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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023-05-11 Historic Resources Board Summary Minutes City of Palo Alto Page 1 `` Call to Order/Roll Call Present: Chair Caroline Willis; Vice Chair Christian Pease; Board Members Samantha Rohman, Michael Makinen, Margaret Wimmer, and Alisa Eagleston-Cieslewicz Absent: Board Member Heinrich Oral Communications Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions City Official Reports 1. Historic Resources Board Schedule of Meetings and Assignments Chair Willis will be absent on June 8th. Election of Chair and Vice Chair will take place at the May 25th meeting, as well as the Sobrato Project. Chair Willis wanted to pick a date for a retreat. This could be held in the Community Room; however, Chair preferred to hold it offsite for a more relaxed atmosphere. She and Ms. French will discuss this. Chair Willis preferred to have the retreat during the summer, perhaps in July or August. She requested Board Members email her if they have any date restrictions during those months. Ms. French said a Saturday afternoon may be possible, although she may not be able to attend. Chair Willis wished to put Mills Act on the agenda. Chair Willis asked if June 22nd would work. Ms. French will put it on the tentative agenda for June 22nd. Action Item 2. Review and Adopt 2023-24 HRB Work Plan Ms. French gave an overview of the work plan. The Annual CLG report, discussed at the last meeting, has been sent off to the State. The Work Plan needs to be finished and sent to the City Clerk. It will be presented to the City Council, and they will choose probably two dates for each of the Boards and Commissions to have a representative attend and engage with the Council. It will be an opportunity to review the Work Plan and ask questions of the Chair and staff. Ms. French went over the Work Plan goals presented for adoption. Goal one is to review alterations to Historic Resources. Goal two is Implementation of Comp Plan Policy L7.2, which says that before demolition permits are issued, it must be confirmed that the property is not eligible for the California Register. The Preservation Consultant prepares a Historic Resource Evaluation, and sometimes eligible resources are discovered. More often, the ones noted as potentially eligible from 1948 and earlier that didn’t make the cut to National Register usually come back as not eligible. That result is noted in the GIS system online for the parcel reports. Ms. French explained that she reports out in the CLG report every year the status of the new HREs. HISTORIC RESOURCES BOARD MEETING MINUTES: May 11, 2023 Council Chamber & Virtual Zoom 8:30 A.M. City of Palo Alto Page 2 Goal three is to implement Comp Plan Policies L7.1.1, which is the purpose of the current project, the Inventory Update, focused on the properties from 2000. The project is proceeding, and a community meeting was held on April 25th. Outreach, Incentives and Work Program Development is the fourth goal. Although a Mills Act Program is one of the potential incentives, and they are working on getting it to Council, there is no program right now. The incentives for Goal 4 could include other incentives. There are some incentives within the Code, and these could be studied, as well as looking at what other cities are doing for incentives to preservation. Goal four includes implementing additional policies in the Comp Plan, such as L7.1.2, which is to re-assess the Historic Preservation Ordinance. This is already in the HRB Work Plan as a possible task or goal. Goal five is the Mills Act Program. Ms. French stated that the other part of the Work Plan is to cite the prior year’s accomplishments, which included the preparation of the report each year to send to the CLG. She noted that the HRB met 15 times from March of 2022 to the present. As usual, there were exterior alterations for listed properties and sometimes for eligible projects going through CEQA. These are ongoing accomplishments. Additionally, there were four study sessions held in the past year – the flagpole, the inventory update, a Pedro De Lamos property at Cowper, and the approaching outreach program. Action items included the Sobrato/Fry’s project, the bylaws update, 321 Cal Avenue and 525 University, which was found to be California Register eligible. Chair Willis invited comments from the public. There were no public comments. [Board Member Makinen joined the meeting remotely] Chair Willis opened discussion of the HRB Work Plan. Regarding the first goal, reviewing alterations, she shared that she is most concerned about Category 3’s and 4’s. The categories were determined long ago, and some may be accurate, but others may have gained more historic value with more now known about them. She referenced the Review Bulletin and felt they should have a discussion and clarification of its wording, particularly regarding the distinction between 1’s, 2’s, 3’s and 4’s. Ms. French noted that the Review Bulletin was intended to help members of the public and property owners when they come forward to modify their historic category buildings, to know what the ordinance sets forth as the process, combined with CEQA. The process depends on what type of project and what inventory category and is based on the existing ordinance. She offered to speak more about this at the next meeting and can send materials out on it ahead of time. Chair Willis suggested that they also look at the ordinance that dictates the information in the Bulletin. Ms. French will send this out also. Board Member Wimmer noted that they have previously talked about having this discussion. She asked if this could be a primary topic for the retreat where they could more freely discuss and throw out ideas and perhaps craft a proposal to change it or keep as is, but further define it. Chair Willis agreed with this suggestion. Ms. French will send out the Bulletin and the Ordinance as well as some artifacts she found about how the documents were created back in the 1970s, to help explain the history. She suggested that she could also present about it at a meeting, and then the Boardmembers could think about it and come back at the retreat to have the discussion. Board Member Wimmer and Chair Willis supported this idea. Chair Willis moved on to Goal 2, “Continue to support Comp Plan 7.2 implementation (preparing HRE’s to determine eligibility for the California Register is demolition is proposed.” Ms. French pointed out that the wording, “if demolition is proposed,” is included in the policy, but there is a program in place whereby, not just in the case of demolition, but also if a property owner is going sell a property or someone is about the buy they property, they will perform an HRE for the property owner. This is through the City’s consultant, but at the property owner’s expense. City of Palo Alto Page 3 Chair Willis wondered if they could simply do a windshield survey conducted by the HRB to eliminate some of the 500 properties listed. She felt that they could conduct some research, do a windshield survey including a couple of photos of each property as well as make some calls to get a few of them off of the list. Board Member Wimmer asked if the 500 properties are considered potentially eligible on their parcel reports. Ms. French said these are some that did not move forward when they were looked at by windshield survey in 1998. Some of the 165 on the Priority 1 list moved forward and were found eligible. Others on the list moved forward and were found ineligible, and then there were some in which no further research was done past the windshield survey, and some of them are gone. Board Member Wimmer said, since they are potentially eligible, if the homeowner wanted to do alterations, they would have to go through a historic evaluation review, which would result in a professional evaluation of its historic rating at that point. She asked why the Board would want to review the 500 properties. Chair Willis said that she would like a list that was positive every time. She said that a list of properties that are potentially historic seems like somewhat of a negative. It would be better to strongly identify the properties that are of real interest and not promote an idea that it’s kind of a 50-50 chance that a house is historic. Ms. French noted that the ones for which they’ve done HRE’s case-by-case, using a professional, have come back not eligible for the California register. They do not look at whether they belong on the Local Register, only the California Register, because that is related to CEQA. Those that have been demolished can certainly be removed from the list if not already done in the system. Vice Chair Pease asked if it is difficult to query the system to find out whether a home has been demolished. Ms. French responded that she has not tried this and would have to work with the tech team to answer the question. Board Member Eagleston-Cieslewicz wondered if this is potentially an area where another survey might make sense. Ms. French wasn’t sure, stating that homes still exist that were on the previous survey. There are no rules on reporting for the potentially eligible, which includes homes built prior to 1948 which have not been evaluated. Board Member Eagleston-Cieslewicz asked if that applied to homes which were not eligible at the time of the last survey based on age, but is now aged in for potential eligibility. Ms. French said they have narrowly interpreted Comp Plan Policy 7.2 to apply to those that were potentially eligible in the last survey, built prior to 1948. They have not applied Policy 7.2 to homes that have reached 50 years or older since then. Board Member Wimmer thought that potentially eligible homes could be one of the categories, perhaps Category 4, because it collects them into an easily understood category. Chair Willis suggested putting this on the agenda for the retreat. She felt it might be worth looking at 10 or 12 of these properties. She said she would rather work on the past 20 years since the last survey and add some properties that are obviously significant to the inventory rather than getting bogged down on the existing list. However, they should also figure out a way to deal with the existing list. She felt that making people go through the process does not build goodwill in the community. Vice Chair Pease asked if there was a way to test whether the system could determine which ones had been demolished since the list was created. Ms. French said anyone can enter an address in the parcel report system to see what it says. The list of potentially eligible homes could be systematically checked in the system, one-by-one, to see what it says on that parcel report. Vice Chair Pease wondered if this would have to be done manually, one-by-one. City of Palo Alto Page 4 Ms. French believed this would be the case. She would have to check with the tech team on this. Vice Chair Pease felt if there was a way to do this it would be very helpful, as checking 500 one-by-one is a lot of work. Ms. French suggested there could perhaps be a subcommittee formed to assist her in bringing forward the information. There are no pictures for the potentially eligible homes. Having photos of what exists today would be helpful. Vice Chair Pease asked again if she would talk to the information systems team since a list does exist on some system. If 300 of the homes do not exist, it would make a big difference in how they approach the list. Ms. French commented that she didn’t not think there would be that many that don’t exist and that it was more likely that there have been alterations to them between 2000 and 2018 when the policy originated – Vice Chair Pease asked if alterations would be listed in permits. Ms. French acknowledged that could be researched as well. Driving by to check and see if there has been an addition between 2000 and 2018 could yield information that could be compiled and would help inform a decision if an addition has been done that is not compliant with Secretary of the Interior standards. Vice Chair Pease asked if it would be possible to ask tech department how big the scope of work for them would be to do such a search if it’s possible and practical to do. Ms. French clarified that this would be consistent with Goal 2, to see if they could make inroads into a broader look, rather than case-by-case. Vice Chair Pease thought if some sort of criteria could be applied to the list, they could possibly prioritize those and make the Board’s efforts much more focused. Ms. French said anything is possible if it is included as one of the objectives of the goal. The Council would see this on the Work Plan, and if resources or money are needed, they will see that and possibly direct staff to do more than just have the HRB driving around taking pictures. She felt that the HRB would need to vote to put this on the work plan, to show consensus. Chair Willis noted that she would like to discuss this at the retreat. Ms. French said it can be left as is for now and not specifically called out. Chair Willis asked for consensus on this, whether they want it left the way it is. Ms. French said the work plan itself cites the policy. Chair Willis thought they might want to add something like, “general review of current list.” Board Member Rohman asked if the question was whether to leave the wording “as changes are proposed reviewing on a case-by-case basis,” or whether they are going to be proactive about reviewing the list. She felt it would be fine to define this as a priority and for the HRB to call it out so that they can follow up rather than be reactive. Board Member Eagleston-Cieslewicz when the Work Plan is due. Ms. French stated it would need to be finished that day. Board Member Eagleston-Cieslewicz thought it made more sense to leave the wording as is, because crafting something new would be challenging. Chair Willis noted that they would be doing this work themselves and wouldn’t really need resources. Ms. French reiterated that it’s easy to drive by and look at the properties. Chair Willis suggested having a subcommittee to work on making inroads into the list and that it should be added the retreat agenda, along with reviewing the Bulletin and the supporting materials that Ms. French would be presenting at the next meeting. Ms. French said she put this into the work plan as something to do in the first quarter. Chair Willis noted on Goal 3, Council has directed staff to work with the HRB to review the approximately 165 properties deemed eligible previously and make recommendations for listing on the City’s local inventory. This is the project that they are currently working extensively on, and it and it is obviously a priority. City of Palo Alto Page 5 Board Member Wimmer commented on the community meeting dates associated with this project. Ms. French acknowledged this should be shown in accomplishments rather than on upcoming goals. However, there is another community meeting that will be held for this project. Board Member Wimmer thought they should also discuss the results of the current community outreach, as there was some positive support but also some that was not as positive. Chair Willis thought they could have an update on it and discussion at the retreat. She felt they were doing great in the implementation of the project. Board Member Wimmer said it would also be good to review the outcome and feedback from the community meeting. Ms. French suggested that community meetings could be the topic, also reviewing what went well, what improvements could be made for the next one, what the role of the Board is. Board Member Wimmer felt the Board did not have a big role, as staff and Page and Turnbull directed most of it, which was good. Ms. French agreed and thought the next community might be a different type and set of discussions. Vice Chair Pease wondered if the numbering of the goals indicated their priority or if there was a process in which they could discuss priority. He felt that an order of priority would drive their approach. Ms. French said with the plan the priority is indicated, notating which quarter each would be worked on. Chair Willis asked for comments on Goal 4, “Review incentives and develop a work program for next year.” Ms. French said it would be important to look at the existing incentives and possibly brainstorm other incentives. She pointed out that the California tax break just came through so it might be something to start advocating. Board Member Rohman asked if the intention is to have a subcommittee for each of the goals, to make sure there is action taken on each one. She wondered who is analyzing and measuring the level of success. Vice Chair Pease agreed this is important. If there is another City Council by the time they get this item done, there will be an entirely different environment. Board Member Rohman thought agreeing on the “buckets” for the Work Plan is great, but then wondered if subcommittees within those buckets could assign specific goals and then coming back at the meetings to update the Board. Chair Willis supported this suggestion but commented that she has had a hard time getting that going in the past. She felt everyone buys in at some level, but somehow the cohesion and forward movement doesn’t always happen. However having a more functional group would be a good goal. Vice Chair Pease said they just need to be mindful of how much time each of them can actually put into all of these items. For example, promoting benefits as a part of outreach. They currently don’t have a Mills Act, and they have no idea when the State might codify one, or the details about it that people will want to know. Board Member Eagleston-Cieslewicz said in her reading of the proposed state legislation, many homeowners in Palo Alto may not qualify based on income. One must be below a certain threshold, and it is lower than the income required to buy the median home in Palo Alto. Ms. French thought that it may be more for seniors or retired people to take advantage of. Vice Chair Pease said that then defines the potential audience and constituency for the benefit. Ms. French said when they had a Historic Planner, they were celebrating certain things, such as Eichler, and they had some resources for community meetings. She thought it would be nice when something is under the threshold for the State tax benefit, if they could have a community meeting to help people understand, and maybe have someone from the State come and present on it, so everyone can learn. She said she could reach out to the State and ask if they might be able to do this. City of Palo Alto Page 6 Vice Chair Pease thought it was a good idea, but the current challenge was looking at the inventory. They need to be able to tell people what is definitely available and can be counted on as far as responsibilities and benefits. Right now, neither of these things seem like they will be in place in time to do that. Chair Willis suggested this be a Priority 1, to identify what can be offered to people if they are deemed historic in the latest round. Vice Chair Pease said much of it was discussed in the recent outreach meeting, including flag lots, et cetera. Ms. French said there are things on the web pages which may not be widely known. As suggested for Goal 4, they could discuss what kind of outreach can be done to help the community learn what’s available, and they could study those incentives as a Board and brainstorm, perhaps looking at other cities. Board Member Rohman thought they should be taking the list and getting volunteers to spearhead the programs. She said she signed up to be on the Board to commit a good amount of time to doing the work outside of the meetings. She said, knowing that they all have jobs and responsibilities, she did not think it out of the question to ask for commitment to a subcommittee for a certain number of hours per month, to drive the goals forward. Chair Willis agreed. She said they needed to go through the five goals, discuss all of them at the retreat, and focus on how to move forward on them, discussing the priorities and afterwards perhaps dividing into subcommittees focusing on the highest priorities first. Board Member Wimmer expressed her wish for a way to change the narrative on the whole historic topic and try to find out why people do not want to have a historic piece of Palo Alto, to protect it, take care of it and celebrate it. She felt history is not celebrated in the city at all, and real estate agents may even discourage buying a historic house. She asked why that narrative couldn’t be changed so that everyone would want a piece of that history, the history of one of the best cities to live in within the United States. She suggested a campaign to “Celebrate Palo Alto.,” including such things as the HP garage, Steve Jobs, the birth of Silicon Valley. The idea should be, “This is cool. You should be part of it.” They could promote the campaign on their website, with testimonials from people who own historic homes explaining why it is a great thing. She acknowledged it could be challenging in that people who do own these houses are private people. However, perhaps other people could get behind such a campaign. Board Member Wimmer expressed her opinion that the goals are getting them nowhere and that they needed to rethink the whole topic. She felt they also need to get the City Council behind them, because she is not sure the HRB’s goals are a priority. Board Member Rohman added that they should reach out to other historical organizations in Palo Alto to garner help and support. It needs to be an integrated community outreach program. She noted examples, such as Pasadena’s Bungalow Heaven program, which is a citywide walking tour of historic homes. Chair Willis said she will review the PAST spring calendar of walking tours, as she felt this would be a good start. Vice Chair Pease suggested talking about this as well at retreat. He agreed with Board Member Rohman’s comments. The story about tech seems to currently be the one thing that gets peoples’ attention. Other stories, such as some of the big pop culture figures that started out in the area, seem to garner interest more than style of building, architectural era, et cetera. Chair Willis agreed and said what they need is to have a more popular page on their website, perhaps working with The Weekly, working with PAST and the Historical Association. This could be agendized for the next meeting and would fit in with the community engagement topic. Board Member Rohman felt all of the goals were good, but were very large buckets, and they need to drill down and decide the details of what is involved. Overall, she felt all of the goals were fine. Ms. French said she could add “Celebrate Palo Alto” into one of the goals. Something like, “working towards innovating how to tell the story and change the narrative.” Vice Chair Pease said this would get to the heart of making the Board more relevant. City of Palo Alto Page 7 Board Member Wimmer noted that although they are all very enthusiastic people on the Board, sometimes the structure of the system is rigid. Chair Willis thought historic appreciation has ebbed and flowed in Palo Alto in her time there. There were times of strong preservation activities, great tours, open houses, et cetera, during some moments, and then things slowed down. She said it is time for an upswing and they should collect their resources and make this discussion a framework for their retreat, including the five goals related to that. She felt it would be goodwill to narrow down the list of priorities and to start working on the last 20 years that have not been looked at before they are lost. Chair Willis opened discussion on the last goal – the Mills Act. She said they were close to being able to present it to Council and she thought if it was agendized for one more meeting they would be able to finalize it to the point where they can take it to Council. As one of the basics that the State offers, they should make an effort to get it back on the books a high priority. Vice Chair Pease whether they should just vote on the Mills Act and put it before the Council directly, or if they go through staff before that is done. Ms. French responded that the pilot program document in regard to the Mills Act could be forwarded to the Council along with a staff report that explains the history, and possibly discusses what other cities do. Other cities are currently talking about things like how many properties they allow and whether there should be a limit, since there has been discussion about what impact it may have on schools. The question would be how many would the HRB recommend? And which categories would be eligible? She thought a full meeting would be needed to discuss these things. She said she could write a staff report to Council transmitting the program. Board Member Wimmer noted that Board Member Eagleston-Cieslewicz owns a historic property which could be used as a trial. Ms. French pointed out that there would be a conflict of interest in that, and Board Member Eagleston- Cieslewicz stated that there is still a question as to what she can participate in. Board Member Wimmer responded that Board Member Eagleston-Cieslewicz could still be an advisory person in regard to tailoring the pilot program. Board Member Eagleston-Cieslewicz agreed, with the caveat that she was allowed to participate. She was not sure to what degree she could participate at this point. Ms. French noted that once the Mills Act is agendized, Board Member Eagleston-Cieslewicz will do what she is legally advised to do, as per the Attorney’s advice. Vice Chair Pease referenced a three-page document he was looking at regarding the Mills Act pilot program. Chair Willis explained that the document included history about the Mills Act, including past reports to Council, information about when it was dropped, et cetera. Vice Chair Pease thought that all of the previous steps taken historically seemed to him irrelevant to what they now put in front of the Council. There is nothing in the history of the program that indicates that it can get done. His experience has been that anything that comes out of the HRB comes with a recommendation from the staff. It is what goes to the Council and is what they vote on. However, staff is short, and everything takes a long time. Consultants must be hired, and it looks like another bottleneck to him. Ms. French shared a Mills Act program that was presented back in September of 2021. This was one of the documents she had sent out to the Board. The January 2018 document was the most recently packaged document that had changes accepted. Vice Chair Pease said he had looked at this document previously. The content in red was the output of the subcommittee that was working on it. He wondered why they couldn’t just submit this now. Ms. French said she could discuss it with the Director and let him know that the HRB unanimously wants to send this to Council, as is. Alternately, it could be agendized for discussion with the Council, or a study session could be scheduled. City of Palo Alto Page 8 Vice Chair Pease thought it would make sense to have someone else outside of the Board look at what has been done and make a judgment about it. Then they could hear back about it and review it. His point was that the work has already been done and he wondered what they are waiting for. He asked Board Member Wimmer if she would be comfortable at this point for the document to be submitted for review by staff or someone else. Board Member Wimmer felt that the committee at the time did get the document to a point where they did try to bring it to the Council. She pointed out that it is ultimately up to the City Council on whether they want to adopt it or not. From what she remembered, it stopped there. Vice Chair Pease said if they considered it, there would probably be some requests to change it. He asked again, why the document couldn’t be moved out of the Board to somewhere else to see if the system could begin to do something with it. Board Member Wimmer suggested it would take a session like a retreat to discuss this. She wanted to review where they left off to refresh her mind. Or, they could agendize the Mills Act for one of their meetings. She felt they should receive the past information and review it. Chair Willis reminded the Board that they are planning to agendize the item for the June 22nd meeting. Ms. French added that she did send the information from the past work on the Mills Act the previous day, because it is Goal 5 in the Work Plan and they needed to decide whether or not to keep it there and if so, what the timing and priority should be for working on it. Chair Willis said it needed to stay on the Work Plan. It is a question of priorities. Chair Willis suggested that each Board Member express their opinion on the priorities. Board Member Eagleston-Cieslewicz remarked that a couple of the items are ongoing activities, such as reviewing exterior alterations, so goal one is the purview of the Board. Chair Willis noted that reviewing the Bulletin is an action item that should be prioritized. From 2016 it no longer coordinates with the ordinance. She suggested listing their action items and then prioritizing them. Ms. French pointed out packet page 10, under Priority Discussion for Goal One, stating, “Bulletin revisions are a higher priority for Quarter 1 of this Work Plan. Reviewing process clarifications would help staff and the community.” That box could be used to say which of the objectives for that goal is the highest priority. Vice Chair Pease felt that the Bulletin, the inventory review, and the public outreach are all inter-related, as well as the Mills Act, and he wasn’t sure how to separate any of them out and make an intelligent case for any of them. Chair Willis wondered then if they should separate out action items instead of priorities. Board Member Eagleston-Cieslewicz wondered if each subcommittee should prioritize their items and then bring them back to the larger group. Chair Willis thought the idea was to base subcommittees on projects, so they need to find out what product they’re looking for to define the subcommittees. Board Member Wimmer suggested that each Board Member take a goal. Chair Willis thought that would be fine for the retreat. The Review Bulletin needs to be agendized with staff putting information together to be voted on. It is a priority but probably doesn’t need a subcommittee. Ms. French shared the format the City Clerk has given the Board to work with and where the priority for Goal 1 is shown. She asked if the wording “ongoing” should be tweaked. Chair Willis said she is fine with the wording, but just wants to get it on an agenda so they can get it done and get it checked off. She thought it could be on the agenda for the 25th but didn’t know what to expect for the Sobrato project. Ms. French said there will be public speakers for that. Board Member Wimmer added that there will also be elections, so that’s probably enough for one meeting. City of Palo Alto Page 9 Chair Willis then suggested the 22nd, along with the Mills Act. Ms. French will send out something by email to explain what she is talking about with the Bulletin. She can make a presentation, without action, if there is time. Chair Willis noted on Goal 3, she is willing to wait until the retreat. They do need to look at the 500 on the list as well as the last 20 years, but it’s not a high priority and can be put off until after the retreat. She didn’t see anything specific that needed to be addressed before the retreat. On Goal 4, outreach, she thought that Mills Act is its own goal, but it might be a good place for a subcommittee to begin strategizing about how to do outreach and how they could integrate with PAST and the Historic Association. If there was subcommittee work done before the retreat it could help set them up for a productive discussion at the retreat. Board Member Rohman volunteered to sit on the subcommittee or be the sole member. Chair Willis said at the moment their interaction with the public is a top priority because it would make everything go better. Her suggestion was that Mills Act be the one subcommittee they work on at the moment. Vice Chair Pease supported this suggestion. Chair Willis suggested putting Board Member Rohman in charge of forming the subcommittee. Board Member Rohman wanted to make sure it wasn’t something Board Member Eagleston-Cieslewicz wanted to drive. Board Member Eagleston-Cieslewicz was fine with her being in charge. Chair Willis noted that she can reach out to all of the Board for help and input. Chair Willis invited any members of the public present to speak. There were no public speakers, or observers. Chair Willis asked Board Member Makinen if he had any comments. Ms. French pointed out Goal 5, in the “High Priority” box, it says “Finish the work previously drafted – Ad Hoc Committee effort and prepare a report to City Council.” She asked for confirmation on the wording. Chair Willis affirmed it, stating even if they never decide that they never want a Mills Act, they need to at least get to that point, with it going either up or down. She reiterated agendizing it and thought they had what they needed with the materials they have. She advocated the idea of giving Council a summary of it without having to wade through every detail, although the Board Members together do need to wade through the details and history, and strategize how to sell it, or decide they or not interested in it for their community. Ms. French said a vote is needed for the work plan. The Board voted on approval of the Work Plan as presented. The Plan was approved (6-0) by roll call vote. Approval of Minutes 3. Approval of Historic Resources Board Draft Minutes of April 13, 2023 The Board voted unanimously to approve the minutes of the April 13, 2023, with a correction, by voice vote. Subcommittee Items Board Member Questions, Comments, Announcements or Future Meetings and Agendas Vice Chair Pease asked about the Sobrato project on the next agenda. Ms. French responded that it is regarding the former Fry’s site. Ms. French asked if the proclamation regarding Birge Clark could be discussed. City of Palo Alto Page 10 Board Member Eagleston-Cieslewicz explained that she has a draft of a proclamation commemorating the 100th anniversary of Birge Clark’s architectural practice opening in Palo Alto, which she sent to Ms. French. Chair Willis thought it would be good to run it by PAST. She also was going to look at the book on Birge Clark and see if there was anything they wanted to add. Board Member Eagleston-Cieslewicz said she could send the draft to a contact for PAST. Board Member Rohman asked if PAST had plans to do a celebration of some kind. Chair Willis informed her that they did this at the joint meeting with the Historic Association the past Sunday. She was disappointed that she wasn’t able to make it to the meeting. Ms. French shared the draft proclamation on the screen for the Board to read. She said it will likely be in the Council’s packet for June. Chair Willis announced that the upcoming Saturday PAST is conducting a downtown Birge Clark tour, she thought at 10:00. On the 20th they will be doing a Mayfield tour. On May 27th they will do a tour called “Beyond Professorville.” She said the tours are always very enjoyable and informative. Adjournment Motion by Board Member Eagleston-Cieslewicz to adjourn. Seconded by Vice Chair Pease, the motion carried unanimously by voice vote. The meeting was adjourned at 10:15 a.m.