HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016-10-20 City Schools Liaison Committee Summary MinutesBIG CREEK ELEMENTARY
Special Meeting
October 20, 2016
The Special City School Liaison Committee met in the Community Meeting
Room at this date at 8:03 A.M., 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, California.
Present: City of Palo Alto
Tom DuBois, Council Member, Committee Chair
Cory Wolbach, Council Member
Khashayar “Cash” Alaee, City Manager’s Office
Palo Alto Unified School District
Terry Godfrey, Vice President
Cathy Mak, District Chief Business Officer
Absent: Melissa Baten Caswell, Board Member PAUSD
Oral Communications
None.
Agenda Items
1. Approval of Minutes- September 15, 2016.
Chair DuBois: Can we approve the Minutes?
Vice President Godfrey: Do you mean the transcript or is there ... You
mean the transcript, right?
Chair DuBois: Yeah.
Council Member Wolbach: I'll move approval of Minutes.
Chair DuBois: I'll second. All those in favor?
MOTION: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Chair DuBois that
the City School Liaison Committee approve the minutes from September 15,
2016.
MOTION PASSED: 3-0
Chair DuBois: I wonder if we could permanently move the review of
meetings to be the last item?
City/School Liaison Committee Minutes
Khashayar Alaee, City Manager’s Office: Sure.
Council Member Wolbach: I'll concur with that.
Chair DuBois: We do that every meeting.
At this time the Committee heard Agenda Item Number 3.
3. Discussion Regarding PAUSD and City Sustainability Programs.
Chair DuBois: Let's go ahead and talk about sustainability.
Rebecca Navarro, Energy Specialist, PAUSD: I'm Rebecca Navarro, and my
primary role is the Energy Specialist for Palo Alto Unified School District
(PAUSD). What I'm going to share with you today is sort of a broader
sustainability update. In the 5 1/2 years that I've been working on energy
conservation for PAUSD, other sorts of sustainability initiatives have sort of
just organically come up. I've started to work on a variety of them. It
makes sense, I think, at this point to talk about not just energy conservation
but sort of the broader sustainability initiatives of the School District. The
slides that I have are slides that I've been sharing with site staff and site
administration this year. A little of them are sort of looking back, reflecting
on the most recent school year and how we did with those initiatives. Then,
some of it is sort of looking forward at the rest of this school year. I made a
little video, which I'll share with you. It is by no means an exhaustive look
at all of the sustainability accomplishment last school year, but we do have
every single school's—at least one effort at every single school site
represented here. [video shown] First of all, when I showed this to the site
administrators, they're like, "My site did so many more things than that,"
which of course was true. The video could have gone on for an entire day if
we really got into everything that every site accomplished. I think it gives a pretty reasonable snapshot of the various initiatives that we have going on
around town and the fact that every site is on board. It's such a beautiful
culture shift across the District toward completely embracing all aspects of
sustainability. One of the things that has come out of that has been a
number of partnerships. We did our earlier removing of turf, putting in of
native plant conversions with Acterra. We're actually in-housing them at
this point, but they helped us with sort of picking the plants and design at
the beginning. I should mention that there's another, a third really beautiful
one that just got put in at Escondido at the beginning of the school year.
Quite an expansive one. We've also worked a lot with Living Classroom out
of Los Altos. The elementary schools are working with that program. The
Zero Waste Champion Program, which we're partnering with the City on,
was incredibly successful in its first year last year. We're in the second year
now. We have seen so much success in terms of proper waste sorting and
just moving toward the goal of zero waste in conjunction with the City. That
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work we've done primarily with Wendy Hediger. It's been awesome. What
we have going on there is one staff member per school site who is sort of
tasked with being the champion for all things zero waste. They're a
reference person, a friendly reminder. We do weekly audits of the waste
streams at each school site and report that back to the City. We're making
a lot of progress through that program. I'm the champion for the District
Office.
Chair DuBois: Does that actually lower your waste collection cost if you're
composting and recycling?
Ms. Navarro: Yeah. The trick of that is the hauler will come pick it up if it's
half full, unless you can pick up and tell them, "It's half full. Reduce our
service." A lot of it is just right-sizing it and then making the call.
Chair DuBois: Right. Is it cost neutral? Does it pay for itself?
Ms. Navarro: We pay a certain amount for the trash, 10 percent less for
compost I think, and recycling is free. The more we can get out of the
landfill, the more we can save, for sure. This is a specific look at how we did
last school year with saving electricity, natural gas and water across all the
schools sites and the District Office. Year over year, month over month, our
reduction is improving, which is a testament to how much people at the
school sites have intuited the idea of saving energy. You can see that over
the course of last school year, between August and May, we're just up and
up and up, and then we kind of held steady the last few months of the
school year. You can see our total percentage reduction across the utilities
across the sites, which was 23.1. That dollar amount was how much we
avoided in utility costs. I put a couple of green equivalencies up there, number of cars removed from the road for a year or the amount of carbon
sequestered over a 10-year period from that many trees, 43-ish thousand
trees.
Council Member Wolbach: Can I ask a quick question about that last one?
Ms. Navarro: Sure.
Council Member Wolbach: Sorry to interrupt the presentation. The 43,000
or 43 1/2 thousand trees, that would be the carbon equivalent of 10 years of
those trees?
Ms. Navarro: Yes, the carbon that you would sequester over having planted
those trees and then having 10 years pass.
Council Member Wolbach: That's great.
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Ms. Navarro: It's good stuff. Another partnership that wasn't in the slide
show that I spent a lot of time on this summer and into this school year
working with Lisa Benatar out of the Utilities Department is the Georgetown
University Energy Prize effort. I would like to specifically say that working
with Lisa has been awesome. She really has her finger on the pulse of how
to connect with students of all ages, what's relevant and meaningful. Her
heart is really in the right place in terms of looking at ways to build a
partnership with the schools and also figure out how we, as an entire Palo
Alto community, can start thinking about the energy we're using at home,
the energy we're using at school, have the students be a resource for going
home and teaching their families and having this effort not just be about
maybe, hopefully winning the Georgetown prize but just creating new
concepts that we can put in place and use for years and years and years.
I've had a really rewarding experience working with her. We are hoping
very soon to roll out this adorable thing she came up with. Has everyone
seen it? I'm not sure. The energy passport. How cute is this, right? Just
imagine you're a fourth grader. You know you want to do this. We also are
very clear that high schoolers won't think this is so cool, so we're trying to
make an app or something for their phones to also get the students
engaged. The basic concept is you log onto the utility portal; you start
tracking your daily energy use, your average monthly use; you can bring it
to your classroom teacher; get your passport stamped. We're hoping at the
end of the whole thing to have some sort of party where the families can all
get together and sort of celebrate this process of saving energy at home and
at school.
Chair DuBois: Just actually figuring out your average daily electricity usage
would be interesting for some of these kids.
Ms. Navarro: Yeah. So much of what she's—she's trying to develop this
literacy around how much you're using so that you can start to make
decisions at home. If I'm plugging in my electric vehicle, what's something
that I have plugged in that I don't need to have plugged? Making tradeoffs
and assigning amounts to different things, behaviors that you're doing, so
you can make thoughtful decisions about changing the behaviors. She's
wonderful. She's really a lot of fun.
Vice President Godfrey: She did the photovoltaics at Escondido a million
years ago.
Ms. Navarro: Yes.
Vice President Godfrey: I was a parent with her at Escondido.
Chair DuBois: At this point, do you feel like you're connected, you know
who to call on in the City for water, electricity, gas, waste?
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Ms. Navarro: Yes. I actually feel like the partnership just keeps growing
and growing. There continues to be more and more people that I feel like ...
Chair DuBois: You're probably outnumbered, right?
Ms. Navarro: Yeah. It's great. It's been wonderful working with the City.
As these things have sort of cropped up organically, all these miscellaneous
sustainability initiatives, we're doing our best effort to not be disorganized or
to not have people feel overwhelmed by the volume of them. Our focus for
this year is three-fold. Turn it off, sort your waste and make safe, healthy
purchases. Turn it off is a reference to the energy program. We want to
keep that going strong. We're saving a lot of money through that program,
and we're consuming much less utility than we used to. We're keeping up
with that. The Zero Waste Champion Program has really helped us improve
our waste sorting across the school sites. We want to continue to grow that
program. There's still like maybe four sites that are champion-less; the rest
do have a champion. The third initiative that's gotten a lot of traction in the
past couple of years is the idea of really scrutinizing what's coming into the
classrooms and making sure that those are safe, healthy purchases, whether
it be art supplies, cleaning supplies, any sort of generous donation that
comes from the parent community. I think in the past it was sort of just
brought into the classroom with a smile and a thank you. Now, we're just
trying to make sure that nothing that's coming in is actually doing any sort
of harm as (crosstalk).
Claudia Keith, Chief Communications Officer: No ding dongs. We're not
talking food, right? We're talking about environmental. Just kidding.
Ms. Navarro: The big one that caused ... I think we know what ding dongs (crosstalk). The big one that caused a lot of opinions and emotions was ...
Vice President Godfrey: Anti-bacterial soap.
Ms. Navarro: ... anti-bacterial soap and Clorox wipes.
Vice President Godfrey: Clorox wipes, yeah.
Ms. Navarro: I think there's a lot of value in an elementary school
classroom by doing the quick cleanup. There's concern for nut allergies and
so forth. There's a lot of really valid reasons that teachers want to be able
to do a quick cleanup. We're trying to move to a soap-and-water platform.
Soap and water is safe and healthy; it cleans everything. You can use
reusable cloths and clean them onsite.
Vice President Godfrey: What was your shorthand for the third one? It was
safe and healthy purchases?
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Ms. Navarro: Yeah, safe and healthy purchases.
Vice President Godfrey: Turn it off, sort your waste, and safe and healthy
purchases.
Ms. Navarro: That's our three-tiered focus for this school year.
Chair DuBois: Is that ...
Ms. Navarro: That's it.
Chair DuBois: I had a bunch of different questions. My daughter's in—I
joined high school this year. She's on the sports team, so I've been visiting
a lot of area high schools lately. I see some solar over parking lots. Has
that been discussed in PAUSD?
Ms. Navarro: Yes. We are working with a local firm called Arc [phonetic] to
do the solar feasibility study for the entire District right now. They're about
50 percent done with that. Actually, what was the real surprising, kind of
like sticking point, was the change from the utility in terms of what the solar
program offerings are. That was a real game changer.
Chair DuBois: What would you guys qualify for? There's like a commercial
program.
Ms. Navarro: I think that was the big question, what made the most sense
from the feed-in tariff or the ...
Chair DuBois: Clean Local Energy Accessible Now (CLEAN) program?
Ms. Navarro: ... the Net Energy Metering change in cost. Of course, there's
a lot of community values around trees. You can do a lot of solar if you
don't have shade in your way. We really value the shade that we have in
our way. Arc is trying to right-size everything in the study so that we can
then make a Request for Proposal (RFP) to see if we actually decide to go in that direction or not.
Chair DuBois: You're looking at roofs of buildings as well?
Ms. Navarro: A lot of what they're looking at—everything that's new
construction is pretty much solar ready, I think. There's been a lot of new
construction. What seems to be the trend is these like perimeter structures
of elementary schools, like where the blacktop meets the grass athletic area
and creating a little square of benches around that, that has little solar roofs.
I think it's like a California Division of State Architect (DSA) over-the-counter
thing. It's like a very standard type of structure. It provides shade. It's
also easy to put through the process.
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Chair DuBois: We did keep the rate up on, I think it's called the CLEAN
program. It's 13 1/2 cent kilowatts, and I think that's probably our most
attractive program. We've only had a couple of uses.
Ms. Navarro: We don't have to stress so much.
Chair DuBois: It's a limited amount of—a limited program. It seems like it'd
be great if the School District jumped into that one. There's a lot of
pressure to lower the rates. We actually have a contract to get solar for like
3 1/2 cents a kilowatt from these big, commercial farms. It's putting
pressure on the reimbursement for local programs.
Ms. Navarro: Lindsay told us. Lindsay Joye did a really good job of being
really honest and helpful. She's a great resource.
Chair DuBois: If you can jump into those while those rates are high, it
would probably be good for the School District.
Ms. Navarro: I'll pass this along to Happy. That's good.
Chair DuBois: The other thing I was curious about is water. Has there been
any discussion of installing cisterns underground at schools?
Ms. Navarro: It crops up from the—there's a lot of grassroots interest in it.
There are a lot of individual teachers that send emails with that sort of
question or some flavor of that question. I know Nixon has a couple of
storage containers, but it's a very small-scale thing. I think they might just
use it for almost like educational purposes more so than to offset their actual
water consumption.
Chair DuBois: Is most of the District used for irrigation?
Ms. Navarro: Yeah, yes. It was such a dance doing the mandated cutback.
We do have the partnership with the athletic fields. We let the community use them, so we didn't want them to become unusable. What nobler cause
than things for children? Really that's where our water is going. It was a
dance, for sure.
Chair DuBois: I'm wondering financially if there are grants and things where
some of these things aren't really a huge expense to the School District.
They actually pay for themselves.
Ms. Navarro: The Water District is pretty willing to craft something for the
schools. They're a good partner in that regard. As a side note, I know this
is slightly less relevant. Stanford Water has sort of stepped up to (inaudible)
and Escondido in terms of—for example, we wanted to do a long conversion
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at Escondido. We said, "Can you match what we're getting over here?"
They said, "Sure." That was great. I think we can count on them as a
partner too. They've run out of money. Everyone was just scrambling to
get those grants the last couple of years. I know they ran out on the turf
conversions. I haven't looked into if they have any sort of rainwater
harvesting or cistern grants. Kind of unrelated, I guess this would be more
of a water consumption grant that they just rolled out. There's one for the
hydration stations, moving away from single-use plastics to hydration
stations. They're granting for that now.
Chair DuBois: Have you seen this company, Purple Pipe and RainDance,
where they're collecting groundwater. I wonder if that's cheaper than using
City water to water grass. Some of these basements are pumping a lot of
water. If you took that to a school and watered the lawns.
Ms. Navarro: I think that's sort of the next step. It makes everyone feel a
little bit nervous. I don't think that's a reason to really get hung up, but it
definitely merits a really honest conversation with all the stakeholders. I
think all of us have concerns that students are little, they roll around on the
grass. All of a sudden, there's all these questions of what are we really
putting out there.
Chair DuBois: That it's not treated water?
Ms. Navarro: Just that versus a business park where adults with common
sense—not that children don't have common sense. It's just a different
(crosstalk).
Chair DuBois: I think they're testing the water, and so it would only be
basements where the water quality was ...
Ms. Navarro: Totally fine?
Chair DuBois: ... high enough. Again, you should talk to people at the Palo
Alto water treatment plant.
Ms. Navarro: Thank you. Our irrigation guy is awesome, Chuck. He'll give
mostly anything a try. He just wants to know everybody else is up for it too.
He doesn't want to be an island of one.
Chair DuBois: Did the native plant conversions pay for themselves?
Ms. Navarro: I don't think totally. Chuck handled the financial part of it. If
they didn't pay for themselves, they offset it to the point that it was an easy
choice.
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Chair DuBois: That's kind of the cool thing about a lot of things you work
on. It seems like at least over a long time they pay for themselves.
Vice President Godfrey: What happened at Escondido? What lawn went to
(inaudible)?
Ms. Navarro: Where the parking lot is, the main parking lot, with sort of the
kinders and then it sweeps over toward the MP room. That entire lawn was
out. It was delightfully awkward. It was all torn up. You can't always
control schedules. The first day of school—my kids go to school there. The
first day of school it was like pure dirt. It looked so bad. Now it looks
gorgeous.
Vice President Godfrey: My kids went to school there as well a few years
ago.
Ms. Navarro: I love Escondido.
Vice President Godfrey: That's about the only place I could think of that's
not really play area that was grass.
Ms. Navarro: We just did the front.
Chair DuBois: Any questions?
Council Member Wolbach: I think you got us all (inaudible).
Ms. Navarro: Thanks.
Chair DuBois: Thank you.
Khashayar Alaee, City Manager’s Office: A little transition before I give Gil's
updates on the (crosstalk).
Vice President Godfrey: (crosstalk) part of Gil today.
Mr. Alaee: On November 10th from 12:00 P.M. to 1:00 P.M.—I don't know if
you know about this—our Zero Waste folks and the Water Quality Control Plant are hosting Palo Alto High School students here over lunch, 12:00 P.M.
to 1:00 P.M., to talk about Tapped Out, Stop Pollution Before It Starts.
Come and hear how Palo Alto High School students are leading a movement
to eliminate plastic pollution on their campus. Just goes to show how closely
the program is integrated.
Council Member Wolbach: Is that a public event or is that a small meeting?
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Mr. Alaee: They've invited a lot of Staff. Let me ask if Council Members can
come, and School Board Members. I think it'll be great.
Council Member Wolbach: What's the time for that?
Mr. Alaee: 12:00 P.M. to 1:00 P.M. Here in the Community Room, right
here.
Council Member Wolbach: That's on the 12th, November 12th?
Mr. Alaee: November 10th. Gil says he's very sorry he's not here today.
He's feeling really ill. He wanted me to let the Committee know that Council
in April approved the greenhouse gas reduction goal of 80 percent by 2030.
It's one of the boldest in the world. We're at approximately 36 percent now
with nearly two-thirds of what remains from road travel and about a quarter
from natural gas use. Hence, our key strategies of mobility services and
electrification of both buildings and fleet. We're scheduled to return to
Council on November 28th to approve the Sustainability/Climate Action Plan
framework. There will be following meetings in the first quarter of the new
year to review and approve the specific implementation plans. Don't know if
you heard recently. The U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded
Palo Alto and 30 other Bay Area cities $1 million to pursue advanced mobility
strategies focused on how we could make it more convenient for anyone
anywhere at any time to not have to get in a car and drive. Also, Council
this year approved the Palo Alto Green Building Code and Energy Reach
Code. It's probably the most advanced in the state. The City's beginning a
new Building Code this fall. He just does say he applauds all of PAUSD's
efforts as well. Those are some of his key highlights.
Vice President Godfrey: What's that mobility one again?
Mr. Alaee: The Department of Transportation?
Vice President Godfrey: What does that look like?
Mr. Alaee: (crosstalk) probably know more ...
Ms. Keith: It's a Federal grant. It's part of the Administration's—they have
a (inaudible) called Mobility Initiative Sandbox where they're giving
communities money for technology-based commute alternatives. Ours is a
demonstration project over two years. All that money doesn't come to Palo
Alto. We're partnering with (crosstalk) Joint Venture. It's kind of modeled
after Stanford's commute program, where they charge for parking and then
use that money to try to reduce single occupant driving. I think they'll have
some things like integration with public transit and mobile apps, that kind of
thing.
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Vice President Godfrey: It's not like doing a bike share program and doing
bike paths. It's more getting your commuters to these other alternate ...
Ms. Keith: Exactly, using technology.
Chair DuBois: It's all the cities in the Bay. It's like a mobile app that
connects different transportations.
Ms. Keith: Right. They'll do things like integrating with employer-based ride
share programs, things like that. I think some of the exact details are to be
worked out. It's a demonstration pilot.
Vice President Godfrey: Is there a marketing arm that goes with that as
well? Is it targeted at all people who commute in the City or is it City staff?
Mr. Alaee: It's not just City staff. It's Citywide.
Ms. Keith: It's focused on single occupant vehicles.
Council Member Wolbach: It's mobility as a service.
Ms. Keith: The goal is to try to reduce in the Bay Area Single Occupancy
Vehicle (SOV) from 75 to 50. That's the percent. That's kind of the overall
big goal.
Vice President Godfrey: At Stanford they have that marketing program you
really cannot get away from.
Ms. Keith: I don't know if the grant ...
Vice President Godfrey: Luckily I lived across the street (crosstalk) rode my
bike.
Ms. Keith: I don't know if the grant has marketing dollars built in or whether
it's just the actual technology.
Chair DuBois: Rebecca, is transportation under your purview as well?
Ms. Navarro: Kind of, yes. Everything sort of is. Everyone seems to snag my friendly face when I go to the sites. I kind of feel like I end up being the
clearinghouse for a lot of these things and that I sort of direct people to the
right helpful people in the District. We have been getting money from City
of Palo Alto for our electric vehicle charging station program, that we just
rolled out. It's so exciting. The teachers at Gunn High School and Palo Alto
High School (Paly) have their charging stations, and they are ecstatic. They
are so happy. There were staff members that were emailing me and Ron
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Ellis, the maintenance manager, every week for updates. They're just so
excited that they can drive their electric vehicles to work now.
Chair DuBois: I know we have safe bike routes to school. Are you doing
anything with kids about greenhouse gas and transportation?
Ms. Navarro: I haven't yet. I just barely started working with the students.
My first sort of task that I got hired for was working with Staff. I have
started working a lot with the high school students. I have some in the AAR
program, Advanced Authentic Research Program. I had a few student
interns last year and last summer. I feel like even maybe I can partner with
younger students if I can figure out how to work with their teachers.
Chair DuBois: Even publishing stats based on how many kids are biking,
how much greenhouse gas they're saving.
Ms. Navarro: Yes, that is something that we could easily do. I think Penny
Ellson probably has what we need.
Vice President Godfrey: She probably memorized it.
Ms. Navarro: Yes, per school site.
Chair DuBois: Do the buildings actually use gas, natural gas?
Ms. Navarro: For heating and for water heating, yes.
Council Member Wolbach: Actually I'll pick up on both of those last points.
As we just heard a reminder, maybe the two big chunks of Palo Alto's
greenhouse gas emissions, as a whole community not just as the City or the
School District or residents or business but a whole community, are really
gas and transportation. On transportation stuff, this really does—a couple of
things. I was actually going to mention later during our review of recent
Council discussions a couple of things that we're working on. Our Comprehensive Plan Update, we've had meetings recently talking about the
Transportation Element to our Comprehensive Plan, which will guide the City
in many elements until 2030. We're working on our Transportation Element,
really trying to push this mobility as a service, our reduction of commuter
trips to Downtown through our Transportation Management Association
partnership between the City and major employers, trying to support
Stanford and their efforts in Transportation Demand Management to the
Stanford Research Park to whatever degree we can, just continue to partner
with the Palo Alto Unified. I think it's going to have a significant impact on
our greenhouse gas emissions because so many of the daily trips in Palo Alto
are people taking their kids to school. Whatever we can do to—it's great to
hear that the partnership is going well and the staff-to-staff work is going
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well. Getting this stuff done can't happen or in monthly meetings we can't
do the work. I'm really glad to hear that the communication partnership is
going well. I think there is a real opportunity to continue to push that. One
of the other things I was going to mention like I'll just mention now is our
work around or approval to move forward with redesign of Embarcadero
Road near El Camino and Alma and that whole area between Paly and ...
Chair DuBois: Town and Country.
Council Member Wolbach: ... Town and Country, thank you. It's partly to
improve the traffic flow. A lot of it is also to improve the bike and
pedestrian safety so that people feel like they can bike and they can walk
and it'll be safe. Thus, have the ancillary effect of reducing the greenhouse
gases at the same time. On gas, it hasn't come to the full Council. On the
Finance Committee just two evenings ago, night before last, we approved
moving to the Council for discussion, which will be coming up, some changes
to our Natural Gas Program. It came out of our Utilities Advisory
Commission and Staff. It came to the Finance Committee. It still has to go
to Council. We're looking at potentially increasing our gas rates by a little
bit in order to have a big reduction in the total greenhouse gas impact of our
gas program primarily through buying a lot of environmental offsets, a lot of
greenhouse gas offsets. I think that's a really exciting interim step on the
way towards long-term electrification. We can't electrify everything over
night because infrastructure and buildings take a while to do that. We
haven't finished a full plan for that. I think if and when this moves forward,
this is probably an important step. It's also something to be aware of,
because our gas rates might go up. I'm pretty sure you guys buy from the City of Palo Alto for you guys' utility.
Ms. Navarro: I knew this was coming. It makes total sense. It's a good
thing; it is a good thing. It'll pinch for a little while, I think, but over time
it'll be the right move.
Vice President Godfrey: I know (inaudible) have this memorized. We do
have more than half the kids in the high schools ride their bikes. Many of
them do get to school other ways. My kid happens to walk to school. We
are at a pretty good spot there. Particularly around Paly there is a lot of—
the pedestrian, bicycle, car traffic is crazy. We had a child hit crossing
Embarcadero on foot last spring. We had a child just this month hit on
Churchill on her bicycle.
Ms. Navarro: That is so scary.
Vice President: It is. Churchill right near ...
Ms. Navarro: The football fields?
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Vice President Godfrey: Yeah, in the morning. She's fine. It was more
dramatic-looking than it was. She went up on the hood of the car and all
that sort of thing.
Ms. Navarro: It could be really sort of emotionally scary.
Vice President Godfrey: Yeah. She wore a helmet. She went to the
hospital, and ultimately she was fine. Also that intersection at Churchill and
El Camino, I think there's some discussion about making that turn there
more accessible, so there's not so much backup. It's just crazy. I'm
actually really happy now that my kid walks, because (crosstalk) safer.
Council Member Wolbach: I'm trying to remember whether it was at one of
our meetings here or whether it was an update at City Council. I think it
was a meeting at the City Council a few months back, when we were talking
about the Safe Routes to School program. Probably Penny Ellson was there
as part of the presentation. Looking at the number of students and the
percentage of students attending the high schools who do bike, what was
really dramatic for me personally was—I was a Gunn '99 grad.
Vice President Godfrey: There probably weren't that many bikers at that
time.
Council Member Wolbach: That was the nadir; that was the low point in like
the last 30 years or 20 years of biking to the high schools. That period when
I was there was kind of the low end. I think it actually had gone down for a
while. Since then, it's skyrocketed. It really is impressive. We've made
huge strides. There's probably some more to do. I guess the challenge is
that we've probably taken care of the low-hanging fruit at this point. If the
people who are already inclined to switch to biking, we've probably already gotten a lot of those. Now, the question is how do we get the ...
Vice President Godfrey: Are you around campuses during the day? The
number of bikes in the bike racks is crazy.
Ms. Navarro: It's really beautiful. Sven Thesen has been really helpful in
terms of looking for creative ways to get our staff not just being single
drivers to their school sites in internal-combustion engine cars.
Council Member Wolbach: We mentioned this at a previous meeting, but
since you're here I'll mention it again. Have you looked into or had any
opportunity to interface with Palo Alto's new TMA, the Transportation
Management Association?
Ms. Navarro: No.
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Mr. Alaee: I can give a quick update on that. A couple of months ago, I
want to say maybe three—it was the last 3-6 months. Cathy and I
connected Gunn with Stanford Research Park TMA.
Council Member Wolbach: That makes sense for that area.
Mr. Alaee: I'm not 100 percent sure on who the Gunn principal is, but you
may want to check in. I think Gunn is getting wrapped up into that TMA or
some (crosstalk).
Council Member Wolbach: That's the Stanford Research Park Transportation
Demand Management (TDM) working group?
Mr. Alaee: Correct. We had some preliminary conversations based on
Addison—you remember the parking permit issues—to get them wrapped up
into the Downtown TMA. I think those are brewing as kind of focal points
because they're close to the TMAs.
Council Member Wolbach: Natural starting points.
Mr. Alaee: Yeah. As far as all the school campuses, we don't have a
Citywide TMA. They're good starting points, like you said.
Council Member Wolbach: That's great.
Chair DuBois: The other thing that I think is coming up to Council soon is
the shuttle program. Again, the shuttle drives around empty a lot during the
daytime. It would be great for kids who can't bike or carrying bassoons or
whatever. It'd be great if the shuttles really synced up with the school start
schedules. I think a lot of kids do take the shuttles, but it'd be great to
increase that if we can.
Council Member Wolbach: The cross-town one, you guys are our biggest
customer.
Vice President Godfrey: We have Safe Routes to School on the next School
Board Agenda. We just decided yesterday on the Agenda for next time,
which is the 15th. We will sort of integrate those conversations.
Ms. Navarro: Do you have data on how the students that don't live in the
City of Palo Alto, mostly the ones that live in East Palo Alto or east Menlo
Park, are getting to school? Are they mostly using the bus service or are
they getting driven by their parents? Is that something that's unquantified?
Vice President Godfrey: I think we probably know the answer to that. I
rode the bus a few weeks ago, because I shadowed a student at Gunn.
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Ms. Navarro: You did the shadow.
Vice President Godfrey: That bus was full.
Ms. Navarro: The bus was full.
Vice President Godfrey: Yeah, it was full. We left the bus yard at 6:30 in
the morning and made our way around. By the time we were done,
somebody finally had to sit with me, because nobody wanted to sit with me.
We had kids three to a seat in those two-person seats. They do get a lot of
use. We added a bus last year.
Ms. Navarro: The same as when we were busing.
Council Member Wolbach: Actually one other thing. Something else I was
going to mention later. Our bike share, we just moved one step forward in
directing Staff to put together or at least start negotiating a potential
contract around a totally revamped bike share program for Palo Alto. We
have a couple of bike share racks in Downtown and California Avenue (Cal.
Ave.) and a couple of other places. This would be a much more substantial
program, which will roll out over the next year or two. That's another place
where, between Cathy and yourself and our staff, there might be
opportunities to touch base and think about where the smart places would
be for stations.
Chair DuBois: Thank you very much for coming today. Appreciate it.
Ms. Navarro: Thanks for having me.
Vice President Godfrey: Thanks for keeping 353 cars off the road.
Chair DuBois: Should we go to the next item, that's recent School Board
and ...
NO ACTION TAKEN
At this time the Committee heard Agenda Item Number 2.
2. Review of Recent City Council/PAUSD Board Meetings.
Chair DuBois: Cory, it sounded like you had some things from recent Council
meetings.
Council Member Wolbach: I just went through half of them. There are a
couple. I can't remember if we mentioned it at our last meeting, but we had an
interesting study session around, back in September, El Camino Real and Page
Mill Road, where a developer's considering smaller units of housing. It would
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be like a 60-unit (inaudible) complex with the focus on studios and one-
bedrooms.
Vice President Godfrey: Is there a little parking lot there right now ...
Council Member Wolbach: Right, there's a Santa Clara Valley Transportation
Authority (VTA) ...
Vice President Godfrey: ... by the Sunrise?
Council Member Wolbach: It's going to get redeveloped into something. The
question is what it's going to get changed into. We heard about it a year ago,
and it was a mixed-use development with a lot of office and a little bit of
residential. We had a prescreening then. At a prescreening, we can't take any
action. The indication from Council wasn't a lot of enthusiasm for the office
part there. A different developer got an option on it and is looking at a more
residential-focused development. It's something we've talked about. We'll see
how it goes forward. One of the questions is whether they can provide
residential Transportation Demand Management to justify having fewer parking
spaces. That's an open conversation that we definitely have mixed feelings
about it. I think it'll probably come down to ...
Vice President Godfrey: Are they units that would have kids?
Council Member Wolbach: That's part of the question.
Chair DuBois: What was the size, do you remember?
Council Member Wolbach: It's pretty small units, like 500 square feet, but not
micro units. Smaller studios and one-bedrooms.
Vice President Godfrey: Is that what we have at that Treehouse that's over
where they used to have ...
Chair DuBois: I'm not sure how big those are.
Council Member Wolbach: I'm not sure either.
Vice President Godfrey: I think those are 500 as well.
Chair DuBois: They were full-size studios, I would call them.
Council Member Wolbach: They weren't really micro units. They are more
studios and one-bedrooms. It's definitely plausible that people could have kids
there. The real question will be around whether the location, being near bus
lines on El Camino and near Caltrain and near some walkable services, would
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mean that the parking and traffic impact wouldn't be as significant as if it was
located say in Barron Park or Midtown. That's very early on.
Vice President Godfrey: We do have history on how many kids to expect out of
units that size. I think when we do our enrollment projection, we have some
kind of ratio for the different kinds of units.
Council Member Wolbach: That might be actually useful for us to touch base on
or Staff to potentially touch base on. I think that project or projects like it will
probably be coming back to Council for more than just a prescreening study
session, but maybe taking action and having that kind of information about—
this is one of the concerns, the impact for schools. You guys have some
declining enrollment in your younger years, so it might be good. You have a
bubble with high schools, so it might be bad if it's high school students.
Vice President Godfrey: Don't give us any more high schoolers.
Council Member Wolbach: This is part of tying into the whole Comprehensive
Plan Update, the question of what does it mean for the schools.
Vice President Godfrey: Sorry. I didn't mean to do that.
Council Member Wolbach: There's always this question, what does it mean for
the schools if more apartments, whether they're one bedroom or two bedroom
or studio or a smaller size—what kind of impact does it have on schools,
positive, negative, neutral, neutral if you have enough time to plan. That's a
big part of the conversation about long-term planning in Palo Alto. If you guys
have good ratios or good ...
Vice President Godfrey: I think that exists. I think there's kind of an algorithm
that says the size of the apartment or the size of the condo or whatever, the
housing unit, yields “X” number of kids, 0.7 children per unit. Things like that. I remember we talked about that in those apartments that are over by Fry's
Electronics. We don't expect many kids from there, because they're very small
and they're transit-oriented. There's the apartments, the units just built by
Wells Fargo on El Camino, we do expect kids from there. Cathy has it in the
model somehow. Things, once they get approved, are in the model. Even
before they get approved, she has some assumption about what gets built over
the years.
Chair DuBois: Those Park Boulevard ones started renting now, I think.
Vice President Godfrey: Yes.
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Mr. Alaee: If we know the data in advance, as Council has the conversation,
there could be guidelines put into conditions of use. For example, that a unit
could be designated to have three people living in it as opposed to four.
Council Member Wolbach: We might have limitations on what we can mandate.
Mr. Alaee: Correct.
Council Member Wolbach: At least it would give us some idea. Rather than
Staff being in the dark about what this is going to mean for the schools, we
might actually have an answer, at least statistically.
Vice President Godfrey: Was there any discussion about using that for low-
income housing?
Council Member Wolbach: That's part of the discussion.
Vice President Godfrey: I happen to have done a citizens advisory committee
for the CDBG, the low-income block grant thing, Community Development
Block Grant. We did at that time the Treehouse, which is over behind—what's
that thing on Arastradero and El Camino? The car fixing thing. Do we have
any control over whether that's low-income housing on that?
Chair DuBois: Again, this was an early study session. It actually seemed more
high-end. I don't think they had affordable housing in the original plan that
came to us.
Vice President Godfrey: They're micro, but they're high end.
Chair DuBois: They're going to have ...
Council Member Wolbach: (crosstalk) wants market rate.
Vice President Godfrey: Market rate.
Council Member Wolbach: In Palo Alto, it means high end. There's certainly a
need for it, but the current owner is not a nonprofit developer. It's not like Palo Alto Housing or Eden Housing owns the property. It’s a for-profit developer, so
it'll be market rate. The question then is, on affordable housing, what would
the affordable housing component be onsite or what would their in-lieu fees be
if they help fund affordable housing onsite. That's just something to think
about. Again, having data for the future would be useful on that one. We did a
study session last month on our Parks and Recreation Master Plan. We also
have had discussion about our animal shelter possibly being outsourced to a
group called Pets in Need. We did just pass an increase in our minimum wage.
As I understand it, that does not apply to PAUSD, so that won't really have a
19
big impact on you guys directly. We'll be going up to $15 an hour by 2019 with
the increase coming up January 1st (crosstalk).
Vice President Godfrey: What's (inaudible) minimum wage?
Council Member Wolbach: We're at $11 right now, right?
Mr. Alaee: We're at $11 now. I think it goes to $12 on January 1st, and then
$13.50 and then $15 of each year, each January.
Council Member Wolbach: Last month was Cyber Security Awareness Month,
something good for all government agencies to be thinking about.
Mr. Alaee: What's this month? It's fire alarm testing. I'm surprised our fire
department has not blasted posters over every school, because we have them
everywhere.
Vice President Godfrey: He must be coming into Candles to get them.
Chair DuBois: The Stanford Emergency System went off at 3:00 A.M. over the
weekend. (crosstalk)
Council Member Wolbach: That's actually good. It actually ties into my last
one. We just approved moving Fire Station Number 3, which is over by
Rinconada on Embarcadero. We're going to temporarily move it. It's like a
block away from Rinconada Park on Embarcadero.
Chair DuBois: It's our oldest engine ...
Council Member Wolbach: We've known for years that it needs to get torn
down and replaced. The building is just really out of date. It was identified by
our Infrastructure Blue Ribbon Commission a few years ago as a critical need to
update that building. We approved a temporary relocation where—it's actually
going to be split. Daytime, they'll partner up with Station 1 down here on
Alma, at the north end of town. In the evening, they'll house over on Geng Road, on the other side of 101, in a City facility over there.
Chair DuBois: The baseball field back there.
Vice President Godfrey: There's a facility (inaudible) baseball field?
Chair DuBois: Behind the golf course, there's a little parking ...
Mr. Alaee: The land that was used when Palo Alto Waste Company, a long time
ago. Zero Waste and the little—it'll be right there.
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Council Member Wolbach: It's a temporary place for them to house overnight.
That will allow us to do the reconstruction of Station 3 over at Newell and
Embarcadero.
Chair DuBois: One discussion during the Parks Master Plan was is there land
that could become parkland. Strawberry Hill keeps coming up.
Vice President Godfrey: I don't know where that is.
Chair DuBois: That's right behind Gunn. It's owned by Stanford, but people
have told me that Gunn has control of it. Have you ever seen it?
Vice President Godfrey: I don't ...
Chair DuBois: It's behind the football fields. It's pretty much park right now.
Vice President Godfrey: I know what you're talking about. I didn't realize that
we feel like ...
Chair DuBois: I don't know if there'd be in any interest in the School District in
looking at that as parkland. It's right behind the donkey pasture in Bol Park.
Vice President Godfrey: Let me ask about that. That has not come up
(inaudible).
Chair DuBois: There's no roads there; there's no accessibility.
Mr. Alaee: We had a meeting with the School District out there. We're working
together on an analysis, an assessment for the Bol Park Trail, the bike path,
shared-use path that goes all the way from Arastradero to Bol Park. It's come
up in those conversations. I think for the Fiscal Year '18 Budget, we'll be
bringing a proposal to Council for possibly a plan to redo that area, expand the
trail, make it safe. Oftentimes, the neighborhood brings up Strawberry Hill and
wanting to add more native trees in there and making it some sort of park or
area where people could ...
Chair DuBois: There's even discussion in Bol Park about a dirt bike kind of
thing. The neighbors didn't like that in Bol Park. That's kind of how Strawberry
Hill is used. There's a bunch of bike turn-offs, and kids jump over little hills
and things there.
Mr. Alaee: BMX bike?
Chair DuBois: Yeah. It would be cool there.
Vice President Godfrey: Is it your understanding that Gunn controls that land?
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Mr. Alaee: It's School District property.
Vice President Godfrey: It's really Stanford property.
Chair DuBois: Stanford property, right.
Council Member Wolbach: Like Gunn itself.
Vice President Godfrey: Like Escondido and Nixon.
Chair DuBois: There was some recent—a year ago they cut down a bunch of
trees over there. It used to be much more isolated.
Vice President Godfrey: Let me ask about it.
Chair DuBois: Anything interesting from School Board meetings?
Vice President Godfrey: Let's see. We had a Board meeting on Tuesday night.
We had a Board meeting on Tuesday morning. We continue to talk about our
budget. We've moved on to talking about '17-'18 and beyond. For us, the
focus really is right now on '17-'18, '18-'19, because there's a proposition on
the ballot that changes our revenue flow quite a bit. What was Prop 30 last
time is Prop 55 now. It's a tax on high-income earners. For us, when it
expires, it's worth $2.4 million a year.
Council Member Wolbach: Not chump change.
Vice President Godfrey: Not chump change. Starting in 1920, that would go
away if Prop 55 were not passed. That means when we're talking about budget
at the moment, we're talking really more about the next two years, because we
just don't have any information on that. We will in three weeks. There's no
use talking about beyond that. Lots of discussion on that. As you know,
there's been a big interest in the community. We will do some changes of the
District Office. We'll do some reorganizations. We'll do a lot of that initial cuts
to budget in the District Office. It's part of our values that we get away from the classrooms, and we'll continue to use that as our top principle as we move
forward on making some cuts. That's a big topic of discussion. I mentioned
before the rest of you guys came in we spent three hours talking about the
difference between weighted grades and unweighted grades on transcripts or
letters or other information that goes to colleges. Our high schools, as it turns
out, do it differently. That's part of our, as you may know, longstanding
historical tradition that the schools operate pretty independently. We've been
moving them towards more consistency over the last couple of years. That was
one of the things. We spent three hours on that, because it's a real hot topic
for students and parents and staff actually. They're not in the same space on
what they think should be done. Let's see. What's coming up? Safe Routes to
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School is coming up on our upcoming Agenda, which is on the 15th. Also on
the 15th, we're going to say goodbye to Camille. Of the five Board Members,
Mr. Dauber and myself aren't up for reelection. Of the other three, Ms.
Townsend has decided not to run for reelection. We'll be doing a to-do for her,
a goodbye. We'll invite you all.
Chair DuBois: She's in until January, right?
Vice President Godfrey: No. We turn over—her last meeting is ...
Chair Dubois: I didn't realize that.
Vice President Godfrey: ... November 15th. Her last meeting will be
November 15th. If any of the other incumbents who are running don't get
reelected, that's their last meeting as well. We seat our new president, vice
president and new Board Members our first meeting in December.
Council Member Wolbach: Palo Alto does our re-org later than a lot of
agencies.
Vice President Godfrey: You do it in January. You do yours in January.
Mr. Alaee: It's the first Council meeting in January.
Council Member Wolbach: We're the weird ones doing it late. You guys
(crosstalk).
Vice President Godfrey: We do it as soon as the election results are certified.
Mr. Alaee: We like to keep everybody on edge over the holidays.
Vice President Godfrey: You'll see an invitation to come celebrate the lucky 13
of Camille, for her 13 years. We, of course, are talking about—some
discussions about Cubberley. We appreciate that you guys are moving forward
with your RFPs and getting more renters in there. We had, not this last
meeting but the meeting before, some discussion about what kind of educational facilities we would perhaps want to put there. We don't have much
need for more space. Our enrollment is dropping, as you know. Our
enrollment dropped year over year by almost 300 kids at the elementary school
level. That's a whole school.
Council Member Wolbach: But the high schools ...
Vice President Godfrey: The high schools are both at between 1,900 and 2,000
right now with a capacity of 2,300. We don't expect to exceed the capacity
even at the peak. We'll probably be right at capacity at the peak. Not enough
to build a new school for is the current thinking. We have this bubble of kids
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who are in sixth, seventh and eighth grade at the moment, where there's just a
bunch of kids who were born in those years. Those guys, obviously, are
moving into the high schools. Our middle schools, as you know, are very
crowded at the moment. We expect that to be alleviated. We spent part of the
budget session talking about class size, the number of teachers we'll need and
do we have space for it and that sort of thing for how to deal with that bubble
when it gets there. One interesting side note is that seniors this year are the
last kids to have been born in the '90s, are graduating from high school now.
You'll see lots of '90s stuff at the spirit weeks and that sort of thing. My son is
a senior; he was born in '99. They're doing lots of '90s stuff, because the last
kids born in the '90s are graduating.
Chair DuBois: The '90s doesn't have the same cache as the '80s.
Vice President Godfrey: The interesting flip side of that is—we talk about the
schools of the 21st century and preparing kids for the 21st century. The kids
who are entering our kindergartens now will be alive in the 22nd century, for
sure. Even some of the kids who are graduating now will manage to make it
into the 22nd century. Our kindergarteners for sure. They're trying to stop
talking about the 21st century and start talking about the 22nd century,
because that's what our kindergarteners are.
Chair DuBois: When you talked about propositions, it reminded me. There's
the marijuana proposition. It has no setbacks. You could grow it in your front
yard.
Vice President Godfrey: Not in Palo Alto.
Council Member Wolbach: It's on our Agenda (crosstalk).
Chair DuBois: Right now, it's a State law, and there's nothing about close to schools or anything. It is going to come to Council, an Emergency Ordinance.
It's fairly open. I think Council's going to have some legal (inaudible). Have
you heard much from parents or community about the State proposition?
Vice President Godfrey: We have not.
Council Member Wolbach: It's on our Agenda for this coming Monday. What
we might do is put in some Urgency Ordinance that could potentially, for
instance, restrict growing outdoors. If this measure passes at the State level,
we can't prohibit indoor cultivation up to six plants.
Chair DuBois: I think we can do anything. The proposition says local
governments can decide.
24
Council Member Wolbach: Not for up to six plants indoors. We do have leeway
to restrict outdoor cultivation. That's where we might—just to make sure that
there's something in place if and when it does pass in November, we might
move forward with an Urgency Ordinance. Starting on our conversation this
coming Monday.
Vice President Godfrey: I know our parents will appreciate that even if it hasn't
got (crosstalk).
Chair DuBois: If you start to hear things from parents, let us know. I'd love to
hear it.
Vice President Godfrey: Yes, I will.
Chair DuBois: I really haven't heard many people even talking about it.
Vice President Godfrey: I don't think it's on people's radar, what that would
mean on the ground.
Council Member Wolbach: That's part of why we're looking at an Urgency
Ordinance, to buy time potentially to have those full discussions and have a
smart, longer-term plan.
Vice President Godfrey: I think that's it for me.
Chair DuBois: I guess the last item is just upcoming news.
Mr. Alaee: In November, we have the Comp Plan Update, which we were going
to have this month. Hillary's confirmed she'll be here to go over the status of
that and answer any questions. On December, the District will be doing the
Enrollment Report update. The only other thing we had scheduled for today to
go with sustainability was an update on libraries. In speaking with Monique,
she's not going to be able to come before the end of the year, but she is in
close coordination with the District. They're working on a new project that she asked to come in the first quarter of the new year (crosstalk) on that project.
Chair DuBois: Did you talk to the School Librarian?
Mr. Alaee: I did not. She's doing that. I can certainly touch base with Cathy
and see if the School District wants to come and do an update. We can just
notate that.
Chair DuBois: Is there anything we could do—when we talk about the Comp
Plan, is there a plan for the School District, like long-term planning?
Vice President Godfrey: That's really our enrollment management planning.
We did do a couple of meetings ago a discussion about remodeling, since we're
25
not really opening new sites or that sort of thing. You may know Hoover's up in
the queue next. Addison had been in the queue next, but we have private
funding for that.
Chair DuBois: We didn't really do a construction update this year, did we?
From the schools?
Vice President Godfrey: I don't think we did.
Chair DuBois: Would that be possible in November?
Mr. Alaee: We did it at the beginning of the—it's up to the District. I can check
with Cathy, if you would like to do that. See if we can add a construction
update.
Vice President Godfrey: Do you have a new one of these little jobbies?
Mr. Alaee: I don't have a new one. I have the old one.
Vice President Godfrey: Mine is from April. I imagine you have one that's more
current than April.
Mr. Alaee: I know we had a construction update.
Chair DuBois: I remember vaguely, but I couldn't remember if it was last year
or this year. I think the Gunn construction is going to kick off ...
Godfrey: January.
Mr. Alaee: In May, we had a Citywide and District construction activity update.
Vice President Godfrey: We did?
Mr. Alaee: Yeah. I think the plan was—my last recollection of this conversation
was that we wanted to do it before summer to understand what was going to
occur during the summer months. That was the peak of the general
construction period for the School District and City. I think the last discussion
was to try to do it in spring. We can certainly talk to Cathy about bringing anything that has a nexus with our Comprehensive Plan from the District to the
November meeting.
Council Member Wolbach: Those population projections for students.
Chair DuBois: That's going to be December.
Mr. Alaee: The specific enrollment stuff will be in December, because I don't
think the Enrollment Report is out by November, from what I understand.
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Chair DuBois: It would be really interesting if Hillary could come in December.
The various forecasts, the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG)
forecasts are really misaligned with the School forecast. That might be an
interesting discussion to have them both.
Mr. Alaee: Do you want me to delay her until December?
Chair DuBois: No, no. I'm saying talk about the Comp Plan in November ...
Mr. Alaee: And then come in December as well?
Chair DuBois: ... to talk about ...
Council Member Wolbach: Maybe she could have that at (crosstalk).
Chair DuBois: ... Palo Alto forecasts and Bay Area forecasts.
Mr. Alaee: I'll invite, if she can do that.
Council Member Wolbach: We have these six scenarios that we're considering
for our Comprehensive Plan with different housing options, specifically around
housing. I think it would be useful if by that meeting we could have Staff and
Staff touch base maybe and say for Scenario 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6, how many
students would that be. Scenario 6 has the most housing. Scenario—was it 2
and 5? A couple of them are lower housing growth. It'd be interesting to see
what would the enrollment, just using those raw numbers, at least estimating,
impact of those different housing scenarios be. They play back on each other.
Your enrollment depends on our housing growth. Our housing growth, one of
the things we take into consideration is what would the impact be on
enrollment.
Vice President Godfrey: We do have the enrollment report for this year
already, because it's 11th day enrollment. We have seen that, which is how I
quoted the 267 kids fewer at the elementary schools, which was below our most conservative projection. I think the lower projection was like we would
lose 50 kids or something. Of course, those are children. They don't not show
up evenly across our 12 elementary schools. We have empty classrooms on
the north side of town.
Chair DuBois: The long-term forecast is ...
Vice President Godfrey: Remember the old days, when we used to talk about
how we're going to fit all those kids in on the north side of town? Let's build a
school over there.
27
Chair DuBois: The growth of the senior population, statewide even, is—that's
why I was thinking maybe if Hillary talked about just population forecasts and
job forecasts and how the ...
Vice President Godfrey: I think our demographers also use—they tell us the
correlation is pretty high with birth rate. I think we talked about this before.
Once the kids get in our District, they stay in the District. Our yield from grade
to grade is pretty good. It's those elementary school kids we're having trouble
forecasting. They're just not showing up.
Mr. Alaee: I made some notes. I'll talk to her, see what they can do. I do
know that, as you guys all know, they're extremely busy in the Planning
Department.
Vice President Godfrey: Thank you for setting up time with me with Lalo and
his friends. That was great. Tarun was like my favorite guy. I'm going to
move in with him.
Mr. Alaee: We had a meeting about the sales tax stuff.
Vice President Godfrey: Property tax.
Council Member Wolbach: Can I mention one other thing ...
Mr. Alaee: Sure.
Council Member Wolbach: ... coming out of a recent meeting that we had on
the Finance a couple of days ago. We were just doing some cleanup on budget
stuff. Cubberley did come up. I think we were hoping—when's our next
Cubberley discussion in this group?
Mr. Alaee: We do not have one scheduled until the end of the year.
Vice President Godfrey: You mean December. Is that what you mean?
Mr. Alaee: Yeah, calendar year.
Vice President Godfrey: I can never decide fiscal year, calendar year, school
year.
Council Member Wolbach: That's moved a little bit. We heard at that meeting
from Staff that it's moved slower than we'd hoped with the combined planning.
We had that press conference several months ago. We were really hoping to
move things forward. It's moved quite a bit slower than we had originally
hoped. I was just going to mention that we'd heard that. We can pick that up
in December.
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Mr. Alaee: If you all want to in December maybe put some ideas out there for
what topics the Committee should look at next year, we can do that. I think
the Chair moves over to the District next year. At this stage, we don't know
who's on the Committee. It might be good to, since we usually don't have a
January meeting, prep some items for the new Committee.
Chair DuBois: Sounds good.
Vice President Godfrey: Thank you for keeping us on track.
Mr. Alaee: You're welcome.
NO ACTION TAKEN
Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 9:12 A.M.
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