and submit it to the city clerk. While we encourage your comments, unfortunately, state law prevents the City Council from discussing items that are not on the meeting agenda. The City Council does take them very seriously, however, and if appropriate, staff will follow up. And I ask you to limit your comments to three minutes. We have a timer that you should see behind me. Do we have any speaker cards?

We do. Our first speaker is Greg Carr.

Before we start the timer, I'd like to ask a clarification of the mayor. I wish to speak on 5-4. I do not know if that will be pulled by you, if I will be allowed to speak on that at the time since it's on consent.

Okay, why don't you speak on it now, and if it does get pulled, then we will...

Okay, what I'll speak is generically.

Yeah, if it does get pulled, then we will allow additional public comment time.

All right, thank you. I'm concerned about flying flags for everything under the sun. I understand that there's a subgroup of society that is concerned about it and is being supported by Mr. Sridhar. That's fine. That's not why I'm speaking. I think there needs to be an abeyance in putting flags up for different things. I think we should only have three flags that are flying out there now. If there's going to be a request of a council member, and that is on a flag for something. This one especially has both pro and con in our society concerning it. I think that needs to be put on new business and discussed in the open air to hear how he came by being asked that, why, and to have the opinion of the five council members heard and then allow people, both pro and con, to speak on the flag. And it could be, you know, American Cancer Society or, you know, what would happen if one of you is a supporter of MAGA and somebody wants to put up, you know, MAGA flag? I think that needs to be open-air discussion. It should not be slipped through, as it seemed to me when I saw the agenda, on consent. I think those things are worthy of us having a conversation so that everybody understands why. And here's the opinions of all of you. And we go on with your decision. So that's what I would like to see done on 5-4. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Make San Ramon great again.

And I just ask that the audience not applaud the different speaker comments or council member comments. Thank you.

I applauded because I wasn't sure if you're going to give him the time. I was going to pull the same thing as well, but I don't think you will. I don't think you're going to allow him to pull it, so whatever. I'm going to save my time in making San Ramon great again. I was very disappointed when I attended an infrastructure meeting this past week that I realized that Council Member V. Rose, you really should not continue to be our council member. You seem to have lost your focus on what a council member is supposed to do. You are very mindful of things that are not really in your jurisdiction, such as flying flags or going to different social events. opportunities because of your position. However, I was truly appalled that you were going to instruct the staff to lower our infrastructure specifically the pavement well-being from 76 in points of 100 down to 72 because for these few years that you have been on the city council member in the name of diversity and not meritocracy, I don't know, that you have allowed our roads to deteriorate as well as our funds to have depleted. That now, as wealthy as our city, city of San Ramon, does not have the amount of money needed to continue to keep our pavements at 76. Shame on you. I cannot vote for you because I don't live in your district. However, as a citizen of this country and of this state, I have every right to tell you you do not have my confidence to continue to be my council member. Also, I was really appalled that one of the council members Council Member Adler was going to start a meeting that you completely forgot about without quorum. I was really confused as to why is it that one of you guys do not understand what a quorum is for a committee business and one of you completely forgot about you have really bread and butter that is in your jurisdiction as a council member that you didn't even show up and didn't even bother to call the clerk why you were running late. Sometimes, you know, everybody runs late. Here and there, it's forgivable. It's understandable. I'm an empathetic person, but you completely forgot. What was your mind on? On flags? I don't understand. Please. I also want to ask you guys to please be aware of taxes coming up from California that is going to steal from our city again. So I would like you guys to please stop stealing our money to go fund electric car, which you drive. Those pumps pay with your own money, not my money. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Susie Ferris-Syndercombe.

Good evening, council members.

I'm also here to speak on 5.4. I'm respectfully requesting that the item be pulled from the consent calendar. A new State Department policy signed into law prohibits the flying of the progress pride flag over U.S. embassies and other diplomatic institutions stating that only the U.S. flag is authorized for display. The one flag all act prohibits the display of flags other than the flag of the United States in public buildings, military installations, and U.S. embassies or consulates. San Ramon City Hall is considered a public building. Exception flags Accepted flags include the National League of Families, POW, MIA flags, flags representing the nations of visiting diplomats, state flags of a member of Congress outside or within the member's office, flags representing the unit or branch of the armed forces on military installations, any flag representing an Indian tribe. and any flag representing the state, territory, county, city, or local jurisdiction where the public is located. Should the council feel the issue needs to be furthered, then it should be brought before the full voting public via a new business item on a future agenda. Thank you.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

There are no more speaker cards.

Okay.

Yeah, go ahead. Can city staff clarify that the pride flag is not flown on our city flagpole, but we have a special flagpole for our special events? That's where we are flying it. I just want to make sure. That's one thing. The second thing is we have a policy already in place. This went through the policy committee. I understand. Many of you don't read the policies. That is a lot of paperwork. But then there are policies, procedures that we follow in order to bring this into our agenda. So I want to make sure that we clarify that thing also.

Through the mayor, if we're going to have this discussion, we should pull the item.

I guess if it's not a simple yes or no, then we want to pull the item. I guess that's really what's before the council. Should we pull the item so we can discuss it further? Sounds good, yeah.

I'll ask to pull the item 5.4. Okay, all right.

We've got a request to pull the item. Okay. Then with that, any other items you wish to pull? Okay. Seeing none, then can I get a motion on 5.1 through 3, as well as 5.5 through 5.9 on a consent calendar? I move the motion.

I second it.

Okay, we have a motion by council member Rose and a second by council members. Why not? You lose your voting screen there. Okay, can we see what's going on? Okay, can you re-pop up that screen there, the voting screen?

There we go.

Okay, motion passes 4-0. That's for items 5-1 through 5-3. We will defer 5-4 and also passes for 5-5 through 5-9. So now we're going to move on to item 6, special presentations. The first one is a proclamation declaring April 19 through 25, 2026. as National Library Week, and we have with us today, we have a presentation of Dr. Francis Adebola-Wilson, the San Ramon Senior Library Manager, and Elaine Pedley, Doherty Station Library Manager. Thanks for joining us tonight. And we've got a proclamation here. This is a proclamation of the City Council of the City of San Ramon declaring April 19 through 25 as National Library Week. Whereas libraries spark creativity, fuel imagination, and inspire lifelong learning, offering a space where individuals of all ages can explore new ideas and be drawn to new possibilities. And whereas our San Ramon libraries serve as vibrant community hubs connecting people with knowledge, technology, and resources while fostering civic engagement, critical thinking, and lifelong learning. And whereas San Ramon libraries provide free and equitable access to books, digital tools, and innovative programming, ensuring that all individuals, regardless of background, have the support they need to learn, connect, and thrive. and whereas libraries partner with schools and organizations connecting the dots to maximize resources and expand access to essential services, strengthening the entire community. and whereas libraries nurture young minds through story times, STEAM programs, and literacy initiatives, fostering curiosity and a love of learning that lasts a lifetime, and whereas libraries protect the right to read, think, and explore without censorship, standing as champions of intellectual freedom and free expression, and whereas dedicated librarians and library workers provide welcoming spaces that inspire discovery, collaboration, and creativity for all, and whereas libraries, librarians, and library workers across the country are joining together to celebrate National Library Week under the theme, Find Your Joy. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the City of San Ramon does hereby proclaim National Library Week, April 19 through 25, 2026, And during this week, all residents are encouraged to visit their library and celebrate all the ways the library helps the San Ramon community find joy. All right. I've got two of these, so I'll give you each one of these. I'll give one here to you, Frances.

Good evening Mayor and members of the City Council, City Manager, staff and members of the public joining us. On behalf of the San Ramon Library, I would like to extend our sincere appreciation for your continued partnership and support. Over the past year, the library has remained a vital community hub, welcoming an average of approximately 600 visitors daily at the San Ramon Library, with additional traffic at the Dorothy Station Library, which serves hundreds of customers each day. These figures reflect more than the usage. They underscore the deep trust and reliance our community places on these spaces. We are especially proud and of several enhancement that has elevated customer experience. The installment of two Zoom Boots has provided dedicated soundproof spaces for virtual meetings, job interviews, and telehealth appointments, and also serves as a much-needed study pod for students and individuals seeking quiet, focused environment. This amenity has quickly become one of our most highly sought-after and appreciated resources. Our programming continued to flourish as well, with a wide range of offerings for children, teens, adults, and seniors that promote literacy, creativity, and meaningful community engagements. Much of this success is made possible through the extraordinary partnership with the San Ramon Library Foundation. Over the past year, the Foundation has played a critical role in sustaining and expanding library services by funding high-quality programs, supporting large scale community events such as book sales that generate resources for investments into the library, and contributing towards furniture, equipment, and space enhancement that directly improve customer experience. Their support has also enabled us to pilot new initiatives, respond quickly to emerging community needs, and maintain high standard of service despite growing demand. Additionally, the foundation's advocacy and community building efforts have strengthened public awareness of the library's value, helping to cultivate a culture of giving and voluntarism that benefits the entire San Ramon community. Their ongoing commitment ensures that the library is not only maintained, but continually evolving as a dynamic, inclusive, and forward-looking space. We are deeply grateful to the city's continued investment in the library system. Together with the city, the foundation, and our dedicated staff, we remain committed to ensuring that both libraries continue to thrive as welcoming, innovative, and essential spaces for all. Thank you for your ongoing support.

Thank you, Francis.

I'd like to speak as well. Francis is going to give you the updated strategic plan for the county. Good evening, Mayor Armstrong and city council members and other city staff as well. I want to especially thank Mayor Armstrong for participating in Mr. Tom's musical story time this past week, a very popular program at our library. This was arranged by members of the library foundation along with our youth services librarian, Mr. Tom, and it was great fun to have the mayor as our guest reader. Thank you for acknowledging National Library Week here in the city of San Ramon, where the residents truly value our library services. During National Library Week, we'll be creating special displays, celebrating our library users, and honoring our library staff, as well as our library foundation. Thank you to the city for the excellent and consistent maintenance of our library buildings and for generously funding the extra open hours for both libraries. We are very grateful for your support. As both library interiors age, however, Doherty Station now 21 years old and San Ramon marking nine years since its remodel, the libraries would appreciate your continued support to keep these valued spaces welcoming, engaging, and a source of civic pride. We've provided the update to the strategic plan for the county library system, so I won't comment on that. But I just want to highlight one aspect of our work in the past year, and that is school engagement. This is part of both libraries' branch work plans in the past year since State Bill 321 became law. which promotes library access and strives to ensure every student has a library card by third grade. Both libraries meet that goal by either visiting second grade classrooms or inviting them to visit the library for a field trip. San Ramon librarians visit seven elementary schools and Doherty Station visits five elementary schools and we also added two middle schools to reach students who missed out on these visits during COVID. We've had a great year at Doherty Station as we celebrated our 20th anniversary with a big birthday party last August. And both libraries continue to offer many well-attended programs for all ages, along with several very well-attended events for families, all funded by the Library Foundation. More people are visiting our libraries this past year, as both libraries recorded increased foot traffic. We look forward this summer to partnering with this city up at Doherty Station in the third Thursday Arts and Eats events at Doherty Station Complex with food trucks. Very exciting. This evening in your budget discussion, you'll be talking about revenue, crucial to running this city. Your libraries may not generate revenue in the traditional way, but I want to remind you that libraries are a high return investment in our community. They strengthen the local economy by helping residents find jobs, build skills, and start small businesses, all while providing free access to technology and resources many could not afford otherwise. Libraries reduce demand on other city services by offering a safe, supportive space for learning, connection, and access to information. Libraries improve educational outcomes for children and families, which benefits our schools, and workforce long term. Strong libraries make our city more attractive to residents and businesses, supporting property values and overall quality of life. To conclude, the library multiplies every public dollar invested, delivering economic, educational, and social returns that benefit the entire community. So along with the many users of our libraries, Francis and I thank you for supporting these valuable institutions and celebrating library joy with us during National Library Week. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Elaine and Francis. I think any council members wish to make any comments before we move on to the next proclamation.

Just very quick, as a committee member on the Library Foundation, congratulations, and I'm very happy, just the work and the empathy that you and the team have provided. And I think you're right, Elaine, it's a force multiplier in our community. So thank you to this team and to the staff for really making it special here for us in San Ramon. Thank you again.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much for your services to our community building. As you mentioned, libraries play a key role in our community building, especially in providing equal access to technology, knowledge, you know, as we continue to evolve, especially the libraries need to continue to evolve in this technology world. I see a lot of youth nowadays they are struggling to get jobs and one of the place that they visit is to libraries so that they can upscale their academic language as well as their knowledge base so that they can be up to speed. Also, it's helping with their resumes. If we can add any additional services to this youth, that will be great services for, it will be a great helpful services for our youth. So once again, thank you for all the great work you do for the community. Thank you. Richard?

Yeah, congratulations on the proclamation. Libraries are just so essential, I think, to our country, but especially to our local community. And I'm glad that we have a couple really good libraries that kids can go to, especially maybe after school if they can't go home right away. They can go to the library and read and develop skills. And these skills are essential throughout your entire life. Reading is always going to be important. So thank you for what you do to keep this important element in San Ramon.

And I'll just go ahead.

No, I just said thank you.

OK, I'll just close it out by just also extending my thanks for all you do. We've got a great library advisory committee, great library foundation. And as mentioned, it's it's the county that really runs the library. System, but it's our city that actually does the the maintenance and the upkeep of those libraries So it's really important that we we keep the funding up for those I'm glad we could restore the hours last year and and I really enjoyed reading with mr. Tom and He is a treasure. He is really great. It was a great story time, and I look forward to the opportunity for any of us to do that in the future. So thank you, Elaine. Thank you, Francis, for all that you do and what the libraries do for our community. As we've said before, San Ramon loves its libraries, and so keep it up. Keep up the great work. Thank you. All right. We have another proclamation now. And we're going to move on to item 6.2, proclamation declaring April 2026 as Arts, Culture, and Creativity Month. We have a presentation to Ranjini Venkata, founder of the Visual Arts Society of San Ramon, and James Daly, owner of the San Ramon Academy of Music. And Council Member Adler is going to take this one. Yeah, come on up.

Glad you're both here today. I'm going to read the proclamation. It's a proclamation of the City Council of San Ramon declaring April 26, 2026, Arts, Culture, and Creativity Month. Whereas Arts, Culture, and Creativity Month in April marks the eighth annual statewide celebration, first celebrated by the California Legislature in 2019, and whereas the City of San Ramon recognizes that arts, culture, and creativity are essential public goods vital for the health and growth of thriving communities, and whereas arts, culture, and creativity bring joy by uniting communities, inspiring individuals, and celebrating the richness of our city's diversity, whereas art, culture, and creativity shape neighborhood character, attract tourism, foster civic pride, and contribute to public safety and social well-being, and whereas creativity sparks innovation, provides youth with a well-rounded education, and equips our future workforce with critical skills and civic values, and whereas arts, culture, and creativity drive local economic growth, stimulate business activity, create jobs and workforce opportunities, and serve as essential pillars for small businesses, And whereas the city's local artists, community partners, and cultural arts staff lead efforts to advance the arts through events, exhibitions, performances, partnerships, and programs, and whereas these collective efforts across our community promote innovation, prosperity, equity, and enrich the lives of all residents, now, therefore, it is resolved that the City Council of the City of San Ramon, hereby proclaim the month of April 2026 as Arts, Culture, and Creativity Month and encourage all residents to join the celebration. And I want to both give you a copy of the proclamation. You're both deserving and I'm glad you're both here. So let me go ahead and give Ranjini, let me give this to you. I think we got stuff on here, but you can take that off. And also we've got James Daly and I appreciate you both being here, well deserving and so important for our community that we observe this. So here you go and congratulations as well.

Thank you very much.

And you guys, if you want to say a few words, go right ahead.

Good evening, Mayor, council members, and the members of our community. On behalf of the Visual Arts Society of Saint-Romain, I'm incredibly honored to receive this proclamation. And I want to thank the city for honoring April as acknowledging April as our Arts, Culture, and Creativity Month. I would especially like to thank the city staff and the members of the Arts Advisory Committee with whom I've had the privilege of working very closely with for the past several years to bring about so many arts events and communities with shared ideas and events. We saw that together how much the community values the arts through conversations and shared initiatives. So this recognition especially is very meaningful to me coming at this time from the city because I can see how much the city values the arts and invests in the arts for the future. And I'm grateful to be part of the city that really believes in the power of creativity because a city that invests in the arts is a city that really invests in its people and its passion and the future. So thank you so much, and I'm looking forward to this partnership to build a really thriving community here in San Ramon. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. All right. James? Yes. Came prepared.

Keep it brief if I'm going from a script. First of all, I just want to say thank you for the recognition. It really means a lot, especially as an artist and program provider to get recognition for the things that we do. For those that do not know, I've run music programs in the city of San Ramon for the last five years and it has been an absolute joy to grow a music program that serves our residents at every stage, from babies, when my son was six months old, we signed him up for the baby class, to early childhood classes, to advanced high school musicians. What initially started as a tiny group piano class has blossomed into a year-round semester group class schedule with over 100 students every semester right here at the Doherty Station Community Arts Center. We not only still have group piano, we went from one class to six with four levels. We now have an award-winning San Ramon Chamber Ensemble. We have a San Ramon U string orchestra. We have choir, music production, group percussion, and so much more. We're even able to offer private lessons because of the versatility of the remodeled center. It's truly an immersive musical ecosystem and environment. AND I WOULD SAY THAT THE CENTER HAS REALLY BECOME A HUB OF CREATIVITY, ART, YOUTH, AND INSPIRATION. TO SEE OUR STUDENTS CONNECTING IN THE HALLS WITH SOME OF THE OTHER MUSICAL THEATER KIDS FROM ANOTHER PROGRAM, TALKING TO ORCHESTRA KIDS, THE ART GALLERIES ON EVERY FLOOR HAS REALLY BECOME THE HEARTBEAT OF ARTS IN THIS COMMUNITY. AND I JUST WANT TO SAY WHAT MAKES THIS WORK SO MEANINGFUL IS NOT ONLY THE INSTRUCTION, that I get to participate in myself, not just as a program provider, but also an arts educator. It's the way that we see music connects with our community. I WANT TO THANK THE CITY FOR THEIR SUPPORT AND PARTNERSHIP AS A RESULT OF THAT. OUR STUDENTS HAVE HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO PARTICIPATE IN EVENTS LIKE WITH MISS ALAINE AT THE LIBRARY LAST WINTER, THEIR WINTER FESTIVAL. OUR STRING ORCHESTRA GOT TO PLAY FOR KIDS. THEY LOVED IT. OUR CHAMBER ENSEMBLE HAS PLAYED AT THE ART GALLERY OPENINGS. WE'VE PERFORMED AT THE ART AND WIND FESTIVAL. AND AGAIN, DOHERTY STATION HAS JUST BEEN AN INCREDIBLE HOME FOR US. AND I ESPECIALLY WANT TO THANK ADAM CHOW AND REANNON THOMAS for being strong advocates for our program when we didn't have much. They believed in the vision and what we were doing. And now to see what the program is and where it can still go is a really, really beautiful thing. So again, as a teacher, program developer, and as a parent in the community, I've participated in our arts programs on all levels. And as a result, I am deeply proud and deeply invested in this community. And I just want to say I am very much looking forward to the future because of partnerships with the school district, California Symphony, scholarship efforts, all these things to create more opportunities for the families of San Ramon And it's because we are in a community that values arts, that values the importance of arts education. So thank you all. Appreciate it. All right.

Thank you, James. All right. Comments from the council. Let me start down here with Council Member Adler. Anything?

Sure. This is the second essential item. component of San Ramon, I think. The arts, culture, and creativity is just so important. I'm always blown away by, in the art world, the different styles and where people come up with ideas, and it's very inspiring. I mean, we have art here in the in the council building, City Hall, and we have it all around the city, the library, and it's just great to see what people are capable of doing and also have it out there so other people can see what they've done. And also the music, I mean, that's kind of the heart and soul of humanity, I think, is music and the arts. So thank you for being here, and congratulations on receiving the proclamation.

Okay. Come down this way.

Is air guitar a talent?

Sure. Okay. No, but congratulations to you folks. You know, something about art and music, you have one person that could play a song or a picture and you could show it to a million people and you have one perspective, but then you get a million different perspectives back just based on that music and based on that picture and based on that artwork. So congratulations really to all of you and to the work that you guys put in. Thank you again.

All right. Council member Rose. Thanks. Thanks for keeping our community colorful, vibrant, inspiring. I appreciate all your great work, especially we love to see our youth, the way they do the artwork as well as performance arts. It's amazing. So thanks. Thanks for all your great work. We appreciate it. Let's continue to build this and make San Ramon as one of the best places. You know, this best place for the arts, especially we need to look at something like Miami. In my recent visit to Miami, there is a place, I forgot the place name, Woodhunt, I think. something like that. So we need to get to that place where similar to their bar level. So once again, thanks for all your good work.

And I'll just say thank you as well. We've got a great thing going on there with the Doherty Station Community Arts Center. Thank you to the Visual Arts Society of San Ramon as well as San Ramon Academy of Music for all that you do, this whole idea of arts and culture and creativity. I'm not sure we've done this proclamation in the past, but maybe we have. I don't recall it, but thank you for shedding some light on this because it's such an important thing in our community. And thanks to the Arts Advisory Committee for all the work that they do, for our staff. Adam Chow has mentioned others. And just thanks for everyone who contributes to making the arts and creativity and culture such a big part of who we are as San Ramon. So thank you again. All right, we're going to move on to our next proclamation. That's item 6.3. This is a proclamation recognizing the San Ramon Valley Islamic Center and San Ramon American Muslim Community for their contributions to the San Ramon community. Presentation to Faridah Barah, President of San Ramon Valley Islamic Center, and Musa Tariq, Policy Coordinator, Council on American Islamic Relations. So let's, Council Member Rose, you got this? Okay. Yeah, bring it up, anybody you want.

That's fine. Oh, youth committee, okay, awesome. So, shall I first read, then give it to them, or? Sure, for sure, yeah. Okay, so I'll just read, then we'll do the photoshoot, okay? Great. As-salamu alaykum. A proclamation of the City Council of the City of San Ramon recognizing the San Ramon Valley Islamic Center, SRVIC, and the San Ramon American Muslim Community for their contributions to the San Ramon Community. Whereas, freedom of religion holds distinction as a cherished and essential right and a fundamental value upon which this nation was founded. And whereas, Muslims have been part of US history from the beginning and have contributed to the production of wealth and construction of the nation, they are also part of the rich history of the civil rights movement. And whereas, Muslims are teachers, lawyers, doctors, social workers, tech workers, nurses and business owners among numerous other valued professions as well as peace builders, activists, entrepreneurs and politicians and whereas There is a thriving community of 250,000 Muslims in the Bay Area and over 50 mosques and religious centers. And Muslims pursue diverse professions and make rich contributions to the social, cultural, and economic vibrancy of the United States. and have distinguished themselves by fostering greater respect and understanding among all people through faith and services, and whereas the San Ramon Valley Islamic Center, in partnership with other Bay Area mosques and organizations, runs one of the most active direct service charitable programs in the Bay Area, packing and distributing food, touching hundreds of families annually, highway cleanups, blood drives, and food bank support totaling $25,000 plus annually. In collaboration with Muslim Community Center East Bay, volunteers this year reached a significant milestone, the repair and donations of 1,000 bikes to individuals and families in need. With over 20 interfaith and civic partnerships, SRVIC is not just a mask, it's a civic institution and trusted neighbors serving individuals of every background. Whereas it is appropriate to acknowledge and promote awareness of the myriad of invaluable contributions of Muslims in California and across the country and extend to them The respect and camaraderie every person deserves. Now, therefore, be it resolved that the City Council of the City of San Ramon does hereby recognize the California State designation of April as American Muslim Appreciation and Awareness Month to acknowledge the rich history, contributions, and guiding virtues of Muslims and to commend all Muslim communities in California for the lasting positive impact that they have made toward the advancement of our city and country. This is signed by Mayor Mark Armstrong, dated April 14, 2026. Congratulations.

All right.

Good evening Mayor Armstrong and honorable council members and staff. My name is Ibrahim and I'm honored to stand before you representing the Youth Committee of the San Ramon Valley Islamic Center. On behalf of the San Ramon Valley Islamic Center and the broader Muslim community, thank you for this proclamation recognizing April as American Muslim Appreciation and Heritage Month. This recognition is very meaningful to us. It reflects both the long-standing contributions of Muslims in this country and the role our local community plays here in San Ramon. At the San Ramon Valley Islamic Center, we strive to serve our neighbors through initiatives like food distribution, flood drives, blood drives, and interfaith partnerships, efforts that bring people together and strengthen our city. As youth leaders in the Muslim community, we are especially inspired to continue this work by giving back, building connections, and contributing positively to our community. For example, this past November, the Youth Committee partnered with the Interfaith Council of Contra Costa County to host a coat drive. And thanks to the generosity of our donors, we were able to donate more than 240 coats in total, with more than 130 coats contributed by the Muslim community. In that same spirit, we are excited to share that SRVIC, the San Ramon Valley Islamic Center, is becoming a new food distribution partner with the Contra Costa and Solano Food Bank. We will be soft launching the food distribution this weekend with a goal of serving up to 150 families on a bi-weekly basis. Once again, thank you for this recognition and for your continued support of our community. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Others that wish to speak? No? Okay. All right. Council members? Have you come down this way? Council members, why not?

As-salamu alaykum. Wa alaykum as-salam. And Mabrou, congratulations. And it's really great to see that the community leadership starts, you know, at a very young age. And we're very proud to have the Muslim community and you guys really take the lead in helping our citizens and helping each other. So thank you again and congratulations. Very well deserved and a great recognition all around. Congratulations. Thank you.

Okay, we'll come down to Council Member Adler.

Yeah, it's really a pleasure that we could present the proclamation to you and that you could be here with us today and kind of get the word out. Maybe there are some people that don't know about your organization and your center and want to be a part of something really important and loving and good for the community. So you've brought that to our attention and look forward to seeing you throughout the year and throughout the years as you help build San Ramon in the future. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for all your great contributions to our community. It's great to see, as the council member Joannette said, it's always great to see our youth being part of this leadership. Thanks to all elders and parents who are supporting them. You know Santa Monica is all about diversity and we are very happy and always there to support you for all your endures that can make our San Ramon City a better place to live, continue to make it better. So we are always there. You can just call me or if you need, email me anything that I can do from my side. So once again, thank you very much for all your great work.

Thank you.

Thank you, Abraham. And thank you to all of you who attended this evening and for all that SRVIC does for our community. I loved hearing about the food partnership That's coming up. We do this annually. We recognize all the great work of our Muslim American community here in San Ramon. So thank you and pass on our thanks to those in the community for all the great work that you do on behalf of our city council. So thank you. Thank you so much. All right, that concludes item six. We're gonna move on to item seven, deferred consent items. And so we have pulled item 5.4, which is a resolution number 2026-041, approving the display of the progress pride flag. The recommendation is approve that resolution, but do we have a staff report, please?

So good evening mayor and council members. The item before you is a request to display the progress pride flag during June of 2026, consistent with the city's flag display policy. If approved, the flag would be installed at the corner of El Costa Boulevard and Bollinger Canyon Road and shown on the city hall marquee. On April 28th, 2021, the City Council approved a resolution adopting a use of city flagpoles and flag display policy. So it is recommended that the City Council consider this resolution to display the flag.

Okay. Do we have any questions regarding the staff report or on the policy? Who would like to offer up the first question? I've got a question. We heard during public comment this evening something about a policy change at the federal level. Do we have any understanding of how that currently affects our jurisdiction? Our policy specifically is regard to a commemorative flagpole, not the city hall or our public facility flagpoles, but Do you have any sense for the application of any change in policy?

Yes, I can tell you that there are no federal statutes in place that have an effect on local jurisdictions, city halls, or public establishments. So the city is free to adopt its own policy and fly the flag as its own city speech. Okay.

All right. Other questions? Yeah, just questions for now Okay, then I like to open it up for public comment on this item and Do we have any speaker cards?

We do our first speaker is Greg Carr. I

Greg Carson, I need not take your time up. I already spoke my view of this during public comment. That stands. I think that, again, anything that we approve to put up on a flagpole in this city needs to be approved by the five of you. And we need to hear from the five of you why and your justification for it. Because the community, as you have expressed, especially you, Mr. Verros, is a diverse place, and people have diverse opinions, and I think they need to be heard. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Make San Ramon Great Again.

Council members, I feel that this particular flagpole that is constructed and erected just for the purpose of flying special flags is really an opportunity for you guys to receive or to give favor to those who contribute to your elections or that you guys socialize. Because this doesn't make any sense. The flag was trying to fly under the radar of the public as a blanket under the consent agenda. And also, this is scheduled really for June, but it is only April. So to me, there is that sneaky characteristic attached somehow with this particular request. And for some reason, it is always the same council member every year. I confirmed that this morning with the phone call. Year after year, this particular flag is always requested by council member V. Rose. What does that tell me? That tells me that only he cares about this and none of you really do. Now, you should open yourself up then if this is not a perk. I should be able to come to you and fly whatever flag that I think, you know, is worthy. Whatever that could be. However, I am not connected with a corrupt council member. So I don't know how to do this. So every year only a particular interest group gets to do this. Despite I pay taxes, I don't know how much taxes they pay. They probably bribe. I don't bribe. So my opportunity is not the same. How is that American? Where is the equality for everyone? There is no equality. This is indeed corrupt and extremely stealthy. It should not be passed under consent agenda. Shame on you guys trying to blanket this. as something under the radar of the public. I appreciate Mr. Carr for pulling this. I know I could not have done it. So it really takes everyone to keep America great and to keep San Ramon great because I have learned that when we go snoozing, the council members becomes lackadaisical and then you become corrupt because you don't really, have to earn my votes now because you are all district represented. Before the corrupt California forced everyone to gerrymander and vote district, I could vote for all of you. All of a sudden, I have lost. 75% of my voting power as a democratic citizen. So now I can only say, shame on you. I cannot vote for you, but I can tell you, you do not have my confidence.

Okay. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

There are no more speaker cards.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Any written comment on this?

No.

Okay. I just remind members of the public, if you do have any evidence of bribery or corruption, please bring it up to the appropriate district attorney's office or law enforcement, and it should be looked into. But with that, let's move on to the council and go on with comments, and then we'll end up seeing where we want to go in terms of a vote. I'll make the first comment, though. has been on consent for the five years since we had this policy. So, this is not the first time we've had it on consent. Okay. Council Member Vero?

So, one of the reason that why I'm the one who is requesting for this into the calendar, I just want to make sure I address that question. I'm part of founding member and steering committee member of San Ramon Valley Diversity Coalition and San Ramon SRVDC, San Ramon Valley Diversity Coalition mission is to respect and honor all our diverse community members in our community. We need to hear their voices, understand their concerns and apply effective measures to address their concerns as well as their So that's a part of SRVDC. That's the reason that is coming through me most of the time. I work with many other diverse communities, right? So we should be proud that San Ramon is a hub for diversity and we should be respectful. We should take care of our community members. That's the reason they elect us. And if we deny their privilege, to be part of this community, then it's pretty much we are denying their basic civil rights, which is not acceptable. So for me, this is the right thing to do. That's why I always put this request and I always support it. That's my comment.

Okay. All right. Thank you. House members, Ryan up.

Thank you to the members of the public. I do believe we need to revisit this in the public. The policy committee meeting, again, the flag, I have a longstanding belief as well that city facilities, public facilities should only really fly three flags, the state flag, the city flag, and our country's flag. I do see the parks make better flag. I don't think even that flag should fly. I think only three flags should fly on city property. And those are the only three flags. Notwithstanding anything else, I don't think there's anything that the city does that obstructs people's freedom of speech. We have no policy against renting out halls to people that want to celebrate pride, celebrate Black History Month, celebrate whatever. We don't have that policy. And we're very grateful for that and that city to be able to have that open communication and openness. But I think when it comes to our civic responsibility and duties and public property. And I think it should really be beholden to only just three flags. And I know there's two others that Congress have approved, the POW and the Blue Star flag as well. That's my comment.

Okay. Just to make sure, Council Member Joannet, it is not our city flagpole. Just to make sure you understand that this policy that made worse For the flag, commemorative flagpole, which is not the city flagpole. Just I want to make sure we are clear on that. And this is a policy which was placed five years back. And it's not like something new policy. I just want to make sure. It's city property though, right? The property is city property, but the flagpole is not the city flagpole. like in our front of our city hall, that's not the flagpole we use. So this is a different commemorative flagpole that we use for all the flags.

Okay.

All right. Council Member Adler.

Yeah, I kind of watched this happen originally in Dublin when there was, I watched some of these city council meetings when there was a lot of controversy initially and a lot of these issues were coming up about why we have an individual flag like that. But I really think the gay community has had a history of a lot of violence against them in the early days of New York and it's been a persecuted community and I think what we are trying to do here is just say you're welcome in our community. We're not you know, going out and giving speeches and everything, but we are just saying we care about you as members in our community and we wish you the best and we wish you love and respect. And I think if they didn't have a history, this community, maybe it wouldn't be necessary. But there has been a lot of violence. If you read about the history of the gays in this country, they've been heavily persecuted. But I think we just basically want to welcome them like we welcome other members in our community. And I don't see anything wrong with being loving and welcoming to this group who has been persecuted. You gotta recognize that, and I think if you care about people, a flag like that is a good thing. So it just shows that we care.

All right, thank you. I just pulled up the policy itself, and there's one statement in there that says, commemorative flags representing political organizations, for-profit organizations, religious organizations, or nations shall be prohibited from being displayed But there are some latitude in there as those are the specifically called out prohibited ones. So yeah, this is an important discussion. I appreciate the perspectives that we've heard from the community. I appreciate the perspectives that we've heard. I've heard from my colleagues. Our flagpoles, they're not public forums. They're a form of government expression. So when we raise a flag, it represents the city of San Ramon and the values that we choose to communicate. We've talked about some of those values tonight. In past years, we've approved flying the pride flag as a statement of inclusion that everybody in our community is seen, is respected, is welcome. That intent matters and it matters in a meaningful way. But at the same time, I also recognize that some view this differently today. And we have concerns about where we draw the line with our commemorative flags. So the question that's really before us is not really just about one flag. To me, it's about consistency. It's how we uphold our policy while balancing inclusion with our responsibility to represent the entire community. And having said that, I think that the decision we make tonight should be grounded in clarity and consistency and respect, but with the goal of bringing our community together. I agree with Councilmember Zweinert, though, that I think it's time. We've had this policy for five years. We made it, I was on policy committee at the time we made this policy in 2021. It's been five years, and it is probably time that we re-look the policy to make sure that it is still representing what we wanted to represent or achieving the goals of what we want. But having said that, I've said my piece, and unless there's any other comment. We'll go for a vote.

Mayor, prior to the vote, I am hearing from two council members that there's interest of reviewing the policy. I do need one other council member to agree with a policy review at the policy committee level in order to accomplish that. So do we have three council members that are willing to review the policy?

I'm good with it. I'm okay with reviewing the policy, but not voting on this vote today, right?

We're still going to vote on the matter at hand is for This current month of June is coming up as to whether or not we display the pride flag. A future policy discussion is a separate issue.

I was just looking for direction to put it on a future policy committee agenda to review the policy. So if I have three nodding heads, at least, hopefully four.

I'm good with having this policy coming back and to review. That's not a problem for me.

I think the other thing is that we're voting tonight one way or the other on the current issue, but also once it goes to policy, if there were to be any kind of a change, then we would have the opportunity to have the full council consider that as well. Yeah.

Considering this is a policy and we have a policy committee, it would be prudent to take it to that committee first for input, and then we would bring it back to the full council for review. Yeah. Okay.

All right. Any other questions or discussion?

Okay.

All right, so we'll go ahead and vote.

Mayor, can we get a motion and a second?

Yeah, it's a good idea.

Thank you. Can I get a motion? Do I need to read everything or is it okay to say? Let me get that one.

Can I get a motion to approve 5.4 as a resolution number 2026-041 approving that that's an approval for the resolution, the display of the progress pride flag or, and again, There's some issues here, so we're voting on that unless someone offers an alternate motion.

So I move the motion, 5.4 resolution number 2026014, approving the display of the progress pride flag.

I second that.

All right, we have a motion by Councilmember DeRosa, second by Councilmember Adler. And please put up the screen. Okay, so motion passes 3-0 with one member absent, and we'll move to Policy Committee. I'm sorry? Yeah, 3-0. Yeah, I'm sorry. So we'll move on to Item 8, Unfinished Business, 8.1, Public Hearing, Resolution Number 2026-047, Adopting the master fee schedule for various municipal services for fiscal year 2026-27 and repealing resolution number 2025-036. And we have a staff report by Yulia Elbow, our budget manager. Good evening. Good to see you again.

Good evening. Good evening, Mayor Armstrong. Good evening, members of the Council. So we are bringing our Master Fee Schedule Staff Report today, second reading, for adoption of the Master Fee Schedule for the fiscal year 26-27. In accordance with the State of California Government Code, Section 25-104, 25-909.5 and 6.6. Sorry, Yuliya, could you put the microphone close to you?

I apologize, I couldn't hear.

Yeah. These state government codes allow government agencies to establish fees to offset costs in processing permits, licenses, subdivision maps, and entitlements and other services. As part of the preparation for the annual budget development, it is recommended to review fees for services to re-evaluate their reasonable cost basis. and remove fees as related to changes in services provided, as well as any legal requirements that could have changed since the passing of the previous Master Fee Schedule. Having an adopted Master Fee Schedule allows us to project charges for services, which is the fourth largest revenue source in the general fund revenue. In the past, the city would engage consultants to reevaluate professional services, to reevaluate reasonability of the user fee charges for services. The latest study was conducted by Metric Consulting Group in 2024, and the city council adopted the result of that study at their meeting on April 23 of 2024. These fees were the basis for establishment the master fee schedule for the fiscal year 24-25. The study also recommended the methodology for adjusting the fees in the future years, some based on the consumer price index, CPI, and other fees to be adjusted based on the California construction cost index, depending on the types of the fees. In addition, in accordance with the Mitigation Fee Act AB 1600 provisions, as amended by AB 602, the next study shall be updated at least every eight years. This past year, the latest study was, previously to current year, the latest study was conducted in 2017. In our March 10, 2026 meeting, we brought the results of the most current fee study that was conducted by David Tarson and Associates for development fees establishment and re-evaluation. City Council approved that next study at that meeting. It also provided recommendations for the appeal fee structure and set a public hearing date for the adoption of the fiscal year 26-27 master fee schedule. During the meeting, when the fees were reviewed, the council provided direction on the appeal fee structure. And that, we will come to this a little later, to the appeal fee structure. So overall, there are 1,013 fees in the new fee, master fee schedule for the fiscal year 26-27. 480 fees were not changed in accordance with the matrix user fee study recommendations. Some of the fees are exempt for being adjusted. 521 fees were adjusted, and there were 12 new fees added to the fee schedule. Ten of them were to make the fee schedule more consistent, and there were also two new fees added since March 10, 2026 meeting. Those new fees are collection agency administration fee, which will be charged per case at actual cost, and firearm storage fee, which will be charged per month per case. From the fees that were adjusted from 221 fees, 424 were adjusted at the CPI index of 2.82, and 30 were adjusted using the construction cost index of 0.6%. Remaining fees were adjusted based on the actual labor cost to reflect market rate and to be consistent across all of the locations. I wanted to give a little more clarification of these two new fees that were added after the March 10 meeting, particularly collection agency fees fee was added in the cases when the parties are delinquent in being balanced owned and the remedies that are available to the city is refer those cases to the collection agency. Referring cases to the collection agency is very high efficient option for the city to utilize and especially when the cost could be passed to the debtor. The cost of the collection agency services could be as high as 33%. And setting this fee at actual cost allows us to not pass the cost of the delinquent account to the city of San Ramon taxpayers. The other fee that was added, firearm storage fee, is applicable to the situation when the firearm is confiscated during a call for service. After a five day grace period and monthly fee is charged to cover the storage, inventory and Compliance costs. Victims of firearm theft are exempt from this fee during the pause period and litigation. Owners received notice of fees and may sell or transfer the firearm to a licensed dealer. In addition, there is one clarification to the language in the attachment to the resolution. And that clarification was requested by the Parks and Community Services and is read as follows. Fees that are currently defined as nonprofit, it should read San Ramon-based nonprofit organizations. And fees that are currently stated as resident, non-resident nonprofit, they should be read as San Ramon resident, non-San Ramon-based nonprofit organizations.

Can you say again where that is?

These are pages... 14, 15, 16 of the attachment to the resolution. In the parks community services section of the fees.

Okay, just give me a second and I'm going to probably ask you to say it again.

Of course.

Because I don't have it as page 14, 15, and 16. All right, so just can anybody else have trouble finding it? Just say again what the correction was.

The fees that are currently named non-profit, and most of them are fees for the rental services for various buildings.

Okay. And so you're talking about in the schedule here? Yeah. Okay.

In the schedule.

Got it. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

So we wanted to present separately a slide for the structure of the appeal fees as it was approved by the Council on March 10 meeting. Per Council direction, these appeal fees are included in the presented Master Fee Schedule. And when the applicant files an appeal, the applicant will be required to pay a deposit for this new structure. In the cases when the appeal is successful, and only in those cases, the applicant will be, which means it's completely overturning in prior approval, the applicant will be eligible for a full refund of that deposit. Now we come into the financial impacts of this new fee schedule. City Council's directives have been implemented to fully recover costs of providing services unless those fields were exempt as per study matrix user group user fee study in 2024. Specific financials impact will be different depending on the type of the fee and where that fee brings their revenue to the general fund or other funds. Most of the impact derived from the nexus fee study will be in special revenue funds and not in the general fund. And the finance department will continue to administer and re-evaluate Master Fee Schedule with the aim to have a 100% cost recovery or as close as possible to the 100% cost recovery. Our recommendation at the end of this presentation, we recommended to adopt fiscal year 26-27 master fee schedule as presented, including the proposed language clarification for the parks community services fees as referenced on slide number five. In addition, we want to make another notice. The resolution does not specify the date for the repeal of the Resolution number 2025-03, and we will need to have a clarification on that date, and our city attorney can walk you through the process. That date should say June 30th, 2026.

Yeah, if I could just direct your attention to section three of the resolution. It says resolution number 2025-036 is hereby repealed. I'd like to just make that clear. that resolution will not be repealed until this one takes effect. So the language then should read, this resolution shall repeal and replace resolution number 2025-036, effective July 1st, 2026. And when you make your motion, you could make the motion to adopt the resolution if that's what the maker of the motion wants to do. And with the changes as described by staff and the city attorney, that would be sufficient.

Okay. All right, thank you.

That's the end of the presentation.

All right, thank you, Yuli, for the presentation. Do we have any questions from council members for staff?

Sorry, quick question maybe to the city manager. Regarding our business license fees, do we collect the tax on receipts for business license?

No, and also that's usually a point of confusion with the public. A business license fee is the fee for issuing the business license, the time it takes for the city to issue a business license. A business tax is something that cities adopt that is separate from the business license fee and it collects revenue based on either number of employees, the gross proceeds from the business, a combination of both. Typically for a city of our size generating anywhere between four and seven million a year, we do not have that in San Ramon. We're one of the few cities that does not have a business tax. Okay.

I have no questions. Thank you.

By comparison, I think I've heard Livermore has such a structure, don't they?

Livermore, don't completely quote me on this, but last time I checked, they were in the $8 to $9 million range, and a small business can expect to pay thousands of dollars worth of business tax every year. Again, separate from the business license fee, as some small business owners are indicating. I'm only laughing because my Walnut Creek taxes. Yeah, Walnut Creek has one as well. I think the only other city in the Tri-Valley that does not have Form of business tax is the the city of Dublin and it's becoming rarer and rarer to see that Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Yulia for the presentation All my questions were answered in the previous meeting. Thank you.

Okay Okay, and I have no further questions either. So this is a public hearing so Can I get a motion to open a public hearing? More the motion to open for public hearing okay motion councilmember Rose second councilmember Adler and To vote on that open to public hearing Okay passes for Oh The public hearing is now open, so do we have any comment cards, speaker cards?

We do. Our first speaker is Greg Carr.

Greg Carr, San Juan resident. Thank you, Julia, for herding cats and taking care of fly specks, because that's what this job is. It's a tough job she's got. Several things I'd like to point out. Process. On the first page, page 86, recommendation. Staff recommends that the city council adopt the resolution. Okay, staff seems to like to do that through all departments. I'm surprised we don't have somebody cut that out and change the wording. But then we go to page 89, alternative options. Want to adopt the master fee schedule or provide alternative direction regarding the fees or make no change to the fees. I suggest that that on the fourth page of this staff report be put on the first page, because that's what it should be. The whole concept of collecting fees to recover costs from the citizenry is anathema to me, always will be till the day I die, because we pay taxes. And there's an element of service and involvement by the city government staff, commissions, council, when somebody has a problem. And I gave my example several times in the past about Francisco y Rocio de Chihuahua, Mexico. Nobody takes care of them. And that still stands. I think that's a tragedy. Two new items or fees have been added since March 10th, and they want to pass this through tonight. The general government collection agency fee, there's some conversation about that, but there's nothing in the staff report that talks about firearm storage fees. So when somebody sees this cold, they say, wow, what's this? There needs to be a presentation on the new items or you pull them out. If you're going to approve this tonight, pull those out. Discuss it and come back later and add them in. But don't, again, slide it in here kind of like hat on the flag. That's disappointing for me. Lastly, this morning I received a text email from Brian Swanson, who is a a member of the American Institute of City Planners, of all things, a guy who does his best to express himself verbally, but when he writes, it's excellent. I suggest that you all read his missive, which was rather long, but extensive. I'm talking about five of you, planning department, and especially the planning staff. They might learn something. So I appreciate, again, what the budget folks are doing. That's a bad job, and you have my respect for doing it. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Jim Blickenstaff.

Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. I want to touch on two subjects on fees. And briefly, neighborhood parks. And that's a key factor in the park issue. I think the confusion happened with Nexus when they just started to look at parks in a broader sense. And they seemed to imply that there were sufficient parks for time being, which is subjective in my mind. But the key factor is neighborhood parks. And the difference between them and a community park is you don't usually drive to a neighborhood park. It's local. It's for your community, very local. And also, with the way they're building houses now, Most of them don't have a front yard, most of them don't have a backyard. So the get together you used to have at your house and you'd be in the backyard and barbecue, that doesn't even hardly work anymore. It gets very complicated. And it's a different animal from the community park. So I'd say you want to re-look at this in terms of supplying parks for the local community. I think it's four acres per thousand people. That's a general plan issue, and it needs to be followed because the last time we had that followed was a FRIA project, I believe, where they put 12 acres of park in for about 2,200 people. That covered a community need, too, in some ways. Now, you have 6,000 people in orchards, and you're going to do a two and a half acre park. a functional park and that makes no sense and it's a quality of life issue. The city can handle this one where it can't always deal with the state demands on it. So that's the park subject I think you need to look at further. The fee is still way too high and it still is saying something about how much you want the residents to participate in the appeal process. because $2,500 is quite high compared to the communities along 680. From Concord to Pleasanton, the average is $280 for the citizens, and they make up the difference by combining general funds and vested interest funds to make up the difference to cover a cost. And all these cities seem to be doing quite well with that. I don't see them changing it to 2,500 or 4,500. So I think they're giving you an example of how you can reach out to your citizens for their ability to appeal to the council. So that covers both those. So I have eight seconds left to say thank you and appreciate your listening.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Susie Farris-Syndercombe.

Hello again.

I have a slightly more sound comment over what Mr. Carr was saying. I'm gonna start though by just stating again that for those of us that read it and take our time to make our comments, the current packet is what we're speaking from. So when we come in here and Yuli makes an adjustment, you have to bear in mind that my comments are off that original packet. I also had called around and Lisa and Officer Allen tried their best to answer the questions around the firearm storage fee and they really couldn't answer it. So clearly they've done some research and Yuli was able to provide a verbal update. But this is my point. Council should not approve Resolution 2026-047 tonight unless it openly acknowledges and clearly explains whether the City has actually satisfied the applicable statutory notice and disclosure requirements for all fees now proposed for the fiscal year 26 to 27 master fee schedule, specifically the two newly added fees. If the city cannot identify on record which notice applies to each new fee, and whether the required supporting cost data and explanatory materials are timely disclosed under the statute, then the city should defer those two new fees and return them separately under the correct statutory timeline rather than postpone action on the appeal fee framework. The two new fees, the collective agency administration fee and the firearm storage fee, but only one of those fees is meaningfully described in the current packet. The staff report provides a short paragraph explaining it. It offers no comparable explanation for the new firearm storage fee, which the master fee schedule lists as $30 per month. So there needs to be a cost explanation. The packet also does not explain what specifically triggers that fee, whether it applies to firearms, Firearms held as evidence, held for safekeeping, or for something else. The lack of clarity regarding this new firearm storage fee is particularly concerning and confusing given the recent passage of the Safe Storage of Firearms Ordinance 521 that was passed on 11-28-2023. Residents can find information regarding the ordinance in Municipal Code B7-250. There is no municipal code in Chapter 12, Firearms, that addresses either the new storage fee or the existing retrieval fee. So I would ask that those be cleaned up, redone, parsed out, and brought back so the public has time to review them. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Make America Great Again.

Hi, council members. I am going to speak with love, but I'm going to speak honestly. This is sacrilegious, and it is an attack on our democracy. Why? Because who in their right status as general public, member of the general public, is able to afford $1,500, $2,500, You are really trying to deter us from appealing. So what does that make you? Communist. This is a complete communist resolution that you're trying to pass tonight. And if you have any good sense in you, I hope you will refrain from passing it, but mull over it. Because you are... Your fiduciary duty lies with us, not with the affordable housing developers, not with Sunset. I still recall, and there are four of you, I'm going to speak again with Council Member V. Rose only, because he's the only person at the time of COVID that did this to me. At the time of COVID, there was one incidence in our city where you guys were trying to passed a resolution to help Sandbox VR that is now at the lot retail area. Of course, that was brought on by Sunset. And I try to appeal, not for my own good, but for the good of everyone's children, because Sandbox VR's business involves attaching digital and electronic parts to our children's body parts. And I was concerned that we were trying to pass that resolution with an arcane, arcade law that was passed back in 1980s. Maybe Council Member V. Rose was new at the time. He never stood on my side, despite that he is elected for diversity. He was never on my side as diversity. He sided with business, and me, I lost, I believe, $1,500. Good cash. All for what? For trying to speak up for everyone, and I have to pay. I am not poor. I'm an American. I do my part to keep our democracy alive, to protect our great country. So many of our ancestors, I call them ancestors despite I don't look like them. But without them, there won't be a me. So I call them my ancestors. You should call them as your ancestors as well. They bled for our country. And this is what you're trying to do, pass communist fees so that we can all be quiet. Shame on you again.

Next speaker, please.

Pascales Natatos.

Do we have an opportunity to see the schedule on the big screen, page 33 or no? I can speak. I need two pages, page 33 if possible, and page two after that. Just in case. You don't have the schedule?

I don't have a way to. Okay. It can be pulled up over there, but I can't pull it up here.

Okay.

Do you have the fee schedule?

I don't know how to use this.

The council does have it before them, so they should be able to pull that up.

Pascalis Datsos, it is residents. Just came here for another pair of eyes, maybe in a different opinion. If we jump into page 33, it refers for pricing, co-sponsor groups. resident, non-resident for renting 25 yards pool. If you see there, it applies the 2.82 CPI index as an increase. And then with the fine print on the right side of the page, it refers to as round up to the nearest dollar. So some quick calculations which I should expect to be more obvious on presentations like this. It's round up to the dollar. It makes a significant increase towards what's going to be the actual fee increase. So the 2.82%, it brings up to, from $12, it brings up from $12 to $12.32. and then rounding up, it goes up to 13, and that's an increase of 66 cents difference, which means an overall, an addition 5.35% increase. So the actual increase by rounding up to the dollar is 8.33. Additionally, for the resident, Then we go on the compound effect, where actually it doubled down. It increased the fees. It round up to the dollar plus the 25% plus round up to the dollar. So for a resident, the actual increase is going to end up being 13.33%. And then for the non-resident, it's going to be 15.79%. And these are actual numbers that we will hope that will be there. Now, I don't have much time, but I'm going to jump into page two, which refers to business license renewal. In business license renewal, you will see a 341 as a fiscal year increase from 331, 2.82% increase. First of all, as you see, from zero to five employees, from 50 plus employees, everybody pays the same fee, which you can calculate if that is fair for the small business. but there is no fee of 340.5 right now, 341. If you open up the city's website, you will see the actual fee for everybody is 350.23 cents, not 340. Plus, last year, the 341 wasn't the actual fee for all business license. Either you have one location or more, it was different pricing. Last year, I paid $236, which doesn't include right now in this document. And this year, I paid 48% more. And these are numbers that you are missing from this report. Please retract this report, recalculate, bring the right numbers. As you are exposed to litigation, fines and maybe state audit if you accept this proposal as valid. That's my two cents. Thank you. Thank you.

Next speaker, please.

Chirag Kathrani.

Hello Mayor and Council Members. So the key point I'm focusing on is appeal fees which I had previously mentioned as well and thanks for bringing it down from 4500 to 2500 deposit. But again the word deposit itself makes it unclear for anyone to know how much the real fees is going to be. Technically, it's still unlimited. If you really want to have people get a good idea, at least make sure that it's 2500 period, not even 2500 deposit. And I think this could be pretty clearly be done. And past four, five years, nobody has appealed except the last appeal that happened in the last hearing. And even in that hearing, it's probably going to go into lawsuit. So I believe, so please make it a fixed amount, not a variable amount, and probably like any other city where it is around $300. We need to be more reasonable with our residents. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Anthony DeAngelis.

Good evening Mr Mayor, members of the Council. I first want to commend all of you and thank you for the progressive motion you passed a while ago. Thank you for that. I'm actually taking off what Mr Pascales had tabled just a while ago and I urge the Council to actually review the proposed fees. Now I'll take a slightly different tack from him because I think he spoke to the numbers. This involves small businesses, not-for-profits. My daughter has been with the swim team that Mr. Paskalis runs for more than four years now. Now, there are hundreds of swimmers, athletes that rely on these services. We had proclamations just a while ago involving culture, arts, religion, sports is something that's equally important to the residents of San Ramon. Now, these kind of increases will have an adverse impact on businesses, for one, small businesses, not-for-profits. Many of them are run as not-for-profits. And more than that, it's going to have an impact on the ability of parents to afford to send their kids to participate in such activities. So I really urge that you reconsider this because it's important for the young people of San Ramon. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

There are no more speaker cards, but we did receive written public comment from Brian Swanson, which is before you and also in the red binder in the back of the room.

Okay. All right, thank you. And I'm going to call for a motion to close the public hearing. I move the motion to close the public hearing. Okay.

I second.

Make sure you've got your speaker on, too. We have a motion, Council Member Rose. Second, Council Member Adler. Okay, public hearing is closed. Passes 4-0-0. And now it's to the council. Any, based on public comment in the public hearing portion, any Clarifying questions for staff again or any comments before we move forward?

I definitely want to note some clarifications on one of the public comment about the fee on the website versus what is on this one. So let's make sure we get that clarification. And also just to make sure that. I'm sorry, which one? One of the public comment was about the Pascal made a comment about the difference of the 352 versus the 341 license fee and how the increment is changing. So I just want to make sure we get that clarification on that. Also one more, I mean, I want to add another question now or afterwards.

Or if you'd like that clarification, I did pull up our business license application fee. And on the business license, it states under fee schedule, it's underlined bold and highlighted in yellow that SB 1186 is a state law signed by Governor Brown that requires a 4.6% technology surcharge fee included in all fees. So that's why it shows that total on our business license application. That's the 4.6 fee. There's also, I won't read the whole thing, but there is a paragraph explaining why there's that additional 4.6%.

Thanks for that. My next question is about another public comment about how it is going to be tough for the parents for their kids to participate in the sports. Just to make sure we are clear on this one, that we are only recovering the cost with these phases, right? Especially when we are, as a matter of fact, if I remember right, for our community parks and community programs, most of them we even subsidize rather than even recovering the cost. We end up giving money to those programs rather than recovering full cost. So could you please clarify on that one?

I would say in general for our parks programs, the fees recover about 50% of the total parks budget. So just in general, the fees generate about that much. So if you were to look for a total cost recovery for parks, you would have to increase the fees year to year by another 50%, double the fees.

Okay.

Thanks.

Thanks for clarifying those questions.

Okay. Any other clarification?

Yeah, I do have a quick clarification question.

It goes to the public comment regarding the collection agency administration fee and the firearm storage fee. It makes sense to me, the optics of it makes sense to me why we're doing it. I'm just curious, was there any merit regarding the notice, et cetera, or maybe we had it in a prior time and I wasn't here and it was discussed and I... It was before my time maybe, I don't know, so I wanted to.

Well, government code 66016 requires that the new or proposed fees or fee increases are made available to the public. The information on those increases are made available to the public 10 days before adoption. Those fees were listed on the city's website and included in the staff report as well.

And that's the collection agency fee as well, including the, both fees, right? Both fees. Okay, both fees.

What was that statute? Sorry, the attorney. 66016. 66016. Thank you. A.

Thank you.

House Member Adler. I had the same question. Well, let me follow up on that same point then. The two new fees, you know, honestly, we've been talking about this now for several months. And so since the time we've been talking about it, there's two new fees here. We've got 12 new fees overall, if I read the report right, for the year. So if we delay it more, we're allowed to have more fees. I mean, so at some point, we've got to put a stake in it and move on and then that becomes the new baseline and then next year we'll be doing this again with other new fees and changes and things like that. But I guess my question is in the staff report I heard what the public said about it's you know we had regarding the two new fees there was a description under general government for the collection agency administration fee there was a description there but just listed police department fire storage fee. You adequately, to my satisfaction, you adequately explained it in your presentation. So I guess my question for, you know, council, city manager, city attorney is, is that sufficient explanation for the public? We get a lot of things that we're It's not all there in the staff report, but then there's clarification in a presentation when we come to the meeting. But as one of the members of the public said, all they have before they come in here is what's in the staff report. And so that's what they're prepared to talk about. So I understand that. But is it adequately explained with, I guess, technical legal sufficiency? Let me kind of go back to the city attorney in the report that we received this evening.

It, as far as, um, the legality of the notice that I'm, I'm comfortable with it. However, there is room for the council to, uh, to require additional time with the. with the newer descriptions or more detailed descriptions to be under public scrutiny for another full 10 days if that's what the council decides.

Or those two new fees, whether it's 10 days or not, those two new fees just get wrapped into next year. and they're just not included in this year's fee schedule and they just get wrapped into next year's fee schedule? I'm asking.

That is an option.

Okay. All right. Any other questions? Okay. I'm so sorry, Mary.

Quick question. Just regarding the collection in general, the collection agency, this is for folks that are delinquent and you hire an outside firm to collect. Got it. Okay.

After we exhaust our two notices that we sent from the city staff, then it goes to collections.

I see. I see. And I remember we stopped putting liens. We stopped doing that. Okay. Thank you.

Okay, so I want to make sure I understand where we're at right now in terms of we've got a resolution, we've got a resolution with changes as indicated by staff as well as the city attorney. Are there any other changes that we want to make to the resolution before we move forward with voting on whether to adopt or modify or reject?

I mean, look, I think it makes sense we pull the firearm and we pull the collection agency fee and have a discussion later on. I mean, it makes sense, right?

Okay. Anyone else want to pull those two items off of this current fee schedule?

I would agree with that.

Mayor, I'd also ask that we receive direction of when you would like it brought back to the council. Is this a standalone item to talk about these two specific fees? If we were to modify our fee schedule, would we bring it back? I guess we could bring it back at any time, just checking with the city attorney.

Could bring it back at any time, or you could continue this particular item and still fold it back into the fee schedule. I don't know what that does to the budget calendar, but if that would affect the budget calendar. Yeah.

Yeah.

They're not going to significantly, not including those two phases, not going to significantly include results of our budget as we develop it. Not adopting, we, by law, if, again, I'm speaking from my memory, we need to have 60 days before the fees get into effect. So if we delay adoption of the whole fee schedule, we're getting closer to beginning of the next fiscal year and the fees may not get affected.

Yeah, let me re-clarify my comment. No, I was not suggesting at all to push the Master Fee Schedule. I was suggesting Those two fees. Based on my understanding of the budget that was presented by Ms. Wakeman a couple meetings ago, that these two fees, they were never, I never saw them calculated in our budget schedule.

No, those are completely new fees.

So I'm comfortable requesting to remove those two fees, but I want to continue moving on with approving the master fee schedule. Okay. Okay, thank you.

And also, Mayor, to continue to clarify, if we do get direction to pull those two fees, what additional information that you would like to receive? I believe we've had about as much explanation as we can give tonight with the firearm storage fee and what it is for, and also for the collection fee. So I would ask what other information that you would like and what other actions that you'd like to take. And then also... realizing that we do have quite the packed agendas coming up when the council would like to see it. We're trying to make sure that we accommodate all the items that are on the docket to discuss.

Yeah, I understand. Both of these new items, do we have a feel for if you say they're not going to really affect the budget, have we ever I mean, are we talking about $25, $50, $100 maybe affecting the budget over the next year, $500, $1,000?

I will need to hear from our PD people to see how many cases we may have on the collection agency fees. We, as a staff, city staff makes all the efforts to collect all the delinquent accounts, and we do what we can. without engaging collection agencies, but if we can go toward the direction of engaging collection agencies and not incur the cost to the city, that will be possibly.

I'm just trying to get a scope of what we're talking about. If we pull those two items and defer it until next year, is our general fund going to sink?

No, it's not.

Okay. Even, like, how many do we get something like that per financial year? How many collection case issues?

Delinquent items?

Like, roughly, not.

We have not been particularly aggressive in our collection agencies. So it would just be based on how aggressively we wanted to put everything into the pipeline.

Okay. So this, to me, is sort of an academic drill, okay, with no real impact on the budget. But having said that, if there's concern in the public, I'm okay with pulling two items. I'm okay with pulling two items and deferring it until next year's fee schedule and just include in there the sufficient details we heard from the verbal explanation tonight in the staff report. That would be sufficient for me. And then we move on with the rest of the fee schedule as modified by staff and the city attorney previously. That would be my suggestion, but... We can talk about it all night long, but these aren't going to break the bank on us. And so it's to me, pull them out. But happy to hear what else you got to say.

I move the motion on public hearing resolution number 2026-047, adopting the master fee schedule for various municipal services for fiscal year 2026-27 and repealing Resolution number 2025-036. And do I need to add anything else to that?

So is that with or without the two fees?

Without those two fees.

Without the two fees and then as modified by staff and the city attorney during the hearing. And I just want to confirm that that's clear enough for the city clerk.

Yes, we have it.

Okay. We have motion by council member for us with those adjustments.

I second it.

We have a second by council members. Why not? And I do just in terms of just other discussion, I mean, we are in the budget process and this is essential to get completed so we can complete our budget process and do it on time in accordance with all our legal requirements. So, uh, yeah, let's take it to the vote.

Also, one quick comment on that one. So as myself, small business owner and also a non-profit organization founder for sports, heavily involved with youth sports. I understand I'm very empathetic for these organizations. But then, in the end, the key is that we need to recover the staff, always working towards to make sure that we recover the cost. That's what we need to supposed to do because we don't want to get into, again, a budget deficit or structural deficit issues. If we don't want to get into that, then we need to be cognizant about our fees, about recovering our cost. So that's the reason I'm moving forward with this.

Okay. We have a motion and a second. Okay, motion passes 4-0-0. And we're going to move on now to, thank you, Yulia, for the report. And we're going to move on to item, I guess we're at what, new business? Item 9.1, public hearing status of the city's vacancies, recruitment, retention efforts, and calendar 2025 in compliance with government code section 31. 502.3, Assembly Bill 2561. It's time for your annual report on vacancies.

Very exciting.

Hi, Megan.

Good evening. Let me get it pulled up here. Okay, good evening, Mayor, members of the council. So I am here this evening to provide a presentation to you in compliance with AB2561. As some of you may recall from last year, AB2561 went into effect January 1st of 2025, and it updated the Myers-Millius Brown Act, or the MMBA. Specifically, what it added is an obligation for municipal agencies to conduct a public hearing each year on their vacancies, recruitment, and retention efforts, and any obstacles to the hiring process. So we will do this. We did this last year. We'll do this every year as part, but prior to the annual budget adoption. So we are not asking the council to take any action tonight besides receiving this information and asking any questions. I'm very proud and pleased to share this information because like last year, I have good numbers to share. So with that... Some general vacancy information. Our average number of vacancies at the end of each month for calendar year 2025 was 9.2%. The highest number of vacancies we had at the end of a month was 11.1, our highest percentage, excuse me, and the lowest percentage of vacancies at the end of a month was 6.6%. i do want to call out you'll see that the number of budgeted ftes had a pretty dramatic change from june to july of 2025 and that was part of the annual budget adoption process for fiscal year 2025-2026 we cleaned up some things with our position control so that's why you'll see that kind of dramatic shift in the total number of budgeted ftes I can also tell you that as of March of 2026, just as some additional information, our current vacancy rate is at 8.9%. As for vacancies by bargaining unit, we kind of look at our two labor groups plus our unrepresented group. So at the end of calendar year 2025, we had six vacancies. Within SEIU, employees represented by SEIU, that's a 10.2 percentage of the budget FDs represented by SEIU. Within our San Ramon Police Officers Association, there were four vacancies, or 6.3% of the positions represented by the POA, and 21 of our unrepresented positions were vacant for 14% of those positions. Generally for recruitment in calendar year 2025, we filled 46 vacancies. We were able to access existing eligibility lists for four of those vacancies. All the other vacancies were filled either by an external or internal recruitment. What we call an internal recruitment is essentially a promotional process that only current employees can apply for. And then we had one of our director positions filled by an appointment. And then this is the slide that I think is the most exciting for San Ramon. So we had 59 vacancies created during calendar year 2025. Nine of those vacancies were created by newly budgeted positions and 28 of them were created by internal promotions. So the largest amount of vacancies were due to growth within the city and successful succession planning. 13 vacancies created by retirements, two by involuntary separations, and seven by voluntary separation. So our annual staffing turnover rate is extremely low. We're at 2.5%. So that really says a lot about the culture that exists here at the City of San Ramon and how employees feel about working here. That's what I think we can deduct from that. As for hiring issues, I don't see anything particularly getting in the way of us hiring and retaining employees. We have some of the same struggles that you'll find at any agency in 2026, but we haven't identified anything significant that keeps us from filling our vacancy. So there's not much new to report there as well. And with that, I'll turn it over for any questions you all may have.

Okay, questions? Council Member Schreiner.

Megan, thank you for the presentation. It's very exciting, and the question I have, does that include our officers?

Yes.

Oh, this includes our officers, okay.

Yeah, so actually,

There was an opening, I believe, for lieutenant or I forgot which one. I don't know if this.

Oh, so the yeah, the San Ramon Police Officers Association represents officers, corporals and sergeants. So we currently have a police captain vacancy. So that would be included in that number for unrepresented employees. So while they are sworn or lieutenants, captains and our police chief, they are not included in that POA number.

I see. And when when we do the headcount for folks with these open positions, if you go back to the slide for the for the one where it was for the promotions, are we this one? Yeah. And we have folks that are being promoted from within, which is great. I think that institutional knowledge that carries over helps the city grow and expand even further. And it keeps maintains steady course from the folks that were backfilling. Are we Is there a data point that says we're merging, let's say, two positions into one to help mitigate costs, et cetera? Are there anything like that? Or if somebody gets promoted, that position just stays open? I understand there may be positions that you can't just get rid of, but is there anything like that?

Yeah, I think in my time here, and I think with City Manager Steven Spadowski, we have tried to slow down a little bit intentionally to have those kind of conversations. So we've tried to be really mindful about when any vacancy opens up, first of all, talking about what's going to be the most appropriate form of recruitment, whether that is the internal promotion or maybe we have some people that we think might be internal candidates, but we think it still would be beneficial to open it up to the wider world, that there's nothing that keeps it a current employee. But we are really trying to, when we have those opportunities, other vacancies open up, take a beat, and have that internal conversation about should we continue down this path? Just because this has always been work done by X position, is that appropriate? And of course, for our represented groups, that conversation takes a little bit of a different form because of our obligations to meet and confer with them. But it is something that I think we're being more mindful about. And I think you probably saw some of that with the mid-year budget process. I don't know if there will be more of that conversation with the annual budget adoption process, but it is something we're always kind of examining.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I totally understand. Yeah. I think the hardest part is when you make that higher is maintaining a budget that keeps that higher on. And the worst part is when you have to let that person go because of lack of budget. And so how are we managing that expectation? Is the budget our guiding light? And how far are we looking into the future ahead? How many years ahead are we looking when we look at headcount?

That's a great question. I might look at my colleague, Jennifer, right here. But the budget is our guiding light in terms of current vacancies. And then I believe that our finance department does a lot of work with trying to anticipate what's going to happen in the future with filling those vacancies, kind of the salary growth that we would anticipate over the next five years.

For the long-term financial plan.

Yes, for the long-term financial plan.

And one last question, Mayor, if I may. Are we regarding the SEIU? I'm sorry, the SEIU? Yeah, local. Is there an agreement where there is a mandatory headcount with the SEIU that we have to employ?

So there's not an agreement, but anytime, so we have our established 59 FTEs that are kind of positions that officially are represented by SEIU. So we're the city to want to typically not add positions, but take away if we need to reduce that number to 50 or convert one of the maintenance technicians to a maintenance supervisor. Because of the requirements of the MMBA, the Myers-Milley-Spranach, we would have to engage in the meet and confer process and discuss impacts to the labor group to do that. So it's more that we just have an obligation to have a conversation about any impacts to the change of that number.

Thank you. Thank you, Megan.

Thank you.

Questions?

Thanks for the presentation. So typically, how many applications are we do receive for each opening? Just out of curiosity.

Yeah, it has definitely increased. Janice Keller is the city's recruitment coordinator, and we were looking at some data in preparation for the annual budget document. And I think we looked at for fiscal year 2024, 2025, we had received something like 1,500 applications for all of the recruitments that we do. And we're switching to a calendar year model, but in calendar year 2025, we had 3,000 applications or something around there. So there's definitely a sudden jump. I'm not sure why. But it really depends. So we have some recruitments where we'll have five applicants. if it's a kind of a niche position. But then, of course, with our annual lifeguard recruitment or those entry-level positions, it can sometimes be in the hundreds. We did a couple maintenance technician recruitments recently, and I think those each had 100 or some applications come in. So it's really unpredictable. But generally, the more entry-level the position, the more people are kind of trying to get in the door, and then the more... specific or the more experience you need to be, we get fewer applications.

But overall, it looks like pretty healthy. Yes. Because the more, not more, but at least the quality we get, the better, so that we can choose from that optimally.

Absolutely. Yeah.

The next slide, the iteration, I was, do we have?

This one or this one?

Next one, I think. Separation. Is it vacancies created by voluntary separation? So what is the rate of our attrition? Do we have a certain number of that?

For the rate of attrition?

Yeah.

That's a great question. I don't have that data, but we could certainly bring that back at some point.

Yeah, that's fine. Yeah. Sounds good. So those are my questions, yeah. But actually, I see vacancies resulting from attrition 25%. 25% of our current vacancies, yeah.

Okay. Yeah.

All right. Council Member Adler.

Yeah, so is there a general assessment in certain positions whether they're necessary? You know, there may be another job that can take on that responsibility or, you know, we feel like we're kind of heavy in that area. Does that go on kind of routinely when we look at the numbers? Because maybe we don't need to fill that position. So does that happen kind of on a regular basis?

Yeah, I would say that's a conversation that's kind of always evolving, so not to go too much into the background process, but anytime someone, a hiring manager, wants to open up a recruitment, they have to submit what's called a requisition through our process, and that gets reviewed by their department director, the finance department, HR, and the city manager. so there's a lot of eyes looking at okay you have a vacancy in your department you want to fill it and so that's when we kind of can have it prompts us to have those kind of conversations about if it's a position that that has been talked about or examined um that's kind of a touch point for us all to have that conversation and be mindful about it if i can give a a brief example

and you know, we also subscribe to the No additions without looking for trade-offs. It's the same thing throughout the city more recently with the sustainability program manager position we did have a vacant position and in the engineering department. We were able to shift duties around to cover that vacant position, and then the sustainability position is basically evening out that position that we covered through other employees. I would never say that we're ever heavy. I would love to be heavy in a certain area with the city. You would definitely not have any department head say that we're heavy, but Through the budget crisis, we did take that as an opportunity to really take a critical look at all the FTEs. And by comparison, our neighboring cities are typically 100 or more employees than what we have. And our most closely comparator city that we have within the vicinity is Walnut Creek. They do not operate fire like us. They just have PD and public works and parks, essentially, and they're at about 100 more FTEs, full-time employees, than we are. So we've always, in San Ramon, run a really lean ship, and we continue to take a bit of pride in that.

When you talk about obstacles, what is an example of an obstacle that may present itself in the hiring process? Just so I have some contextual background.

I think that the intent behind AB2561 is probably in part to say, for example, if your salaries are not in sync with the market. Okay. let's say we need to hire a new engineer. We're struggling to hire engineers. We hold three different recruitments. We can't hire it, but all of our neighboring cities are having no trouble. Then we might look at something like, well, maybe our salaries are not on par or our benefits, or maybe we have... a particularly lengthy process, and so someone who's out there looking for a job, because we would have a long process, they get scooped up by somebody else. And that's where I have, I don't believe that we have identified any huge obstacles like that, and I think our numbers kind of bear that out as well.

Okay, that's a good example. Thank you, Megan.

Thank you.

Okay. Can you go back to your slide that had the calendar dates, and you were talking about the June versus July, the reduction in the numbers? So, we went from 287.75 to 279.75. And that was a conscious decision on our part to no longer fund some vacancies. Is that a good summary of what that was?

Yeah, that's my recollection. I believe that they were kind of long-standing vacancies that were on the books. And to answer some of the things that have already been brought up here, I think that was that question of, for example, if a position has been vacant for two budget cycles, is it something that we should be still holding on to or does it make more sense to really focus on the positions that are needed and then do the trade-offs as city manager shared to to if we realize that we do need a position let's go find the money to be intentional about it we don't want to hire someone and then later on not be able to sustain them financially okay all right thank you and uh so now can you go to like one of your last slides you had i think new positions nine or something Yes. Right here.

It might even be beyond this. Oh, there it is. Okay. Number of vacancies created by newly budgeted positions. And I heard your explanation of, you know, you mentioned the sustainability coordinator. Is that what this is all about? Or are these nine new positions? And yet we got a budget issue. We cut some back that were... we couldn't fill for a while, and so we just cut the budget out for those, but yet we're adding nine, or are we just redefining nine? What's the best way to explain that?

I think it's more the latter. So any of those newly budgeted positions that reflect the nine would have gone through the budget process. So I think the sustainability manager is a good example where we kind of, we would consider that sustainability manager a newly budgeted position, in terms of what happened in the budget and what I call position control, there was kind of a, you know, we got rid of this one and added this one, so it's the trade-off dynamic. But in the world of kind of some of the structure of this particular assembly bill, we would consider that a newly budgeted, because it is a new position, but it was done in a kind of way where we're moving all the pieces on the puzzle. Okay. As much as possible, or it was brought to you all in a pretty transparent way.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah, and I... I'm not going to ask your opinion of AB2561 on the value of it because I'm sure you dive into this stuff. This is your world, so I know you're all over this. It's interesting to us. It's interesting to the public. The information, I think we would have this information and we'd be doing okay whether or not the state told us to do it or not.

Yes.

That's just my opinion. But back to the issues point, and we don't see any issues, but have we kind of heard this from SEIU and POA as well?

Yeah, you bring up a great part of this assembly bill. So a part of this bill does require agencies to provide a specific notice to any of their labor groups prior to this public hearing. So I communicated with both SEIU and the POA prior to this meeting We offer them an opportunity to come and also speak as part of this public hearing. We give them their specific number. There's also some, without going into the minutiae of it, if their vacancies were to reach a certain percentage, we would be obligated to provide them with some extra information. I had that conversation with both of our labor groups and both of them said that they didn't feel a need to speak to all of you today. That is a part of this is there is kind of that opportunity for the labor groups to speak directly to their elected officials about any kind of issues that they saw.

I appreciate that. And despite some of the slides showing that we do have vacancies and we have turnover and retirements and all those other kinds of things, I still consider San Ramon a destination city compared to a lot of the other cities around us.

Yeah, I mean, I think that 2.5% turnover rate speaks exactly to that. We don't have, I mean, voluntary separation, seven people in a calendar year that are not retiring and ending their careers is kind of amazing to me. I think that's really a win for us and something to be really celebrated. Yeah.

And also may or not required to be reported out. But I can't recall the last time we used a professional recruiting firm. Our entire executive team, I think, was just our own recruitments. And in the industry, it's relatively standard to spend $40,000 per recruitment in order to cast a wider net. We're getting great applicants without having to Invest that money and it is part of the the reputation of the city that we're attracting really good candidates So it's another it's not required to be reported but just kind of a little tidbit Yeah, we have one one person actually running all these recruitments for the city and she does an incredible job pushing all of this through Yeah, Janice Keller, yeah, okay.

All right great any other questions before we open up the public hearing? Okay, can I get a motion to open the public hearing?

I move the motion for opening public hearing

Okay, motion, Council Member Veroes, second, Council Member Adler. Okay, it passes 4-0-0. Public hearing is now open. Do we have any speaker cards?

We do. We have one speaker card from Make San Ramon Great Again.

Council members, I just want to say that AB2561, if you look at it from the bird's eye view and not just so much from our colloquial perspective, this is really the Sacramento trying to impose whatever they are stealing from our pockets and trickling down to the local government for their own good. Did you know that Sacramento is going to increase our property taxes? could be as much as $6,500 to $9,000 per property. Did you know that they're going to charge us savings tax? If you have any bank accounts, they're going to tax your bank accounts. Did you know that they're going to tax us on mileage? Taxes, however miles that you drive on your car, they're now going to tax it. All these money that they're getting extra, they're trying to force you to spend it. And that's what AB2561 is about. Now, having said that, I do agree that we need to hire more police. However, that need needs to come from the bottom up, not like CEQA, not like sustainability. I really don't know why we're spending money on a sustainability manager. That is really just a Democrat Party agenda. That is not benefiting us as taxpayers, period. Also, I noticed that you guys spend a ton of money. If my math is correct, our city probably spend close to $1.5 million on consultant fees per year. So how do you convince me to pay for staff and also consultants i would like to know when do you need to you know find more money out of our annual budget to pay for consultants that in my opinion that the staff should be able to need you need to convince me that otherwise really these are all just bureaucrats making more laws to legalize themselves to steal money from us, the people. And the people is what makes this great country, not bureaucrats. It's truly shameful. Now, I would like you guys to hire more police, however, I do not want international hires for police. Please be very mindful of that. In Italy, there's actually communist Chinese police on Italian police force. I would never want to see that in San Ramon. In addition, I would like to request that you guys please consider getting veterans to be on some kind of police academy that you guys have so that our police academy or the path of policing can be a path possibility for our great veterans who sacrificed their lives for our great country. Thank you. All right.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

There are no more speakers.

Any written comment on this item?

No.

Okay. Well, to the council, there's no action on this. This is for information only. Any final comments? So do we need to move the motion to close? Oh, we've got to close it.

Yeah. I move the motion to close the public hearing.

Okay.

We have a motion, Council Member Rose. A second, Council Member Adler. Thank you for that.

So public, can I make a comment?

Okay. Motion passes 4-0-0. We are Like I said, final comments, because there's no action other than the information presented.

Comments? Great work. Appreciate leadership. I see 47%, around 28 people internal promotion that says the culture that we have reputation as one of the best service providing cities. So I know it takes a lot of leadership skills to continually keep your internal teams, making them, building them, and mentoring them, and preparing them to their next level. So appreciate all your great work.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else?

I echo that. Great job, Megan. Thank you for the presentation. And really, it's the whole team effort, all the departments kind of making the work climate what it is to be able to retain, you know, recruit the best, retain the best, and keep them on board. So thank you.

Thank you so much.

All right. Okay. Now we are going to move on to Item 9.2, FY 2026-27 Budget Workshop Number 1. We're focused on revenue this evening. And we're back to Yulia. Welcome back to the podium.

I was clearing the purple for you.

Anybody need to take a break? Good? Okay.

Good evening again. Good evening. So we are presenting the first preview of our budget development process today, and we are only going to present the revenue assumptions and what they mean for our budget, how they transpire in numbers. But before I go into details of this presentation, I really wanted to express my appreciation to all the staff of the city who works on developing the budget. It's a really team effort. It's not just the finance department. It's all the analysts, all the people who are digging the numbers, analyzing their processes, and coming up with suggestions of what they can produce or what they need to continue to provide services to the residents. In the report that was presented to you, the main purpose of that report was to emphasize the importance of the financial stability and sustainability. And the budget that we will be presenting later in May, both revenue and expense side, will be built with the goal of bringing up balanced budget. We wanted to outline today our major revenue components and explain what was behind the assumptions of building these revenues. We want to receive the feedback from the council and talk a little bit of what to expect going forward. As any organization, there are most important parts of the budget, not important, parts of the budget that bring the most revenue. And for the cities, historically, those two components were a property tax and sales tax. The property tax is the biggest portion of our budget. And according to the data that we have today on hands from the Contra Costa County Assessor's Office, the revenues for the property tax for the fiscal year 25-26 are expected to come in about 3% higher than they were budgeted for the fiscal year. Assuming that these trends will continue, and we're hoping they will, We calculated an additional 3% increase for the fiscal year 26-27 budget, which will result in the 1.6 million difference between the budget of 26 to 27. It's not from the actuals, it's from the difference in budget numbers. The second component, sales tax, has two parts to it for our city. As we know, we have Bradley Burns portion, which is the base of the sales tax, and also the additional component that was passed by the voters of these residents, Measure N. We are consulting with the HDL company, who are our sales consultants, and they provide us the trends of what's happening in the market. And based on that, on the information that we have had on hands during preparation of this report, The Bradley Burns portion of the sales tax is very steady and showing about 6.4% increase on the year-to-year comparison. But unfortunately, on the other hand, for the Measure J, it is expected to come in lower than the budgeted number for 25-26. And the difference of that reduced expectation is 1.3 million, which is a big significant hit to the budget. Another significant hit to the budget is our expectations for the franchise fees collection. The reason for the significant decline of the collection of those fees is due to the necessary renegotiations of franchise agreement this year and related to the greater restrictions of how these fees are collected from the residents. I wanted to note that there is a typo in the staff report. It says 1.8 million is a 3%. It's actually 30. It was a typo. The change in charges for services, which we are estimating to be about $723,000 for fiscal year 27, or 2.8% increase. is related to a couple of the components, and one of them is that we are expecting significant increase in the development activities. The other smaller piece of this 723,000, I would say we would estimate it about 50,000 of it, is related to the adjustment to the fees that city will be collecting for services. There's 2.82% increase in CPI index. The number five in our revenue sources is intergovernmental revenue. This revenue mostly relates to the various grants that CETA receives for the operational purposes. And the reduction of $523,000 in those In this portion of the revenue is related to the expiration of the retail theft grant that police department received. The use of this grant is extended to the December 27, but without additional allocation of funds. So the remaining funds are less than what was expended during the fiscal year 25-26, and this is the reduction for this intergovernment revenue. Overall, based on what we know today, Our revenue growth in general fund revenue is expected to be around 0.45% or $370,000. On the next slide, we have a summary of those changes that correspond to what I've just described verbally. Do you need a minute?

Maybe you could explain a little bit the transaction and use tax.

Transaction use, transit occupancy tax, TOT.

No, the third one, transaction use tax.

Oh, transaction use tax measure N. Yeah, this is all.

Oh, that's measure N, okay. Yeah. Sorry, it got cut off, I'm sorry, okay.

Yeah, it is cut off.

Sorry, never mind.

Yeah.

Okay, any other questions on this slide? This is basically kind of a table summarizing what you got in the staff report. Yeah, yeah.

And the next slide is the same information that shows how our general fund is comprised of all of those components, what their percentage is, what's their weight in our general fund balance on the revenue side. Okay.

That's same as in the packet. Anyone else have any questions on this?

Yes, it's the same slide.

Yeah. Actually, I have a question for the previous slide, or even the same slide. So the property tax that we are looking at here, that includes the new housing that is coming up?

Well, no, because we cannot estimate what and when and when it's going to be assessed. We can only base the information on what we already know today. So our projection, if there will be any changes related to the new development, we will bring it as an adjustment during the mid-year process of the budget or early if we know that information early.

But is there a way to estimate something? What could be the difference?

Like, we are getting new housing here, so... Yeah, unfortunately, the property tax is... Information about upcoming property tax is only coming to us when the property is already assessed. When the property is not assessed, that means that there is no occupancy permit for that, and there is no data for us to know how much property tax it can bring. And that data will not be available to the county as well.

So what date is that data? Is it like last week data or one month back data? What we assess?

The information that we have on the collection that I just noted that we are expecting to receive about 3% higher of property tax collections than it was budgeted for fiscal year 25-26. That information is from the latest receipt of the property tax allocation that we received from the county.

Okay, so this is the latest data, okay.

Yeah, it's the latest data.

Sounds good. Thank you.

Just one quick comment. I notice from other budgets from other cities as well, when I look at budgets, I try to look for anything that stands out, that jumps out. And one thing that jumps out at me is that we don't And as a resident, I'm thankful we don't charge for parking, and there's no penalties for parking tickets, right? Because some cities, that's their... Because I look at the fines and forfeiture, that's really low, which is good in a way, but some cities, it's in the seven figures just for parking and for traffic light infractions, violations, et cetera. Yeah, so from a public perspective, I mean... It's actually a good thing that we don't have a lot of imbalance in the budget in certain departments. It's pretty steady from what I've seen in San Ramon in the last 10 years that I've looked at the budget. Nothing really has jumped out. If you back up Measure N, we'd have there be a bit of a problem, but things have been staying consistent over the last 10 years. Um, I would say, um, so no, I just wanted to make that comment because I, I know other cities, they have a litany of revenue sources and a lot of it, it's punitive to the citizen, uh, beyond taxes. So I just, you know, thank you to the city for not doing that to us. So thank you.

Okay. That's member Adler questions.

Well, I mean, we're almost through this year, right? I mean, well, pretty close. And we're going to be looking towards 26, 27. And there's just so many unknowns with the tariff situation and the war going on and how, you know, whether goods are going to be impeded from getting to the customers and what are the prices going to be. You know, until this gets resolved, I think that's kind of a big question mark, right? As to, and I think it would be, it's hard to know. You know, you just, you don't know how, what a reasonable time is. But, so when would be the next report on the next fiscal year gonna be made? So the new assessment, is that in the fall? Or when is that made?

So we are re-institute, we are reviving the regular reporting to the city council and our finance committee. I know that for some period of time, the finance department was not bringing the reports on the actuals to budget comparison. We are starting to produce those reports. We just did one of them a couple of months ago and the other one is coming at the end of April to the Finance Committee and we will continue to do that if the City Council or Our committee will feel that it will benefit to have those reports more often. We can try to do that. But to say that monthly reports will be beneficial, there is not much that changes every month.

Is it more quarterly is kind of the expectation?

Quarterly is probably the most... EFFICIENT WAY TO DO THAT. WE WILL ALSO DO THE MID-YEAR UPDATES FOR THE BUDGET IF NEEDED. IF THERE IS A SIGNIFICANT CHANGE IN PROJECTIONS, WE CAN BRING SOME REQUESTS FOR UPDATES EVEN EARLIER BEFORE THE MID-YEAR NORMAL CYCLE. BUT RIGHT NOW WE ARE STANDING IN A POSITION WHERE WE ARE TRYING project our revenues very conservatively, because there are so many unknowns.

All right, thank you.

You got another question? In the previous slide, you already explained this one, the previous slide to this one, but I just want to mention that measure and reduction, right? You already mentioned, but just for public information, so what is the reason for the time point?

So Measure N is a destination tax, and the big component of this type of the tax is auto sales. Unfortunately, auto sales went significantly down with the expiration of the rebate on electric vehicles, and also with the Some effect of it is tariffs that keep the prices on the new vehicles high. So auto industry sees that people are holding to their vehicles for longer. They're not buying as often as they maybe used to do it. So there are not as many sales, and that's a big significant effect on the Measure N collection.

Thanks.

Yeah, that's kind of where I was going to go with a question, and I know you don't have a crystal ball, but okay, with the war in Iran going on right now, how responsive is, you know, the effect of oil prices now that may reverse that trend with EV sales? Is there some expectation or any talk that things may start to level out again with EV sales and that may, kind of help us in the long term with our measure in revenue?

At the current moment, we don't have that information. We can guess that we're going to see a little bit more of a sales tax from the increase of the fuel prices. But unfortunately, it will be offset by the expenses where we need to fuel our own vehicles for the city.

All right. Thank you.

Just a quick observation for the folks that may not understand. Norris Canyon Estates, we don't collect, do we collect maybe property tax?

If I'm asking that question correctly.

No, we do not. That's in the county. Okay. Yeah. I wanted to make that public because there is that misnomer where there's million dollar estates out there and Our numbers should be higher based on certain calculations, but I know few people in the public have presented to me like, well, it should be this number because of Norris Canyon Estates. Look what we get from Faria. Look what we get from these new housing. But Norris Canyon is not. I just want to make that clear. Thank you. That was it. Thank you.

Any other questions? Okay, can I get a motion to open a public?

The next big component of our budget is Dorothy Valley County service area and Dorothy Valley service area was created Based on the agreement that exists between the Contra Costa County and major developers, the Dorothy Valley County revenue and expenditures are required to be recorded in its own fund. The Dorothy Valley... Service area is currently fully annexated, though there will be no additional property values. So all of the revenue growth will only result from the increase in the property values, if any, and the collections of the assessed value from their assessment revenue and the property revenue that comes from it. Unfortunately, the revenue that's being collected through those assessments is not sufficient to support the level of the service that we have according to that agreement. And the big portion of the revenue for Doherty Valley County service area is transferred in from general fund. which is expected to grow this year as well by about almost a million dollars. I want to touch just a little bit on other revenue sources. Most of those revenue sources are restricted by either legal requirements or some other policies. One of the biggest one is the gas tax. And we are expecting to see about $228,000 increase in the gas tax collection for the fiscal year 26, 27. And again, those are estimates based on the trends that we see from the collections right now. Development APAC fees funds, revenue in those funds fluctuate very significantly year over year, depending on the activity of different developments. And in addition to that, those revenues are restricted of how they can be used, and they're often used on the capital projects. Community Facility District Fund, funded through the special assessments. And those assessments are calculated in order to support a great open level of service provided to the areas. Another big portion of our funds is internal service funds. They are in existence, they act as Enterprise work I would say funds they are in order to support ongoing needs for IT replacement health care insurance and those funds are funded during the year or over the years and Through the charges to the departments So this slide is basically just to show how our revenue is composed from different sources of funds. As you can see, the general fund in Dorothy Valley account for over 65% of all of the funds in our city. And overall, the revenue budget that we are currently projecting throughout all of the funds is about $156.5 million. So just to summarize, the growth in the general fund revenue is expected to be 0.45%, which is way below the historical 4% growth that the city has seen over the years. But we've seen that the big reason for that is the reduction of those two revenue sources, measure N and the franchise tax fees, garbage franchise fees. If needed, the revenue projections will be updated when we bring the budget in May. If we have any additional information and things change, we will definitely update the council on that. And I wanted to just make this emphasize that, unfortunately, there are a lot of areas where city has very little decision-making control. And those areas are often on the revenue side. However, when it comes to developing the budget, we look at the trends in the economy. We see what we are working with our consultants and bringing you as much of up-to-date data as we can. What would be the next steps after this presentation? We will incorporate feedback that we will receive from this workshop. And at the April 28th meetings, we're going to bring the other portion of the budget that is going to show us how balanced we are, or hopefully. And it will be presentation of the expense workshop.

Okay. Any other questions before we... Let's move on to public comment.

Yeah, let me go with Robert first. Yeah, so let's go back three slides, I think, three slides, about the Doughty Valley thing. Yeah, here. So I see that almost pretty much every year we do hear that our funding on the Doughty Valley is going down in comparison with our with our service level, right? But then majority of our revenue is coming from property tax, right?

It's a special assessment for the district and property tax.

Right.

Composition of those two pieces.

So if I see actually the property tax that is collected in Doughty Valley should be much higher than So I'm just wondering, can we have a session on this one to understand what exactly, where we're missing the pieces? Because I heard this before multiple times, but then.

Yeah, we discussed it during the revenue measure as background. As a result of the lawsuit, 60% of the property tax goes to the county that would normally come to the city. We collect 40% of that property tax. To make up for it, they created this county special assessment district that was supposed to cover that gap, but it hasn't performed well. as they expected to cover that gap. And that assessment is quite literally paid by the residents on their property tax bill. So even with that assessment, we are still, when we account for Doherty Valley separately from the rest of the city, we're still about 4 million short every year that we transfer from one account to another out in Doherty Valley to fund those services. So the 21% increase or about a million, that's not the total, that's the increase for this year. The total is around 4 million that's transferred from the general fund to cover the Doherty Valley services.

Into the general, yeah, from general fund to Doherty Valley fund.

So was the expectation is that we get the retail tax, that's where we'll cover that one? Is that that was the idea?

No, the amount of retail that was installed as part of the Doherty Valley development was recognized as not enough to cover. There's just not the demand to put retail that far off the freeway. So this county special assessment was to make up for the loss of property tax and the lack of retail, but it just didn't perform. This formula was created. I can tell you that at one point during the economic downturn, I don't even remember what years that was in the 2008, 2009-ish era. The developers were still installing a lot of the infrastructure like the streets and the landscaping, but the homes weren't being built. So there was a lag between the homes being built that would generate the revenue to help maintain the streets, and that just added to the problem. So we could do a separate presentation. It's a lot of history, it's a lot of factors that are included, but the long and the short of it is when you do this separate accounting that's required by the settlement agreement, it's about four million short. from what's generated out there for the services that are provided. And that's primarily public services and police. When we talk about services, the majority of that cost is between those two areas.

Yeah, it will be great because a lot of Doughty Valley residents think that they are paying property tax such a high. I know people who pay $36,000 property tax. Like, my neighbor paid 36, like, I, like, so all, like, 20 plus thousands of dollars they're paying, and they expect that, hey, we are paying so much property tax, but then they don't understand what's happened, what happened in the lawsuit, whoever was participated in that and then how we got into this situation. So it will be great if we have some either like the videos that you make typically or if we can have one call where we can share that information that helps them to understand.

I would also encourage residents that when you look at your property tax bill, you have these special assessments on the left-hand side of that. You can go down each one of them and call the numbers that are associated with those special assessments to get information as to what they are and what the purpose is from the agencies that collect them. That's usually a very large chunk of the property tax bill.

Yeah. That includes, especially in Windermere, it includes Melrose tax. That's a bond for Windermere. But then their side of story is that we already paid all this much money, we are paying continuously for this money, then where that money is going? Right. Yeah. So, okay, thank you.

Okay, other questions?

Yeah, what is the reason why, I mean, I know it was in the negotiation 20 years ago or whenever with the county, right? I mean, these percentages were decided at that time. It was a lawsuit. But what is the justification why the county gets more? What are they doing to justify that difference?

I don't have that specific background, but it was a result of a lawsuit between San Ramon, Danville, Pleasanton, Dublin. I think Livermore was in it as well. The county resident sued, and it was basically whenever you take a development to the courts, you are reliant on whatever the judge decides. If we have that information about why the county receives that 60%, it may have been the county was the responsible entity for developing Doherty Valley. And they received all the building permit fees. They had ultimate design discretion. And then San Ramon, as a result of that lawsuit, was required to annex and then eventually own and operate everything. THAT WAS A HUGE HIT TO OUR NORMAL, TO A CITY'S NORMAL OPERATING BUDGET WHERE YOU WOULD USE THOSE BUILDING FEES TO OFFSET. I THINK IT'S ABOUT 25 YEARS NOW SINCE THAT HAPPENED.

BUT WE PROVIDE THE SERVICES TO THAT REGION. THE COUNTY DOESN'T PROVIDE THE SERVICES. SO IT SEEMS, SCRATCH MY HEAD ON THAT ONE. I'M NOT QUITE SURE WHY THAT HASN'T BEEN CHANGED.

Well, it's a lawsuit, so in order to change, you'd have to get all parties to go back and agree, and it just, that would... And the county's benefiting from the money, so they don't want to change it, but it doesn't seem right to me.

Other questions? Okay. All right, then I'm going to move to public comment. Do we have any speaker cards on this item?

Yes, we've received two speaker cards. The first is from Make San Ramon Great Again.

Hi, Council Members. I heard earlier that Council Member Adler complained about tariff. I just want to share with you that today there was news that, congratulations to America, we cut our national deficit by 55% all thanks to tariff. I'm very happy that we have a president like Donald J. Trump who assessed tariff and also gave us huge amount of tax pay back. I got a lot of tax, you know, paid back to me. I don't know about you. So I intend to spend a lot of those taxes to help benefit our sales tax. Maybe you should, too, spend your money on our city. Now, I want to apologize to everyone if Windermere, and I live there, is the deficit of our city, I apologize. I suggest, please make money off of me because the builders did such a great job with Windermere. We should start charging people who come to Windermere to take photos. In the spring, when our cherry blossoms bloom, charge them who are not San Ramon residents Charge those Dublin, Livermore, Alameda, San Francisco people who come into our city in Windermere to use our trail. Charge them. Those are extra revenue that our city can have. But what do we do? City manager, you give it to them for free. Why? Why should I pay for it? And they don't pay for anything and they enjoy what I pay. That is wrong. Use what Windermere is able to offer and turn it into revenue. We do not have to be your deficit. We can be your asset. Also, I would like to... Ask you guys, please, find faults. Why our finance department is doing so poorly? Our investment income, with all those extra money we're putting aside for investment, they don't even make 1% for us. $418,000 out of $88 million. We could have made a lot more. We have poor people making decisions in that department. I do not know what's wrong with that department. It needs to be rectified. Finally, we need to charge people who drive electric cars because you guys don't pay for roads. It is a shame. I pay between $732 to $1,000 a year. Why? Because every gallon of gas that I pay, I pay 61.2 cents that pave our roads that you enjoy. You are the deficit. Those people who drive electric cars are deficit. We, San Ramon, as a city, need to charge them $1,000 per car every year. Then those are extra revenues for us. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Pascales.

Mr. Mayor, city council, city residents, I'm looking at the budget and I'm not so fond either at looking numbers or talking about numbers, but numbers represent people's lives, represent people's effort and their livelihood. And when we're looking about increasing fees, which is what needs to be done, the first thing, as I mentioned before, is everything needs to be accurate and transparent. And on my end, I don't see that. Now, moving forward with what needs to be done, as a suggestion, and as we talked in the past about small business owners, It's very important to understand that you as a landlord, you have an opportunity to grasp exactly what's happening in your city, meaning every single owner passing through the process of reserving space here, either at the pool or either in a local gym or any office that they reserve space, Why not to express their experience through a survey where it can be known exactly how it's being treated? Either you call fees, either you call good relationship with their city staff, either you call anything that can make you understand why business want to do business with the city of San Ramon or don't want to do business with the city of San Ramon. I think it's a valuable tool, the same way when someone's rent is, let's say, getting swim lessons, and immediately every time they pay, they also receive a survey. So that survey, it should be very helpful to you to understand and help the small business, help every single shop that opens up here in the city. Also revisit a little bit the ones that they left, see what kind of experience they had. So it's very important to see that end. And maybe make some real hard questions about what was their experience here. If you really want to know, then you really will know if you want to. And through that process, it will be great if you also, as city council, some include yourselves into the process to know firsthand and use that information for the better of the city. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

There are no more speaker cards.

Okay. All right, then I will close public comment. And it's back to council now for any guidance or comments or direction for staff on where we go from here. Anyone?

One thing I'm really worried or concerned is about our heavy dependencies on the property tax. I don't know. I don't expect any answer. But then I definitely want to see how we can get out of that situation. I mean, getting more property tax is not bad. But at the same time, how we can improve our overall revenues, stream of revenues, I can say. So we need to see what we can do about that. And also, as the public comment mentioned about, do we do any surveys from our small businesses within the city? Any small surveys or anything like that?

No, I don't think we've we've conducted any targeted survey. We do have staff that talk to small businesses through our community development department about, you know, any issues that they may have and bringing them before staff. I do want to note if you are looking for longer term solutions, the one item that moves the needle the most and makes a noticeable difference is typically a tax measure. More cities with what's going on with online sales, the economy, property taxes, more and more cities are turning to revenue measures like we did with Measure N. It's to a point right now where regional measures are starting to struggle because there are so many local measures. It's just people are losing their appetite for any additional taxes, not that there necessarily was a large appetite for that, but now more municipalities are turning towards revenue measures of some sort, either a property related fee, sales tax measure, business taxes, in order to make ends meet. bringing in new businesses, we are limited here with the amount of retail space that we have, but to bring in a business that would actually make a difference in our long-term projection, you would need a big box store like a Costco to really make that needle move. And then also there's the adage, you live by the sales tax, you die by the sales tax when there's a major downturn in the economy. One of the benefits that we've had to San Ramon is that although our sales tax base is relatively small for a city of our size, it's been relatively even that even during the economic downturn, we had a slight dip where other cities had a drop where they were having to reduce city services left and right. So we can plan for a future presentation about revenue generation and what some of the options are, but Basically, tax measures are what cities are turning to because of various factors.

Okay. So I remember we were planning to recruit... Sorry. I remember we were planning to recruit economists. Is it still... That option is still there?

We have a recruitment right now we're interviewing for analysts. That would include hopefully somebody with a background in... More of an economic from an economist standpoint than economic development To help provide some more statistics and analysis for the city.

Okay, hopefully Hopefully that economist may be May use survey as a tool To reach out to our small businesses and see what we are doing right what we are doing wrong so that we can get better and how to improve the overall relationships with our small businesses. So I think that should be a good option for us. And so do we have any timeline on this economist when we are getting?

We're in the middle of interviews right now.

Oh, okay.

And it will, you know, hopefully we will be able to hire somebody that can, you know, provide a deeper analysis because when we do talk about businesses in general, it's we support all of our businesses, their services that are needed by the residents. But at the same time, if they are not a tax generating business, if they don't generate sales tax, It does very little to nothing for revenue. I think we're still at around, in California, 40% of services. Please don't quote me. This is my former economic development days. Around 40% of the businesses are taxable for sales tax, and the rest are, you know, Food, dentist, accountant, we don't generate any tax from that. Chevron, world headquarters here, we generated $300 a year for a business license from Chevron. They were not a point of sale. When Chevron left, we had a lot of media contacting us saying, how is the city going to survive? Although we have employees that shop here, WHEN THEY'RE ON LUNCH. OVERALL, WE DIDN'T HAVE A BUSINESS TAX WHERE AT CHEVRON, BASED ON YOUR ANNUAL SALES, WITH A CAP, OF COURSE, FOR SOMEBODY LIKE CHEVRON, YOU'RE PAYING US $100,000 A YEAR OR $50,000 A YEAR. IT WAS $300 DIRECTLY TO THE CITY THAT WE LOST WHEN THEY LEFT.

So if we even bring the overall, let's say we work towards bringing more technology companies, it doesn't go into other, The other ways is that they may go shop or eat lunch and all that employees. That's important. That's the only way we could be generating. Otherwise, as such, the businesses coming here itself is not going to generate any.

You could have a business move here, and it could be, for instance, like a large warehouse opens with providing medical supplies, which are taxable, but their sales desk might be in another city. And it's where their point of sale is, where they declared their point of sale. We wouldn't get any taxes on that. There's a lot behind it. And there's a lot of education when it comes to, I wish it was as simple as if we got a Chick-fil-A here, everything would be great. But one entity doesn't generate enough. And even thousands of small entities, depending on what they are, would not move the needle one way or the other.

Yeah, okay, sounds good. So let's hope the economist comes on board and let's see what that person is going to present us. Especially we should encourage on doing some survey on the small businesses to see what is their appetite. How, as I said, good and bad, all that we can figure it out hopefully. Okay, that's my comments, thank you. Any other recommendations?

I just had a follow up to that question about the city does a survey sometimes about a business that may end up deciding to leave. Does the chamber do anything like that?

Well, there is outreach. You know, the chamber does promote the city. Discover San Ramon promotes the city. If we have any businesses that's interested in moving here, they typically contact our community development department for additional information. Most businesses that do move to a city, they have their own set of criteria. They have their own criteria. GIS, where they would put a pin on a map and say, okay, is there enough traffic in the area? Is there enough residents? What's the freeway presence like? Is there another store like us located in the area? There's many factors. And then the other large factor where they're moving to, either they're looking to buy or lease, it's whether or not they can make that agreement with the private property owner. I would say, and I've always advocated, one of our biggest selling points as a city is the level of services here that we provide. It's a very clean, very safe city. Our maintenance standards, our services that we provide speak for themselves. And quite often we do have people that tour the city and look to move here and we'll comment on i'm not seeing trash in the street there's very little to no graffiti there's great responses look at the landscaping that is i would say the number one selling point for san ramon and now with some of the amenities coming in of chances to live near jobs and retail within walking distances I can tell you whenever I've tried to recruit somebody, it takes a walk, you know, through the marketplace area, maybe through city center and through Central Park, and people say, yeah, this would be great to be able to walk to all the services.

All right, thank you.

Other recommendations? I just want to make the last comment that with the recent change, I think last year when we dropped the retail, we dropped that archaic law that prevent...

on the retail cap at 25%. Yeah, the retail cap.

Thank you. I think we should, that was just a year ago, so hopefully we could start seeing some generation from that more retail coming in. I know SuperDuper came in and Mayhouse is opening up, so. some good retail, but also, you know, we shop online. I mean, there's nobody here that doesn't shop on Amazon, so, you know, the recommendation is shop local. Support your local stores and, you know, support our local restaurants, and that'll certainly help generate money and funds for our own, so.

That policy change was probably the most significant economic driver that the council has changed policy-wise in several years. And when you do ask about, okay, what can we do for small businesses, really it's the $300 business license fee. You can either subsidize that or what else are you talking about? Are you talking about some kind of monetary assistance? And then that leads you down a different path that might not be sustainable. Yeah, yeah.

I know because of that change in that ordinance, some restaurants have moved to bigger spaces because they couldn't do it before. When that was in the marketplace, there are others that have actually taken advantage of it, and other shops as well. I think there was a tile company, et cetera, who moved because the square footage now was because now they could sell more because of the change in the law. So we're starting to see some movement on it, but I think patience and time. Thank you, Yuliya.

Actually, that policy change is counterintuitive because what we did is we changed the policy that only 25% non-retail can have it. Not more than that. So now it is removed. The problem was that a lot of our, within city, the services, a lot of this retail space was getting occupied by non-retail tax services like all these education services or martial arts, all these things. We don't generate any. So it was creating a big problem for us because all of the retailers were facing a high price for rental. So that's the reason that was in place. But then it didn't serve much interest. But now we changed it, thinking that, okay, hopefully that spaces will be filled with some lifestyle services, and that may be able to bring new retail services into that space. That was a hope. But yeah, we need to see, after we change that one, did we see any change? We can look into that.

So if I could kind of jump in here a little bit, so back on the Third of April, I had my monthly mayor's breakfast, and a couple of the people here in the room were there. But we had a panel of small businesses, and we talked to them. It was Fremont Bank, which is a community bank, Rosemarino, the new restaurant that opened up where Gianni's used to be, the Quirky Crow, the new bookstore, and Crow Canyon Dental. So some retail, some non-retail. But one of the things that Danielle Cook from the Chamber of Commerce brought with her to that panel that we had, that panel discussion, they talked about some of the challenges, some of the opportunities that they had as well. But one of the things she read was a statement from one of the shopping center owners who provided feedback on the impact of the change in that policy. And it was a positive impact that because of that, they were able to They're still in some negotiations, but they're able to attract some additional people into their spaces for leasing and fill what had been empty space. And it's driving additional foot traffic in that area for the other retail spaces as well. So we did get some positive impact kind of through the Chamber of Commerce on that informal, not a formal report. And then I'll just share the other challenge. since I'm kind of talking about this, there was a challenge that was discussed in terms of permitting and some of the process with the timing or the expediting of permits and things like that. Some of those are real, some of those are perception, some of those are process, but I've passed some of that information on to city staff to take a look at. To answer your question, we did get some informal feedback from the chamber already on that policy. Nice.

So we did a good decision.

I mean, the other last thing, which the city doesn't want to do, residents, is have services that are heavy on tobacco and alcohol, right? Those are big money drivers, but that's something that the residents, I know, they don't want, so. I mean, you know, there are options, but those two are definitely not something that we want to see here.

Okay. Anything else? Okay. Thank you. Then I'm not sure what you got out of that, but thank you for your presentation. Appreciate hearing about the assumptions on revenue for this upcoming budget cycle. Look forward to the next workshop.

Yes, we will bring the next workshop in two weeks for the expenses. And as we fine-tune the revenue side, if we have any additional information, we will share it with Council.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Yulia. All right. With that, we're on to Item 10, City Manager's comments and City Council Member comments.

All right. Thank you, Mayor and members of the Council. A few items to highlight. The new Encore newsletter is available online. The April to June Encore newsletter is targeted to residents 55 plus. There's lots of info about upcoming classes and events. You can find the printed newsletter at the Senior Center or online at SantaRome.ca.gov backslash Encore. The San Ramon Trails Challenge has begun. It runs now through September 30th. It's free and open to all ages, and if you complete this year's five featured hikes, you'll receive an exclusive reward. I will not detail what that reward is. Please complete the hikes, and you will find out what that reward is. You can learn more and sign up at sanramone.ca.gov backslash trails. And also, time to mark your calendars. The Art and Wind Festival is coming up Sunday and Monday of Memorial Day weekend. That's May 24th and 25th. It's our premier event, and it takes place at San Ramon Central Park from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. both days. It is a free event with no charge for parking, I believe, that features kite making work, no charges from the city. I believe, with parking. No, it's a free event that features kite making workshops, professional choreographed kite flying demonstrations, entertainment stages, crafts, family, amusement zones, and more. Food and beverages will be available for purchase along with arts and crafts from local vendors. You can learn more at artandwind.com. Although there may be, just to be clear, there may be parking charges at some of the nearby garages. But we don't charge on any of our local streets. With that, this concludes my presentation.

Okay. And I assume we're going to have a Memorial Day event up at Memorial Park as well. Yes.

We'll announce when we have more details. We'll announce that as well, the morning of. Okay. All right.

Great. All right. Let me come over to Council Member Adler. It is getting late, but... try to keep our reports as short as we can, but if somebody's already said it, then move on to the next item.

All right. March 25th, we had the Tri-Valley Cities Coalition where we meet with our legislative people that kind of keep us appraised of what's going on in Sacramento. And they were kind of keen on the e-bike safety reforms and energy use and affordability. One of the key state legislative items was there was one having to do with e-bikes again. It tightens the e-bike classification by lowering the speed threshold and reinforcing limits on motor power to curb higher speed devices. And our own Assemblywoman Rebecca Bauer-Cahan It has an AB 1942, establishes a registration and license plate requirement for higher speed e-bikes. So I think that's a good idea. And there were other things, but I want to keep it short. On March 30th, Monday, the mayor and I attended the 21st annual Street Smarts Be Real video contest award ceremony, which happened in Danville. New Ornridge Danville mayor presided over that it was a great event We had a lot of local schools that that put in those videos and we had you know high school we that was $300 first place and we had a From our own Doherty Valley High School, we had Alyssa and Gannon got the first place. Middle school, we had a couple from Windermere that won that. And I'll skip the mayor's breakfast because that was already kind of discussed. And then April 10th, attended the infrastructure meeting and discussed the five-year pavement management program. And, you know, that's kind of a science. And this was really this PCI pavement program. principles developed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineering during World War II. And so we still use that to determine the grade level of our streets. You know, we want to keep them at a certain level. We don't want to let them go below another level because then we spend more money on the streets. So we don't want to do that. April 12th, the mayor and I were at the holy celebration at Bishop Ranch. which as you know, Hindu festival of color, love and spring. And it was a great event. I mean, it wasn't as the weather wasn't as favorable as last year when we had great weather, but we had a lot of happy people. You had people of all ages throwing paint at each other. It was fun. It was just a lot of fun. We had a nice stage. We had a nice DJ. We had a nice dancing by the Indian dancers. Even though we only got a little bit of maybe an hour and a half of a break in the rain, it was enough to really have a good time. And then April 13th, on Monday, we had the government, that was yesterday, government one-on-one participant recognition dinner. The mayor... mostly presided over that. He gave the certificates and I was the bag man and gave bags to the attendees of that course. And it was a great It was a great event, and I stuck around for the dinner and, you know, encouraged people to do some other meetings, you know, other courses, continue the journey to understand how the city operates. So those are the activities I did.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Let me come down to council members. Why not?

Not many activities of significance, but I just I wanted to just thank the public for coming today and sharing their opinions and speaking out. And as you can see here from council, we do listen and we do really appreciate it. And thank you for sticking around till the end here. We appreciate it. I also want to give a big thanks to Public Works. I walked around over the weekend in the neighborhood. after the storms and you know the creeks are clear the streets are clear and the the main drains are clear of leaves etc so that's that's a big deal to us so uh so thank you and also a big thank you to the citizens for keeping their keeping their property clean it makes a difference so it's great to live in a community where people do take care of their of their homes and their property and i just wanted to give a thank you feel a good moment okay thank you councilmember for us

Council Member Adler already covered on infrastructure committee meetings. Only one thing I want to add is that the current PCA index as per our policy is 76 and we are at 76. There was no decision made to change anything on that PCA index. I want to make sure that we are clear on that. And also there was a concern raised by staff that due to the budget constraints right now where we are that can result into reducing the PCA index, but we want to continue to watch and see if we need. We may need to allocate additional funds to improve the PCA index in future, because there could be a possible deficit that can come, but then we may need to allocate some funds to it. But otherwise, right now, it is still the same. We didn't change anything in the policy.

All right, thank you. Several of my items have been briefed out. I'll cover a few others. March 26, I attended the East Bay EDA Awards, Economic Development Alliance Awards. We had two winners from the city of San Ramon. Enjoyment Endeavor in the Arts and Culture category. That was Joy Ofuto. She's the CEO, took the award there. And then also Sunset Development for the Built Environment category and Shannon Quilty, from Sunset received that award. Then on the 28th of March, that Saturday, I attended the San Ramon Valley Science Olympiad Awards. That was over at Doherty Valley High School. And it's hands-on STEM learning with our youth. And there was probably about 150 elementary school kids there. And their schools got recognized. They got recognized. Their teams got recognized. for some of the projects that they did. It was probably about 500 residents of the community that showed up. It was a well-attended event. But it was nice to hand out awards to these young entrepreneurs, if you will. And then on the 29th, Sunday the 29th of March, I attended the, they called it the inaugural gala. And there was an establishment of a U.S. branch of the International Union of Arab Intellectuals. And so these are intellectuals, these are educators, poets, writers that were, it's an international organization. They started the first branch here in San Ramon. They wanted to launch it in our city, so they did that over at the community center. So I give a greeting to that group. On the 2nd of April, I attended the Contra Costa County Mayor's Conference up in Concord. We got a presentation from the director of the South Bay Coalition to end human trafficking. She presented some issues and opportunities about what local responses can be done to abuses. This is primarily focused on the upcoming World Games in June. And then on the 7th of April, I attended, uh, the East bay mud, uh, ward seven briefing, uh, given by April Chan, uh, uh, our own Brian Bornstein was there as well, but focus there was talking about, uh, kind of the current snow melt situation up in the Sierras. What the impact was that of that was on our water, uh, inventory and, and frankly, our, for our, for East bay mud and, um, uh, really for currently there's not a significant water shortage that we have to worry about right now. If we get another year or two of drought, then that situation may change, but there's plenty of inventory in the East Bay mud footprint at least, or at least that watershed. And then lastly, I was able to spend an afternoon with a couple of students from Walt Disney Elementary School. These were some of their education fund winners, a first grader and a fifth grader, and they won an afternoon with the mayor. So they came in here in City Hall. We talked about government, how things run. I let them bang the gavel a couple times. We walked around and visited the different city offices where staff got to tell them, and their dad, how the city operates, and then we went over had lunch, and then over to the police department where we got a nice tour of the police department. And it was just a great day. I think it's one of the fun things I get to do. And I think it was a wonderful day. So with that, that's the end of my report. Any final comments? All right. With that, meeting is adjourned. Thank you.