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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2023-10-19 City Schools Liaison Committee Summary MinutesPage 1 of 8 City School Liaison Committee Regular Meeting Summary Minutes: 10/19/2023 Regular Meeting October 19, 2023 The City-School Liaison Committee of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Community Meeting Room at 8:33 A.M. Present: City of Palo Alto Representatives Julie Lythcott-Haims, Chair Pat Burt, Council Member (via teleconference) Chantal Cotton-Gaines, Deputy City Manager Kristen O’Kane, Community Services Director Palo Alto Unified School District Representatives Todd Collins, Board Member Don Austin, Superintendent Absent: Shounak Dharap, Board Member CALL TO ORDER Chair Lythcott- Haims called the meeting to order. Administrative Associate III Christine Prior called roll and declared there was a quorum. REVIEW AND RECOMMENDATIONS A. Open Forum/Public Communications There were no requests to speak under general public comment. B. Approval of Minutes MOTION: Board Member Collins moved, seconded by Council Member Burt to approve minutes from the September 21, 2023, meeting. MOTION PASSED: 3-0-1 (Dharap absent) C. City and District Reports Superintendent Don Austin noted that some staff had watched and debriefed the City Council meeting from Monday. They felt terrible about what happened on that day, so they were going to consider things to be done at Board meetings to encounter what was being seen across the City/School Liaison Committee Summary Meeting Minutes Page 2 of 8 City School Liaison Committee Regular Meeting Summary Minutes: 10/19/2023 region. He remarked there had been debate about local topics and beyond. The Board meeting Tuesday would be largely a typical work meeting as the work of the district needed to continue. He had been on school site campuses visiting with groups and observing the school sites, and things looked normal as far as the aggregate, but they knew students were impacted by the events and others trying to make meaning of the events. Deputy City Manager Chantal Cotton-Gaines announced that the groundbreaking for the Homekey homeless shelter would be on October 31 at 11 a.m., at 1237 San Antonio. She invited the district to join. Last month, parents had questions about traffic safety, and staff had two meetings with the parents and discussed the issues at Escondido. Discussions included traffic safety and the upcoming Active Plan. There was a crossing guard added at Escondido and Stanford Avenue. They were finishing the Crossing Guard Warrant process, but wanting to be responsive, the City provided the crossing guard as the process continued. Staff was listening to the parents and taking action. Board Member Collins thanked and commended City staff and those involved for taking immediate action related to the crossing guard. Council Member Burt noted that City Council had a meeting on the Housing Element to locate sites for over 6,000 units in the next 8 years. The state declined the latest submittal, and the City expected the next submittal to be done in January. He noted that a change would include upzoning a series of parcels along El Camino, and Council supported several of the parcels. He noted there would possibly be significant impacts on student populations in certain areas. He discussed the ability or inability of schools accommodating students and the transportation routes being able to accommodate them. He noted that Safe Routes to School was a backbone to the Bicycle and Pedestrian Master Plan. He encouraged the District to engage to make sure there would be understanding of where there would be and not be school capacity and how it would affect housing and the investments made to Safe Routes to School. Related to that was Cubberley because a sizeable portion of new housing sites would be in southeastern Palo Alto. Two-thousand housing units were being considered in that area. He provided details related to the County Board of Supervisors approving the new community plan for Stanford, and intersecting with the Housing Element was the Stanford project on Pasteur, which could potentially significantly increase the amount of housing for students attending Gunn High School and Fletcher Middle School. The need of a bike throughfare from Stanford West and Pasteur to the Bol Park path was being discussed with Stanford. He encouraged collaborative work be done to ensure school capacity and safe routes to schools. He mentioned that the teacher housing project was under construction, demolition had occurred on the Mitchell Park Place for an affordable housing project for disabled adults, and there were two other projects that he hoped would break ground in the next year or so. He voiced that the electrification of the Caltrain system would be ramping up starting early 2024 and was on schedule for a full launch next September. He discussed there being reliable service and greater service outside peak commute hours. Page 3 of 8 City School Liaison Committee Regular Meeting Summary Minutes: 10/19/2023 Chair Lythcott-Haims commended staff for expediting a solution related to the crossing guard. She noted that City Council voted to call the area with the 6,000 and 2,000 units near San Antonio the Bayshore Alma San Antonio Region (BASA). There was a map available that outlined the area. It was made a priority development area, which made the City eligible for regional and state grants. She noted there needed to be intentionality created around where students would attend school, where the parkland would be, what amenities there would be, etc. They had voted to purchase insurance on the price of natural gas to protect against significant increases. There had been a prescreening on the Development Proposal for 3265 El Camino for a 44-unit housing development for teachers, and many members of the District and community had attended and were clearly in favor of the proposed housing. She spoke of Council considering the rents to be high, even though they were deemed affordable, which caused consternation on the dais. She thought a better job could be done in defining affordability, as there was a disconnect around what was considered affordable. Cubberley had been on Monday’s agenda, and they had a public session to respond to PAUSD’s letter, and staff was directed to work with the Ad Hoc Cubberley Committee to discuss terms for a potential ground lease with the District or an outright purchase of land from the District, and the swap of land at Terman Park was taken off the table. Council Member Burt added that the Cubberley Ad Hoc Committee would convene as a follow- up to the Council meeting to discuss Council direction and presumably reach out to PAUSD. He did not know if the District had current counterparts able to discuss and negotiate, if there needed to be a process to enable any Board designees and the superintendent to enter into discussions (not to make decisions). Superintendent Austin stated that he did not believe the District had an official role in the housing project. He had first read of it in the newspaper, which spoke to the level of commitment in partnership. The unions were notified, but there had been no discussion with them. There was no current process to have discussions with the Cubberley Ad Hoc Committee, but upon receipt of a proposal, draft, or whatever it may be, the commitment was to react to such, and it would be likely that an ad hoc committee would be formed. Council Member Burt asked what the process would be to get clarification related to questions the Cubberley Ad Hoc Committee had related to refining proposals. Superintendent Austin would speak with the Board President to see if something could be placed on their agenda to discuss the potential of an ad hoc. Board Member Collins spoke of why he supported a crosstown bike boulevard. He considered the amount of planned low-income housing impressive. He noted that it was not permitted under California law to consider school capacity a factor in considering housing projects. He did not want Council to make housing decisions based on school capacity, but instead PAUSD would work out the school situation based on Council’s decisions, although it was helpful to plan. It would be useful for PAUSD to be aware of housing decisions early in the process, to include timelines and where housing is being considered. He suggested a regular meeting, Page 4 of 8 City School Liaison Committee Regular Meeting Summary Minutes: 10/19/2023 possibly quarterly to once a year, with those involved with that topic to discuss potential projects, and PAUSD could then determine possible capacity issues. Council Member Burt thought that was a great idea and noted what was known, what was not known, and what was speculated could be shared. He added that he had ridden his bike to Fletcher Middle School to be on a panel related to the Sustainability Program, and they were interested in learning more about the City programs, but he would not wish that bike route on younger students. He had sent staff messages regarding minor improvements. He discussed a possible Midtown crosstown route for students. Board Member Collins added that he had attended the Sustainable Schools Committee meeting yesterday, and Fletcher, with the exception of the pool, would become an all-electric school upon completion of the renovation projects. He asked if Palo Verde was all electric. Part of the Sustainability planning was to reduce natural gas usage and replace it with electrical. Superintendent Austin confirmed that Palo Verde was all electric. Chair Lythcott-Haims stated that since becoming a local elected official she had become an E- bike rider. She remarked that it was now possible to split lots, build ADUs, etc., in single-family neighborhoods and that those neighborhoods could increase the number of families in neighborhoods were school enrollment was declining. She wanted to have a future conversation related to incentivizing that. Public Comments There were no comments from the public. E. Memorandum—Summary of Beverly Hills Model-October 2023 Deputy City Manager Cotton-Gaines recapped the memo the Committee had. The Beverly Hills staff had been invited to this meeting, but there was a conflict with their regular meeting. They sent their apologies for not attending. There were a couple noteworthy key differences between their community and Palo Alto’s, which included a smaller population and they had very few facilities for recreation programs or playing fields. Some of the catalysts for their agreement was that the District had spaces and facilities that Beverly Hills did not. They leaned very heavily on schools for community recreation programs. The Committee supported the JPA agreement with the District, which was used particularly for recreational facilities, including fields, classroom space, etc. The City team would manage the program and the contracts for the activities would run through the agreement. The JPA had been in place for many decades and was renegotiated every three years. They were renegotiating their agreement now. She included slides in the memo of the estimated amounts per year for the agreement they were currently renegotiating, which was around $14M per year, but Beverly Hills did not own any facilities, and they relied heavily upon the District. She outlined the governing structure, which was similar to CSLC, and they met as needed, which she detailed, and it could be difficult to Page 5 of 8 City School Liaison Committee Regular Meeting Summary Minutes: 10/19/2023 schedule a meeting. A designee from BHUSD and a liaison in the Community Services Department were the key staff members. City staff managed their recreational programming and were in regular dialogue with the District staff as necessary. Though the Committee did not meet frequently, she thought staff members met at least quarterly and they were typically in daily conversation related to the space. The agreement was heavily focused on recreation programs and joint space usage for indoor and outdoor space, civic programs, youth sports, etc., and included crossing guards, CCTV at school sites, and school resource officers in the elementary schools and middle school. They had one middle school and three elementary schools. Renegotiations also included discussion related to adding and removing items from the agreement. The memo to the CSLC included slides related to changes in the new agreement from the last agreement and the payment amounts over time. Public Comments Phil Mast supported the District and City considering the Beverly Hills model for the Palo Alto community. He stated that the School District had a fair amount of unused space that could be of benefit. He noted a possible problem was that the District staff was not set up to manage it, and he suggested the City pay the District to manage it. Council Member Burt did not think a lot of differences would apply because Beverly Hills did not have a lot of community facilities and relied on contracting access to school facilities. He did not know if the District would want to defer after-hours activities, as the schools had activities for school functions. He discussed the crossing guard program and it being an exclusive responsibility of one party or a shared responsibility, which he thought could be explored. He spoke of pool access to the public and community needs that he thought were readily solvable through City-owned lands. He was interested in exploring availability for the Gunn or Fletcher pool for South Palo Alto on a contract basis to operate through the Rec Department. It appeared that the contract paid rent for fields and other space, but the District would absorb maintenance cost, but he thought there was a maintenance agreement that had worked well. He was not sure the components applied well, but a few aspects of the model were intriguing. He voiced a lot of the collaborative relationships would be policy decisions. Board Member Todd Collins thought the components of the agreement were responsive to the conditions in the Beverly Hills community. He indicated the structure was interesting. He was considering this path because of the fleeting nature of institutional memory. He addressed staff turnover coming from other regions and questioning why certain things were funded. Without institutional memory, it was difficult to make progress as there was not a foundation to build on. He stated the idea of this was to create an institutional basis for collective memory and to give Palo Alto something to build on. He thought an arrangement such as this would help make it better for the next generation to build on. He supported community pools and libraries. He noted that the City was under parked, and he indicated that City schools could be considered parks. He thought joint assets and efforts would yield benefits for the community, but he remarked that PAUSD did not have the bandwidth for an ad hoc. He would not create a JPA, and he saw pain in creating a fully negotiated structure. Page 6 of 8 City School Liaison Committee Regular Meeting Summary Minutes: 10/19/2023 Superintendent Don Austin agreed that it would be very hard but an excellent exercise for elected officials. He did not think the process should start with a long list of items to be done. It should instead start with a purpose statement and then be built from scratch. He felt protocols and purpose needed to be addressed before initiating anything. Chair Lythcott-Haims added that she was struck by the specificity of the agreement. The components of the Beverly Hills agreement were quite different than what was going on in Palo Alto. It felt like an attractive model unless a fully negotiated structure would be painful, although it may be worthwhile. She was trying to understand the logic behind the crossing guards, the middle school sports, the facilities, etc. She noted that the long-time leaders had institutional memory. She remarked that having a mechanism to store institutional history was valuable. She suggested there be a well-indexed set of minutes guiding to specific topics, which would allow understanding of why things were as they were. She inquired what would it take to move to a Beverly Hills-type structure and what the next steps would be toward achieving a structure that would better serve Palo Alto. Council Member Burt replied if CSLC was interested in exploring a master agreement, he thought there would need to be a subcommittee of CSLC to present a proposal to CSLC related to the purpose around a master agreement, and then CSLC should decide if it would presented to the Boards to seek support to pursue it. He explained that the framing of such would not be binding on either body, but it would allow CSLC to consider a recommendation to the Boards. Chair Lythcott-Haims thought that was a terrific idea, and she thought Council Member Burt and Board Member Collins should be the subcommittee. Board Member Collins commented there was to be only one more meeting of the CSLC. He noted that membership often changed on both sides when the year turned over, and he outlined why that needed to be considered. He thought the PAUSD Board would look to staff to determine if it would be a good investment of time. He voiced that the biggest question was [inaudible], what problems were they trying to solve, if the problems were big enough to invest resources to create a permanent overhead, and if it should be treated as an investment or an expense. If the Committee members thought it was reasonable to proceed, he would present it to the PAUSD Board. Chair Lythcott-Haims wanted to work with January’s CSLC members and ask that Council Member Burt and Board Member Collins be reappointed to City/Schools. Council Member Burt mentioned that the CSLC could ask the Board and Council leadership if they would be receptive to continuity related to turnover of the CSLC. ORIGINAL MOTION: Council Member Burt moved, seconded by Board Member Collins to create a subcommittee to explore a framework for a master agreement between the District and the Page 7 of 8 City School Liaison Committee Regular Meeting Summary Minutes: 10/19/2023 City for the purpose of the CSLC to review and to consider presenting it to the respective bodies and that he and Board Member Collins be the members of the subcommittee. Board Member Collins questioned if it would be an ad hoc subcommittee not subject to the Brown Act. Council Member Burt believed the ad hoc subcommittee would not be subject to the Brown Act, but he would confirm that. Superintendent Austin wanted to ensure the authority of this group was not being exceeded being there were four Board members not present at the meeting. He queried if doing this without going back to the Board, where it was typically assigned, had been done before. Council Member Burt did not recall it having been done, but he interpreted it as fully within the purview of the Committee to create its own ad hoc. He clarified that whatever should come out of the ad hoc would not have pre-endorsement by either governing body but was only to create a perspective proposal for their consideration. Deputy City Manager Cotton-Gaines would verify that with the City Attorney. Board Member Collins added in terms of precedent that probably four years ago the CSLC developed a purpose statement by a similar process but he could not remember if a formal ad hoc had been created. The purpose statement was proposed to CSLC and then presented to the respective bodies for agreement. Superintendent Austin was looking for precedent, and he could not recall a time when a committee had appointed a subcommittee that involved a Board member. Board Member Collins spoke of Board Member Dharap being absent and not being able to represent his possible interest in being a member of the ad hoc. He suggested amending the motion to remove the appointment of the members. He thought the CSLC Chair would make such an appointment. Council Member Burt agreed with the motion modification. MOTION: Council Member Burt moved, seconded by Board Member Collins to create a subcommittee to explore a framework for a master agreement between the District and the City for the purpose of the CSLC to review and to consider presenting it to the respective bodies. Deputy City Manager Cotton-Gaines would check the minutes to determine the process that had been used for the purpose statement. She was positive that the adoption of the purpose statement was presented to the respective bodies after the CSLC agreed on it. Page 8 of 8 City School Liaison Committee Regular Meeting Summary Minutes: 10/19/2023 Superintendent Austin thought Committee members presented drafts of the prior purpose statement and that there had not been an ad hoc. Chair Lythcott-Haims asked if there needed to be an ad hoc subcommittee or if it could be Committee members working with a non-Brown Act, in a sub-Brown Act environment offline. She noted that they were trying to find the right mechanism for a couple people to go in depth to present something. Board Member Collins commented there was no difference in an ad hoc committee of two versus two people working together except for the formal overhead. He suggested retracting the motion and the associated overhead. Council Member Burt withdrew the motion. Chair Lythcott-Haims assumed her colleagues would determine how to further develop this idea. D. Future Business Deputy City Manager Cotton-Gaines asked if there was an interest in meeting the third week of December. She noted that the Council break would technically start after the Council meeting on Monday, December 18, 2023. The Committee decided to have a meeting on December 14, 2023, which could be cancelled if there were no items to discuss. ADJOURNMENT The meeting was adjourned at 10:00 a.m.