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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2018-02-21 Rail Summary MinutesCITY COUNCIL RAIL COMMITTEE FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 1 of 69 Special Meeting February 21, 2018 Chairperson Wolbach called the meeting to order at 8:03 A.M. in the Community Meeting Room, 250 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, California. Present: Fine, Scharff, Wolbach (Chair) Absent: Kou Chair Wolbach : Let’s get started and bring this meeting of the Palo Alto Rail Committee to order and if the Clerk could please call the roll. Oral Communications Chair Wolbach: Thank you, David. If we could have everyone’s attention, thank you very much. So, Item Number 1 is a presentation on connecting Palo Alto. Oh, any oral communications? Awe so this is oral communications on any item which is not on the Agenda. So, if anyone wanted to speak to an item on the agenda, put in your card for those items now, please. This is for any items that are on the Agenda or I’m sorry, not on the Agenda; oral communications, Nadia Naik to followed by Jason Matlof and you’ll each have three minutes. Nadia Naik: Hi so welcome to our new Committee Member – Lydia is not here yet I guess. I just wanted to start off this new year by asking that we could have more of these meetings. Since you guys have decided we’re not going to have a community stakeholder group, then this really is the right body to have more in-depth discussions. The Round Table meetings are not – it’s a kind of a hard format for people to really get into stuff and so this is really the place to have more of those technical debates. When we had High Speed Rail in town, we use to have meetings bi-weekly, sometimes weekly. So, I think given your aggressive timelines that’s going to be discussed later it seems like that would be appropriate. So, I would encourage that and think about trying to figure out how to get maybe community presentations from different neighborhoods or if groups start to pop up with their concerns, this would be a good place to hear those. Second, I wanted to ask that moving forward this year, we remember to have this standing item on FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 2 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 the agenda, a report back from the local Policy Maker Working Group attendees about what’s happening on the Caltrain front. This is the Caltrain Policy Maker Working Group for those who don’t know. They meet once a month and they talk about issues on the peninsula that relate to the rail corridor. Having reports back officially every time on the agenda is important so everyone stays abreast of what’s happening. I also want to remind everyone that this Committee made a commitment last year to have more dynamic meetings and to allow for further public comment. When High Speed Rail was in town, you guys would take public comment, City Staff – you’d have a City Staff presentation, you would take public comment, then the Council Members would debate and talk with Staff. Then often times a lot of things were said, it could be 40 minutes long of discussion and what we did or what the Committee did was they would have public comment come back again. So, that members of the public, sometimes domain experts, would come and refute or correct some of the things that were said. So, I just want to remind you that that was one of the things that we talked about last year and I hope that we remember to do that going forward. Lastly, I would ask when we’re doing the trenching and tunneling presentation, since the consultant that presented that report has – is not with us anymore and we have a new consultant. If this Committee could clarify what, if any, of this work, will be carried forward. Is the circulation study still going to be used? Are we to expect a hydrology paper or is this trench and tunnel paper that also include hydrology the new it paper? I think we need clarification on those issues and specifically, we need clarification on – we’re having now a public community meeting about a trenching paper from a consultant that’s not with us anymore so will that consultant be there to still answer questions? Is City Staff going to answer those questions? Will the new consultant that we take on board work directly with the Mott MacDonald’s old work or will they have to start a new? How is the community feedback going to be incorporated and will that give new direction? Thank you. Chair Wolbach: Thank you very much. Second and final public comment speaker Jason Matlof. They are in numerated and oral communications is not numbered. A presentation on connecting Palo Alto: trenching and tunneling White Paper is the first item. If you’d like to speak to oral communications we can include you as well. So, we’ll hear from Jason Matlof first and you’ll be last. You’ll have three minutes, thank you. Jason Matlof: Thank you. For those of you who I haven’t met which I think is only Greg, my name is Jason Matlof. I’m one of the members of the rapidly growing North Old Palo Alto Community Association that has come up with a FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 3 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 specific proposal for grade separation in our neighborhood specifically as it relates to the Churchill intersection. Just a quick comment, we have recently expanded to almost 75 homeowners that are signed on to our specific proposal and what’s important is we’ve gotten now almost a dozen that in the south gate area. Which is a really important point because our two communities are starting colossus and collaborate on a specific proposal. I want to briefly go over it because it gets to my comment. The proposal is – you know we’re huge supporters of trench and tunnel. If we could make trench and tunnel happen and it can happen all the way through the City through Churchill, we’d be wildly supportive of that with a big but. If we can’t figure out the financial way to support that, our proposal is to take a systems approach. This discussion is largely dominated by discussions about individual intersections and that’s problematic specifically to Churchill because 400-yards away we have Embarcadero. We feel strongly that Embarcadero needs to be considered as part of the solution for Churchill. The specific proposal briefly is that we close Churchill – if we can’t do the trench or tunnel, close Churchill on the westbound side, augment that with a pedestrian and bike underpass to support the huge amount of traffic of the kids and students going to Stanford and Paly High School. Then offset the loss traffic by augmenting Embarcadero which everybody knows is a huge screaming opportunity by doing multiple things. I think there are four or five different things. The first is expanding to four lanes in the westbound direction – in the eastbound direction which would double the capacity at peak hours. Second is to take out the ridiculous third untimed light at Paly High School and replace it by a pedestrian underpass so the kids have safe passage across the street to Town and Country. Then the four and fifth things are putting in time – I’m sorry, protected signals on the east and westbound approach on Embarcadero going south to Alma because that’s an on-ramp or an off-ramp from Embarcadero. The reason why I wanted to speak today is because in our meetings we’ve had with most of you, critically important, a part of this discussion is (inaudible). You know the financial of all this is most difficult. The cost of pedestrian underpasses is critically important to the proposal is because we’re proposing two of those to augment traffic access. What was brought up in a couple meetings is I think City Staff or Council Member somehow had a perception that the cost of a pedestrian underpass -- I think Adrian you where one of the folks that – I think this came up in another discussion as well but the cost a pedestrian underpass was projected to be around $100 million; $85 to $100 million. So, I went back and just did some research on the Homer one. It was projected to be $2.3 million, it was over budgeted at $5.4 million but even if it’s $10 million today, it is appetence relative to the hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars of other solutions. This is a very important element of FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 4 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 thinking about solutions that are cost-effective and have high return we can’t do the ultimate nirvana of building a bore tunnel or trench throughout the whole City. So, thank you very much and please consider that data. Chair Wolbach: Thank you very much and really last two oral communications speakers, Richard Brand to be followed by Adina Levin. If you do have speaker cards for item – innumerate Item 1 or 2 on the Agenda, please do get them in as soon as possible, thank you. Richard Brand: Good morning and happy New Year. Richard Brand, resident at 281 Addison, what I’d like to speak to and we talked about this last year is the importance of these meetings. I think Nadia hit that one pretty hard but what really concerns me is it’s been three months since we’ve had the last meeting. This has been stated as the number one priority issue. Higher than housing in the City because of the potential for all the issues that have been mentioned this morning as we’ve all talked about. I would just like to ask the Committee to meet more often and air these things in a better way. Planning – I was talking to Hillary about this, Planning Commission was going to discuss some of this and now of that has happened at the meetings. So, I think there’s a need to really air a lot more of this with the public because of the huge impact potentially that we’re going to have in the City with this rail issue. Also, during the holidays and there’s been a lot of talk, I think –personally, I think the chances of High Speed Rail happening are getting slimmer all the time. I talked to a friend of mine who lives in the Coyote Valley, they are adamantly fighting the right of way intrusion into the Coyote Valley. I think the focus should be on what to do and how Caltrain is planning to change the right of way and I second Nadia’s point about we should have them come and talk to us frequently. Thank you. Chair Wolbach: Thank you very much and our last oral communications speaker is Adina Levin. You’ll have three minutes. Adina Levin: Hi there, Adina Levin, Friends of Caltrain. Something no relating to grade separation, and this is actually related to the Dumbarton Corridor. There was some information that came out last week about the East Bay side of the corridor where there is a proposal on the table with the City of Union City and Alameda County Transportation – ATCT, Alameda County Transportation – whatever it’s called to utilize some of the money for Dumbarton Corridor transit, their intermodal station, and bike/ped in order to complete a freeway segment between Mission Boulevard and 880. So, what that implies is that the funding that is included in RM3 that voters FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 5 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 would vote for, as well as being requested in SB-1 would be used to refill money over here that is coming out of that project over there on the East Bayside. The explanation being given is that this is something that had been mentioned back when Measure BB was being put together when it looked like Dumbarton Corridor transit was dead as a doornail. This may have been a reasonable backup plan at that time but given the significant progress, a lot of interest from Facebook, from SamTrans, from a lot of the Cities and jurisdictions that the project is moving forward. This seems like a much more puzzling decision right now and I’ll be happy send a note to Staff and Rail Committee Members about that. Union City is looking to make their decision next week at ATCT in early March. Chair Wolbach: In the interest of more public engagement and open discourse. I’m going to allow one last public speaker on oral communications and then we do need to move on to item number one. Roland LeBrun: Thank you, I appreciate that and I will be extremely brief and essentially correct the record based on what previous speakers said. The reason Dumbarton Rail flunk last time is because on the other side of the bay there was a project that would have rerouted the ACE and the Capital Corridor tracks to Union City and make a connection to (inaudible) to Union City. This is why the project was created. We actually had full funding to cross the bay. This time what we have decided to do is to split it into two phases; Phase 1 and Phase 2. Phase 1 is going to be entirely focused on connecting Redwood City – actually Redwood Junction to Newark. The second phase is going to be this BART, ACE and Capital corridor shenanigans. The funding that Adina referred to is for Phase Two so in other words, there is no issue with going across the bay. Thank you. Chair Wolbach: Alright, thank you very much. Agenda Items 1. Presentation on Connecting Palo Alto: Trenching-Tunneling White Paper. Chair Wolbach: Now we’ll move onto innumerate Item Number 1 on our Agenda, a presentation on connecting Palo Alto: Trenching-tunneling White Paper. Let’s start with the Staff presentation. Ed Shikada, Assistant City Manager/Utilities General Manager: Very good. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 6 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Chair, Members of the Committee, Ed Shikada, Assistant City Manager and also General Manager of the Utilities Department. I just I drew the short straw this morning and I will do the walkthrough on the White Paper that we have before you. It’s actually perhaps more of walkthrough than a presentation. It gives you something of a preview both of the material that’s in the White Paper, as well as you’ll see some of the upcoming public discussions. So, let me proceed and at the Chair’s discretion, I’ll certainly welcome any interruptions along the way to expand on anything that may be unclear. First off just to provide a bit of context – oh, I’m sorry, a couple of housekeeping items. First, I did want to note for the record that Council Member Kou did give us advance notice that she would not be able to make it this morning so everyone is aware of that. We also do have a representative here from Mott MacDonald, Derek Penrice, who’s the Vice President and Deputy Practice Leader for the tunnels practice with Mott MacDonald. I will walk through the information and as was noted earlier we do have new request for proposal that is out to seek additional consulting assistance so perhaps we’ll get into that a little further later in the discussion. With that said, I do want to provide a bit of context for this White Paper, in particular with the calendar that starts today and really extends over the next three months. Also, a period of discussion of both this paper, as well as some additional or other grade separation ideas that have been received from the public through our Round Tables and other engagement. The topic of the trench and tunnel have – as Committee Member are well aware received much public interest. That interest has been largely in concept because this is really the first opportunity to have a public discussion on some of the issues and implications of the – both the constructability, as well as the operational and other dimensions of a trench and tunnel through Palo Alto. Over the course of the next three months, we will be very active and a number of public discussions leading to opportunities for decision making by the Committee and by the Council. In your second on this morning’s agenda, we’ll get into more detail about the schedule for the Rail Committee and opportunities for the Rail Committee to take an active role in that upcoming decision making. I would note, as shown here on February 28th, just a week from today we’ll be having our Interagency Staff Technical Advisory Committee meeting on this White Paper. The approach, as the Committee knows, that we’ve taken – the City’s taken to the technical work ongoing has been very transparent. So, as a result, while the White Paper have been vetted among City Staff and multi- departments among City Staff. It really had not until last week or actually maybe the week – slightly before that, been shared with other agencies. So, there’s concurrent interagency review that’s being done with the public outreach that we’re having and starting today. With that there’s always a FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 7 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 potential for gaps in the analysis. Certainly, questions will arise and we fully expect that to be part of the upcoming phase in the next several months. Just to hit quickly some of the upcoming dates. Noted March 6th, we’ve scheduled a community Round Table that will be at the Art Center. It starts at 6:30 P.M. and we have additional information on the transmittal memo for the White Paper itself. It will lead to some additional Rail Committee discussions in March. I’m showing tentative dates based upon the third Wednesday of the month that had been last year’s standing date for the Rail Committee. I understand that the Rail Committee could discuss further whether those are the right dates or you may want to do any other changes. So, in March that would be a preliminary review of the trench and tunnel in the context of other grade separation ideas. Again, I believe there are about 40 ideas that have been identified and organized to discreet concepts that could be discussed and will be presented here to the Committee next month. Then in April a further discussion of the concepts, also some feedback based on the public discussion and we’ve put on here – and again you’d discuss further in your second item possible recommendation of early elimination of any specific rail grade separation ideas. Again, that’s not compulsory but we simply wanted to provide the option there should the Committee, at that point, have decided that there’s sufficient information and public feedback to perhaps scratch some things off the list that would allow us to focus on the remaining items. Then here in May we’re showing Rail Committee, a recommendation of Council approval of the alternatives for further evaluation. That would be a smaller list of options that would again lead us toward the decision making, by the end of the calendar year, toward a locally preferred alternative and then getting into our environmental process. With that let me walk forward into the material on the trench-tunnel White Paper. Just a general overview and key elements of the White Paper… Council Member Scharff: Can I just (inaudible)? Mr. Shikada: Yes, please. Council Member Scharff: I wanted to go back to the schedule. Our second item is where we’re going to talk further depth about the schedule. Mr. Shikada: Correct. Council Member Scharff: Ok so now’s not the time then because I have significant concerns that your schedule is not aggressive enough. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 8 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Mr. Shikada: Ok. We will have more detail on that in the second item on the Agenda this morning. Alright, just a quick overview keying in on the major elements of the assumptions that are going into this White Paper, the methodology that’s been used to develop the analysis and then just jumping into the impacts and costs. We’ll have more detail on each one of these elements. Key assumptions, a particular note that the electrification project, CalMod as Caltrain refers to it, is currently underway. There is ongoing construction in the northern section of the Caltrain route and they are proceeding and will soon be actively working just in terms of finalizing design here in Palo Alto. So, the key assumption here is that by the time we are into construction on grade separations in Palo Alto, the electrification will be an existing condition that has a number of implications that I’ll describe in more detail. Second that there’s no passing track so that effectively the right of way – the two tracks will remain the width required through Palo Alto. Third, that major roadways will remain operational and this is an important assumption that Mott MacDonald made in the analysis. Not unlike a typical major Public Works Project that – for example, Embarcadero Road which currently goes under Caltrain will remain operational through construction. So, as a design and construction constraint, a trench or tunnel would need to go under that existing alignment. It wouldn’t be able to eliminate University or Embarcadero during the construction period given that that’s expected to span several years. Finally, we’ll talk about the Shoo- fly, a temporary railroad tracks that will be required in order to keep Caltrain and freight line operational during the construction of a trench or a tunnel. In terms of the methodology, the primary goal used for the development and the evaluation of the options is described to improve traffic. Now, traffic can bring connotations so I would want to clarify that this includes vehicular, as well as bicycle and pedestrian traffic and access effectively within Palo Alto that would be improved by the construction of grade separations. Traffic again, pedestrian, vehicular, bicycles. It currently needs to negotiate passed at grade crossings. The criteria on – some of the geometric criteria related to maintaining the railroad operational being important elements into the criteria and constraints; as well as shown here the clearance between rail – operational right of way, the electrification in particular and ultimately leading to profiles that are used and displayed for evaluating options. This I know is not readable. There is a table like this in the White Paper itself that shows some of the distances between the major crossings, as well as based upon the grade slopes required and what some of the implications would be for grade separations at these locations. Again, ultimately leading to development of options and this is sort of the cross-section none as a profile for the engineers that show the depth with the black line being basically the existing ground level, the yellow or orange dotted line being the bottom of FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 9 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 the trench and a profile that’s showing the depth of a trench. If you look at it on the left, it’s the north end of town and on the right is the south end of town. Let’s see the first marker there shown is the San Francisquito Creek, over on the left where you see that Option One and on the right San Antonio Road existing overpass; again, on the south end of town. You have a vertical scare – scale there in feet that basically demonstrates that the trench in some cases will be as deep as 60-70-feet down below existing grade in order to clear the major vertical constraints. Whether they be existing underpasses, the creek, multiple creeks and then come back up at a grade that is either one percent as the Caltrain Design Standard would require or two percent where necessary in order to minimize the length of a trench and the depth. Here’s – again the term Shoo-fly, not a commonly known one but one that I think we will be very accustomed to as we talk about the trench and the implications of a trench. This is what’s called a cross section so as though you were looking north along Alma Street, at any given point the width between the rail right of way and Alma varies some but in general this is basically the layout. Again, if you could take a slice down or sort of x-ray vision down into the ground showing, looking toward the north, the existing railroad rights of way, the existing rail lines and railroad tracks. Then over to the right the center line, the center of Alma Street with the curb on the west side, the curb on the east side and the right of way line on the east side of Alma Street. Shoo-fly really being necessary to relocate temporarily the existing railroad from its current – it’s existing location over to the east in order to allow the Caltrain and freight lines to remain operational during the excavation and construction of a trench. For those who were here when we had the presentation from the Executive Director of the Alameda Corridor East Project in San Gabriel Valley, he talked about the Shoo-fly construction and the showed some pictures of how that occurs. Here we’re showing the overhead catenary system that will be required and involved with the electrification project that’s again, underway. Notable here that currently we’ve got along the right of way between the existing railroad and Alma quite a bit of landscaping and shrubbery which would largely need to be removed in order to allow for the installation placement of the Shoo-fly line. Again, that right of way would need to be cleared in order to maintain clearance both for the trains, as well as the overhead electrical system, as well as the equipment necessary in order to excavate the trench and the depth required. On the right of way on the west side, notably most – many of the locations along this rail line is residential to the west of this right of way line so we would be constructing imminently adjacent to what are currently backyard fences. We’ve got some more detail on the trench further in. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 10 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Chair Wolbach: Before you… Mr. Shikada: Yep, go ahead. Chair Wolbach: Before you go on, just to clarify, it’s – the left would be of this cross section would be neighborhoods like Ventura and South Gate etc.… Mr. Shikada: Correct, yes. Chair Wolbach: …(inaudible) Park and then on the right would be neighborhoods like Old Palo Alto and kind of the south-west edge of Mid- town, correct? Mr. Shikada: Yes, that’s correct. Chair Wolbach: Thank you. I just saw some eyes in the audience that looked like they wanted that clarification. Mr. Shikada: Got you, got you. Perhaps a little more visual on the concept of the trench and some of the implications. The photo to the left is an actual photo from the Alameda Corridor Project and Los Angeles, not Louisiana, for anyone who might be confused. This shows the overhead beams that are used to shore the walls and are effectively necessary in order to keep the walls stable and ensure that there’s not any caving in effectively of the trench given the depth that would be necessary. The Alameda Corridor, not a great parallel given that it’s a much larger facility, a number of multiple tracks with its width but nonetheless the concept still applies. Again, Alameda Corridor East Executive Director showed us that in the case of San Gabriel where they built a trench similar to that. Rather than do these overhead beams, they used tie backs – tie rods that go underground between the retaining wall to adjacent properties. So, in that case, I think – I believe he said it was about thirty plus foot tie rods that are steel rods that are anchored into the soil adjacent to the trench. Again, to be clear, in our case where this is west, we would likely require easements – subsurface easements in order to place those tie rods under existing residences; in backyards effectively to the west of the Caltrain corridor. One more photo, again this is of the Alameda Corridor Project showing the overhead beams in order to maintain the retaining walls. This is looking north from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in the – well you can’t see it here but behind us, in the far distance you see the downtown Los Angeles. Some of -- just to quickly review some of the issues associated with the construction of open FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 11 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 trench. One noted the right of way impact for the Shoo-fly. Again, in our case largely effecting Alma Street and the – during the period of construction necessity of taking at least half of Alma Street for this five-plus year period of construction. Alma itself would then need to be reconfigured in order to maximize its circulation function during that construction period but clearly lower capacity than it’s currently providing. There would be a requirement for relocation of existing utilities whether they be electrical lines, sewer, storm drain, and gas lines at crossings. We are – already talked about some of the limitations of the transportation crossings and the creeks that would really drive some of the design; the depth necessary for the trench and obviously with construction there would be noise and vibration that would need to be evaluated and addressed through construction. I would note that an open trench as described here among the options and perhaps when you’re talking in the multi-hundreds of billions – millions or billion, notable that this is the least costly among the City-wide options. That there is the potential with trenching of the right of way for additional transportation crossings to be added where they don’t currently exist. Council Member Scharff: So, I – sorry, if you could just clarify, I thought the White Paper said the least expensive of the City-wide option was tunnel boring? Whereas in the southern part the southern trench would be an open trench? That’s the way I read the White Paper. I thought the White Paper was pretty clear that an open trench throughout the whole City was not cost-effective and was not even possible really and that it would have to be a tunnel bore. Mr. Shikada: I think that’s relative to the cut and cover – I’m sorry, the covered trench. So, I’ll jump forward to that… Council Member Scharff: I miss read it so I miss read it, alright. Mr. Shikada: Again, this is order of magnitude between $2 billion and $4 billion… so within that order of magnitude. This is the most expensive options here which is the covered version of the cut and cover trench. I would note that in this case there are operational issues that would need to be addressed. Let me come back to that. Note that in the case of the covered trench, again I’ll do this really quickly, that same right of way impacts, utility relocations, there would be a necessity addition down below of ventilation facilities and this is the most expensive. In addition to ventilation there are the emergency service – emergency response dimensions that would need to be factored into both the design, as well as FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 12 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 the operational training for our police and fire first responders in order to be able to make access should it be necessary in that covered section. In term of the opportunities, a covered trench does provide more opportunities for use of the cover and again, both for open space and recreational uses. That’s the only difference from the prior alternative. In terms of bored tunnel shown here, the tunnel boring machine that would be used to construct a facility like this. Jumping quickly to the section that would be typical of a bored tunnel. This would require – for the purpose of the analysis here – assumed twin circular 30-foot diameter excavating tunnel boring machines with a potential for open trench portals as necessary for either end to bring at grade; as well as the necessity of placing portals around the stations. In terms of impacts – right of way impacts, really focusing on the entrance/exits, as well as the stations in order to construct. There is the necessity of protecting utilities in places where that could be accomplished but also relocating where necessary at crossings. Again, similar noise and vibration impacts to be addressed and ventilation; as well as public safety emergency access. To Council Member Scharff’s point, this one is more economical than the covered trench configuration. Again, with similar potential for use in the areas where there – excavation is done lower. Again, though in the context of multi-billion-dollar expenditures. Chair Wolbach: Right and so just to put them in order of cost of the three City-wide according to this report. The least expensive of the three that we’ve discussed would be the open trench, secondly would be a bored tunnel and the most expensive would be the covered trench. Mr. Shikada: Correct, that’s correct. Chair Wolbach: Thank you. Council Member Scharff: Do you have those numbers so we just have them for (inaudible)? Mr. Shikada: Yes, we’ve got Slide 20 so we’ll come back to that. Mr. Mello: Also, Packet Page 33. Mr. Shikada: So, a quick recap of the some of the issues that are common among the approach – the construction methods necessary for both the trenches and the bored tunnel options. The right of way impacts was already discussed, the necessity of staging and having staging areas for the FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 13 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 equipment needed in both situations, construction truck routes I haven’t spoken to yet but recognizing the excavation that would be involved with either of these options would require significant earthwork movement and the necessity of that to be accommodated throughout the construction process. Utility relocation has been spoken too, as well as -- surface traffic impacts we really haven’t gotten into. It would need to be addressed as part of the construction analysis other than above and beyond that was discussed for Alma Street itself. We can come back to this if further detail is desired. Let’s speak for a moment to the electrification, I spoke briefly to it earlier. Once again noted as an existing condition for the purpose of this analysis and is currently ongoing. I really hit most of these points, perhaps other than the last item in that the parallel station would also be necessary, again for temporary construction situation. If we’re constructing the City-wide trench we would similarly need to have temporarily relocated stations say at University and Cal. Ave during the duration of the construction period. One note since groundwater is a frequent topic of discussion here in Palo Alto, to note the profiles that would be required for the trench excavation in comparison to our current understanding of the depth of the groundwater table. That at a few points here noted at University Avenue the trench would be at a depth of roughly 60-foot below existing grade various roughly 32- foot where we know the existing groundwater table to be. Churchill, 55-foot versus 25 so about 30-feet down below the groundwater table. Oregon, 40- feet below the groundwater table and Charleston 50-feet below the groundwater table. So, in all cases there will be waterproofing and pumping systems that would be necessary in order to ensure both groundwater not intruding to the tunnels or trench. Also, recognizing ongoing issues we’ve had at Oregon Expressway and that this would need to be an issue of particular attention through the design and construction process and ultimately, operationally as well. Back to the cost, back to Council Member Scharff’s point, order of magnitude is worth I think walking through briefly. The open trench option was described the least costly of the City-wide options from $2.4 to $2.9 billion dollars. Again, order of magnitude, really for the purpose of comparison estimate. Cut and cover, where there again would be the potential for use above the trench with backfill is the most expensive options of $3.3 to $4.0 billion and the bored tunnel at $2.8 to $3.4 billion dollars. I really haven’t spoken to the South Palo Alto option so let me briefly note those here. There were variations on the open trench options that would only focus on trenching in South Palo Alto, South of Oregon Express Way really and two variations there. One under west Meadow and Charleston and again, both of them assuming a two percent grade that would be acceptable to Caltrain. That Meadow and Charleston option at $750 million to 1 billion dollars and open trench under Charleston FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 14 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 only at $500 to $700 million dollars. As a point of reference, Mott MacDonald did provide the latest estimate for the VTA BART tunnel. Again, just a point of comparison that tunnel -- roughly 5-miles bored tunnel with three underground stations at $4.7 billion dollars so order of magnitude, I think this – we’re in the same ballpark. To quickly recap some of the Staff conclusions based on our evaluation of the White Paper as noted in the White Paper itself, that from an engineering perspective, in some ways everything is possible and all options are technically feasible from an engineering perspective and can be constructed. There are a number of implications associated with that feasibility. First that this exception from the one percent design standard is really essential and will be a part of our ongoing discussion with Caltrain. Second, that the significant issues with all of these options, including the construction impacts, would include that the City-wide options are dependent on corporation from our adjacent Cities. Which will again be a point of ongoing discussion not only with those adjacent Cities but with Caltrain and other responsible agencies including Santa Clara County Water Districts since there are a number of flood and groundwater table management issues involved. Also, that ongoing cost such as security pumping ventilation will require funding and our understanding based on preliminary discussions is that would largely fall to the City of Palo Alto given that this would be unique treatments in comparison to other elements of the Caltrain Corridor. Our conclusion is that these City-wide options are likely cost prohibitive based on what we’ve seen and the financing paper that has been – financing work that has been complete to date. However, that the limited subsurface of trenching in South Palo Alto may warrant further analysis. So, with that, that concludes the walkthrough. The – again, as noted at the beginning of the briefing, this is kicking off a number of public and agency reviews and discussions. I look forward to the Committee’s feedback and your feedback for us as we enter into those additional discussions leading into upcoming Rail Committee discussions. Thank you Chair Wolbach: Thank you very much for the presentation. Before we go to public comment, let me turn to my Colleagues. You were both on this Committee last year and I’d like to hear your thoughts about how we proceed with incorporating public input into these meetings. Council Member Scharff: Alright, I would say that I think that Nadia is correct and that I know it takes longer but I think it’s really important to get the public comment. I think that we should go ahead and hear from the public now and then allow the public to speak after we speak. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 15 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Council Member Fine: We didn’t do that last year. We certainly have a lot of experts in the audience on different issues and that’s helpful. We also have experts in Staff. I guess I’m willing to try having public speakers after an item again as respondents but I don’t want it to become antagonistic between the public and Staff if that makes sense. Chair Wolbach: I’d also hope that it doesn’t become antagonistic between members of the public who may have differing views. I hope we all will be very respectful of each other and of course, we do want to encourage everybody to feel comfortable speaking. Before we do go to the public… Council Member Scharff: Well, we do need to have some time limits. Chair Wolbach: Yes, and we will definitely have time limits. Before we go to the public for initial public input on this item, I do also want to allow my colleagues, if you have any additional just clarifying questions similar to those we were asked during the presentation that could be helpful for all. If you want to throw out all questions right now but if you don’t have any, we can go straight to the public. Ok, great. We have several public speakers, we have actually five so everybody will have two minutes for this one. Again, there will be an opportunity for further comments and follow-ups later. So, the first public speaker is Stephen Rosenblum to followed by Roland LeBrun. Stephen? Stephen Rosenblum: Good morning. My name is Steve Rosenblum, I live at 212 Santa Rita in Palo Alto, and I’ve read the City Manager’s transmittal letter in the attached Mott MacDonald report on the tunneling-trenching option. I find myself very upset by the analysis and assumptions contained. The discussion of this important issue is what arises from a broken process where real community input was not provided. In the two Round Table meetings I’ve attended, the most public support for any grade separation option was for the tunneling-trenching option. People wanted to know what it would look like and what it would cost. Mr. Keene informed us that the cost is prohibitive. Isn’t that a decision for the people of Palo Alto and the City Council to make? Why was it assumed that creek levels are sacrosanct when they are in fact concrete culverts? All grade separation operations require a Shoo-fly track so it makes no sense to single this out as a tunneling-trenching issue. Besides, I’m not convinced that if the tunnel where bored 50-feet below the surface, that trains could not continue to run on the surface – the existing surface tracks and only requiring Shoo-fly tracks at the spoil hole out locations. There’s no mention of the most -- FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 16 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 almost negligible property – amount of property takins associated with tunneling versus trenching – tunneling-trenching verses above ground separations. The possibility that a covered trench or a bored tunnel would create valuable real estate in Palo Alto that that is transit-oriented was only mentioned in the cursory fashion with no estimate made as to the money this real estate could generate. Looking at large Cities, very often big structures are built on top of tunnels and a 4-mile long, 100-foot wide corridor creates 12.1 acres of new land conversantly worth $40 million. This is a source of revenue completely neglected in this report. Sources of financing for this project were not included. How we discuss such a project without even a cursory discussion of where the money might come from? Chair Wolbach: Thank you. Our next public speaker is Roland LeBrun followed by Nadia Naik and Herb Borock will be after Nadia. Roland LeBrun: Thank you. The first question is will the TAC meeting on the 28th be open to the public? The second is why was there no consideration of putting one Shoo-fly (inaudible) a side of the trenches versus both Shoo-fly’s to one side and potentially reduce the impacts on the side. It’s very common in Europe and I can give you multiple examples. The slide on the cut and cover didn’t show a middle wall between the tracks that are required for safety and ventilation. Electrification impacts, in the electrification EIR I asked Caltrain to consider bi-mode trains that – the hybrids and basically what that allows these trains to do is to go through a construction zone without electrification. They just have diesel power packs and that’s how they get through there. So, in closing, as you can tell that the real issue with tunneling is the cost of the stations so what I did last night -- I’m sorry I didn’t do it earlier – is forward you made comments for basically the High Speed Rail Authority for (inaudible) EIR for the peninsula. The recommendation they considered the hybrid solution where it buys the trains that don’t stop at a station, blast right through a tunnel and the only trains that use the existing tracks are the trains that stop at the station. If you do that the only surface impacts will be ventilation shafts since it’s actually an 8-mile tunnel from (inaudible) Mountain View to just south of Atherton and they are 2-mile apart. So, you have to decide where to go and then you can actually design the tunnel so that later when funding becomes available, you can actually start constructing underground platforms for potential underground stations. At that point, you may be able to get rid of the surface tracks, thank you. Chair Wolbach: Thank you and I just want to make sure everybody knew that there were – I think there are a couple extra seats if anyone needs one. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 17 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Nadia and to be followed by Herb Borock. Nadia Naik: Thank you to the Committee Members for considering the extra time. I few might think about adding a timer up here so everyone knows how much time they just because this is going to no for a while so that would be great. We have no mentioned of a trench staring just after Embarcadero, going under Churchill and popping up at Cal. Ave. I would say that that’s something that we need to understand whether that’s possible. There’s also no mention if there’s no freight on the corridor. There’s still an ongoing live discussion about Dumbarton Rail and if we have no freight on the corridor, that gives you a lot more flexibility in grade design. That’s been something that we’ve discussed for years. I’m kind of confused about why that wasn’t included in the scope of the work that was done. I’ve just sent you additional information about the two percent grade and why I think that this is a no-brainer. We’ve talked about it for years, I’ve sent you a letter this morning which is signed by Mayor Liccardo and Mayor Ed Lee that shows that they have pushed for this. I actually also sent you in 2010 High Speed Rail accidentally studied two percent grade in an alternatives analysis so we have their work to show that this is possible. So, this is a bogus number and it's clearly something that we should continue to push for. Vertical clearances, one of the major assumptions here is how quickly we can get up and down based on where the creeks are. You have two assumptions, one is that you need 24.5 – 24-feet 5-inches of top of the rail and that is a CPAC requirement. BART and Metrolink have gotten exceptions to this rule and there’s no reason we can’t ask for an exception. So, using that as a hard rule and not having analyzed or even considered how that would change things, I think was kind of irresponsible honestly. The second is that the water district requires 8-feet of clearance for unlined creeks and 5-feet for lined creeks. So, besides San Francisquito, it’s our understanding that the rest of the creeks in Palo Alto are actually lined creeks so we don’t need such a big clearance underneath. That greatly changes how quickly we can go up and down. Assumptions for electrifications, they use center poles instead of using what’s called a gateway, that takes up along more space. Also, they kept all of the shrubberies along the road and that has to get taken out anyway. I will try to fit my other ones in hopefully on the next round. I also will try to write this down because I talk fast and there’s a lot of stuff here. Thanks. Chair Wolbach: Thank you. Now go to Herb Borock to be followed by Richard Brand. Herb Borock: Chair Wolbach and Committee Members, the study presentation presented by Mr. Shikada listed a number of key assumptions. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 18 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 To me, the most important assumption is the recently adopted Palo Alto Comprehensive Plan which is to continue an increase Palo Alto as a regional employment center and to provide additional housing along transportation corridors presumably so people can live here and go work someplace else. So, the main motivation for grade separations is the fact that the land developers and companies who want to create a regional – a more intensive regional employment center in Palo Alto need a way to get their employees to and from work. They can do it by having them live someplace else and commute on the rail and that would mean more trains and therefore a rationale for grade separations or they need to be living in Palo Alto and crossing the tracks and needing grade separations. So, there is a clear linkage between any kind of study and the Comprehensive Plan’s assumption and policies on employment and housing. Ultimately you come – I come to a conclusion that if you start that way, that those are the people that should be paying for any grade separations rather than the population as a whole. Instead, what we have is some people thinking well if only their neighborhood would get the grade separation it wants, they are willing to align with the development community and help them get this project going through. I think if they notice what’s happened in the community in the past, whether it’s a single development or a larger one, then that’s a mistake. Thank you. Chair Wolbach: Thank you. Next speaker on this item Richard Brand to be followed by Tony Carrasco. Richard Brand: Thank you. Just an observation regarding the temporary Shoo-fly along Alma and I know Shoo-fly and it don’t bother me. Anyway, I think that – sorry, a little levity here. This is a temporary diversion while the rail is being rebuilt. There’s no need for electrification of that because this is during construction and the rest of the line is going to be intermittent electric and not. Caltrain should be able to keep diesel running even on the temporary diversion while construction is going on. We’ll have a lot of diesel left over so I think this is a false assumption that we’ll need to build centenary wires along Alma for temporary construction. Thank you. Chair Wolbach: Tony Carrasco to be followed by our final speaker on this item at this point and that’s Adina Levin. Tony Carrasco: Tony Carrasco, 583 Grand Brook Drive in Palo Alto. One of the embedded problems that show up in this report is that Caltrain is going to operate during – after the electrified, at ten trains per hour which means FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 19 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 that gridlock in Palo Alto. It’s a disconnect at Palo Alto for as long as it takes us to build these separations. That fact should be highlighted and explained to the public because it’s going to come back and bite us if people don’t know that there’s gridlock for three years – three or more years. Second point, I think this report sort of merges some of High Speed Rail criteria into the Caltrain – what Caltrain can do for grade separations and a tunnel and covered trench. Thirdly, I think it’s probably the most important point when we as architects try to develop or solve a problem, we need a budget. If we are trying to do a thousand-dollar project with a ten-dollar budget, it just doesn’t work. We need to find a different solution. I would really encourage and ask you guys to tell us what that budget is for Palo Alto. Is it half a billion dollars? Is it a billion dollars? Then we can go find a way. Fourthly, I’d like you guys, given our budget issues and probably not being able to get to $4 billion, I suggest that we look at other options like viaducts that will keep Palo Alto connected but not cost so much. Thanks. Chair Wolbach: Thank you. Last speaker, for now, is Adina Levin. Adina Levin: Adina Levin, Friends of Caltrain, the context from this comment is that Friends of Caltrain supports getting the Caltrain corridor grade separated as soon as practical and we do not have any positions on the designs of grade separations in local Cities which are a local decision. Given this, I have a question about the schedule and then also a question about the design options. The papers that came out late last year included a paper about the funding and financing options. Including some of the options that do make a trench or tunnel throughout the City look like a huge stretch but a trench in South Palo Alto could conceivably be done depending on the will of the voters of the City with various different options. So, I’m wondering where in the process would those funding and financing options be discussed and one of those – those included bonds on property taxes and also value captures from real estate development; which would, of course, need to be a discussion in the City about whether that was something that the City wanted to do. So, I’m wondering where in the schedule that would wind up being discussed? The other comment is with regard to the design options, without a price tag and based on earlier policies, the designs that were discussed did not include the split designs that are being contemplated in Menlo Park and have been chosen in Burlingame and in other locations. Given the price tags, I’m wondering if that might be something that the City would be willing to assess again to be able to assess the tradeoffs in terms of visual impacts and cost. Thank you. Chair Wolbach: Thank you very much. Alright, well this should be quick. I’ll FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 20 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 turn to Colleagues, questions or comments? Greg. Council Member Scharff: Well, first of all, I’d like to thank everyone for coming today. I know it’s a really important topic and I want to thank Staff for putting together the White Paper. I actually thought it was well done, especially the transmittal letter by the City Manager. People see – when they go into these Round Tables we’ve had and the community outreach, I’ve heard a lot of frustration frankly that there’s been too much on the table frankly and we haven’t really got into discussions of the hard issues. I think we’re really starting that discussion now. Some of my big concerns are really with the scheduling in some ways so – and they plan (inaudible). When I read this report, it’s fairly clear to me that we need to at least need to be really clear to narrow the options. I think we should narrow those options even starting today. I mean when I read this report – where was it? The – where did you – I want to get this right. When you look at the $2.4 billion to $2.9 billion for an open trench, that’s the most economical of the three City- wide ones we have. So, we’re clearly not going to do the cut and cover tunnel City limit to City limit at $3.3 to $3.4 billion. We should make that decision now and spend no time on it whatsoever. That to me seems to be a no-brainer and we should give it – basically, tell people at the next Round Table that look, that doesn’t make any sense. I think the same with the twin deep bore tunnels so that leaves the open trench City limit to City limit at $2.4 billion to $2.9 billion. I also personally believe that makes no sense and that’s we’re never going to do that and it’s a waste of time to consider it. I would be willing to make those decisions today but at the very least I think we should say we’re not going to do the cut and cover and we’re not going to do the twin deep-bore tunnel. I think what we need to do is we need to set up the meeting for March – its March 6th, correct? With some direction, we’re only the Council Committee so the Council hasn’t made a decision but we need to tell the community where we’re going with this, where we think, and set it up. I do think what this tells me is that we do need to spend some time with the community talking about the open trench under West Meadow and Charleston at two percent grade and the open trench under Charleston only at a two percent grade. I mean those seem to be viable options possibly, I’m not saying (inaudible) but they’re worth – they merit further study. That means that the community is then going to understand what Alma is going to look like, how long it’s going to take, what the disruptions are going to be and are those things better than if we just do – how many houses might be taken with the open trench/under trench? Are there no houses that are taken with the open/under trench? I think we need to start focusing on those kinds of issues and by saying nothing is off the table and by leaving what I view to be completely pie in the sky concepts out there, I FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 21 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 think we distract from the real work that needs to get done. So, I actually at some point will make a motion that we at least get rid of two of these and if I had support I would get the three City-wide ones and suggest that we don’t do that. I realize it would have to go to the City Council for full debate and I think that’s a good thing but I do think that we need to start moving things forward. What else did I want to say about this? I did want to comment a little bit on the Churchill thing. I actually wanted to say that I really appreciate the hard work that that community group has done and, in my view, I completely agree with everything they say and they have my full support of that on that at this point. That’s not to mean that there may not be other approaches that look that near on the margins. I also want to say that Staff says there are 40 different options roughly that we could do. What I think we should be doing, as soon as possible, is looking at those 40 different options and focusing people on them and the impacts of each of the options and weighing the pros and cons. I fear that this notion of a City-wide trench or tunnel is distracting from the real work that needs to get done. That’s my plea to everyone, is let’s move forward and realize that we’re not going to be spending $2.4 billion because it’s not going to happen. Council Member Fine: Thank you. Again, thank you, everyone, for coming out and thanks to Staff for the White Paper and presentation. A quick question, what is Staff actually asking us to do? It just says begin public discussion of the White Paper and its findings. Mr. Shikada: Really no action required so we simply wanted to set this up for you to have the first opportunity to both get a briefing on the paper, as well as really get your feedback on how we proceed from here. Council Member Fine: Ok. James Keene, City Manager: Can I just jump in really quick on that? Could you link just very quickly our schedule with Adrian’s question with what Greg just mentioned also about when are we moving from 40 down? I think the March schedule really brings us to answer your question. Which is getting input now but it’s driving towards (inaudible). Mr. Shikada: Yes, that’s correct. So, effectively – again, here we are on February 21st, in a month after these two meetings, as well as any others that might be helpful to reach a conclusion, we’ll be presenting the other alternatives. The other 40up… FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 22 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Council Member Scharff: Ed, let me just stop you right there. How do we present 40 concepts in one meeting? I mean I don’t understand that and I mean that’s my concern with this. It seems to me that we need to have a bunch of meetings to go through these other concepts unless these concepts are not really worth presenting. Mr. Shikada: We’ve set this up as – and Josh can expand as he sees fit – into a matrix of basic themes, a number of variations and gone through using the criteria that the Council previously approved. To your point, it is a lot of information to digest so Staff is working on how best to communicate that in a way that is understandable and provided enough information to make these decisions. Council Member Fine: So, Jim thank you for that and bring us to the schedule. I guess that is kind of where my question was going, is what schedule do we have? What decision points do we have and what evidence do we have to support either narrowing the solution space or exploring the opportunities? I agree with Greg that I do think we are at the point where we should be narrowing things. My underlying question though is something a number of public speakers brought up is are we using the correct or at least agreed upon assumptions? I’m not sure we quite have that here yet. I have a list of ten or twenty questions about those assumptions. To me, I can’t really package them up in one way which kind of leads me to think maybe we don’t have all the assumptions totally and we haven’t flushed them out for our public in order to remove some options. I think we have to really, really diligent about that. Mr. Shikada: If I might? I know that Josh has been keeping notes along the way. If there where value in going through individuals, I think a number of them may be relatively small differences and ultimately, have -- I’ll venture out a statement here – no impact on the conclusions. Council Member Fine: That kind of statement is actually really helpful. If we do have assumptions and we’re not sure which way it would go, A or B, but they have no impact on our outcomes here. That’s great to know that’s the kind of stuff we actually need to document. So, just a couple of them that I have written down and these are each quite big but if they’re not so big, then we should know that. So, is it the one or two percent grade? Do we have four – do we have passing tracks for High Speed Rail? Can we divert the freight above or by Dumbarton? The creek clearance, is it the 8-feet or is it the 5-feet? Nadia mentioned the CPAC requirement of the height. Are we FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 23 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 using catenaries on the side or in the middle? Are the roads remaining operational? I actually had not even thought of that one before and it’s crazy but we might actually close Alma for 5-years, right? Then one other question about a few more assumptions. One, Council Member Scharff mentioned this number of $4 billion is crazy. Is it? I agree with you and in my gut it’s crazy. Council Member Scharff: Yes, if you recall we had the financing options and if we proposed every tax that the Staff could possibly come up with, we couldn’t pay for it. Council Member Fine: Right but some people have brought up the idea of value caption on top which we haven’t totally – I know it’s a complex issue in itself. I don’t think we have the ability to take things off the table unless we’ve don’t the due diligence of proving why they should come off the table is what I’m getting at. Mr. Keene: Could I add just quickly on this note? I think that part of the discussion in March when we get here and we look at these alternatives. We’d be in a position to give you another look at the funding and financing options in a way I think that starts to put in perspective what would be required and what extent you feel ok, you can make that decision recommendation as a Council or is there in some way we’ve ultimately got to test that with the community? I’ll be honest with you, I’ve looked at the numbers, (inaudible) some of my conclusions and I apologize for that. I’m not an engineer, I am somebody who’s been dealing with public acceptance of difficult financing projects and the scale is quite significant. I don’t think we can ignore that but we’d be in a position to present that in a more – I don’t want to digestible – to – in a more informed choice making way in March when you start to consider these alternatives. To be able to factor in some of the potential funding requirements. Council Member Fine: Right. Yeah so funding is just one more of them though, right? I think… Mr. Keene: Let me give you just one way to think about it just right now so that we get real about this. Basically, if we were to bond $4 billion at the current rate that the City is able to bond and not order to leverage X amount of dollars for X amount of bonds over a 30-year period. Four billion dollars could cost us $267 million a year that we’d have to finance. That is 20 percent more than the entire City’s General Fund Budget each year for the next 30-years. So, when we start to look at how that would be distributed FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 24 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 across sectors, you start to see – I mean there is a big every year scale. Council Member Fine: Right and then just three specific question I guess. One, is there a separate hydro paper or is this supposed to be that? Mr. Mello: The hydrology discussion is included in this paper. Council Member Fine: Ok. Mr. Mello: If you wanted us to expand on that, we certainly could. Council Member Fine: I’m not – I’m agnostic about whether it should be in this paper or another one. I think it’s just doing the due diligence so that community members are satisfied. Which gets to kind of my fine point, I was talking to somebody the other day about managing big projects and they brought up the idea of a Red Team. Some team that’s running counterpoint or perpendicular and challenging the organization. I think that’s what I’ve been getting at here, is that we have a whole bunch of folks who are well informed and are questioning these assumptions and we want them answered. I’m wondering if my Colleagues would be interested in some kind of informal group, whether it’s made up of Staff, community members, it doesn’t have to be a stakeholder group but that is able to submit challenges to the organizational inertia and reporting the work that we’re doing. Then we would require ourselves to kind of respond that because I think we’re also going to have people poking holes in this process. If we have a system where we’re at least able to respond to that and say, yes, we hear you. That assumption was chosen because of this but as you mentioned has no impact on the final outcome, I think that’s helpful. I’m not convinced we’re doing a good enough job in terms of documenting those different places where people are trying to poke holes. So, that’s an idea I just wanted to float. Do we have some kind of oppositional team looking at this process? That’s where I’ll leave it for now. Chair Wolbach: There are a couple things that seem very obvious in the room right now but I’m not sure are. The North Old Palo Alto proposals, I’m, at this point, inclined towards but I’ve also heard from at least one resident of South Gate that not all of South Gate is necessary of the same mind. I just heard from the audience that’s true so it’s hard for me to say today that we’re fully behind, as a whole community and as a whole City, one solution around Churchill. I’m hesitant to say we’re can’t do the deep bore tunnels today. I’m much more comfortable saying we can’t do them and we’re not FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 25 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 interested in the cut and cover trench because I don’t see a lot of advantages of cut and cover over the deep-bore tunnels and it’s more expensive. So, it seems like the worst option in a lot of ways unless I’m missing something. I’m not enthusiastic about the price tag on the deep bore. I think that with deep bore it really comes down to the value capture. It really comes down to is there a value capture proposal that doesn’t mean an insane amount of office development to pay for it? I don’t think there is but I could be wrong and it’s hard for me to say today that I’m sure I’m not wrong. I’m sure we can’t afford that amount of development to help pay for it. I’m inclined to say yeah, let’s rule it out as Greg was suggesting but I feel it’s a little premature to do that. I wasn’t on the Committee last year, I wasn’t here for your full discussion about the financing White Paper at your meeting on the 29th of November so you may feel more comfortable with that. I don’t feel comfortable with that today personally and I think a lot of people in the community aren’t comfortable with that yet. I think that the meeting next month would be a good time for this Committee to rule some things out. In saying today, we think we’re probably going to rule these things out unless somebody brings us a really darn good reason why we shouldn’t. Then it basically gives people notice that if you think deep bore can be paid for, if you think it’s achievable, you have one month to bring us the case. Whether that’s Staff or members of the community, the Red Team Adrian talked about, whatever, and basically, say before we rule it out next month because it’s on the chopping block but you could get a reprieve but you’ve got a month to make the case. I‘d be more comfortable with that and I think people in the community need that opportunity. I was – I think that we need a chance to – as a community, to consider our dream options really thoroughly and I think this meeting would be a premature time to rule some of those out. I don’t think that the cut and cover trench is a dream scenario for most people and so saying that we recommend or that we recommend strongly that we rule that one out, I’d be ok with. As a process question, I don’t know how many times we need to send recommendations to the Council so I’m also ok with just saying that what we do now is prepare for that March meeting and say – kind of rank how we feel about these. That the cut and cover trench is an F and the deep bore tunnel is a D. Then the regular trench is a C- if it’s City-wide but half City trench or deep bore tunnel for South Palo Alto for Charleston and/or Meadow we might say that we’re very intrigued by that as a partial City solution. So, that’s kind of where I’m at on process. On split design, having the train go a little bit up and the roads go a little down, especially in the South Palo Alto area, does Staff want to weigh in on that at all? Mr. Mello: That is one of the 40 ideas that we’ve assembled based on the FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 26 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 feedback that we’ve got from the public to date. Chair Wolbach: Ok and so we’ll be discussing that next month? Ok. Mr. Shikada: Yes. Chair Wolbach: One of the questions that was raised by the – during the public comment, while – if we were to peruse for a portion of the City or the entirety of the City but if we were to peruse deep bore tunnels. Is it possible for trains to continuously run above that or do we have to do a Shoo-fly during deep boring? Basically, if you do deep bore, do you need to close part or all of Alma simultaneously? It seems like there’s some disagreement about that so I just wanted to turn to Staff with that question. Mr. Mello: Shoo-fly’s would likely be required for the short sections where the tunnel boring machines would enter the tunnel but trains could continue to run above the excavation site of the tunnel. Chair Wolbach: I’m not sure I understand. Mr. Mello: So, at the two entry points of the tunnel, there would need to be bypass tracks constructed. Chair Wolbach: So, there would be portions of Alma that might have to be partially closed? Mr. Mello: Yes, short – very short segments in order to by-pass the entry points for the tunnel boring machines… Chair Wolbach: Ok. Mr. Mello: …and then get back onto the alignment. Chair Wolbach: Right so I’ll be honest, that’s a good reason why deep boring, even if it’s just for a portion of the track in Palo Alto, that’s a point in its favor. It doesn’t mean that we’re making our decision but I think that the disruption of circulation during construction, especially if we’re talking about a multi-year project for construction which it might be, is something worth noting. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 27 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Mr. Mello: Just one point of clarification, there could be locations along the corridor where we could possibly build the entry points in some other piece of property and avoid a Shoo-fly altogether. Our right of way if fairly constrained so I don’t know that – you know we haven’t looked at whether there are opportunities – specific opportunities for that. Chair Wolbach: Well, I think that looking at that would be a priority so when it comes time for motions, I actually think we should include that. Given that a tunnel or trench or given that a tunnel might be an option for – actually, would that apply for a trench as well? No, that wouldn’t. That would just be for the deep-bore tunnel. Mr. Shikada: Perhaps just for the Council’s – the Committee’s consideration as an order of magnitude, we are still talking about a several block sections at a minimum while noting right of way or property elsewhere. If it we were saying on Alma or on El Camino, again it would require the same kind of traffic diversion around the construction area. Much less if it were private property, it would require the full acquisition of the private property and again potentially providing future development opportunities. I do want to ensure that the concept is grounded in some scale because these are pretty significant right of way – real estate projects. Chair Wolbach: Got it. One thing that wasn’t in our Staff report and I should have brought – printed it out and brought it with me. I think maybe we should include in future Staff reports is our guiding principles. So, that we can continually refer back to them. I don’t know if it’s possible to find those and pull them up and put them on the overheads. Council Member Scharff: I don’t believe we went to Council with guiding – with any changes to the (inaudible). Chair Wolbach: I thought we – Council approved them. Council Member Scharff: No. Chair Wolbach: No? Mr. Mello: (Inaudible) September… Council Member Scharff: Oh, that was a different (inaudible)… FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 28 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Mr. Mello: That’s the reevaluation criteria. Council Member Scharff: It was a… Mr. Shikada: And not the… I mean sorry. Chair Wolbach: If Staff is able to pull them up, I’d love to have those up on the screen so we can think about them. I think they overlap a lot with our guiding principles that we’ve adopted but I was just thinking about what’s important to me in considering these options. Safety obviously during construction and also the long-term safety. The effect of safety and that includes making sure that pedestrians don’t have access to the trains or in a tunnel or a trench. The resulting circulation, what is traffic circulation for all modes; for bikes, for pedestrians and cars. What does circulation look like after we’re all done? What are the noise and aesthetic impacts after we’re all done? What are the constructions impacts and circulation impacts during the construction phase? How much private property we’re talking about taking? Are we talking about a couple easements? Maybe taking a couple feet off a couple people’s yards or are we talking about actually taking a large number of homes and –- through emanate domain? So, that’s another thing that we want to keep in mind. I think all of these have been acknowledged, I think most of them are in the guiding principles and once we get them up we can compare and contrast but those are the things that I’m thinking about. I’ll come back to – well, if we’re going to have public comment again and if we’re going to have motions, should we – what do you think my colleagues… Council Member Scharff: (inaudible) Chair Wolbach: …should we do Motions first… Council Member Scharff: No. Chair Wolbach: … or public comments first and then go to Motions? I think that’s right so let’s go back to Greg if you had other thoughts or questions. Council Member Scharff: Yeah, I did have a couple thoughts and I think Chair Wolbach, you stimulated some thoughts in my head about what do we need as a Committee? You mentioned -- and I think Council Member Fine mentioned the same thing -- the value capture notion and a couple things went through my head. I’m convinced that there’s – that the value capture FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 29 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 doesn’t work. I’m convinced for… Chair Wolbach: I think you’re probably right. Council Member Scharff: … and I’m convinced for – based on a number of personal experience. I’ll give you some sense of what I think I say to myself, you can’t sell the value capture right up front. When we go through a process of approval of any major development project in Palo Alto that would create any significant value, you have huge opposition. I could just remind people of the (inaudible) Project which they were going to spend $60 or $70 million in a community benefit to build a theater. The same thing with the J. Paul Project when they were going to pay for the entire Public Safety Building which at this point looks like $100 million dollar value capture issue. I don’t really see how you convince anybody to pay for that until you have the approvals in place. Until you have a clear development agreement that would say you get to build X, you couldn’t sell it, they would – no value be created. In Palo Alto, a process to get there is a really long process and I’m not even clear where you’d put it. So, I just see the whole value capture thing as something that we wouldn’t know for four or five years where the community is and you’d be adding the whole thing together. I just don’t see it ever happening. I say if you want to go down the rabbit hole of value capture, you’re actually going to say we might as well delay this project five or six years beyond that while we work out what a development agreement would look like that. At which point the value that we create, other people have spent the Measure B money by the time we create the value. I just don’t see it as something that we can do as a community that makes any real sense in terms of how you would fit this into the process. I’m fine if we want to hold off and do that but I do think it’s really important and I’m glad you said that these are issues that are on the chopping block and I don’t – that’s really what I was trying to get to is the exact same point that you made. I don’t want us to go to the Round Table and people get lost in the details of the trench – what do we have? The trench, the deep bore tunnel and then the covered trench. I don’t want them to spend all their time arguing about if we go 50-feet, can we go under the creek or we can do that because, in reality, it doesn’t matter. As Ed said or Jim said, I don’t remember, a lot – we don’t want to have discussions where the outcome – well, they might be right on a technical point but it doesn’t matter because the outcome is the same. That’s a waste of a community meeting so what I want the community to be debating is this, is ok, let’s look at the South Palo Alto trench. Are we better off with a South Palo Alto trench? I mean are we going to close Alma on that? Are we going to take any homes? As opposed to an up or a down – what do we call the up-down? I don’t have a good FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 30 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 word… Mr. Mello: Hybrid. Council Member Scharff: So, the hybrid – as opposed to a hybrid solution which maybe takes X number of homes but there’s no impact on Alma or there’s a limited impact or there’s a shorter impact. That’s the kind of discussion the community wants to hear and that’s what they want to know. So, Josh, how does that fit into the schedule that you’re putting together? I mean how do you take those 40 things that we have, break them up…Yeah, break them up between different grade crossings? Have those discussions where you can see the pros and cons and the community can then talk about that and we can get input from people who live there and are going to be affected by it. Mr. Mello: So, we’ve organized the 40 ideas into locations and then kind of themes and then we’ve gone ahead and done an initial screening of the 40 ideas where we’ve vetted them against these Tier 1 and Tier 2 evaluation criteria that was adopted by Council in 2017. I think we could bring you the initial scoring that we’ve developed and then we could have a conversation about whether the scoring makes sense, whether it reflects the community values, whether we need to look at waiting potentially and what we’ll get out of that is a short list of the highest performing ideas for each of the locations. Council Member Scharff: Then we’re going to go have community meetings where we get input based on those with the pros and the cons? Mr. Mello: Yeah, I think we’d want to present some initial scoring based against those criteria. Then have the community give us input on whether that scoring does indeed reflect the community values and the wants and needs of Palo Alto residents. Mr. Keene: Can I just jump in? Council Member Scharff: Sure. Mr. Keene: I think we’ll maybe talk about this also a little bit more in the schedule part of the next item, is that correct? I don’t think we should lose sight of the fact of the general direction we’re working under from the FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 31 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Council now which is to look at being able to make a preferred alternative selection by the end of this calendar year. Which then pursues working back that we would move from 40 to four to eight options say by June. Now, I’ll just tell you to think and this will be really funny when we talk about it in the future like how I oversimplified this. It doesn’t seem that difficult to me working through and looking at it with the Staff to move from 40 to ultimately four to eight. I also think our community as a whole, not necessarily the most engage, most knowledgeable members of our community but our community as a whole will never be able to focus at all on 40 options. So, even to get the four to eight starts to put into contrast what the range of the choices are that we have. I don’t think we should lose sight of getting to your point earlier about are we going to keep picking at issues that don’t have a measurable ultimate impact. We’ve got to be able to somehow be prepared to get the four to eight and I would suggest along the way that maybe later we talk about process, Red Teams, some of my own ideas talking with some of our citizens about how we can be actively engaged with the most engaged stakeholders in parallel but what the roles and responsibilities of all of the parties have to be in that process. If we are – If we’re – if we are – I don’t want to say -- endlessly editing versus co- creating a solution, we won’t be able to get to being – to ever make choices in anything close to the time frames we’re looking at. Council Member Scharff: So, Jim, when you say 4-8 solutions, we have 4grade crossings. Are we talking – I mean if we’re talking four solutions 4 grade crossings, that’s not too hard. I mean are we talking per grade crossing? What are we thinking here? Mr. Keene: So, I mean I think – you can jump in here on that. Mr. Mello: It’s a mix. Some of the ideas pertain to just one crossing location, others include two or more… Council Member Scharff: No but in terms of narrowing it down. Mr. Mello: …crossing locations. Council Member Scharff: When Jim says get to 4-8 by June. There are 4 grade crossings, what are you thinking? Mr. Mello: It could be – you know one could be a solution that addresses two adjacent grade crossings, a couple will be single location grade crossings… FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 32 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Council Member Scharff: But would it be like one suggestion or would it be two suggestions for… Mr. Mello: We’re leaving that open. So, we’ve scoped it four to eight is what we have the ability to do detailed analysis on so we could end up with just one for… Mr. Keene: Here’s what – to answer your question so it's obvious we’re not four to eight for each of the locations and so we’re suddenly sixteen or whatever. Council Member Scharff: It’s $300 – let’s bring it back, it’s $300,000 scoping roughly… Mr. Keene: Right. Council Member Scharff: … per so that’s a lot of money. Mr. Keene: So, I think our general thinking is you could look at a pattern that were four to eight options for the whole corridor. I mean so one of them may have two, one may have all or whatever it is. We made recommendations as Staff, the community has some different ideas and ultimately your job will be to say what is -- what are the four to eight that make the most sense that meet the criteria that we want for decision. Then I would go back to Adrian’s really good point about do we have the right assumptions. I think that’s really good to get that clear or clear enough. Not perfectly clear because if it’s perfectly clear we will never get to them in Palo Alto. We also need to equally focus on the – being clear on the decision criteria we will apply because that will be variable also and we’ll have to make some choices there. Council Member Scharff: What are we doing with the Alma crossing? I don’t anything about – are we going to have assumptions or we’re leaving it or are we – or we have grade separation ideas for that or do we have that? Mr. Mello: Yeah, the 40 ideas include all 4 grade crossing locations and some… Council Member Scharff: Just briefly what are we thinking about for Alma? (Inaudible) any discussion of it. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 33 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Mr. Mello: You know there are some pretty creative concepts that were developed at the community Round Tables that we’ll be presenting but we’re also including traditional options like the hybrid. (crosstalk) Palo Alto Avenue, a.k.a Alma Street… Council Member Scharff: I mean we should probably get the name (inaudible). How should I refer to it? (inaudible)(crosstalk) Mr. Mello: It’s technically Palo Alto Avenue. Council Member Scharff: So, I should call it the Palo Alto Avenue crossing? Mr. Mello: Yes. So, there’s a hybrid that’s been suggested there which would continue to Menlo Park. What they’re tending to lean toward right now across the creek and then we’d depress Palo Alto Avenue slightly and then come down before the station. There are also some other creative solutions that were suggested by the community that would increase the roadway connectivity between Alma and El Camino and potentially close the Palo Alto Avenue crossing. There are also some suggestions to connect some of the street networks that leads into Menlo Park which would provide an alternative. All of these will be presented as parts of the 40 ideas that we’ll bring to you. Council Member Scharff: Should we break these up to the extent that we can by crossing? I mean not to discount what Jason said, I mean when I say break them up by crossing, break them up by crossing in the area surrounding with the different – like Churchill and Embarcadero or the Alma crossing and El Camino improvements and that – but it seems to have one meeting where we’re really talking about distinct – doesn’t make a lot of sense to me frankly. Mr. Keene: I (crosstalk) – I know, I guess – I sort of think that patterns will start to merge with the presentation. Again, famous last words but I would think that we’d start to get somewhat clear along what you’re proposing by just really being able to look at the array and the patters. I mean it sounds really complicated even 40 and, in some ways, if we actually have a range of criteria we’re somehow committed to trying to apply, I do think it allows you to get down to four to eight. Council Member Scharff: With each of them when we get there, we’re going to discuss what the construction impacts are and also how many properties FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 34 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 we’ll be taking, what we estimate the cost to be for each of them and that kind of stuff? Ok. Chair Wolbach: I wanted to just jump in for a couple of things. I know we are going a little bit far field but some of these discussions I think it’s important to have at this first meeting of the year. It kind of bleeds between the two agenda items. I think one of the important lines in the Staff report for this item was in the first big paragraph at the bottom of Page 1 of the Staff report that said, this review will – the public review will undoubtedly raise questions and identify gaps. So, I do think even though not everything obviously was studied in this White Paper and there are a lot of assumptions. People will take issue with some of the things in this White Paper and have taken some issue with the things in this White Paper. I appreciate that Staff said we know that’s going to happen and that’s why it’s good to put something out there because if nothing else, it spurs the conversation. It’s going – you put out a starting discussion point and then that inspires response and reaction. I am intrigued by the idea of Red Team or just people to plays devil’s advocate. I’ve always been a fan of that and you want to make sure that if you’re going to move forward with something that’s important, that you’ve thought about why you might be wrong and having people who are focusing on poking holes, if nothing else but to improve our understanding and our commitment to our preferred scenario, I do think is important. One thing that this did not cover and maybe Staff and my colleagues who were on the Committee last year can help remind me about this. One thing that it’s not talking about was the opposite direction so instead of tunneling and trenching, viaducts and berms. In Staff – I don’t know if you can get back to the criteria. It looks like you have the ones I was thinking about where – I was remembering most of the criteria and I think I forgot to mention, of course, the environmental impact and the cost obviously that we're talking so much about. My understanding the noise and the visual impacts – the lasting noise and impacts of an elevated solution, a berm or viaduct, are the two biggest knocks it gets them. I’m wondering if looking at cost and looking at the ability to have more connectivity beneath a berm or a viaduct if that changes at all how we think about those? Whether that’s in any of the considerations that we’ll be taking up next month or if they have not been considered at all and they were already ruled out. So, help me out with the history on that. Mr. Mello: So, historically the City’s adopted policy position has been non- supportive of elevated solutions. However, during the community engagement last year, viaducts and berms where put on the table at some of the Round Tables by the public. So, the list of 40 ideas does include some FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 35 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 elevated options but there are some potential noise and visual aesthetic issues with those solutions. Chair Wolbach: I want to be clear, I’m not advocating for those. I’m just – as we’re looking at this here and again this goes into Item Two and we’ll pick it up more there. I just want to have an understanding of how we’re going to be putting things on the table, brainstorming and then filtering and cutting down and critiquing and getting more and more to a narrower set of options. Just making sure that either they’ve been ruled out for a reason or we have the opportunity to rule them out but have a conversation in an efficient way. We don’t want to just drag on brainstorming all year and City Manager and then Adrian? Mr. Keene: If I just might add, I think that – I think we need to refocus on the role of the Rail Committee which is in the lead in this time right now on how we discuss this. So, I’ve heard from some of our friends in the community that some concern about are we dismissing the viaduct option for example because it was part of an earlier generations sort of criteria and when we were really open to looking at lots of different options. So, I think it’s completely also within the purview of the Committee that as we bring back options if you say regardless of whatever proceeded us, you want us to dive deeper on a particular option such as that. I think you should clearly assume that that’s what you’ll do and we’ll be ready to respond to the Committee in that regard. Chair Wolbach: Adrian? Then we’ll – I think we’ll be ready to go back to the – returning to the public and then come back for any Motions before we move onto the next item. Council Member Fine: I just want to remind us all what we’re here today doing and, in my view, if we think about a telescope, today we are just talking about this trenching and tunneling White Paper. We are offer counterpoints, questions, ideas, that fits within the larger process of our Connecting Palo Alto Project which we’ve been working on for two years now. I’m a little worried that up here we’re beginning to speak a bit more about solutions than process. I would encourage us to not prejudge any of these options. I think of us more as arborers actually on this issue of the rail grade separations. That we have agreed upon a process where we’re evaluating different things and trying to come to some agreed preferred alternative by the end of this year. I think that’s legitimate but I worry that we’re doing a bit of prejudging on specific grade crossings here today. So, FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 36 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 let’s, if we can just stick to the White Paper. I’m kind of intrigued by Staff, you mentioned a score you’re planning on doing some scoring and so I guess what you’ll be doing is taking some of these reports and the financial White Paper and the circulation study and scoring the different alternatives. Is that roughly correct? Mr. Mello: We’ll be using the Tier 1 and Tier 2 criteria that’s shown up here that was adopted last year and then we’ll be using the data and the analysis from the White Paper. As well as we’re going to be getting feedback from the TAC as well and that’s one of the goals. Council Member Fine: Do we have running lists of feedback on these White Papers and on community issues whether it’s the assumptions or will the TAC also look at this and say reconsider these assumptions and will we respond to those? Mr. Mello: We have a database of all the public comments that we’ve received last year and this year. We are crafting a response to ones that have questions that need to be addressed. Then I think the TAC will have some considerable comments on this paper and we’ll transmit those to the Rail Committee after the TAC meeting. Council Member Fine: Ok so just to build a body of evidence I think would be helpful if we do group, categorize and then publish our responses to those public comments and comments from the TAC and some of the issues we’ve brought up here today. I mentioned a list of them earlier and I don’t expect answers to them today but I think it’s important for us to keep those in mind. Chair Wolbach: Alright… Mr. Shikada: Perhaps on that point, I think for the record just it would be worth noting at this point that among a number of assumptions that were raised on the one percent versus two percent, the clearance, the clearance under the channels, the clearance for the catenary wires. I think as a generalization, I think would say that the White Paper assumes the most aggressive and therefore the most – well, the most aggressive approach to all of those issues. So, leading to the lowest cost effectively – the lowest cost estimate of what the relative alternatives would be. Again, recognizing these are all order of magnitude, whether it’s 5-feet versus 8-feet under a channel really would not change the conclusions but as it happens, the FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 37 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 assumption was 5-feet. Chair Wolbach: Does that include the assumption about the future of freight on the corridor or what we could do with grading if freight was no longer an issue on the corridor? Mr. Shikada: Again, for the purpose of the analysis here and either Josh or Mott may want to correct me, that the assumption is we would get two percent where we needed two percent. There’s not an assumption of the elimination of freight on the routes. I’ll leave it at that. Chair Wolbach: Right because you said it was the most aggressive. I’d say the most aggressive would be we find a way to convince freight to no longer run because right now it’s only running because the operator wants to maintain the rights. They are not actually making it – they are not using it for (inaudible) utility reasons. Mr. Mello: So, freight operations would not change the conclusions of the White Paper because we assumed 2 percent, which is a very large variance from the 1 percent standard that Caltrain currently requires. No City along the peninsula has gotten a variance to that degree to date. There’s been point two-five percent variances granted in the case of San Bruno… Chair Wolbach: My question – sorry, to interrupt. Mr. Mello: Sorry and then as far as tunneling, you know Caltrain and other passenger railroads typically – even when they are electrified use diesel equipment to do maintenance so the ventilation would still need to be in place for diesel equipment. Even if diesel freight trains were not utilizing those tunnels. Chair Wolbach: I wonder if that will be true in ten years. Just to be clear, with – if you have a passenger only, can you go steeper than two percent? My understanding was yes and that’s why I asked the question about this study. Is it the most aggressive because the most aggressive wouldn’t be a variance similar to the variances we’ve had before which are still in the context of a shared passenger and freight corridor. The most aggressive possible for you to consider would be a passenger only corridor and the grades which are possible in that scenario. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 38 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Mr. Mello: We can go back and take a look at that and respond to that. Chair Wolbach: Ok and I’m not saying we’re going to get that but if you have Mayors from other cities at least talking about 2 percent, you have – is it Union Pacific who has the rights but they only run enough trains to keep the rights. Maybe there’s an opportunity to convince them eventually over the next ten years to pull back on that. There might be a way to buy them out, there might an opportunity and it would be complex and I’m not saying it would be easy. I’m not saying we should assume we would do it but I think it’s hard to say at this point we can assume we won’t be able to do that but if I’m wrong, I hope in the next month or two we’ll – I’ll find that out. Let’s go… Council Member Scharff: Well, just a quick point, isn’t there an Request for Proposal (RFP) that’s going out and we should know by April where that RFP is in terms of the freight with Caltrain? So, we should have at least – we should have some sense of – I mean I don’t think we’re going to have the sense of what you’re suggesting that there will be no freight but I think we’ll have some sense on the two percent and that kind of stuff. Mr. Mello: Well, if – forgive me if I’m not interrupting your comments correctly but what I’m getting from you is you’d like us to dig a little deeper on what type of grades could be possible if only passenger trains were running along the corridor – electrified passenger trains? Chair Wolbach: I’d be interested in that. We haven’t put that into a motion yet but I’m certainly interested in that and we’ll be looking at that. The parallel question is what are the steps necessary and is there – is it even within the realm of reason – not in the realm of technically feasible but is it within the political realm of reason to consider that in ten years freight may no longer be running on the Caltrain corridor? That’s the second question. Council Member Scharff: Well, Cory I just wanted – maybe you could clarify? If we’re planning on having a preferred alternative by the end of the year and you’ll have no idea if freight will be running or not within ten years. Unless you think… Chair Wolbach: I wasn’t suggesting that we wouldn’t know for ten years, I was suggesting that freight might not be running in ten years but we might know that within the year. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 39 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Council Member Scharff: We would know that this year you think? Chair Wolbach: It’s a question, right? I don’t have the answer. I’m not saying hey, we’re not going to have freight in ten years so let’s look at passenger only and make those our priorities. I’m saying I’d like to have better clarity about what the complexities are in phasing fright out of the corridor because that might enable steeper grades which might substantially reduce the cost of a deep bore tunnel for a portion or the entirety of the track. Council Member Scharff: So, do you – does Staff know? I mean there is that RFP going for freight right now and they are supposed to have responses by – I’m not sure, I heard it was March and think they were supposed to have some sense by April of where – but I mean maybe you guys know. Mr. Shikada: Don’t have specifics on that. I’m happy to follow up with Caltrain and for your next meeting come back with more information. Chair Wolbach: Great, thank you. Alright, so let’s go back to the public and for this round, everybody will have three minutes. So, I’m going to give people a little bit more time this time since this will be our last time going to the public on this item. We’ll have Nadia Naik, Monica Tan Brown, Roland LeBrun, and Yoriko Kishimoto. Nadia Naik: Thank you. Chair Wolbach: And you don’t have to use all of your three minutes. Nadia Naik: Ha-ha. So, I just want to reiterate, we did not study a short trench under Churchill. It’s not in there so you’re looking at only City-wide trench or trenching in South Palo Alto. There’s no real clarification about whether you can get down after Embarcadero, go under Churchill and come back up before Cal. Ave. I think that’s very important. Second, is the goal here is not just to grade separate this corridor, the goal is the circulation of Palo Alto. I did not hear an answer to my question about whether the circulation that Mott MacDonald did is still in play and how are we considering what these alternatives due to circulation? We still don’t understand what that does. Elizabeth spoke last time about the flaws in the circulation model that make us able to actually predict what happens if you happen to close Churchill. I think those are still really vital. Josh mentioned a database with comments. I think in the interest of transparency and in FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 40 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 helping not having to keep beating the same horse to death, those comments should be made public. The answers to those comments or concerns should be made public. It will help us stop repeating the same thing over and over again. I just want to say the question that Member Colbach was talking about was – or Wolbach, sorry – is related to Dumbarton Rail. It is vital that we understand what the orders of magnitude of difference in price would be. If the Mott study showed or if any study showed that the cost of grade separations would be reduced by fifty percent, seventy-five percent if the freight went over Dumbarton Rail instead of coming through Palo Alto. What does that do? If it cuts the cost by that significantly, don’t you think the City of Palo Alto would want to take a really strong position on Dumbarton Rail all of a sudden if that changed all of the drivers? We’re not looking at elevated mostly because the sound concerns that we had on a viaduct instead of a berm where that the City – was related to noise of the freight because electrified Caltrain will be much quieter and putting freight on a viaduct would create a lot of sound carrying. If there’s no more freight, that’s an alternative that the community may decide they want to have back in because you have better connectivity between the neighborhoods instead of having the “Berlin Wall” effect. The assumption and the – both the funding assumptions and the technical assumptions matter. This is the whole thing that High Speed Rail did to us. They put in all sorts of assumptions that made all these criteria and all these possibilities impossible. The funding criteria, right now the talk is all about how we’d have to look for all the money ourselves. Why? Measure B is our biggest source of funding and that is communal funding. I would make the argument that we have 40-two grade separations between San Francisco and San Jose. Why are we not politically unifying and having people going up to Sacramento and making noise about this? They did it back in the ‘20s when they were looking at grade seps. We use to do it when we had PCC and we were looking at High Speed Rail grade separations. This should be a constant policy thing. I would encourage you guys to go to City Council, try to get a letter and start going to meetings. We have a lobbyist in Sacramento that should be working on this issue. Thanks. Chair Wolbach: Thank you. We had one more late card and that will be our last card for this item and that was Adina Levin. So, next speaker Monica to be followed by Roland, Yoriko, and Adina. Monica Tan Brown: Hi, I’m Monica Tan Brown, I live at 111 Churchill, everybody knows it by the red door and the little picket fence out front. I didn’t prepare for today, the only thing that I want to say is – well, two things. One is that there are 96 families who are waiting with bated breath FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 41 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 to know whether their homes are going to be taken. So, I’m one of them and you can hear I’m sort of upset, rightly so because I have two young children. I want to make sure that everything that you said Councilmen Scharff is totally to point. We need to narrow down the 40 items to four to eight items. We cannot continue with 40 items on the list. I want to know whether my house is going to be taken and I want to know now. Sorry, I know it sounds very selfish but I do, I want to know now. Number two, I think there needs to be a little bit more public awareness around this. Even friends who live in the community, I have friends in Evergreen Park and they are like, I had no idea. I had no idea that this was happening. How can we support you? How can we help you? How can we be part of this concern in our neighborhoods? I think that’s another piece that is really concerning is that it’s still doesn’t seem like the whole community. People who are closest, maybe at the epicenter are aware of what’s going on but everyone outside of that epicenter, they don’t know what’s going on and this is about the community. Connecting the community and making sure that we can get from Point A to Point B easily. So, those are my two points, thank you. Chair Wolbach: Thank you. Roland to be followed by Yoriko Kishimoto. Roland LeBrun: Thank you and hopefully I have enough battery juice to show you something here. On freight, I’ve got bad news for you because if you look at the California State Rail Plan, you’re going to have more freight going through the peninsula not less. Quite frankly, if it doesn’t go through the tracks, well the only options is for the freight to go through Highway 101 and I don’t think you want to go there because you’re going to be hearing more from Caltrans about that in the future. On Churchill, about four years ago Richard [Hackman] reached out to me and asked me to look at this and the main focus – to actually look at all four of them separately but in the same document. The main focus there was zero property takes and Richard asked me how could you do this? So, I actually spent three weeks on this, it’s a 16-page document it’s about four pages on each grade separation and I’d be happy to forward it to you for your consideration. It actually, from what I heard Josh saying and some of the comments during the meetings, I think a lot of those same ideas where they (inaudible). I think one of the problems you’ve got with cost is these figures have been deliberately inflated to basically kill the double bore tunnel. So, if I can show this to you, this is 2001 in London, it actually shows the four-tunnel contract, the station box with is a quarter of a mile long and the first tunnel contracts, 4.7-miles twin bore for $265 million dollars. Then the station box $210 is a quarter of a mile long and your station would be half that length for $210. The next one three miles $227 million and the next one 3.3-miles $210 so that’s a FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 42 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 billion dollars for 12-miles of tunnels through London including a station box. I’ll be sending that to you and I’ve also got more – this is nearly 20-years old. We awarded the tunnel contracts for High Speed to last summer and I’m working on that and I’m actually going to give you some video simulation of what these tunnels look like in distance. On funding, I think you’re overlooking the fact that the High Speed Rail also (inaudible) number one has got the mandate of connecting San Jose/San Francisco in 30-minutes in any capacity. If you come with a solution that will help them achieve those objectives, you potentially have got half a billion dollars coming from them. So, I want you to think about that. On the question, you had in how much room do you need? You need the minimum of 80-foot of right of way and 100 is better. Within 80-feet you can possibly do it by having the portal on each side which by the way is a quarter of a mile long and then you need 15-feet on each side for the Shoo Fly’s. That’s it, thank you. Chair Wolbach: Thank you very much. Former Mayor Yoriko Kishimoto to be followed by our final speaker on this Adina Levin. Yoriko Kishimoto: Good morning and I was the first Chair of this Committee many years ago so… Chair Wolbach: Welcome back. Ms. Kishimoto: …glad to be back here. A lot of tough decisions so I wanted to go back to the assumptions and even looking at the goals and criteria. I went back to the Com. Plan that Palo Alto has and just to remind you it says the City will strive to create a development pattern where people can walk, bike, take transit rather than drive and will work collaboratively to find regional solutions to reduce single occupancy vehicles. In a way rail is not an enemy, it is our friend and the challenge is how to really integrate rail and community. So, City-wide – on criteria really should be that with every solution, you’re improving the walkability, bike-ability and transit orientation of the entire City. I don’t want to pit one part of the City against another. I want Churchill to get better but Embarcadero also should get much better so I mean the idea of putting another Oregon Express Way in North Palo Alto seems like a non-starter to me. I – the other thing is that we wanted to differentiate between is local serving rail so that rails there to support us obviously versus state. So, the state ones would obviously it would make sense to -- for them to consider the tunnels but for us, it really should be less how do we get this out of the way but how do we really integrate the rail into our system. The goal should really be how to integrate – I mean FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 43 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 what to do we want Palo Alto to look like in 30 or 40-years? I mean do we – I mean how – I mean the rail should be actually a really beautiful part of the City and how do we integrate it? Chair Wolbach: Thank you very much. Last speaker Adina Levin. Adina Levin: Good morning. I have three points and one is regarding the whole corridor. I was down at San Jose yesterday and there were representatives of the State Rail Plan giving a presentation at [SPUR] and a representative of (inaudible) and we are starting to really contemplate going above the ten trains per direction per hour in the initial High Speed Rail agreement. That bolsters some of the points that there’s discussion about potentially doing a regional Mega Measure and looking at that not only at the perspective of individual grade separations but as grade separating the entire corridor. Nadia Naik – banding together with other Cities up and down the corridor and the agencies and looking at that from a big picture could be really helpful. I would strongly encourage that and that’s point one. Point two on freight, to think about pulling freight off the corridor here will also require consideration in Redwood City where I don’t know whether they are going to have freight 50-years from now but right now the corridor Redwood City generates is a non-tribunal amount of the City’s revenue. So, saying hey, we can either pull that off or replace it with trucks going through Redwood City neighborhoods would be a discussion that’s going to be very salient in Redwood City. Similarly, in pulling – having diesel trains go on the Dumbarton, in the most recent discussion about Dumbarton Rail, there’s been a lot of acceptance in the community. Menlo Park, I haven’t heard lots of opposition but in the previous discussion and particularly when it came to freight, those tracks go behind people’s backyards and if that discussion about Dumbarton included a conversation about significant diesel freight traffic. That conversation would be different so simply assuming hey we can get freight on Dumbarton and remove the impacts here, that will involve a conversation in Menlo Park and Withrow Oaks as well. Lastly, a short point in evaluating on the property takes. In Friends of Caltrain’s social media, there are a lot of questions that if split alternatives are going to be decided, is there enough information that Staff has in order to be able to estimate those property takes? There are estimates for of the alternatives that have been studied more deeply with significant property take implications. That’s also something that would be really relevant how much can be reduced and that was very sailing in several over Cities discussions. In Burlingame, it was, in Menlo Park, it has been and that would be a salient thing to have in some detail. Thank you. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 44 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Chair Wolbach: Thank you very much. Let’s bring it back to the Committee for any final questions, comments, motions. I do think we should plan for a hard stop at 11 o’clock at the latest. It’s already 10 o’clock and we do have one more item. So, comments, questions, Motions? Greg. Council Member Scharff: I guess what I heard us talk a little bit about was that we agree with Staff’s discussion in the White Paper so I think that we should say something along the lines of that we agree with Staff’s analysis that the City-wide options do not look promising. We want to hear from the public at the next Round Table and then have Staff report back to you with the public input before making any decisions about whether – what to do with that. Chair Wolbach: Sorry to interrupt, could we put back up the slide on the timeline? The stuff you had before? Council Member Scharff: We think the open trench options for West Meadow and Charleston are worth further consideration. Chair Wolbach: Just the one where you had the specific upcoming dates for our upcoming meetings, including the one on next week. That’s the one, thanks. Council Member Scharff: The next big thing is you have the 28th Interagency Technical Staff Community Round Table. I mean my goal here is to focus the Community Round Table on the fact that the City-wide options do not look promising and not to focus on things that are not going to make a difference frankly and to start focusing on what are the impacts of a southern trench? What does that look like and to start focusing on solutions? Nope? Ok. MOTION: Council Member Scharff moved, seconded by Chair Wolbach to agree with the Staff analysis that citywide options do not look promising but we want to hear from the public at the next community roundtable and direct Staff to return with public input prior to making decisions regarding citywide options. We think that open trench options for West Meadow Drive and Charleston Road are worth further consideration. Council Member Fine: I don’t know if we need – if we’re crafting Motions around this. Roughly I what I would like to see us do today is I think we can accept this White Paper and continue the process we’re doing. I’m still – FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 45 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 there were two things I would still like to see. One is, as I thin Nadia mentioned kind of, if we could open up some of these comments that we’ve had at these meetings, previously from our TAC etc. and again encapsulate where they are looking, where they are trying to punch holes in our assumptions and response to those I think would be helpful. I think that will lead us to where you’re trying to go Council Member Scharff in terms of pulling some of these solutions or these alternatives off the table. I don’t think we can accept this paper and say well, it says we shouldn’t do this one. I don’t think our process really gives us that latitude right now. Chair Wolbach: I – just to clarify because I still might second your Motion and it’s still sitting out there without a second. You weren’t saying we were going to take them off the table… Council Member Scharff: No, I did not. I just wanted to signal that it’s time for people to get real and say – what I said is that it doesn’t look promising. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to replace in the Motion, “open trench options” with “submerged options.” Chair Wolbach: You were just acknowledging what’s actually in the report. Council Member Scharff: That’s correct. Chair Wolbach: (Inaudible), ok so I will second your Motions and I would be very interested in entertaining an Amendment to the points that Adrian is suggesting. Council Member Fine: Let’s see if the – let’s see the Motion written up. Chair Wolbach: (inaudible) Greg, do you want to speak to your Motion again? Council Member Scharff: Sure, I can repeat it. Council Member Fine: Then the one thing I – I want to see it and the one thing that I may add is kind of surfacing, documenting and responding to the comments across the life cycle of this project. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 46 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Chair Wolbach: City Clerk, are you able to… Council Member Scharff: Do you want me to repeat it? Chair Wolbach: …type it up and… David Carnahan, Deputy City Clerk: I have roughly the Committee agrees with the Staff analysis, the City-wide options do not appear viable and that the open trench options for East Meadow and Charleston appear viable. Council Member Scharff: I actually didn’t use the words viable. I used the word promising. I thought it was less – I actually said that we agree with Staff’s analysis that the City-wide options do not look promising but we want to hear from the public. That’s actually what I said. That we think the open trench options for West Meadow and Charleston merit further study. Chair Wolbach: Would you be open to a change that submerged track options for South Palo Alto? Council Member Scharff: Yeah, I think that’s better actually. Chair Wolbach: So that would encompass either a tunnel or a trench. There is no tunnel option, it’s only an open trench. That’s all Staff says that is actually technically viable, at least the way I read it. Am I wrong? Mr. Mello: We did not look at a tunnel but there would be similar constraints as there are with the trench so potentially a tunnel in South Palo Alto could be something that we move for further analysis of. Council Member Scharff: So, let me just ask why – if we could do a tunnel, why would you ever do a trench? Mr. Mello: Ventilation and constructability and operating costs but you know we’ll have to…(crosstalk) Council Member Scharff: (Inaudible) (crosstalk) wasn’t viable, that’s why I was confused on that. Mr. Mello: We’ll have to compare and as we move forward we’ll start to look into more detail of what the tradeoffs but there are tradeoffs between the FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 47 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 two. Mr. Keene: Chair? If I just might have a comment about the motion or it’s almost more of like a suggestion of stating where the Committee is right now. The first half of it makes complete sense which is being very clear about sort of a conclusion about the City-wide option; which says it doesn’t look like it’s possible or promising but we want to hear from the public and you’re sort of signaling that. The second piece is still dealing with the context of a grade separation that it’s still below grade, trenching or tunneling. So, that including something as opposed to saying we don’t know if we’re going to exclude something. The one concern I might have is that needs to be made explicit because there are other options that you’re going to have to look at. So, it could be confusing to the public to think that the other things are (inaudible)(crosstalk) Council Member Scharff: I would have thought some (inaudible) options for South Palo Alto. Mr. Keene: Yeah, I think the point is that you could end up saying yeah, it doesn’t speak to the North Palo Alto part, it doesn’t speak to older alternatives in South Palo Alto so I don’t think the community – you don’t want to overstate (inaudible)(crosstalk) Chair Wolbach: (Inaudible), I didn’t intend it to limit but to keep things open so could add something about… Council Member Scharff: How about among other options? Chair Wolbach: Among other options. Council Member Scharff: Does that address your concerns? Mr. Keene: I just think you’d just want to – I mean this is really in response to the issue of trenching or tunneling is what you’re focusing on. You have this concern about the City-wide option but that one is there. I think that helps in the context of trenching or tunneling. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “among other options” after “submerged options.” FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 48 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Chair Wolbach: Ok, let’s take some time… Mr. Keene: Because that’s all you’re speaking (inaudible). Chair Wolbach: Let’s have one person to speak at a time. This is very challenging for – we normally at Council meetings when we track this, we normally have two people working from the City Clerk’s Office. We have David Carnahan who is doing an excellent job. To have one person speak clearly and communicate with David about the Motion. Council Member Scharff: Do you want to tell us what you have David? I think that’s probably the – because I can’t see it up there (inaudible). Chair Wolbach: Is it possible to stream it? Mr. Carnahan: It’s not possible for us to capture a Motion in one document, show it to you while people continue to talk because we need to capture who is speaking and the incorporations of what’s happening. So, if you would like to restate where you guys think you are, I can capture that, show it to you but then I can’t capture the names of who’s speaking at the same time. Chair Wolbach: So, let’s have one person speak at a time. Greg. Council Member Scharff: I guess I just want to know what you had so I can fix – we can understand where the motion is. Mr. Carnahan: So, what I have roughly is that Mayor Scharff or I’m sorry, Council Member Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Wolbach to agree with the Staff analysis regarding the City-wide options that may be cost prohibitive and include this in the community meeting. To open the trench options for West Meadow and Charleston as open trenches appear promising and should be included in the community meeting and then to incorporate in their submerged track options and that we are not trying to exclude options at this time. Council Member Scharff: Let me try again. Why don’t we say – I’ll just dictate it slowly ok? That we agree with Staff’s analysis that the City-wide options do not look promising and we want to hear from the public. Oh, I’m sorry, not ‘and’, but we want to hear from the public. Then – yes – that we think that the submerged options among others for Charleston and East FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 49 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Meadow merit further study. Does that – did that – that caught Staff’s other concerns right? Any other concerns by Staff with that? Mr. Shikada: I did want to give Derek from Mott MacDonald an opportunity to comment if he wanted to raise any issues with the concept of a tunnel in South Palo Alto since that was not one of the options that was evaluated. Derek, anything you want to add? Derek Penrice, Mott MacDonald: Sure. Mr. Shikada: Again, this is Derek Penrice with Mott MacDonald. Mr. Penrice: I wasn’t directly involved with this study but I did work with the City back in – I think it was 2010-2011 when the issue of trenching and review in the High Speed Rail EIS at that point came up. So, I am somewhat familiar with the issues in the City. I think the – what you have in the White Paper is a concept feasibility level. You know we can drill down on one each option at it relates to constructions methods. We can look at bored tunnels, we can look at cut and cover with the shorter options. I think at this point it’s very soon to allow any construction methodology. If you look at the entire corridor through the City, you may find that you don’t have one single option. That you have different options that fit best in different parts of the City just in terms of what the City is trying to achieve as a whole. I general I was quite surprised and pleased by the level of comment that came from the members of the public. It’s obvious that they are hugely interested and very involved in this process. I think in terms of the comments that have been heard today, I think the only that I would take exception with is the comment that we deliberately inflated any of the costs. That is patently untrue and I would like that to be part of the record. You as well comparing the tunneling cost on the moon or anywhere else in the world, it doesn’t matter. When you come to California, the costs are the costs. Comparisons with anywhere else in the world just aren’t realistic. (crosstalk) Chair Wolbach: Well, I would but I want to keep us on schedule so thank you. Mr. Penrice: If there are any other questions I’d be happy to stay here and talk more. Chair Wolbach: Well, for now, I appreciate that. Thank you for being present and for your comments and I want to bring it back to the Motion. Would the FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 50 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Clerk mind reading back the Motion as made by Council Member Scharff and clarified? Mr. Carnahan: Council Member Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Wolbach that we agree with Staff’s analysis that City-wide options do not look promising but we want to hear from the public. That we think that the submerged options, along with others for Charleston and East Meadow warrant further study. Chair Wolbach: Sounds ok to me and Adrian, do you have any suggestions or Amendments? Mr. Keene: City-wide options – I’m sorry. Just I think need to be clear that if – I mean related to trench or tunneling or something. I mean just think the general public is not going to understand the concept of City-wide options. Chair Wolbach: Ok so let’s… Council Member Scharff: For trenching and tunneling, let’s just add those words. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “trenching and tunneling” after “citywide options.” Chair Wolbach: Ok so let’s add that to the City-wide options for trenching and tunneling do not appear promising, right? Adrian. Council Member Fine: So, as I mentioned earlier, I’m a little worried we’re letting the cart get in front of the horse here. I think we really need to allow our White Papers and our documentation and our responses to these technical issues and assumption guide the conversation rather than have our motions guide the set of preferred alternatives. I think we’re there yet so as it’s currently constituted, I won’t support it. I do have an alternative Motion that’s a little vague at the moment but I’ll try it. Chair Wolbach: I just want to clarify that what we’re basically doing here is acknowledging Staff’s concerns and that opportunities are still available. So, that when there’s the TAC meeting, the Community Round Table and when it comes back to Rail we have an understanding of what we’ve seen and what FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 51 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 we’ve heard. Just acknowledging that without ruling anything out. Council Member Fine: I understand that we’re acknowledging Staff’s concerns as put forth in this White Paper. I think those are completely legitimate and it’s good for us to do. I don’t believe we’re acknowledging the perpendicular question that we’re getting from the public and we’ve seen in some of our emails about these underlying assumptions. I mean just – you heard Adina go on about the freight thing for a moment, right? That is a huge thing that we’re talking about and we’re just saying oh, we’ll shift it to Dumbarton maybe. That’s not appropriate. Chair Wolbach: Well, that’s not what the Motion does. Council Member Fine: It’s not what the Motion does but the Motion is narrowing our options using this paper when I don’t think we’ve done a good enough job documenting why things are being removed from consideration and that’s what our Motion is doing. Chair Wolbach: I disagree with your interpretation of the Motion. That’s fine. You have an alternative Motion or Amendments that you’d like to propose. Council Member Fine: The alternative Motion I’d like to make is to accept this White Paper and add it to our documentation and additionally direct Staff to work with the public and TAC to respond to question around the assumptions in this paper. So, it’s just giving us – the process can keep on moving forward but we’re acknowledging that this is not complete and that there are a lot of assumptions in here that we’ve made or have not made. I don’t think we’re going to get community buy-in until we begin documenting and responding to those. SUBSTITUTE MOTION: Council Member Fine moved, seconded by Council Member XX to accept the Trenching-Tunneling White Paper and add it to our documentation and direct Staff to work with the public and Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) to respond to assumptions in this White Paper. Chair Wolbach: Not seeing a second, the Substitute Motion fails. SUBSTITUTE MOTION FAILED DUE TO LACK OF SECOND FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 52 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Chair Wolbach: I would like to suggest a friendly Amendment to the Motion to incorporate Council Member Fine’s comments about working with the public – could you repeat those? INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “and direct staff to work with the public and Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) to respond to assumptions in this White Paper.” Council Member Fine: What I had written out is direct Staff to work with the public and TAC to respond to questions about the assumptions in this paperwork. Council Member Scharff: I’m fine with that. I actually take issue with your notion that the assumptions are wrong in here or are not fully flushed out. I actually – my actually only – I actually – my only real concern on this is that I want to make sure that Staff has the discretion not to run down rabbit holes that – I mean I – if the assumption makes no difference to the outcome of conclusion. I’m not sure it’s worth spending a lot of time on but I’m not going to put that in a Motion but I am concerned about that. Chair Wolbach: I think you – I don’t think it needs to go into the Motion. I think that – let’s add that language that we direct Staff to work with the TAC and the public to respond to concerns and including those about assumptions in this report. Council Member Fine: I agree with you Council Member Scharff, I think Staff does have the discretion not to go down rabbit holes but there are enough big bullet items that I’ve got written down here. I’m not sure we’re ready to – (crosstalk) things like one or two percent grade; four tracks; height; all these issues; aerials. Chair Wolbach: So, let’s stick to what we’re actually putting into the Motion. I mean we obviously – there are a lot of open question but the Motion isn’t trying to address each of them. So again, the language that we’re adding is to direct – I’m going to make sure I’ve got this I a way that we can all agree. Directing Staff to respond to questions from the TAC and the public about assumptions related this White Paper. Council Member Scharff: Jim has a comment. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 53 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Mr. Keene: Can I just jump in? I really appreciate the comment and I understand it. I do think that at the end of March meeting we need to be thinking about how we clarify what our engagement approach is going to be. That we’ll need more definition than this particular directive we have right now. Chair Wolbach: I think we’ll get to that in Item 2 as well. Mr. Keene: Ok because I want to state that I’m not opposed at all. I understand the intention, it does potentially set the Staff up for failure even in the interim when somebody says well, I asked the Staff these questions and they said it’s rabbit hole and it’s really not rabbit holes. It would be simple if the Staff did X, Y, and Z. I think we have to move to a different mode and I don’t think we have to have that discussion now. I think it is for March which is what is a real partnership with engaged stakeholders looks like? Chair Wolbach: Can I interrupt you? Mr. Keene: Which is more than just identifying efficiencies in the analysis. It’s also proposing viable alternatives with specifics for consideration or else we will endlessly be responding to questions; we will endlessly. I mean we’re in the potential of having to do a new circulation study or congestion study in the meantime that people say hey, your numbers are faulty. We’re not going to do that in this time frame so I just want to qualify the fact that we don’t want to sound like we’re being difficult after we leave this meeting. I understand the intention but it’s ultimately designed to prepare us as best as possible also for the March meeting. Council Member Scharff: Is there other language that you would prefer? Chair Wolbach: I actually have a suggestion. Instead saying respond, acknowledge. So, we direct Staff to acknowledge and so if somebody raised a concern saying we acknowledge your concern, we’ll track the concerns (inaudible)(crosstalk)… Mr. Keene: What I think… Chair Wolbach: …we can make them available. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 54 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Mr. Keene: What I think Adrian is trying to get at – excuse – forgive me – is how do we focus and clarify some of the outstanding factors that will need to be part of you all making decisions in some way. How do we mine a commentary from our community about those? I think we can do that, even collecting that in the meantime which is more preparing for how do you have your next discussion than it is for us to definitively respond to everybody in the meantime. I guarantee people will come in here and criticize what we’re doing at the next meeting also. Council Member Fine: For me, it’s not being about… Mr. Keene: I’m not being defensive about the Staff (inaudible). I don’t want to be – I just don’t want to be unclear in this interim period between now and your next meeting. Council Member Fine: It’s not about the responses for me actually, as so much as it is about the documentation of these concerns and kind of how we’re managing this project longitudinally. I think that’s really important as we’re – especially now that we’re getting into this narrowing down phase. I completely agree, we need to go from 40 to four to eight to one but we need the technical and – we need the documentation to kind of show why we’ve done that. I’m a little worried that we have a bit – a few too many open concerns here that don’t respond to that yet. So, we’re using something that’s a little bit incomplete to narrow down our discussions. Chair Wolbach: Again, would it capture your concerns and Staff’s concerns if we said instead of direct Staff to respond to, direct Staff to acknowledge. Council Member Fine: That’s not really the difference I’m looking for. The difference I’m looking for is kind of documentation of these concerns across the different alternatives and why Staff did or did not include them and responding to some of the broader community points. Mr. Keene: So again… Chair Wolbach: I think that’s getting more and more… Mr. Keene: I think this is an important issue, just need (inaudible) right now, we would not have the capacity in my view to do that effectively between now and then. Now, I could be proven wrong but I’m just trying to think of FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 55 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 analogies. Even when we do specific minute taking of the Council meetings which is very involved and is almost legalistic, still people will point out well, I didn’t quite say it that way. It needs to be done this way. So, our ability to really capture this – I mean this could be a big demand for us so I understand the need to how do we capture and report and be transparent and have – get everybody on the same page. I’m just looking at you guys, who’s going to do that? Mr. Mello: I have an idea. I think maybe we could start to organize all the comments into a frequently asked question, FAQ. The response to not only the questions on the White Paper and the circulation study but then if there are any common themes in the database of public comments. That could be a living document that we…. Chair Wolbach: Let’s try something else then. Mr. Keene: Let me just… Chair Wolbach: (Inaudible) Staff to identify and acknowledge salient and frequently asked questions. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to replace in the Motion, “to work with the public and Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) to respond to assumptions in this White Paper” with “to acknowledge and identify salient points and frequently asked questions and concerns raised in response to the White Paper.” Council Member Scharff: Is that better? Mr. Keene: Yeah, I’m – I just don’t want us to be responsible for accounting for what all the different things that are said and then we interrupted it or we – think doing our best job to try to capture within a FAQs the trending comments, clearly, we will do that for the Committee. Council Member Fine: So, that’s helpful. I mean it’s just getting – I’m thinking about the example you gave earlier Jim and I’m not trying to be difficult here guys. Jim, you know I brought up the tunneling thing and you said oh, well, it’s $4 billion and that’s $270 million a year at our current bond ratios. Those are the set of assumptions that we need documented and I don’t think those are done here. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 56 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Council Member Scharff: I’m trying to understand your concern here. Chair Wolbach: That’s – I’m sorry. That’s a concern, it’s not a motion and I want to keep us on track. He’s stated his concerns, Staff has heard them, he’s not making an amendment so I don’t think we need to entertain it further because there’s no Amendment. Can Staff read back what you have? Mr. Carnahan: So, to agree with Staff’s analysis that the City-wide options for trenching and tunneling do not look promising but we want to hear from the public. That we that the submerged options, among others, for the Charleston and East Meadow warrant further study and direction Staff to acknowledge and identify frequently asked questions and concerns raised in response in either to this White Paper or related to the rail corridor. Council Member Scharff: What happens if just left out the last part? Chair Wolbach: Just complete left it out? Council Member Scharff: I mean Adrian doesn’t seem on board with it. Council Member Fine: No, I’m not on board with the first part. Council Member Scharff: No, I thought you weren’t on board with the second part either? Council Member Fine: No, the second part is better, where we’re talking about the salient FAQs and trying to respond to big things. That I’m on board with and document it. Chair Wolbach: If we leave the second part in, will you vote for the Motion? Council Member Fine: Probably not because of the first part actually. I think the first part is exactly the problem, that we’re saying we think these ones are unlikely but we’ll keep on hearing from the public. I don’t think we should be putting that in the motion at this time. I kind of agree with you actually but… Council Member Scharff: I guess I’m still – I want to have a little more discussion on this Cory. I know you want to get out of here but… FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 57 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Chair Wolbach: Alright, we have 3 minutes on this item, go. Council Member Scharff: So, you keep saying Adrian – I mean what I’m getting from you Adrian is that you want to document the concerns so that the public can look back at this and say – I mean that’s what I’m getting. Is that the public – when you look back and you say, yeah it really does cost this much and we’ve done this amount of work for it. I guess my concern is that it seems blatantly obvious and we only have so much time and so much effort to go forward with it and I’m not sure we ever get further. So, are there two or three items that you want or what – you keep saying there are big issues that aren’t – what big issues are we talking about? Council Member Fine: So, Nadia’s brought up the Churchill trench, are we going to do that? Are we… Council Member Scharff: Well, that’s – but that’s not (inaudible)(crosstalk) White Paper. Council Member Fine: Is a two percent grade possible? I know that Josh has said that it’s very difficult but we actually don’t know and so if we can document it, hey two percent grade is absolutely impossible. Chair Wolbach: So, the Motion doesn’t rule those out. Let’s stick with… Council Member Fine: It begins too, the Motion beings too. Chair Wolbach: But it doesn’t. Council Member Scharff: Let’s go back, the Motion – first of all, the Motion – at two percent grade over the whole City, is that what you’re thinking? Council Member Fine: For if we’re doing a trench. Council Member Scharff: If we’re doing a trench. So, your concern is that if we’re doing a two percent trench, that we could save a bunch of money. Council Member Fine: No, my concern – sorry, mic. My concern is that for instance Staff saying well two percent grade is impossible… Council Member Scharff: No, they are not. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 58 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Council Member Fine: … and we’re not (inaudible) that exception. Council Member Scharff: They are saying that the two percent grade, that’s what we’re actually looking at in the southern trench. Council Member Fine: Ok, in the southern trench. Council Member Scharff: That’s what we’re looking at. Council Member Fine: If we extend it, have we explored the extension under Churchill? Council Member Scharff: In the White Paper it says – well, forget the Churchill thing for a second but City-wide the two percent trench doesn’t make – two percent grade doesn’t help us. Mr. Shikada: It’s actually assumed to be possible. (crosstalk) So, its baked into the analysis. Council Member Scharff: So, it’s assumed to be possible so we already have that in there. Council Member Fine: Ok, that’s (inaudible). Council Member Scharff: The Churchill trench – this is the first I’ve heard of a trench – Churchill trench. I haven’t heard the Churchill people talk about just about a Churchill trench. I mean I don’t know how to deal with the Churchill trench issue on that. Chair Wolbach: It’s still – look, a Churchill… Council Member Scharff: That’s not off the board, it’s not a City-wide option. Chair Wolbach: Let’s focus – guys, let’s focus on this motion. We don’t need to figure everything out tonight. We’re not ruling anything out tonight. The motion on the table acknowledges… Mr. Shikada: I know it feels like (inaudible)… FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 59 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Chair Wolbach: … it recognizes the – I mean Adrian, you raised earlier the issue of we don’t want to get to down the rabbit holes and too much solving the problems tonight. The Motion on the table does not attempt to solve the problems. It acknowledges Staff’s concerns, recognizes the salient points raised by Staff, it does not take anything off the table and… Council Member Scharff: It doesn’t rule out… Chair Wolbach: It doesn’t rule out anything – on sec – and it also directs Staff to do more to recognize the salient points and frequently asked questions so that we can have that public input. So, that can help inform the discussions at the Community Round Table coming up on the 6th and the March 21st meeting and other meetings which we’ll get into Item Two about when those will be held. So, nothing is off the table yet. I actually had one last question which was, although I’m not pushing for it because there are a lot of problems with it, do we need to have something in this Motion if people still want to discuss a viaduct or a berm at the Community Round Table of at future meetings? Mr. Shikada: It’s still on the table. MOTION AS AMENDED RESTATED: Council Member Scharff moved, seconded by Chair Wolbach to agree with the Staff analysis that citywide options for trenching and tunneling do not look promising but we want to hear from the public at the next community roundtable. We think that submerged options among other options for West Meadow Drive and Charleston Road are worth further study. And direct staff to acknowledge and identify salient points and frequently asked questions and concerns raised in response to the White Paper. Chair Wolbach: Ok, great. See no other comments, let’s move to a vote on the Motion. All in favor? Council Member Fine: Against. MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 2-1 Fine no, Kou absent Chair Wolbach: So, that passes two to one with Greg Scharff and Cory Wolbach in favor and Adrian Fine against. That – does that mean that goes FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 60 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 to Council now for process or that just directs Staff for how you work with this Committee? Council Member Scharff: I think it’s too early to go to Council. Chair Wolbach: Yeah, that’s what I thought. Council Member Scharff: I don’t think we’re even close to going to Council. Chair Wolbach: I just wanted to make sure that wasn’t… Mr. Shikada: It would not be required. We could simply communicate that to the community in the context of the Round Tables. Chair Wolbach: Great, so it’s been passed. Thank you. That concluded tem number one. 2. Review of Rail Committee 2018 Workplan. Chair Wolbach: We’ll now move onto Item Number 2 and we’re running a little short on time so I’m (inaudible) right now that any public – any comments on this item before or after our discussion will be limited to two minutes. Staff first. Ed Shikada, Assistant City Manager/Utilities General Manager: Thank you. We do not have a presentation. We simply wanted to pull up onto the screen Attachment A on the Staff report that outlines all of the primary items. Clearly, there could be sub-items related to various points throughout the end of the calendar year. I would not City Manager noted that for the March agenda that we could bring forward an item that specifically addresses the engagement approach and how that will relate with the Rail Committee. With that, I’ll turn it back to you Chair. Chair Wolbach: Do we have any public comments on this item? No, ok, very good. Council Member Scharff: Alright, I have some questions. Chair Wolbach: Greg, you first. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 61 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Council Member Scharff: So, how are we – I think what we need to work out is how we engage with Council as well. I think that’s what’s missing so – we are we – we need to have a decision that then goes to Council and then may feedback to the Rail Committee. My big concern on the overarching issue is that this is too tight and we need more Rail Committee meetings. Chair Wolbach: I’m reluctant to agree but I agree. Council Member Scharff: I mean we do and we need to basically – we should be shooting to be done with this by September and been to Council, have it done and that way I’ve never see stuff not slip. So, you have to build in – if we finish by September, supposable we’ll probably finish by November. Whereas if you put it up to November, we’re past and that’s not ok. Chair Wolbach: Staff? Mr. Shikada: I will note that there are probably two primary constraints on our ability to move more quickly on that. One is the engagement approach and so again that would be a topic that, one as Staff, will be discussing later today but also can bring back to the Committee. The other is the consultant work that will be necessary in order to get to the actual evaluation of the four to eight. Again, we’re in a procurement process right now, an RFP Process, so we will move as quickly as possible but that is I think notable in terms of the schedule. Council Member Scharff: Well but I think we need to look at both the community engagement process and getting to that four to eight quicker. Chair Wolbach: I just want to point something out on Page 3 of this report it says community engagement approach. Just give me a little bit. It basically –Staff is going to redefine the community engagement approach after the consultant team is established. The new consultant team won’t be established until April which basically if I’m reading this correctly, we’re not going to have a community engagement plan until May. Mr. Shikada: We actually already have a community engagement plan that we are implementing… Chair Wolbach: Sorry, updated one. We’re not going to have an updated community engagement plan until May. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 62 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 James Keene, City Manager: Well, so maybe we miss stated in that report. I think the sense of the -- the key role that the consultant will play in helping shape and inform in a more widespread community engagement component is going to be dependent upon them coming in. So, let’s think of it as a tributary of another stream that joins us in April. We’ve got some others being deployed even right now and you’ve talked – I mean, first of all, we have – I mean people in the know are fairly well informed about what’s going on and know how to engage. We have this issue of a Red Team or some of the kind of key stakeholders about how we more actively involve – I would just tell you right now, my plan is to personally get very involved between now and April or actually now and March when we come back to you with more specifics on where we go with some of the folks in that community. So, we’re better prepared to give you recommendations in March so we’re working on things now. We’ll be doing some work as Staff. We’re really looking at you -- bringing back to you in March’s discussion of a community engagement plan but the Staff report was acknowledging that a lot of our larger work that ultimately gets to how we advance the four to eight suggestions and criteria – I mean options with the public and get the wider public engaged. That’s what that was speaking too. Council Member Scharff: So, I think we’re being a little – I think we’re making a mistake on the community engagement process a little bit. I mean I don’t think the community can engage until really till we have the four to eight. I mean… Mr. Keene: Well, that’s true. Council Member Scharff: So, I mean – I think it’s a different community engagement process once you have real scenarios in that four to eight of which people can sit around and say yeah, this is how it’s going to affect my neighborhood. This is how it’s going to affect me. This is what it’s going to look like. I think that we should move to that four to eight and I would suggest that we move to that four to eight as quickly as possible. The stakeholders who are mostly interested are already interested. They will engage on getting from the 40 to the four to eight but it’s the real people who live in the neighborhoods, once we have the four to eight, that we have to have a really strong community engagement process. Mr. Keene: May I just respond, Greg? Under this schedule, this says under May 1 so that would be May 1st and the first thing is the grade separation alternatives to be evaluated and recommend Council approval. In other FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 63 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 words that say that in May, the Committee has to essentially select the four to eight alternatives. So, that really… Council Member Scharff: That’s good, that’s helpful. Mr. Keene: … just says we just have March and April to do everything (inaudible)(crosstalk) Council Member Scharff: That’s really helpful. I wasn’t clear on that and so then we’re going to have a – can you come up with a separate thing that says we go to Council on that? You know, I think you’re going to need possibly two Council meetings for Council to – I mean think about all the time the Rail Committees is going to have gone through this and understand that there are Council Members that are going to be like these are the four to eight? Why are these the four to eight? No, I mean really so I do think we need to build that into a Council schedule. Chair Wolbach: I would add that I think we need to be very thoughtful about how we work with the community and don’t just dictate to the community here are the four to eight. That the community engagement over the next few months is critically important. As we are ruling things out we need to be walking with the community. I know that’s tricky, I know that’s time- consuming and I’m ok taking some leadership here and for us saying as a City doing the expert analysis. Here’s where we think we can’t do X or Y but I don’t think we – I want to make sure we’re not just showing up in May and we’re down to four to eight. I don’t think that’s Staff’s intention to ignore the public between now and then. We’ve got a meeting coming up but I’m leaving up with the question of – and still saying thoughts from Staff about how we do that and how we involve the community between now and where we get that reduced list. Mr. Keene: So, we’re saying we’re going to have to come to you in March with more clarity, a plan, transparency about engagement and that will be one of the things you do. I do think that Greg’s comment that you all were nodding at is right which is we have March and April coming and we’re going to need more rail meetings probably than we have planned, right? To make sure that we – that you’re satisfied that we’re doing this appropriately this issue of getting to when you can – the Committee can make a recommendation to the City Council. We’re not going to disappear now and show up in May with recommendations so I think one of the things – whether it’s we just work directly with the Chair on scheduling the necessary FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 64 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 meetings in March and April. Chair Wolbach: When it comes to scheduling additional meetings, are the other Committee Members ok with Staff working with me and (inaudible)… Council Member Scharff: I am. Chair Wolbach: … back with Committee Members on availability? Council Member Scharff: I would prefer – can we start this at 8:30? If we could? Chair Wolbach: We’ll consider that. Some of us have day jobs to get too. Council Member Scharff: I know. Council Member Fine: I’m ok with you working with Staff on an increased (inaudible) here. Chair Wolbach: Ok, great so we will do that. One member of the public put in a card, Nadia Naik you have two minutes. Nadia Naik: Thank you. Yes, I agree with your concerns that we’ve got a tight schedule. I just want to reiterate that it would be most helpful if you continue to have more rail meetings instead of having them once a month. I don’t really know what happens when we have new City Council Members who join a Committee. This Committee is very much like drinking from the fire hose so I really empathize for Council Member Wolbach and Kou to have to sort of jump into this topic. I don’t think you guys get to tutorials when you come into a new topic but I’ll once again offer to meet with a City Council Members for more information. I’d also like to throw that out back to Staff. We’ve talked since early last year about having more meetings with dedicated stakeholders. I hope I’m considered one of them. We haven’t really had any one on one meetings about any of these issues. I’d be happy to sit down and help look at those 40 plus alternatives. I just – I feel like it’s my sort of civic duty to report to you guys, I think CARRD has always tried really hard to get the engaged community to work with the City so that’s an us versus them but sort of we’re collectively trying to problem solve. I think it’s fair for me to say at this point that most of the community members that I’ve interacted with are feeling that this process I getting really sandbagged. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 65 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 I don’t think it’s anybody’s intent but I think that they’re just frustrated by the way the community meetings have gone because they’re just too generic in their feeling. Then not everything has been presented in one big complete picture because it’s just been the nature of this process and so, unfortunately, you’ve asked everybody a million times if they want a pony? They’ve all said yes in theoretically despite that you told them that it was really expensive and that ponies take a lot of care. There are some things in this report which make it feel like you’re telling them that ponies eat small children and breath fire right? So, they are not buying some of your assumptions. I think you really want to make sure that you’re vetting these things. I really hear what Council Member Fine is saying, you really want to be making sure you’re documenting why you’ve made these assumptions, what you’ve used and if the assumption changed, what would the orders of magnitude of difference be on those decisions because that is the key thing. If we are arguing about 2-feet and it’s not going to change the price, fair but if you’re talking about big things, that has a huge impact. You – sorry to go a little bit over but at the end of the day, you’re probably going to need more money and the only way you’re going to get more money – this the same conversation we had with High Speed Rail. You have got to convince the community that you heard them and you thought of their alternatives before you ask them for more money. If you’re going to come to them and not look at an elevated and remove trench and tunnel, you’re talking about taking people’s homes on some kind of hybrid and asking them for money. You really better be able to justify that. Thank you. Chair Wolbach: Thank you for your comments and also, I wanted to point out on Page 3 of the Staff report for this Item, that “a slate of public meetings, informal workshops and one on one outreach will support the Rail Committee work plan”. So, I want to emphasize how important that is, not just the public but to members of the Council. I’m glad that Staff acknowledged that in the report. I think all of those are important so it’s not just these meetings but further public meetings, workshops and that one on one outreach which is acknowledged on Page 3 of the Staff report. Any Motions on this one? Adrian. Council Member Fine: Just a few comments and questions here so one, I agree with Council Member Scharff that it would be nice to just get a – its kind of written out here but when we’re circling back to Council for broader approval. It may even be helpful for the City Manager to update Council at our next meeting about what that is just so that everybody is aware. The other thing that I was wondering about here is where are we going to have dependence points? Where will we be needing to go back to Caltrain or to FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 66 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 the freight operators? I was just wondering where that falls into the schedule. Joshua Mello, Chief Transportation Official: We’re planning to convene the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) on an as-needed basis so as we reach decision points where we need to get feedback from Caltrain or the freight operator. The freight operator is actually going to be very difficult to get answers out of but you know Caltrain and our other agency partners, we have them on call to attend TAC meetings whenever we need them. Council Member Fine: So, its great we can call TAC as needed to address some of those issues. For folks like the freight operators or others who may be less corporative, I think it may be helpful for us if we schedule those decisions and when we should start going to those people. If it is going to take us months to get some answers from the freight operators, we may want to think about scheduling that and figuring out how we ramp into it. In terms of the community engagement question that Council Member Wolbach asked, I think we do have a plan. I think it’s pretty robust, it’s ongoing, it’s working, it's not perfect but we do have one and its being on for a year. That’s what we agreed on last year. Thank you. Chair Wolbach: So, I’ve heard a discussion about more meetings of this Committee, we want to encourage what was discussed but I didn’t see it in the work plan of discussion at the next meeting about community engagement, clarify when we go to Council and – or do you need that in a motion? Council Member Scharff: I’d like them to update the schedule and also see if they can move the end date a little earlier and think about it. I mean I don’t… Mr. Keene: And target a land date for this year you mean? Council Member Scharff: Yeah, I mean I think… Chair Wolbach: Target September or October instead of December. Council Member Scharff: Right because you need to have some fluff in this otherwise… FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 67 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Mr. Shikada: We can certainly take a shot at that. I think it will come into better focus, better clarity on our ability to deliver on that as we made progress on the consultant selection. Chair Wolbach: Do you need a Motion to move forward with the things that we’ve discussed on this item? Mr. Shikada: I think we’re pretty clear on the next steps here so I don’t see a need for a Motion unless others disagree. Chair Wolbach: We have two cards and these are the last cards we’ll take on this item because we’re about to conclude the meeting. Adina Levin to be followed by Nadia Naik; two-minutes each. Adina Levin: Hi there, on the topic that just came up very, very briefly on engaging with freight and the difficulty of engaging with freight operator. I wanted to report on one more thing that I heard at yesterday’s panel discussion on implementing the State Rail Plan and then in one on one conversation follow – up bolstering that. Which is that one of the things that the State Rail Plan is achieving, even now in its early stage, is having the leverage of the state in working with the freight operators because historically it’s been exceedingly difficult for anyone – transit agency or anyone jurisdiction to get the attention of a national multi-billion-dollar freight company for which this is not their primary interest in the least. One of the benefits in engaging on this grade separation topic as a corridor-wide level which is called out in the State Rail Plan and then getting the benefit of that state-wide interest will be a less difficult ability to reach Union Pacific and to address these issues. Not as one little City of Palo Alto or one little transit agency but from that big picture which does matter to the freight operators and therefore is likely to be helpful. So, I just wanted to put that context on the table which Staff may already be well aware of and working on but just wanted to share that. Chair Wolbach: Thank you and actually for Nadia, did you want to speak on Item Two or on the next steps? Ms. Naik: On the next steps is fine. Chair Wolbach: Ok, we’ll come back to that. FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 68 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Ms. Naik: Sorry. Chair Wolbach: Do we need a Motion on this one? Staff said no, ok so Interagency Communications? None. Moving onto next steps and future agendas. I wanted to give Staff a chance to start. NO ACTION TAKEN Interagency Communications None. Next Steps and Future Agendas Ed Shikada, Assistant City Manager/Utilities General Manager: Yes, as a matter of fact, we already covered it. This is standing item on your Agenda so no further information from Staff. Chair Wolbach: Nadia. Nadia Naik: I wanted to give you guys some very actionable items hopefully. Number one, if you could formally address – direct Staff to make sure that the reports back from the Local Policy Maker Working Group are actually on future Agenda going forward. Second, I would also ask that all comment letters be put in the packet or posted online. Currently, if you go back and look at rail corridor meeting packets or Rail Committee meeting Packets and click on them, you actually don’t see all the inbound emails that the Council has received or that Members of the Committee have received. There isn’t really a good place to look at those. When we talk about trying to build the record of what has been sent in and what has been addressed, I think that’s really important to reflect back to the community that yes, we hear you and here are all those documents so if we could include those. They are typically in a City Council Packet, they haven’t really been included always in the Packets here. I would also encourage you to agendize future discussions about what political options are open to us in term of thinking about funding for all of these projects. We haven’t formally talked about the City’s lobbyist. We haven’t talked about our role at Local Policy Maker Working Group. We haven’t talked about potentially reactivating the Peninsula City’s Consortium that Yoriko Kishimoto helped establish so those would be some potential options to think about. The fourth on would be very specifically to invite FINAL TRANSCRIPT MINUTES Page 69 of 69 Special City Council Rail Committee Meeting Final Transcript Minutes: 02/21/2018 Chad Edison who wrote the State Rail Plan or is presenting the State Rail Plan to come and talk to this Committee about where is the role of grade separation in the Caltrain corridor fall in the State’s priorities to help you understand where those pollical squishy things are going to be. Obviously, the issue of grade sep. funding is of concern to the state. Thank you. Chair Wolbach: Thank you. Anything further? Alright, thank you, everybody. The meeting is adjourned. ADJOURNMENT: Meeting adjourned at 10:51 A.M.