HomeMy WebLinkAbout2020-06-24 Planning & transportation commission Summary MinutesPage 1
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Planning & Transportation Commission 1
Action Agenda: June 24, 2020 2
Teleconference 3
6:00 PM 4
5
Call to Order / Roll Call 6
Approximately 6:03 pm 7
Chair Templeton: Excellent. Thank you so much, Vinh. Alright, so first since it’s a virtual meeting 8
I will read the preamble. 9
10
Pursuant to the California Governor’s Executive Order N-29-20, this meeting will be held by 11
virtual teleconference only, with no physical location. Spoken comments via a computer will be 12
accepted through the Zoom teleconferencing meeting. To address the Board, go to 13
Zoom.us/join, Meeting ID is 928 8651 2657. When you wish to speak on an agenda item click on 14
raised hand. The moderator will activate and unmute speakers in turn. When called please limit 15
your remarks to the time allotted. 16
17
Spoken public comments using a smartphone will also be accepted through the Zoom mobile 18
application. To offer comments using a regular phone, call area code 669-900-6833, and enter 19
Meeting ID 928 8651 2657. When you wish to speak on an agenda item hit *9 on phone so we 20
know you wish to speak. 21
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Alright, so we can move onto… it looks like we don’t have anyone dialed in so let’s move onto 1
the agenda. Ok, so (interrupted) 2
3
Mr. Vinhloc Nguyen, Admin Associate III: Great, I will begin with (interrupted) 4
5
Chair Templeton: Bring to order and do the roll call. Thank you. 6
7
Mr. Nguyen: Chair Templeton? 8
9
Chair Templeton: Present. 10
11
Mr. Nguyen: Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 12
13
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Present. 14
15
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Alcheck? 16
17
Commissioner Alcheck: Present. 18
19
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Alcheck? 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Alcheck: Present. Can you hear me? 2
3
Mr. Nguyen: I’m not sure it’s just me but your volume is very low. 4
5
Commissioner Riggs: Sorry Vinh, did you do roll call? Yes. For some reason, the full thing just 6
froze for me. 7
8
Chair Templeton: We’re doing it right now, Commissioner Riggs. 9
10
Commissioner Riggs: I’m sorry, yeah, I (interrupted) 11
12
Chair Templeton: You haven’t missed it yet. 13
14
Commissioner Riggs: Ok, sorry, thank you. 15
16
Mr. Nguyen: Ok so I’ll start with Commissioner Alcheck? 17
18
Commissioner Alcheck: Let’s try that again. Can you hear me now? 19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Nguyen: Yes. 1
2
Commissioner Alcheck: Ok, present. 3
4
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Hechtman? Commissioner Hechtman? Hi, Bart, can you hear me? 5
Wave to us if you can hear me. Can everyone else hear me? 6
7
Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: Yes, I think so. 8
9
Mr. Nguyen: Ok it looks like Commissioner Hechtman is having some difficulties. 10
11
Ms. Tanner: Can Commissioner… should we have him log out and log back in again you think or 12
try to turn is video… I know it’s a sound issue. 13
14
Mr. Nguyen: Ok let me demote him and re-promote him. That sometimes might help. 15
16
Ms. Tanner: Ok. 17
18
Mr. Nguyen: Ok it looks like he is actually gone. 19
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_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Templeton: He might be doing the reboot you suggested. That’s ok. I think it’s alright to 1
wade through these technical difficulties so we can wait a moment for him to rejoin. Do you 2
want to do the other Commissioners and then come back to him? 3
4
Mr. Nguyen: Sure. Commissioner Lauing? 5
6
Commissioner Lauing: Present. 7
8
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Riggs? 9
10
Commissioner Riggs: Here. 11
12
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Summa? 13
14
Commissioner Summa: Present. 15
16
Mr. Nguyen: Thank you. 17
18
Chair Templeton: Alright let’s give it one more moment for Commissioner Hechtman. Do we 19
know, Mr. Yang, if he has to answer by voice in order to be counted present? 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Mr. Albert Yang, Assistant City Attorney: Votes do have to provide a voice for as part of the 2
virtual teleconference rules. I don’t think there’s any specific rule on roll call, but since he will 3
have to vote by voice later on we want to make sure that that part of his connection is working. 4
5
Chair Templeton: Yes, that’s a good point. Ok, well it looks like he’s rejoined so, Commissioner 6
Hechtman? 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes, thank you, I can hear you now. 9
10
Ms. Tanner: Oh great. 11
12
Chair Templeton: Ok good, so it was just logging out and logging back in was the trick? 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: And I think Vinh may have done that for me because I didn’t. 15
16
Chair Templeton: Excellent, ok, alright. 17
18
Mr. Nguyen: Alright so just for formality I’m going to call Commissioner Hechtman for roll call 19
again. Commissioner Hechtman? 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Hechtman: Present. 2
3
Mr. Nguyen: Thank you. 4
5
Oral Communications 6
The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 7
Chair Templeton: Alright, next will be oral communications so if you are listening and planning 8
to speak now’s your chance. We don’t currently have any public attendees so let’s give it just a 9
moment and then we’ll move on. Alright, seeing none we’ll move onto agenda changes, 10
additions, and deletions. 11
12
Agenda Changes, Additions, and Deletions 13
The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 14
Chair Templeton: We do have one change to the agenda. In our pre-meeting, we noticed that 15
there’s a discrepancy between how Item Two is listed in the… on the agenda on Page 2 versus 16
when the report. There’s a little discrepancy there. It will be a Study Session. I think that having 17
it say Action Item in the report pages further down is a clerical error. Is that correct? 18
19
Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director? That’s correct Chair Templeton. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Templeton: Ok so any other changes? 1
2
Ms. Tanner: There are no other changes for the agenda. 3
4
Chair Templeton: Ok, great. Now it’s totally the wrong part of the agenda. 5
City Official Reports 6
1. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 7
Chair Templeton: Ok so let’s move onto the City report. 8
9
Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: Great. Good evening Chair Templeton, Vice-Chair 10
Roohparvar, and Commissioners. It’s good to be with you again this evening. Just some news 11
around town to report, some of which relates to the broader work of Planning and 12
Development Services. And to make sure that if you have any questions, to the degree that I 13
can answer them, I’m happy to answer them. 14
15
City Council on Monday did pass the budget the City and so we’re happy to report that Planning 16
and Development Services does not have to lay off any Staff or to have any bumping that would 17
move Staff maybe from our department to another department; or receiving Staff from another 18
department. We know that’s not the same for all City Departments and for all City employees. 19
Certainly, we are suffering from having to no work as much with some of our contracts as we 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
normally might and so we definitely have not come out of this without challenges, without 1
some things that we have to figure out, but we’re really pleased we were able to maintain our 2
positions. And in fact, City Council did include keeping our Housing… Senior Housing Planner 3
position and our Principle Planner and our Long-Range Planning Division. So, we’re really 4
looking forward to recruiting for those positions as well as two new Inspector Positions for 5
building inspection to offset our diminished capacity use consultants in that area. And we want 6
to recognize of course that there are City Employees who will be separating from the City very 7
soon which is certainly detrimental to the organization. And ultimately will diminish some of 8
the services that the citizens will receive, but we know Council worked really hard and closely 9
with departments and with [unintelligible] to figure out a budget that could best the despite 10
the trying circumstances that we’re facing. I’m not the expert on our budget but I will happily 11
answer any questions that I can if you have any about the budget or kind of where we go from 12
here. But that process did conclude on Monday and so we’ll move into the new fiscal year 13
starting on July 1st. 14
15
In addition, you may… Council also heard on Monday a pre-screening for a housing project on El 16
Camino Real. One of the planned housing zones and so you might remember, this was a few 17
months ago, City Council revived the PC Zoning kind of with a name planned Home Zone; which 18
really still is underlining as PC in the code and asserted that we would like to see housing 19
proposals that have 20 percent below-market-rate housing. They could potentially have some 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
office as long as the office or other uses was balanced with housing that provided housing for 1
those potential new employees. So, this is a project about 150… I think 157 units or so along El 2
Camino Real in the Research Park and along with office and Council gave back… gave some 3
feedback on that project. Council did choose to delay until August a discussion about the 4
Planned Home Zoning. And so, we had proposed and the Staff report is still available I believe, 5
regarding how Council would like to see the BMR housing be used; that 20 percent. Do they 6
want to see it in particular income groups among below market rate, what are some ways that 7
they could conceive of having housing projects come forward, and still be found satisfactory to 8
the division that they set forward? So, we look forward to bringing that forward to Council in 9
August along with some other items. 10
11
And of course, last night you may be aware that Council did approve the President Hotel 12
project. At least a first part of one part of the approvals that’s needed for that project. So that 13
did happen as last evening as well. 14
15
And then lastly, our downtown… sorry, not just our downtown, a multi-department effort led 16
out of Planning and Development Services in course… close collaboration with the Public Works 17
Department on the Summer Streets Initiative. Really think about how in the ongoing pandemic 18
do we allow for restaurants and other businesses to operate? Particularly restaurants outdoors 19
in that restaurants are only allowed in Santa Clara County to operate if they can serve folks 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
outdoors, otherwise using curbside pick or delivery. And so, we rolled out a few weeks ago the 1
Summer Streets closure on Cal. Ave and having it for pedestrians only. We’ll bring that to 2
University Avenue as soon as this Friday beginning at 10:00 am and Council approved a range… 3
a Resolution and an Interim Urgency Ordinance that really enables those programs to go 4
forward as well as a temporary Parklet Program. Converting some parking to outdoor dining 5
and retail in private parking lots along with some other activities. So, we’re really excited that 6
we’re able to help our business community thrive so that Palo Alto can still remain a place 7
where people can live, work, play, get their daily needs met, and hopeful if you feel like you and 8
your family want to get out. You can head to Cal Ave., University Avenue, and take in a meal 9
safely maintaining social distance in restaurants that are doing great at following the guidelines 10
from the state and county regarding how they can serve safety and people can be in public but 11
do so safely. So, we’re really, really excited about those efforts. 12
13
I know I’ve talked for a little bit but I do want to pass over to Sylvia Star Lack or to Nathan Baird 14
if they have any updates from the Transportation Department that they would like to provide. 15
16
Mr. Nathan Baird, Transportation Manager: I can go real… first real quick. The parking, we 17
continue to work on a lot of the planned efforts that we talked about when we were 18
[unintelligible] last time. Getting ready to move much of our permitting online. And we’ve also 19
been keeping a close eye on the parking situation in our commercial areas and the RPP Districts 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
surrounding Cal Ave and University Avenue during the street closures and the parklets coming. 1
For residents, we’re… I want you to know that we’re doing counts every week to keep an eye 2
on that to monitor the parking, but we also want to encourage you to walk and bike to these 3
commercial areas to take advantage of them and to support them. Businesses and employees 4
and visitors who need to drive to those areas are really encouraged to use the garages and lots 5
and to keep some of the on-street parking as free as possible for folks doing pick up and drop 6
off and short trips but that’s all we have from parking currently. I’ll let Sylvia talk about some 7
other efforts her team are up too. 8
9
Ms. Sylvia Star Lack, Transportation Manager: Thanks, Nate. Our team has been supporting the 10
City shift in implementation to VMT from CEQA which we’ll touch on a little bit tonight as part 11
of the Sustainability Climate Action Plan. 12
13
I’m really looking forward to this year with PTC and the Council because there are a lot of juicy 14
things happening in the land use and transportation world. S/CAP being… I see S/CAP as the 15
overarching thing and you’ll learn more about that tonight and hopefully, you’ve seen our Staff 16
report. 17
18
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Following along with that on July 8th we are going to present the changes to CEQA, SB 734 1
implementation. Otherwise we affectionally just call it VMT, Vehicle Miles of Travel, because 2
that’s the metric we’ll be using to analyze future projects, current projects, we’re using it now. 3
4
And along with that, following that we will also be looking at updating our TDM Ordinance in 5
compliance with our Comprehensive Plan and in compliance with SB 734. So, it’s going to be a 6
lot of fun and I’m ready to get going. 7
8
Chair Templeton: Excellent, thank you all for the updates, and it’s very exciting to see the trials 9
and ideas that you are working on going forward. So, I’m excited about all of those initiatives 10
and looking forward to next week and hearing more about Vehicle Miles Traveled. 11
12
Ms. Tanner: Great and Chair Templeton, if anyone did have (interrupted) 13
14
Commissioner Riggs: Can I… can I… yeah, I’ve got a question. Raise hand, [unintelligible] raise 15
hand. 16
17
Chair Templeton: Commissioner Riggs. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Riggs: I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to short cut anybody else. Sylvia, I did have a… 1
with regard to the TDM Ordinance and some of the other things you mentioned. Are those 2
going to come for discussion items or how will those be rolled out in terms of dialog with the 3
Commission? 4
5
Ms. Star Lack: The TDM Ordinance is going to… so Staff will figure out as best we can what we… 6
how to bring something to you. We’ll bring it to you and we’ll bring it to Council just as any kind 7
of normal ordinance update. 8
9
Commissioner Riggs: Ok, so I’m… just FYI there are some interesting experiments happening in 10
San Jose and else ware that we should maybe just be aware of with regard to TDM and 11
behavior science integration. So, I’m happy to talk offline about some of that. 12
13
Ms. Star Lack: Ok. 14
15
Chair Templeton: Alright, thank you, Commissioner Riggs. Commissioner Lauing. 16
17
Commissioner Lauing: I just wanted to mention for those of you who did not see City Council 18
meeting last night. Rachael Tanner got appropriate kudos for all the work done so far on the 19
California Avenue Project called out by multiple Council Members for outstanding work. And I 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
particularly want to emphasize the speed with which this happened and how you executed 1
that. You executed it so fast that it was executed before Council even voted on it because they 2
didn’t vote on it till last night and you already had it done. So, it was really a great example of 3
how Staff with Utilities can jump on a project and get it done with a high degree of execution 4
success and the restaurant owners are already claiming about how great it is. I saw an article 5
today that the one restaurant Turron had a record day. I think it was last Friday or something 6
and I was out there last Friday across from them and they were packing the streets and had a 7
great dinner and felt like we were in Barcelona. All the strolling around out there and the kids 8
on bikes and just a great atmosphere. And you got it up and going fast which is a real help to 9
both the citizens and the businesses there so thumbs up for Rachael. 10
11
Ms. Tanner: Thank you so much, Commissioner, I appreciate that and I do just want to shout 12
out Public Works is literally out there in the street painting it, chalking it, doing all of the lifting. 13
And Sylvia Star Lack and her team, Ripen Bhatia [note – phonetics] who is our new 14
Transportation Engineer I think. There’s a lot of folks who really… it’s an interdisciplinary team 15
so any kudos I get I do want to just spread out to them and just I really appreciate that and 16
thank you for visiting the Summer Street. We’re glad to see that it’s being successful. Thank 17
you. 18
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Templeton: I would echo that by the way. If you haven’t had a chance to watch it, it was 1
towards the end of the Council meeting but it was a great presentation and really 2
heartwarming to see the impact of the work… the teamwork there. So, thank you for bringing 3
that up Commissioner Lauing. Vice-Chair Roohparvar. 4
5
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: I was going to commend Rachael as well. Fantastic job on the Summer 6
Streets. I was out there on Cal Ave and then I also went to Summer Streets in Los Gatos, Los 7
Altos, and Mountain View to compare just to other Cities and see how we did. And everywhere 8
it’s just been bustling and people are out and about so very excited. It feels very European. I’m 9
excited to see what happens on University Avenue. When I was in Los Gatos, I don’t know if you 10
know this but they haven’t closed down the entire street due to the off-ramp on Highway 17. 11
So, they only took the parking spaces in certain areas and went out partway into the street. It’s 12
an interesting concept but I did find it to be a bit cramped in terms of social distancing. So, 13
something to think about when you guys are rolling our University Avenue but great idea. I 14
hope we bring it back next year. I’ve absolutely enjoyed it. 15
16
Chair Templeton: Thank you Vice-Chair Roohparvar. Any other Commissioners want to 17
comment on their experiences with the Summer Streets? It is nice to be able to celebrate such 18
an achievement so thank you all. 19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Alright, please… Commissioners, please take a look at the 2020 schedule that is included with 1
Item One and by the end of the meeting if you have any changes to your availability please let 2
us know. That will be the appropriate time to bring that up but I just want to make sure you’ve 3
had a chance to look. Specifically, we only have one person identified on vacation or break but 4
if there are more please let us know. 5
6
Study Session 7
Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 8
2. Discussion of Potential Goals and Key Actions Related to the 2020 Sustainability & 9
Climate Action Plan. 10
Chair Templeton: Ok so moving on then to Agenda Item Number Two the S/CAP update. 11
12
Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: Thank you Chair Roohparvar [note – Chair Templeton]. I 13
want to introduce Rebecca Atkinson, Christine Luong, and of course you know Sylvia Star Lack. 14
They will be doing this evening's presentation. 15
16
I think the S/CAP is another really great example of interdepartmental corporation and 17
collaboration. As you all know sustainability is something that impacts all of us and really every 18
aspect of the City both as an organization but of course the City as a place to live. As a place 19
where business occurs and a place where we make our homes. And so, it’s appropriate that this 20
really is a collaboration between lots of different departments. 21
22
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Tonight, we’ll be focusing on the areas that touch closest to the Planning and Transportation 1
Commission. Mainly mobility, electric vehicles, and land use. And I’m just really excited because 2
this is some… I was telling someone today it should be a motherhood and apple pie session in 3
the sense that this is something that we have a lot of enmity around as a community. That this 4
is a value, this is a goal, and it’s appropriate considering it’s a global effort to try to prevent 5
climate change, try to adapt to the changing climate, and do what we can. So, while it’s 6
certainly a really urgent issue that’s very serious, it’s also something that to me this 7
conversation is so encouraging because it’s something that we can do something about. 8
9
And so, I’m really glad that Rebecca Atkinson who has been with us for I think 5-years, you can 10
correct me if I’m wrong Rebecca. She’s been in our Current Planning role but now is 11
transitioning to Long-Range Planning and really has been diving into sustainability on behalf of 12
the planning portion of PDS. And of course, Christine Luong who’s been champion this effort 13
from her role previously in the Office of Suitability and now that her role has shifted to Public 14
Works which is great because they put rubber on the road. They get to tinker with all of our 15
facilities and so it’s a great place for someone who’s leading our sustainability effort to be 16
located. So, we just have a really brilliant team, the presentation I think you’ll find very 17
fascinating and then a discussion that I hope will also be very robust. 18
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
And just a really quick note, I’m just going to be stretching a little bit so I will be turning my 1
video off. I just need to stand up because I’ve been sitting a lot today so I hope that you will not 2
mind that but I will be here and then will come back onto video. So, with that, I’m going to hand 3
it over to Rebecca to start off our presentation. 4
5
Ms. Rebecca Atkinson, Project Planner: Good evening Commissioners. Thank you for this 6
opportunity to share our work and the community’s feedback thus far on the 2020 7
Sustainability and Climate Action Plan update process and have this study session with you. 8
9
In this presentation, we will review the 2020 Sustainability and Climate Action Plan, potential 10
high impact goals, and key actions related to greenhouse gas emissions reduction. While all 11
seven 2020 S/CAP areas are important, three have the highest potential for greenhouse gas 12
reduction. Those are energy, mobility, and electric vehicles which were recently reviewed by 13
Council. 14
15
Tonight, we are focusing on the updated goals and key actions on mobility and EVs for your 16
review and feedback before they go to AECOM and Fehr and Peers for analysis. Those are the 17
City’s consultants for the S/CAP that are helping us out with modeling. We’re also going to 18
introduce tonight the concept of a range of various levels of intervention necessary to achieve 19
Palo Alto’s S/CAP goals. At this point, I’d like to introduce you to Christine Luong, our 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Sustainability Manager, who will present the background and current status of the S/CAP 1
process. 2
3
Ms. Christine Luong, Management Analyst: Thanks, Rebecca. Thanks for having me here 4
tonight. I’m glad to be here. So, a little quick background, our current Sustainability and Climate 5
Action Plan, which we sometimes refer to as the S/CAP, is made up of three components. So, 6
the first is our 80 by ‘30 goal to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2030 7
calculated utilizing our 1990 baseline. This is adopted by Council in April 2016. The second 8
component is S/CAP framework which was unanimously adopted in November 2016 and then 9
the third component is the 2018 to 2020 Sustainability Implementation Plan which is excepted 10
in December 2017. So, it’s a three-component S/CAP because we never had a full CEQA 11
reviewed plan and so it has these three parts of the goal, the framework, and then the actual 12
work plan. Which is why in… so this year 2020 one of the Council priorities is sustainability in 13
the context of climate change. The other one is improving mobility for all. Those are two out of 14
the top three priorities for calendar year 2020 and Staff is developing a 2020 Sustainability and 15
Climate Action Plan to help the City meets its sustainability goals. Including our overarching 16
goal of 80 by ‘30 and because we don’t have one single document and we have this three-17
component S/CAP. We’re working on the 2020 S/CAP update so that we have just one CEQA 18
reviewed Council adopted plan which we don’t currently have. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
So, we have, as Rebecca mentioned, we’ve solicited community and Council input on the first 1
draft of the Goal and Key Action and now we’re presenting to the Planning and Transportation 2
Commission tonight. 3
4
So, while our overarching sustainability goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent 5
by 2030. We have several equally important goals in the following seven areas. These are the 6
team leads for the seven Sustainability and Climate Action Plan areas and the Mobility Team co-7
lead Sylvia Star Lack and Rebecca Atkinson are presenting with you tonight. 8
9
So, the main source of Palo Alto’s greenhouse gas emission are very simple. About 2/3s come 10
from gasoline and diesel vehicles and about 1/3 comes from natural gas consumption buildings. 11
So, this is a very familiar chart that we show all the time. It shows our 2018 overall greenhouse 12
gas emissions from both Palo Alto Municipal Operations and community-wide emissions in 13
metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. Starting with our 1990 baseline and then 2005 as a 14
point of reference. So, as you can see by the end of 2018 Palo Alto reduced our greenhouse gas 15
emissions about 36 percent from our 1990 baseline. Despite a population increase of 20 16
percent during that same time period. So, the red bar which dominates the chart is road 17
transportation and that represents Palo Alto’s largest remaining source of greenhouse gas 18
emissions at about 64 percent of the remaining total. Followed by natural gas use which is 19
represented by the solid blue bar at about 32 percent of remaining emissions. Now the shaded 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
blue bar represents our Palo Alto green gas offsets. So, we purchase natural gas offsets as a 1
bridging strategy. The offsets are purchased in an amount equal to the greenhouse gas 2
emission caused by natural gas consumption within the City. But, as you can see from the chart 3
our natural gas consumption really hasn’t changed at all in the past few years. And for most 4
Cities in California in general, transportation emissions comprise the largest remaining source 5
of greenhouse gas emissions so we’re not alone in this issue. It’s something that a lot of Cities 6
and jurisdictions are struggling with and so we need about 300,000 metrics tons of carbon 7
dioxide equivalent of additional reductions to meet our 80 by ‘30 goal. 8
9
So, we solicited feedback from the community on the first draft of the Goal and Key Actions. 10
We had a virtual on-demand S/CAP community engagement workshop that 204 participants. 11
We’ve had opportunities to provide feedback on our sustainability website and then we had 21 12
people who submitted comments at the April 13th Council study session. 13
14
So, for that first draft of the Goals and Key Actions, several themes surfaced in the input we 15
received on them. Mainly that the people who commented where generally supportive of the 16
2020 S/CAP and don’t want to delay any action on climate despite all the uncertainties going on 17
right now because of the Corona Virus Pandemic. The majority of the commenters noted that 18
the pandemic has shown that it is possible to work from home and to work from home 19
effectively. They suggested we explore remote work strategy to reduce transportation-related 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
to greenhouse gas emissions. And the commenters also noted that housing and land use were 1
areas of focus that were missing and sorely needed and that educating the broader community 2
was also something that was lacking. So, we took all that community feedback and updated the 3
Goals and Key Actions and presented that Council on June 16th where one of the recurring 4
themes was that the City may need to employ some higher intervention strategies to achieve 5
our 80 by ‘30 goal. Voluntary action isn’t going to get us there. 6
7
So, we took all of the community input to update the Goals and Key Actions. And the Goals and 8
Key Actions are going to become the foundation of the 2020 S/CAP. So, the high impact Goals 9
and Key Actions for greenhouse gas reduction that we’re reviewing tonight at just the subset of 10
the full list of all of the potential Goals and Key Actions in all seven areas. So, the high impact 11
Goals and Key Actions are intended to ensure that enough emissions and cost data are 12
prepared to ultimately formulate multiple scenarios to meet the 80 by ‘30 goal. So, we can give 13
Council choices among different packages of scenarios. 14
15
So, for the… in a departure from our previous iteration of the Sustainable and Climate Action 16
Plan, this year we recognize the intersection in the interdependence of the mobility and electric 17
vehicle areas. So, they share the same main goal and have different sub-goals. So, the main goal 18
that they both share is to reduce transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent 19
from approximately 300,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent to 60,000 metric tons of 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
carbon dioxide equivalent by 2030. And as you can see from electric vehicles it’s the same main 1
goal but with different sub-goals and the Key Actions that we’ve come up with so far that are 2
needed to get us to 80 by ‘30. We came up with more than what we need so that Council will 3
have some choices in what Key Actions are ultimately selected. And we are including Key 4
Actions that could potentially be difficult or expensive or rather inconvenient to achieve. Some 5
of the Key Actions we’re going to discuss tonight will require additional Legal Analysis in 6
coordination with other agencies before presented to Council for final selection. Others might 7
require voter approval and could ultimately be included in a potential ballot measure. 8
9
So, while we won’t know the exact greenhouse gas reduction potential or costs or sustainability 10
benefits of the Key Actions until after our consultants, AECOM and Fehr and Peers, complete 11
their Impact Analysis. We do know that there are four areas that have the highest potential to 12
reduce greenhouse gases. So, these are to electrify most residential buildings. After we… after 13
AECOM does their Impact Analysis, we’ll present Council a range of options that could 14
potentially add up to what we’re estimating as between 15 to 20 percent of the remaining 15
reduction needed from electrifying most residential buildings. The next is to significantly reduce 16
fossil use… fossil fuel use in large commercial buildings. That could potentially add up to 5 17
percent of the remaining reduction needed. To significantly reduce Vehicle Miles Traveled. This 18
will require a lot more modeling from AECOM and Fehr and Peers to get a better sense of how 19
much we could realistically reduce VMTs with a range of scenarios. And then finally electrifying 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
the vast majority of remaining vehicle trips. So, we can implement Key Actions to reduce 1
Vehicle Miles Traveled related to commuting but we can’t prevent people from driving in order 2
to run errands or socialize or drive their children to school or drive to thing unrelated to work. 3
The only thing we can with those trips is to encourage electrification of those remaining vehicle 4
trips. 5
6
So next we have to look at the range of Key Actions that we could select. So, from our current 7
voluntary market-driven solutions on the left to the middle column which is things like 8
ordinances and the Reach Code to the higher intervention column on the right which we 9
haven’t done any yet. So those would be things like voter-approved mandates and potentially 10
voter-approved fees or taxes or bonds where the heavy lifting is involved. Our consultant 11
AECOM will estimate the greenhouse gas reduction potential cost and sustainability co-benefits 12
such as improved local air quality or reduced cost of living of the potential Key Actions. This 13
impact enough… this will provide a range of cost per greenhouse gas reductions that will have a 14
very… that will have various options along the Spectrum of Tools for achieving climate goals. So, 15
Staff envisions using the Impact Analysis to come up with a set of potential Key Actions that will 16
allow multiple options to get us to our 80 by ‘30 goal as well as trigger points for when more 17
inventions are needed to achieve those targets. So, for the next 2-years, we may need to focus 18
on the most low cost and lower certainty Key Actions and not necessarily the highest 19
greenhouse gas reduction potential action; but at the same time, we’re going to have to 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
explore different funding streams such as ballot measures, bond measures or establishing a 1
carbon fund or VMT bank. So that when the pandemic is over and when there’s more certainty 2
with the economy and everything we’re ready to go with some of these higher intervention Key 3
Actions. 4
5
So, for the electric vehicle area, we proposed a total of a range of 15 Key Actions, and the ones 6
we’re highlighting tonight are the Key Actions with the highest potential for reducing 7
greenhouse gases from transportation or vehicles. I’d like to point our Number Five, to ban the 8
registration of gasoline vehicle in Palo Alto by 2030. This could achieve about 50 percent of the 9
remaining greenhouse gas emissions reductions needed but obviously, this one would need to 10
go under legal review to see if the City even has authority to do something like this and would 11
most likely need voter approval. So now I’d like to introduce Sylvia Star Lack, our Transportation 12
Manager, who will review the Key Action for mobility. 13
14
Ms. Sylvia Star Lack, Transportation Manager: Thanks, Christine. For the mobility area, we 15
proposed a range of 14 Key Actions. These are the six Key Actions with a high potential for 16
reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation or vehicles. We can reduce greenhouse 17
gas emissions from the transportation sector by either electrifying all transportation or 18
reducing the amount of emissions from road vehicles by switching to less polluting forms of 19
transportation. Because it generally takes 15 to 20-years for a vehicle fleet to turn over without 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
mandates or intervention from the market. Conversion to electric vehicles in Palo Alto would 1
need to be accompanied by shifting to clearer modes if we want to hit the 80 by ‘30 target 2
because that 30 is 2030, it’s 10-years away. Can we… we could do this by implementing Key 3
Actions on this slide including Number Five, improving our Transportation Demand 4
Management strategies. Including encouraging telecommuting as well as Number Six, using 5
land use to reduce Vehicle Miles Travel by thoughtfully locating people close to goods and 6
services so they can more easily walk, bike, or take transit to meet their needs. According to the 7
California Pollution Control Officers Association, which has assessed greenhouse gas reduction 8
strategies, location efficiency has the largest impact on greenhouse gas emissions from 9
transportation. In addition, recent guidance regarding Sustainability Climate Action Plans as 10
well as change by the state to the California Environmental Quality Act have created a 11
regulatory ecosystem that allows Cities to more easily approach future land use decisions with 12
an eye toward reducing transportation emissions by increasing vehicle miles of travel. Also 13
known as VMT. Due to California Senate Bills… sorry just lost my page… that Senate Bills that 14
were adopted in 2013 and 2018 is SB 743 and SB 375. The focus of CEQA Transportation 15
Analyses shifted to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, creating multi-modal transportation 16
networks, and promoting a mix of land uses that reduces the need to drive. Transportation and 17
Planning Staff will return to PTC on July 8th to discuss the changes and how the City will 18
implement CEQA as required by state law, but I wanted to mention that all the items on the 19
slide are encouraged by the new CEQA update. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
The next slide is… yes, thank you, Christine. This slide presents an expanded view of Item Six on 2
the prior slide. We took to heart the public comment that was received about land use and 3
added land-use strategies to be modeled. We can refer them in the discussion later on but 4
briefly these all relate to creating green streets for active transportation as well as enacting 5
policies and programs that support transit provision and the development of more walkable 6
neighborhoods. 7
8
So, before I wrap up and ask for feedback, I wanted to let you know about our next steps. So, 9
first AECOM is creating a City-wide greenhouse gas emission inventory including providing a 10
more accurate methodology for calculating our transportation-related emissions; which include 11
airport emissions for the first time in accordance with new reporting protocols. AECOM will also 12
calculate a business as usual forecast to show what emission reduction will be achieved if we 13
don’t add any new policies or actions. We’re looking for your feedback tonight but next week 14
the Parks and Recreation Commission will hear this item and provide feedback. And then this 15
fall the Impact Analysis on the draft Key Actions will estimate the greenhouse gas reduction of 16
the potential actions, their estimated costs, and the additional sustainability co-benefits such as 17
improved air quality, preservation of habitat, reduced cost of living, or reduced socioeconomic 18
disparities. We’ve solicited feedback from the community on the co-benefits through the virtual 19
public forum. The results of the AECOM and Fehr and Peers Impact Analysis will help us further 20
Page 29
_______________________
1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
refine the Goals and Key Actions needed to get us to our 80 by ‘30 emissions reduction target. 1
The recently updated VTA Travel Demand Model will be used to generate greenhouse gas 2
emission estimates from the transportation sector. We hope to present a package of options to 3
Council in the fall. 4
5
So, before your discussion, we wanted to highlight our key points. Road transportation is the 6
larger remaining source of greenhouse gases. We have 10-years to reach our goal. We are 7
asking you to consider the Spectrum of Tools Framework and the level of intervention we may 8
need to reach our goal. The next phase of the project is for these strategies to be modeled to 9
see what Key Actions will be most effective and while we don’t know exactly what the modeling 10
will tell us. We do know that the interaction between land use and transportation is key and 11
that land use has a high impact on greenhouse gas emissions. Finally, CEQA now requires that 12
developments generate less driving and in fact, these changes to CEQA now promote things like 13
locating housing closer to jobs. 14
15
While there’s no motion tonight we recognize that PTC has valuable knowledge and expertise 16
and can recommend strategies that might be successful in this community as we strive to meet 17
the challenge before us. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
So, these are our suggested questions for discussion as this study session. We are available for 1
your questions. Thank you for your time. 2
3
Chair Templeton: Wow, thank you all for a very thorough and detailed presentation. I watched 4
it last week on City Council and I thought it was fascinating and I can see already you’ve 5
incorporated some of the feedback. 6
7
Now would be the time that we would go to public comment so if you’re planning to make 8
public comment please dial in now. I will say that you received a significant amount of public 9
comment during the City Council, is that right? 10
11
Ms. Luong: That’s correct. We had about 20 people speak and then we had about 10 people 12
send in comments. 13
14
Chair Templeton: Excellent. Well, alright it looks like we’re not going to receive public comment 15
tonight so Commissioners, it is all yours. Please raise your hands and we will go in order of 16
whoever… of hand-raising order. So, let’s start with Commissioner Riggs, thank you. 17
Commissioner Riggs, we can’t hear you. There you go. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Riggs: I’m doubled muted, sorry. Apologizes. Aw, get it turned on, turn on, ok. 1
There we go. This is a good presentation. Thank you, Sylvia, and Christine, I appreciate it. I have 2
three or four points of feedback some of which is kind of dribbled out over the last couple of 3
meetings so it should actually pretty relevant. First off, I’m really concerned about all of the 4
telework bias in this report because telework is not carbonless. Actually, some of the most 5
recent data on telework actually shows an increase in trips even though they’re shorter trips. 6
An increase in trips could mean more cold starts so I would say it’s not a zero-sum game and to 7
be weighing emission reduction and to be hanging a significant emissions reduction on telework 8
behavior is really a shift [unintelligible]. And we’ve known this for years in transportation theory 9
that actually even pre-COVID when people teleworked they still made trips. They made 10
recreational trips, they made trips to the coffee shop, they made trips to go shopping, etc. And 11
by in large… I have some data that I’m happy to share with you in a new survey that we did. By 12
in large we’re finding those trips are primarily done via driving so I think there’s… that’s… I 13
would not be including that as a strategy. I’ll just be blunt, I think that’s a faulty strategy. So, I 14
think that relates to two of three of the initiatives and I’m sorry I’m just going to be candid and 15
put it out there. I think that’s a receipt for not achieving our emissions goals. 16
17
I… yeah, I guess the second piece of feedback is I think big supporter of green streets, closed 18
streets. As I said it’s been my… people had known my work that that’s definitely in my 19
wheelhouse as a researcher. However, in a place like Palo Alto we can start to treat green 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
streets, safe streets as pastoral and so the issue there it doesn’t recognize what we have has a 1
regional commute shed. So, it doesn’t recognize that many people who live in Palo Alto don’t 2
work in Palo Alto and so to recognize a green street, a walkable streets, bikeable streets 3
strategy as a commute reduction… greenhouse gas reduction strategy from a transportation 4
standpoint has some flaws. So, I’ll just leave it at that. 5
6
And we can only… we also need to recognize that bikes and… walking and cycling is not a last-7
mile strategy for everyone. And nestled up to that, I don’t see anywhere in here… so I have a 8
little inside baseball knowledge in some of this but there’s a lot of emerging micro-transit, last-9
mile transit pilot strategies throughout the Bay Area. A lot of shared mobility pilot strategies, 10
mobile as a service pilot strategies in and out of the Bay Area. I don’t see that anywhere in here 11
and I… to me that is a more realistic recognition of the actual commute shed as opposed to I 12
think what green streets, walkable streets really focused on are recreational trips. So, I think we 13
just… that… we have to keep that in mind that many people who work in Palo Alto don’t exactly 14
live in Palo Alto and many people who live in Palo Alto don’t exactly… may or may not work in 15
Palo Alto. 16
17
The last… I think the… and I’ll just… the parallel line to that, the banning ICEs, I see that as being 18
a huge social equity. Not only is it… I’m sure it’s not legal. I’m pretty sure that is not within our 19
jurisdiction. I’m not an attorney but I’m pretty sure that is controlled by California DMV, but 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
the… I think that’s a… again it doesn’t recognize the commute shed issue and so it’s bundled 1
into this concept that if you’re going to ban that type of internal combustion engine. Then what 2
type of alternative modal services are you providing beyond a bikeable, walkable distance? So, 3
beyond your 5-mile catchment radius. 4
5
Last comment and this is an emerging Red Herring particularly for employers in Palo Alto. I 6
didn’t see and maybe I missed the… I think there’s a nuance here. There was a pricing… Sylvia, 7
there was a pricing point on your slide, parking… and it adjusted your parking pricing. I think an 8
emerging issue here that really needs to be pinpointed in the sustainability plan is employer 9
paring. We should be banning free employee parking. We should… I mean I don’t actually think 10
that employers should be providing parking at all and I think this is where… we spent a lot of 11
time talking about residential parking programs and car storage; but I think the emerging trend 12
we’re seeing in the Bay Area is yeah, we have car-free car-lite housing developments but a lot 13
of people are beginning, particularly when we have employers that are allowed to build large 14
parking lots and aren’t pricing their parking. Those just become car storage facilities as well and 15
maybe we’re ok with that, but that induces driving just like having car storage at a housing unit. 16
So, I really think you have… we have to think about the employer side of the parking situation 17
and whether or not that’s an outright ban on employer parking or a pricing scenario for them. I 18
actually think that’s probably a lever that is an immediate lever that we can pull. So those are 19
my comments. I don’t really need a response I just providing some thoughts there. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Ms. Star Lack: Thank you. 2
3
Ms. Tanner: Chair Templeton, would it be ok if transportation Staff did want to provide some 4
responses? 5
6
Chair Templeton: Of course, yes, please do. 7
8
Ms. Tanner: I think it's some good points that Commissioner Riggs is bringing up. Sylvia, did you 9
want to (interrupted) 10
11
Commissioner Riggs: Yeah and I… Sylvia, no, I hope you will see that there’s no… in no way a 12
challenge to the great work you’re doing. So, we… and this is… so the public is aware, I have a 13
really awesome and I feel like a great partnership with the transportation Staff and so 14
everything I’m bringing up now is really just more of an education as opposed to pointing out 15
flaws. We have to see ourselves as a team so Sylvia, apologizes. 16
17
Ms. Tanner: I think… and I think none of your comments are taking with any offense 18
Commissioner Riggs. I think that part of what’s great about the PTC is the ability to have this 19
really good dialog, not just a back and forth. There’s actually communication that’s robust in a 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
discussion format so I think it’s really great for our Staff to be able to dialog with yourself and 1
with other Commissioners. Sylvia? 2
3
Ms. Star Lack: Yeah, thank you. To a certain degree, we did anticipate your comments, 4
Commissioner Riggs. Christine, can you show the CAPCOA Chart of TDM greenhouse gas 5
reductions. I don’t know if you’re familiar with this but the California Pollution Control Officers 6
Association I mentioned, they ranked… we did analysis of which… I know you can’t read it but 7
you could look it up and… or maybe you can read it if you have the presentation. 8
9
Ms. Tanner: Zoom in. 10
11
Ms. Star Lack: Yeah, it’s a little tiny. 12
13
Commissioner Riggs: I’ve seen the chart before. 14
15
Ms. Star Lack: Yeah so, I mean it’s old, it’s 10-years old, it’s being… it has been updated by Fehr 16
and Peers who’s actually our consultant on the S/CAP so that’s great news. They indicated 10-17
years… actually, yeah, they indicated 10-years ago that telework would maybe get you 5.5 18
percent reduction of work VMT. I mean that was pre-COVID so maybe with a little more uptake 19
it will be better but your point is well taken. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Riggs: Well… so we, yeah (interrupted) 2
3
Ms. Star Lack: And I so [unintelligible](interrupted) 4
5
Commissioner Riggs: I mean my dissertation shared… I remember the lecture. Anybody that 6
went to UC Berkeley and got a Planning Degree took Bob Suvario’s [note – phonetics] class. 7
They know that he did not believe in telework and he believes it induced extra trips. In the 80’s 8
they actually found some data that it actually did increase trip generation. So, I’m very 9
distrustful of these reduction figures and we did see… the funny part is we did use… I will share 10
a graph… a nice graph with you after this meeting that shows this huge uptick in trips and you 11
know what it is? In March it was from 4:00 to 6:00 pm when everybody drove to the grocery 12
store. And so, it’s really… I will… I’m happy to share that with you. I mean so that… I think 13
there’s… I think I’m just saying like caution is of the essence (interrupted) 14
15
Ms. Star Lack: Sure. 16
17
Commissioner Riggs: With regard to this. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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Ms. Star Lack: Yeah, no for sure, and this chart is interesting for the other strategies that are on 1
there that are more impactful. And also, what I appreciate about it is that the land use context 2
in which many of these strategies occur really effects how efficacious they are. So, you know, 3
and even says across the top if you’re in an urban situation you’re going to get this much 4
reduction, if you’re in a suburban situation you’re going to get a lot less reduction. So, yeah, 5
this is really hard. This is the hard stuff. This is the hard work. This is why the bars on our chart 6
are… the red bar is so big on the S/CAP Chart because there are so many different, in a way, 7
transportation markets. It’s all these… it’s all the different trips and trip purposes; all the things. 8
9
Anyways, so I just want to say… I also wanted to mention the shared mobility stuff is not in this 10
presentation. It is in the documentation I think that was linked in there so we do have a list of 11
all many more items, not just these items in this presentation, that do include shared mobility. 12
So, I just wanted to make sure I responded to that. Thanks. 13
14
Chair Templeton: Alright thank you. 15
16
Commissioner Riggs: And I want to make sure that the shared mobility pieces that I mean… I’ve 17
been really cautious that I don’t pigeon hole the technology because I just think that when I… in 18
my comment I’m just really talking about last mile. Basically, your catchment of transit or your 19
access to transit beyond what is a bikeable distance, and I also think that’s… but that also… 20
Page 38
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
when we have these projects that come in and for example one that came in on San Antonio. 1
And it’s not a high capacity corridor but in the future, there’s nothing to say that it couldn’t be a 2
high capacity corridor. And there’s nothing to say that we couldn’t have a rubber tire or transit 3
solution that actually connected to regional rail at San Antonio. And so, I do think that this is 4
not just a transit dialog, it’s also a housing dialog in terms of how we open up new housing 5
opportunities by rethinking transit. 6
7
Ms. Star Lack: Yeah, absolutely. 8
9
Chair Templeton: I have a follow-up question and I’m not sure if Commissioner Riggs or if the 10
transportation Staff wants to handle it first, but when you talk about the short trips. And I was 11
thinking back to the land use thoughts you had about how we want to have our land use 12
structured so that those short trips are walkable or reachable without vehicles. Can you tell me 13
more about that or is that going to be the kind of thing we talk about next… at our next 14
meeting? So, I’m thinking if people are going… if they work from home and they’re going out 15
for coffee, are they… is there a coffee place in a walkable distance from them or something like 16
that? 17
18
Ms. Tanner: Maybe you could go to… yeah, I think that… not to jump in but I think that was part 19
of land use list they had (interrupted) 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Templeton: Right. 2
3
Ms. Tanner: What some of the co-location ideas. Do you want to speak to that Sylvia? 4
5
Ms. Star Lack: I mean this is just a… in some ways it's kind of like a basic planning thing. If you 6
want people to walk you have to put stuff near them that they can walk too. And the… and 7
CEQA is basically going to require a lot more mixed-use in order for a certain kinds of 8
development to get through CEQA without creating an impact. If you… and we’ll learn more 9
about that in July when we come back but one of the first mitigations that a project can do in 10
order to meet that threshold is to change its land-use mix so that trips are internal. On a larger 11
scale, if you are looking at a neighborhood, how do you get some trips to be internal? You put a 12
café down or a small store or other services that are local services so. 13
14
Chair Templeton: I appreciate that and I think for the benefit of the public who isn’t steeped in 15
it every day like yourself or Commissioner Riggs. It’s really helpful to start talking that out as we 16
look ahead to the kinds of discussions we’re going to need to be having and how that will 17
change a little bit. Commissioner Riggs, did you have a comment? 18
19
Commissioner Riggs: No, Sylvia nailed it. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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1
Chair Templeton: Ok, excellent. Alright, other Commissioners who would like to speak please 2
raise your hand, and thank you for the great commentary Commissioner Riggs. Alright, Vice-3
Chair Roohparvar, please. 4
5
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Sure, yeah, I agree with all… everything that Commissioner Riggs said 6
and I had a question for you. I also agree that mandating electric vehicles presents a social 7
equity issue but I was wondering have you guys factored in… we have a trend toward electric 8
vehicles. We’re generally seeing it. Have you factored in or do you have data on how much 9
that’s going to naturally occur because people continue to buy Teslas or other types of EVs and 10
how much that’s going to reduce our GHGs naturally? 11
12
Ms. Luong: Yes, I don’t remember the exact numbers but our electric vehicle team does have 13
all those projections and they are projecting that without… just based on our current trend 14
without too many additional interventions. We’ll probably be around 50 percent EV 15
penetration by 2030 which seems to me like a lot because considering right now we’re at 7 16
percent penetration. However, we… Palo Alto has the highest EV penetration I think in the 17
country and in 2017, 1/3 of all new vehicle sales were electric vehicles. So, based on the trends 18
and everything they’re prediction 50 percent. So, they think with additional interventions it’s 19
not completely out of reach to get to 80 percent by 2030. 20
Page 41
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
2
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: And do you have a sense of how many people that live in Palo Alto 3
actually work in Palo Alto? Going back to the [unintelligible] that Commissioner Rigg’s raised. 4
5
Ms. Luong: I don’t have a sense of the people who live in Palo Alto, how many work in Palo Alto 6
but I do know that the outbounds commuting in is… I mean our population doubles from 7
people commuting into Palo Alto to work during the day. 8
9
Commissioner Riggs: I can look that up really quickly on the Census website if people are 10
interested. 11
12
Chair Templeton: Alright thank you Vice-Chair Roohparvar and Commissioner Riggs feel free to 13
pass that information along if you wish. Alright any other comments ready to go, please raise 14
your hand. Oh, Commissioner… I mean Vice-Chair Roohparvar. 15
16
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Sorry. 17
18
Chair Templeton: It’s ok. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: I had one more question. I don’t want to take up too much air time but 1
nobody else raised their hand. With respect to the density issue, are you guys or are we doing 2
anything similar to the Senate Bill that was proposed and failed by I think Senator Weiner on… 3
we don’t want to increase density because that’s going to add more people and more trips, but 4
like shifting grader density? Is that… can you tell me a little bit more about what your thought 5
process is behind that? What we’re doing or what we can do? 6
7
Ms. Star Lack: So yeah, I’m glad that you asked that question. There’s a little bit of a fallacy that 8
if we add more people here that we’ll have more VMT and we won’t be able to reach our goals. 9
The reason CEQA was changed was… I mean was partly to encourage greater density, to put 10
more things closer together because having things further spread out is how you get more 11
driving and more greenhouse gases. One of the things that I would… I will encourage the 12
Commissioner to do when the Staff Report for the VMT item is available to you is to please 13
watch the videos that are linked in that Staff Report that explain… that come from the 14
Governor’s Office of Planning and Research. That explains the move to Vehicle Miles of Travel 15
and why CEQA was changed to use this metric. Those videos are very accessible and explain 16
how… what is measured or what is analyzed, effected, and can affect the built environment. 17
And so now that the metric is about measuring how much driving a particular development is 18
causing. We will… that will likely have effects on what kinds of development is proposed and 19
where. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Thank you. 2
3
Ms. Star Lack: Oh, oh, sorry, just to finish up with the density. Density tends to work in favor 4
of… the density would be generally supported by the CEQA Analysis. 5
6
Commissioner Riggs: So, and just to answer… circle back to the question, based on what’s called 7
LEHD Data, the… we know kind of in terms of inflow outflow jobs that there’s a lot of inflow but 8
there looks like there is about 21,000 primary job outflow. So, we can basically say that that 9
represents a potential trip. We can’t call it a trip because it’s not… we don’t know that it’s a trip 10
but we know that it’s a job that resides for someone that lives in Palo Alto that would work 11
outside of Palo Alto. 12
13
Ms. Tanner: I think Commissioner Riggs you also have in that chat data which folks can 14
hopefully see that there about 7,000 roughly, 7.2 percent of folks who are employed and living 15
in the section… in the selection area. So, they live in Palo Alto and work in Palo Alto, is that 16
correct? That 7.2 percent of that. 17
18
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Riggs: Yeah, so that’s… this is all public data from the Census Bureau and its job… 1
it’s basically the Census Employment Data. So, it’s not trip data but basically, this is how you 2
can think about population inflow outflow. 3
4
Ms. Tanner: Thank you for that. That’s really helpful. 5
6
Chair Templeton: Alright, any other questions Vice-Chair Roohparvar? No, ok. 7
8
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: No. 9
10
Chair Templeton: Commissioner Summa. 11
12
Commissioner Summa: Hi, thank you Staff for pursuing this in such an organized way. It’s an 13
informative and I watched the… actually the Council session on this from last week. So, a couple 14
of things, I am very… I mean I’m open to any sort of data that people have but the teleworking 15
thing. I think we have all experienced how… I mean we have incredibly good air quality in the 16
Bay Area. And my observation is it’s very hard to tell now because of COVID but I mean I think 17
that because we’re only making, have been until recently most of us, only making necessary 18
trips out of the house. So, a lot of… so it's hard to know right now and it’s very hard to know 19
when these impacts will or can be over. It could be a very long time still. So, I still think 20
Page 45
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
telecommuting is a great option for people in certain industries and what’s remarkable the 1
people it’s worked best for are people in the tech field like my husband who works at Amazon. 2
He’s been working at least as much as he use to and so I am skeptical of tele… of there not 3
being a lot of potential in that. 4
5
And I am also interested in discussing land use from the point of view of not building more 6
office that is not neighborhood… commercial that is not neighborhood-serving. And I think 7
what you’ll find also is that there are certain traditional types of retail that yes, are going away 8
a little but social retail; cafes, restaurants. Those things are all increasing and very vital except 9
for the pandemic circumstances. 10
11
So, I would like to see a movement away from building more of the type of commercial that 12
attracts and takes over the places of what are suppose to be local serving commercial for… so 13
that people can walk to things they need. And we’ve seen a lot of loss of that in the California 14
Avenue area with Class B and C office where people… accountants and rolfers and people that 15
provided those types of services have lost to redevelopment or just tech companies moving in. 16
So, I… and we do have things to prevent that in our code but they haven’t been… we haven’t 17
been very successful in doing that so I would like to see that sort of reduction. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
I also think it’s… I am very struck by the social equity comment that Commissioner Rigg made 1
because a lot our more… our lower-income workers in the Bay Area are people that are not at 2
this point likely be able to afford an electric vehicle. A lot of our undocumented workers 3
actually buy used vehicles with registrations so we have to be very careful that we’re not 4
creating an elite island our of Palo Alto. 5
6
And I also am very curious if Staff has any consideration of the effects if everybody went to all 7
this electrification the effects on the electric grid and how much green electricity is available to 8
buy? I understand all of ours isn’t green because we buy some offsets and it’s just that there’s 9
not enough created. And then we have climate change and rolling brownouts for people for 10
prophylactically addressing fire and electricity becomes more tenuous in future scenarios of 11
climate change and temperature rise and those sorts of issues. So, I worry a little bit about how 12
that’s going to play out not just for Palo Alto but across the whole region and for everybody. 13
14
And I also… I think all of the ideas are worth pursuing. I think some of them to me are kind of 15
feel-good efforts and I appreciate that people want… the Council wants that kind of stuff like 16
TDMs. And those kinds of things I don’t personally feel have been very successful. We don’t 17
have any very good documentation on how those have worked. So, I think there’s a lot of 18
potential in really eliminating… creating more office of the type that attracts even more 19
workers. With the biggest jobs-housing imbalance in the country almost, I just don’t think those 20
Page 47
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
are the kind of jobs we need to bring more up to the Bay Area. I think we… especially, Palo Alto, 1
I think we need to spread them out with places that need those jobs and retain an environment 2
that is also conducive to keeping our lower-paid workers. 3
4
So, I would worry that some of these things are sort of feel-good things that aren’t going to do 5
as much and I really have a great hope in teleworking being retained in the future. And I know 6
for us we haven’t been making more trips but that could be COVID. I mean we’ve been making 7
hardly any trips. I haven’t been going shopping or very much so I think those are the big 8
important takeaways for me. 9
10
As… with regards to VMT, I’ve read a lot about VMT and I know that the Council had… I know 11
we have to do it for CEQA but the Council also wanted to keep LOS as a local standard. So, I’ve 12
read a lot about VMT that says its sort of experimental and that we don’t have a good 13
understanding of what the impacts are. So, if that could be explained I think that might be 14
helpful. 15
16
And let’s see, I had some other notes. Yeah and I envision complete… I mean for new buildings 17
and new… it’s easier to have all-electric than retrofit for older buildings and people put a big 18
investment in cars and wiring and gas and appliances. And that is not something I think we 19
can… that seems really hard for me to imagine asking everybody to eliminate all their natural 20
Page 48
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
gas use by… in 10-years. I just bought a new stove last year and I envision never buying another 1
in my lifetime because I bought something that got… would last forever because I… the… a 2
femoral nature of appliances is irritating to me. They are made to break and not last very long 3
and then there are certain technologies that are being pushed that aren’t very particular. I had 4
heard about heat pump… hot water heaters along time ago because it was a big issue that 5
came up on the Comp Plan group. And I had a heat… I looked into one night because our hot 6
water heater broke and it’s very… I literally could not use one in the house I live in. They are 7
very… you have to have big rooms, they have to be in basements or garages because they’re so 8
noisy. My furnace room is literally not tall enough to accommodate it so there are some new 9
technologies that are really good but they’re not available in all locations. And heat pumps, I 10
really looked hard at that because I had been aware of it. I also looked at continuous hot water 11
heater which is not really… the little tiny ones. Those aren’t really considered to be an 12
environmental advantage however and I would… you have to put all new gas lines in out to the 13
City hook up. So, I would just caution against things that haven’t proven to be very realistic in 14
the past and to also remember that people in Silicon Valley tend to move quite a bit. So, 15
locating people permanently and close to their jobs is kind of hard to do. We do have a lot of 16
retired people so that’s not as much of an issue in some cases. 17
18
So those are the kinds of things that I am looking at and I really, really, really worry about the 19
social equity issue and also worry about the kind of commercial that we are allowing for. 20
Page 49
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Rachael Tanner mentioned the project at the new PHZ, Planning… Planned Housing Zone, 1
community project at 3300 El Camino. It’s important to remember that’s also got 54,500-square 2
feet of office. Not the kind that will be available… associated with it and it’s kind of 3
disappointing to me to see. It is 187 units I believe, residential, but it’s kind of disappointing to 4
see that zone being used for something that’s… that has such a significant non-residential 5
component. And I’d like to see more of a commitment to using that resurrected Planned 6
Community Zone in its new capacity as really all residential and then commercial as Sylvia 7
mentioned on mixed-use on-site that would support the people living in a building. So those are 8
my thoughts. Thank you very much. 9
10
Chair Templeton: Thank you, Commissioner Summa. Did Staff want to respond to any of those 11
comments? 12
13
Ms. Tanner: Yeah, I think one thing I want to lift up and I want to thank Commissioner Summa is 14
kind of one of the follow-up questions that the Staff have posed kind of what are Key Actions 15
that should be prioritized when we are working with Fehr and Peers and AECOM tomorrow. I 16
heard really strongly that maybe we should look closely at the teleworking and I think 17
Commissioner Riggs and Summa for thinking about some nuances of teleworking. Like what 18
kind of trips are people making? Obviously COVID type trips I think to Commissioner Summa’s 19
point, we may all be just making less trips in general. So right now, in not probably a good way 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
to test the impacts of teleworking because it’s a very unusual time, but perhaps maybe update 1
it a little bit. 2
3
And then if… to your point if we do have some more co-location where people can be close to 4
the things they need to do on those trips, they could walk to them, they could take shorter 5
vehicle trips even when taking a trip, and so maybe that’s something we should raise up and 6
look at more closely. In particular, what would happen in Palo Alto if our jobs-housing 7
imbalance changed a bit? How might that impact our GHG emissions and what kind of needs 8
would need to be there? 9
10
I wondered if Christine might speak to your question which I think is a really good one around 11
how… the source of our energy, right? Just because it’s electric doesn’t mean it’s clean or GHG 12
free. And so, I know that the State of California has some goals surrounding how our energy 13
portfolio shifts over the next… I don’t know if it’s decade or couple of decades? Christine, do 14
you want to speak to that? 15
16
Ms. Luong: I… definitely I can speak to that so Palo Alto is ahead of the game in terms of where 17
the California State goals are. So, the California State goals, we have… California has a 18
renewable portfolio standard that was just updated 2-years ago which requires that all 19
electricity comes from renewable sources. 60 percent of our electricity comes from a 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
renewable sources by 2030 and that all of the state’s electricity come from carbon-free sources 1
by 2045. So, in Palo Alto, we went carbon natural electric in 2013 so all of our electricity in Palo 2
Alto is carbon… currently carbon neutral. The offsets that we purchase are just for the natural 3
gas side of things which isn’t for electricity. 4
5
And in terms of your question about the effects on our grid, so our utilities Staff have done the 6
number crunching and we can handle if every single car in Palo Alto is electric and every single 7
building and home was electrified. We do have the capacity. We would have to… some homes 8
would need to upgrade their transformers or those types of things. We’d have to upgrade some 9
of the infrastructure but the overall grid capacity would be fine. That doesn’t address your 10
issues about the brownouts or blackouts or things like that. One of the things that our Utilities 11
Department is doing to try to mitigate that is by undergrounding all the powerlines. That 12
prevents a lot of the weather-related issues; like we wouldn’t get some of the issues that 13
happened like at the Camp Fire for example because everything is getting undergrounded so. 14
15
Commissioner Summa: Well my understanding from our last meeting is that undergrounding is 16
so much more expensive. That most things will not be undergrounded even out in the hills and 17
so I’m not… it would be great if it was all underground and my understanding is it’s not 18
happening right now. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
And I wasn’t thinking just about Palo Alto… I mean it’s good to hear that our grid… our… and 1
we’re kind of unique because we have our own utilities but I… like I said I don’t want Palo Alto 2
to be an island. And the whole… it’s hard for me to imagine in the future that this isn’t going to 3
become more of a problem for most people in California. Especially with the state of the 4
utilities, so just a concern there about what’s going to happen for other people too. 5
6
Ms. Luong: And I will point out that one of the more philosophical debates that we’ve been 7
having is so we do currently purchase natural gas offsets. That have… that went into effect in 8
2016 and one of the more philosophical debates we’ve had is that was always meant to be a 9
bridging strategy to get us to our 80 by ‘30 goal. If you do count natural gas offsets our overall 10
emissions are down about 56 percent. Philosophically some people don’t think that should be 11
counted and because we only have 10-years to meet our 80 by ‘30 goal that is one of the things 12
that we are going to have debate which is it ok to get to our 80 by ’30 goal with the purchase of 13
natural gas offset or do we have to get to 80 by ’30 with true emissions reductions alone? So 14
that’s one of the philosophical debates that we expect Council to take up the next time we 15
meet with them. 16
17
Commissioner Summa: Thank you. 18
19
Chair Templeton: And I see Ms. Star Lack has a comment. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Ms. Star Lack: I just wanted to thank Commissioner Summa for her comments. I would say that 2
CEQA supports your vision for Palo Alto. I think that neighborhoods that are walkable, the 3
jobs… jobs and housing are more in balance is exactly what CEQA is getting at and will in effect 4
reward. You’ll be able to get in without an impact if you can create those things. 5
6
So, I just wanted to mention a couple things since I am a former Safe Routes to School 7
Coordinator for the City of Palo Alto. I understand the Safe Routes to School Program to be the 8
most successful TDM Program that the City of Palo Alto does and with a third of students, k 9
through 12, biking to school. That is tremendous. It’s probably the best in the country, I will say 10
it. So, I just want to say that not every TDM Program is not effective. I also left Stanford’s TMD 11
Program to jump to this TMD Program and Stanford’s program is also nationally recognized. 12
And I think… I understand… I think I know what you’re saying, I think you’re saying TDM 13
Programs that are sometimes better Conditions of Approval might not work on certain 14
employment centers or certain employers. I think TDM is all about how… it’s all the devil in 15
the… devils in the details with TDM and that’s partly why I’m so excited to move forward with 16
the TDM Ordinance update. That TDM Ordinance is going to have to do a lot of things and it’s 17
going to have to comply with CEQA. It’s going to have to comply with the Comp Plan policy that 18
was written in there. It’s got like eight legs in the Comp Plan. There’s like eight tentacles of it 19
and I’m just really super excited so I wanted to mention those things. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Also, I appreciate your skepticism about VMT. When we come back with the VMT item we’re 2
going to bring the consultants and you can throw at them every question you have about VMT 3
because I can’t answer it right now. 4
5
And the final thing is that I’m really glad that the Commission is attuned to the social equity 6
piece. I mean it is timely and I think there’s a lot of structural inequalities built into a lot of 7
planning frankly. It’s not necessarily intentional but it’s there. And I think for things like 8
forcing… if we’re going to mandate that people buy an EV we have to be aware of… we have to 9
do it in a way where we’re not exacerbating existing equities. I think there are other parts of 10
planning that have also unfortunately led to other inequities. And so, I think that planning Staff 11
and I think Planning… I think transportation and planning Staff are really interested in looking at 12
how our actions affect social equity. So, I’m really glad that you mentioned that. Thank you. 13
14
Commissioner Summa: And thank you for reminding me that the Safe Routes to School… I don’t 15
ever think of that as TDM, to be honest. I just… and so thank you for correcting me and 16
reminding me of its great success because it is great. 17
18
Ms. Star Lack: We know how to TDM we just have to… it’s a… it takes time and resources and 19
Staff but you can do it. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Summa: Thank you. 2
3
Chair Templeton: Alright thank you all for a wonderful interchange. So, Commissioners who 4
have not yet spoken, if you want to raise your hand to speak now would be a good time. 5
Alright, Commissioner Lauing. Thank you. 6
7
Commissioner Lauing: Ok thanks a lot. I’m going to focus, at your request, mostly on Slides 7 8
and 8 which is mobility and electric vehicles. I just want to start by saying that you mentioned 9
that the Council had… in 216 [note – 2016?] put together an ambitious goal that’s outlined here 10
and it is. And my concern is that particularly with the Corona that it’s too ambitious and as 11
we’ve already touched on, some of the areas are getting a little bit too unrealistic with the good 12
intentions of you got to do something to make the gap from here to there close. 13
14
So, let’s look at the… again mostly not in-home stuff but I do want to echo something that 15
Commissioner Summa said. I just can’t see the… I can’t see us coming to saying that in such and 16
such a year up to this point you can have whatever you want and then in that year, 2030, you 17
have to take out your stove, your hot water heater, all that. I mean that’s just too much kind of 18
[unintelligible] making the decision for you. So, I think we have to be really careful about that 19
kind of stuff. And even such things as requiring an appliance of electrification of hot water 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
heater by 2030. Maybe but that’s going to need some by in from the community and overall, all 1
of this stuff is about who’s going to pay? If you say we’re… we want you to have an electric and 2
we’re going to deliver it to your door. That’s entirely different than saying you got to do it, I 3
don’t know how you’re going to pay for and the same thing for [unintelligible] with cars. If 4
we’re going to deliver Prius to everybody that wants one, that’s one strategy, but it’s not 5
practical at all. 6
7
So, let me shift to Slide 7 and talk about B and C first with the concern there first and for most I 8
think when you’re talking about the availability of trans or shared mobility and land use mix 9
supporting transit. There’re a couple issues there and they start with COVID because its just 10
people aren’t going to be wanting to take that transportation and I don’t think COVID is over in 11
6-months. In fact [unintelligible] so I think we have to realistic that that has dampened your 12
attempts here to crank that one off and just recalculate that kind of situation. And the same 13
thing with housing density and same thing with transit. SOB percentage I think is going to be 14
going up of the number of people that are driving. People are going to want to stay out of trains 15
and buses etc. so that’s going to go up. 16
17
The other issues that’s embedded here is this whole assumption that we’re going to have a lot 18
of high-quality transit that we can build dense housing next to and that’s always a question 19
mark in my mind because we don’t have good transportation. We don’t have a great train 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
system, we don’t have a great regional bus system, when we talk about the high quality 1
whatever it was, the 13 Bus that one night, it just doesn’t make any sense because it’s not there 2
yet. So, I think we have to be realistic about what our current situation is and build from there. 3
And I do agree that someday as Dr. Riggs [note- Commissioner Riggs] just said we can put in a 4
regional transit and make something like San Antonio better off but we don’t have it right now. 5
So relative to this night’s agenda, I think you have to be quite realistic about that. 6
7
Then moving D, on the other hand as we’ve been discussing, I think your VMT is going to be 8
going down at least in the short term. It already is and we’ll see. It seems like there’s even in 9
this bias there’s a debate between those two alternatives; whether it’s going to go up or not 10
going to go up, but if it goes down then you get a free benefit here. So, it’s hard enough, you 11
should get something free and this is going to be free for you. And usually, we talk about 12
collateral damage, this could be a collateral benefit that could start a trend and it could work 13
out fine; but when you start talking [unintelligible – interference] about penalties for having an 14
EV as opposed to incentives for EV. You kind of lose me there because and I’ll get to that in a 15
minute. I think we should be doing incentive programs so that’s it I have all on that slide. SOB 16
percentage I think goes up, VMT miles I think goes down. 17
18
On the EV slide, Number 8, these were already touched on so I’m not going to drill down on it 19
too much but you want to go up to 42,000 vehicles; which is basically a 10x baseline from 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
where we are and those are exactly the right numbers that I had picked up somewhere. Maybe 1
from you guys in a prior meeting but we had about 7 percent penetration and you’re trying to 2
get up to 80 percent penetration. Good grief. That is quite an acceleration and as it’s been 3
pointed out, which I also was going to mention, is the equity issue is very important. The other 4
is that some people just like driving a car that doesn’t happen to be electric or it might have 5
been dads or they might want a classic car as their second car. So, we just have to be realistic 6
about the choices that citizens want to make and not try to dictate the stuff to them. And again, 7
the question there is who pays for all this? 8
9
So, some of these things I just don’t think are possible and I think we should readjust both the 10
goal a little bit and the tactics of getting there. So, we can meet a goal which sort of takes me to 11
my third point and I’ll use a business example. You know you need to have a goal that’s 12
achievable and it also has to have a benefit when you achieve it. Hopefully, a benefit that has a 13
carrot at the end that you get to eat, not a stick. That’s a bad example because I don’t like 14
carrots but that’s the cliché. So, I just thought… I was trying to think of an example here and the 15
example that I came up with was a commission salesperson in a business, right? So, if you give 16
that commission salesperson an extortionary high quota that he or she has to make, it’s out of 17
reach, that person just isn’t going to work. And if you give them a real low quota it’s so easy 18
they’re not going to work. So, you have to have something in the middle, sort of a goldilocks 19
thing where the portage is just right so that you get this reach out. This… I want to accomplish 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
this goal and at the end then they accomplish something and they get in this case, which what’s 1
the carrot, and that’s usually the commission check. So that’s what I mean in terms of the 2
incentives. I think EV we should be giving incentives whatever that can be. I don’t think this ICE 3
Tax or good grief banning ICE vehicles entirely has… I don’t think we should be studying that at 4
all. Don’t pay for a legal opinion, that should just be off the table. That’s just out of line for our 5
citizens. 6
7
So, let’s see, where did my notes go? Or the one wherein mobility to improve that we’re going 8
to mandate telework for 2-days a week. We can’t do that. We can’t tell corporations that a 9
given person has to work at home 2-days a week or if that’s already the person’s set up and 10
they change jobs. They can’t be kept from going to another job because that new employer 11
won’t allow it. So, I just think some of these things ought to just be pulled off the board so that 12
we’re spending our energy on much more productive things. 13
14
One of the things… I’ll just give an example, it won’t take long. Ong of the things I think we 15
should do is on the education, a low intervention side is really forward with some of this 16
educational stuff. The graph that you showed because of what we deal with here I mean we 17
kind of understand that. We would expect that the biggest problems are coming from gas and 18
particularly gasoline in our cars, but that’s not obvious. My wife took a class at Stanford in how 19
to reduce your carbon reduction because she wanted to consciences about that. She wanted us 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
to consciences about that and took a number of lectures and so on. And then toward the end, 1
they did an assessment and she came back and she said I’ll get this assessment at all. We have 2
got like the lowest possible carbon and we have a gas stove and we have a biggish kind of 3
house although… two people. Because I knew that graph I knew the answer which is that we 4
have two internal combustion cars which we rarely drive. So, we’re just not doing VMT and 5
that’s what gets… so my point is or the reason I’m bringing this up is I think if that 6
[unintelligible] know to me quite obviously is saying is put to the public. Maybe in an insert in 7
their electric bill do an assessment of your carbon and they see that. What they could do is… 8
the carrot could be I’m a better citizen and if you created a little competition with the 9
neighborhood. They would also like to be better than their neighbor and kind of getting this 10
thing down. So, it’s just one example of ways you could get I think people voluntarily doing this. 11
12
And then just lastly, I wanted to go to the other side of the spectrum because I read a lot of the 13
individual comments that came in. And one or two of them said we shouldn’t do anything 14
because if we’re the only town doing it, it won’t make any difference at all. Well, we all get that 15
that’s the math but that’s off the board as well. It’s up to us, we need to start on this, we need 16
to continue on this, so the goals are admirable but they’re beyond reach goals. And I would just 17
encourage all of us as a City to move forward with real achievable, reachable goals and then 18
pick the right things that are going to be a realistic way of getting there. So that’s kind of my 19
whole review comments. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Templeton: Thank you Commissioner Lauing. Did Staff want to respond to any of the 2
ideas shared? 3
4
Ms. Luong: Sure, I’ll take the first stab so thank you, Commissioner. So, to your… to the point 5
about why is one City… what differences does one City make? Well, in general, we need Cities 6
to care because Cities produce 70 to 75 percent of the world's greenhouse gases. So, since 7
Cities are responsible for the majority of the greenhouse emissions we have a responsibility to 8
figure out how to curtail them. And it… we’re in a situation where the California’s goal is that 9
the State of California needs to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. Palo 10
Alto decided that we were going to reduce our emissions 20-years ahead of the state goal but 11
we do by 2050 have to reduce our emissions 80 percent. We’re just saying we can get there 12
faster and part of the reason why we have these goals is if we allow climate change to go 13
unmitigated. We’re going to see some really disastrous things, especially in Palo Alto. For 14
example, worst-case scenario by the end of the century our sea level is going to rise to the 15
point where all of Middle Field Road is underwater. That’s the worst-case scenario so that’s 16
why we kind of this sense of urgency to figure out how to reduce our emissions because that’s a 17
lot of people going all the way to Middlefield Road, all those houses underwater. The best-case 18
scenario is that the water will go to 101 with… if we don’t do anything. So, neither of those 19
situations are very good prospects for our area. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Lauing: My comment, if it wasn’t clear, was I’m saying that all Cities should do 2
this. 3
4
Ms. Luong: Oh ok. 5
6
Commissioner Lauing: A couple members of the public that you took some comments from said 7
that other Cities aren’t going to do it so why should we bother because we won’t be able to 8
make a difference. And I’m saying that’s completely flawed logic and absolutely everybody 9
should be doing it and we can even lead in that. So, I’m saying I’m rejecting that stand back and 10
do nothing because we can’t fix it. That… we already know that and there are third world 11
countries for which the problem is even worse, but it is our responsibility to work for our 12
citizens to make these changes and I applaud it, I support it. I’m just saying that let's make sure 13
that we’re doing the right practical things to do as best as doggone can and we’re already going 14
to get up to 50 percent without too much problem on EVs. I think you should take some credit 15
for that too. 16
17
Ms. Tanner: I think that’s a great point Commissioner Lauing and I think Christine you may be 18
frozen. I’m not sure, but I think that part of what Christine was going towards to underscore 19
your point that we need to [unintelligible] on climate change. Is that because we have this 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
accelerated goal as a City of meeting this goal I head 20-years prior to the state. It would 1
require some pretty drastic strategies which I think is what you’re picking upon. Charging 2
people for combustion engines, forcing people to essentially only have electric cars via some 3
registration process which I think Commissioner Riggs said I don’t think that’s legal. We have 4
questions about that too, so it’s kind of saying if we’re really serious and our vehicles is our 5
hardest thing. These are the things we might have to do if we’re going to do it in 10-years which 6
is pretty soon I think to most of us. So, I think your comment is well placed and Christine, I think 7
she maybe had to log off and log back in it looks like. 8
9
Chair Templeton: So, she’s not quite back yet. Oh, here she comes. 10
11
Ms. Tanner: Ok. 12
13
Chair Templeton: I also wanted to just make a comment that I think it’s important that 14
Commissioner Lauing brought up some of the comments to allow Staff to speak to them and for 15
the benefit of the public. Right so I think that was your intention was to bring it up and I think 16
that was also Ms. Luong’s intention to inform people. And not necessarily the ones that are in 17
this meeting tonight but for the sake of the record to be able to speak to it. So, I think it is really 18
helpful. Ms. Luong, did you have any more comments before we go to Ms. Star Lack? 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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Ms. Tanner: You might be frozen again. [unintelligible] being on voice, video might be slowing 1
down your connection. 2
3
Chair Templeton: Aw. 4
5
Ms. Tanner: Sylvia did you want to speak to that. 6
7
Ms. Star Lack: Yeah, I do. Should I turn off my video? 8
9
Ms. Tanner: You’re fine at least on my end. 10
11
Chair Templeton: Yeah, you’re fine. 12
13
Ms. Star Lack: Ok, yeah, I just… I really wanted to thank Commissioner Lauing for his comments. 14
All of those things that you said went through our minds as we were putting this together. I 15
mean there were parts of this where I was literally typing in going I can’t believe I am typing 16
that I want to ban internal combustion engines from Palo…. It didn’t... in all of my… in all my 17
years at a transportation planner I would never think to say that, but that’s where we are and 18
that’s why we put up the Spectrum of Tools as a conceptual framework. We’re trying to do 19
what we can with education and voluntary measure and I agree with you. We could do a lot 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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more, I love that your wife took that class, we should all take that class. That’s the kind of 1
thing… I again with my Safe Routes background I love teaching those classes to people about 2
how they can incorporate bikes into their lives. We talk a lot about EVs and I want to say a bike 3
is like an EV. It’s also zero-emission so think about those a little more. Can you include those in 4
your life? 5
6
But I do want to also address the comments about transit and this is something that I’m… 7
because I am relatively… because I’m new to PTC I’m not sure if you’ve discussed this before, 8
but I’m sure you’ve discussed VTA’s recent changes in their service plan. And as you know 9
they’ve… ok, so recently they reimagined their network and decided that they were going to 10
focus more on frequency rather than coverage of the county. Right, their zone is all of Santa 11
Clara County. So, they decided that where they wanted to put transit is where land use 12
supports frequent transit basically and their new strategy involved removing service from Palo 13
Alto. VTA Staff have told… I was at the… there a Finance Committee meeting they attended and 14
they said look, VTA will reward Cities with transit if those Cities do the right thing with their 15
land use and create transit-supportive corridors. We unfortunately just recently had to kill the 16
budget… I mean we had to reduce the budget for our shuttles so we now no longer have the 17
Palo Alto Shuttle. We no longer have a cross-town shuttle, we longer have an Embarcadero 18
Shuttle. And so, we’ve… we keep… you know we don’t have enough transit in town and the 19
only way we’re going to get it is if we create transit corridors that can support it. So, I just 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
wanted to mention that and it’s going to take time. It’s not going to be necessarily tomorrow; 1
like we could just call VTA and say we need some transit on the San Antonio corridor for 2
example because maybe there’ll be more housing there. No, I think VTA is going to be like show 3
us the housing and we’ll show you the transit. So… or show us the zoning and we’ll show you 4
the transit. I mean I don’t know but I just wanted to mention that because these are the 5
conversations that I’m having in the background with Staff about how are we… what’s this 6
going to look like moving forward? And you’re right, the COVID variable really does mess a 7
bunch of things up in terms of SOVs and I’m really hoping that as we know bike use is 8
skyrocketing. A lot of people are buying e-bikes now because maybe they don’t feel like they 9
can cuddle themselves but an e-bike actually gives them more range and they don’t have to 10
work so hard. So that’s a lot and I just wanted to mention those things. I loved your comments, 11
thank you. 12
13
Chair Templeton: Alright thank you for those comments, Ms. Star Lack. Ms. Luong, did you have 14
anything else you wanted to add? I know we had a technical difficulty there so I don’t want to 15
cut you off. 16
17
Ms. Luong: Sorry my Zoom went out, but I did also want to address one thing that a few 18
Commissioners have mentioned already in terms of the electric vehicle goal. So, believe it or 19
not, our 2016 Climate Action Plan actually had a goal of getting to 90 percent penetration for 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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electric vehicles and we readjusted that to 80 percent because that’s what Staff thinks is 1
realistic. We also have a great deal of money, in the millions, coming in from our Low Carbon 2
Fuel Standard Fund and Staff is currently looking at all the ways to spend that money and which 3
includes incentives for low-income EV ownership. We are looking at San Mateo County 4
currently has a plan in place that allows low-income families to purchase a second-hand electric 5
vehicle for $2,000 I believe it is. So, we are looking into a similar program for Palo Alto to see if 6
we can use our Low Carbon Fuel Standard Funds to improve some of the equity issues that have 7
been raised. 8
9
Chair Templeton: That’s great. I didn’t know about that. Oh, Ms. Star Lack, do you have another 10
comment? 11
12
Ms. Star Lack: Sorry I meant to mention one more thing about transit and how we don’t have a 13
budget for transit. One thing was… one revenue stream potentially could be parking pricing… 14
parking permit revenue. So, I know Nate Baird is on… in the meeting but… so he can speak to 15
this but one way that we could fund transit in town if we wanted to do a local community 16
shuttle again is with parking pricing. Yeah, I guess that’s all I’ll say right now and I don’t know 17
Nate if you want to speak to that. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Nathan Baird, Transportation Manager: And I will say I entirely agree and so we… this is 1
definitely something that I’ve been thinking a lot about in terms of how to structure a helpful 2
conversation that can get everybody on the same page about what that could look like. As a 3
proof of concept in the country on how to do something like this to help transit and to help 4
climate action goals. That’s a really great way to prioritize it and it could be prioritized that way, 5
but we need to have a good conversation about it publicly and we need to have a conversation 6
that brings everybody on board. So that’s the difficultly level of what we’re talking about right 7
now. 8
9
Ms. Star Lack: And just as a factoid, Stanford University’s Parking Fees goes to fund it’s TMD 10
Program, including Margarite. 11
12
Chair Templeton: Awesome. Thank you for sharing them. Thank you for joining us again Mr. 13
Baird. Alright, Ms.… Commissioner Lauing is there any other questions or comments? You’re all 14
set? Ok. Commissioner Alcheck. 15
16
Commissioner Alcheck: So, I don’t support the approach of requiring this transition and I mean 17
this is a very serious topic. It’s almost funny that you’re saying we thought we would do 90 18
percent but we dialed it back and decided 80 percent was the target or realistic target. I think 19
the… I think my biggest frustration with this approach is that I think it lacks aware… it’s… to me, 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
it demonstrates a lack of awareness of what’s feasible from the side of the table which executes 1
the transition. So, I mean it’s not so much that I’m worried that Palo Alto will be the only the 2
City that does it. I’m worried that every City in the peninsula will follow this suit and this will 3
have a dramatic impact on the affordability of housing. I’ll give you a quick example. I don’t 4
know if there is statistics on the percentage of our multi-family housing stock which was built in 5
the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s; but I would venture to say that it probably represents over 80 percent 6
of our multi-family housing stock on the peninsula. I think for example if you drive through 7
Belmont you’ll see that every building there was erected in the last 40 or 50-years. I make that 8
point because in none of those buildings can handle the electrical demands that you… that we 9
are tossing around as if it’s simply something you buy on Amazon and install. And the worse 10
part about it is that what you’re identifying as the popularity of electric bicycles is entirely 11
because of the market place and how improved those electric bicycles have become, how 12
cheap they’ve become and accessible. And so that’s an example where no one demanded that 13
individuals rely on electric bicycles or bicycles that they can choose as opposed to cars 6-days a 14
week and that’s driven up the demand of electric bicycles. Electric bicycles have become 15
popular because the price point has come down, they are superb, they deliver you from Point A 16
to Point B comfortably. People are beginning to appreciate the appeal. The problem is and this 17
is something that I think so many people don’t appreciate in the building requirements 18
department. Is that every single thing that you plug into the wall will draw 1, 2, 3, or 5 amps 19
and the circuit break boxes in 80 percent of the apartments on the peninsula have like 60 amps 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
total maybe. They might have 4 or 5, 15-amp breakers and it’s all about fast charging now, 1
right? You got a bike and you can do the slow charger or you can get the fast charger which is 2
going to draw more amps. Every iPad is drawing 2 to 3 amps, every Mac and every TV, 3
everybody is leaving their components plugged in all day long. And then these water heaters, 4
for example, these instant water heats as opposed to gas water heaters. These are intense 5
mechanical tools that use a tremendous amount of energy very quickly as opposed to 6
maintaining the temperature of water for a very long time. I understand the benefits. I think 7
that the consequence of suggested or requiring multi-family to transition 2030 any of those… 8
let me pull it up real quick. I mean whether it’s gas furnaces, gas stoves, I mean I just want… this 9
is… it’s so ironic because in the last I don’t know decade I’ve seen multi-family residential move 10
towards gas in an effort to have a system that will work with all the plugins that a typical two-11
bedroom tenant will bring to the 1970s apartment building they’re living in. They’re plug… I 12
mean a lot of these apartment buildings have two-prong outlets. They’re plugging in 100 13
different things and suddenly the stove isn’t going to work. There’s to much drawn on the 14
apartment so they’re retrofitting gas if they can figure out a way to bring it in because that’s 15
the only power source that the heating is the most intense use of power. This goes for laundry 16
too. It’s slowly becoming commonplace for multi-family residential units to have in-unit 17
laundry. The fad of going to your local laundry mat is out, laundry rooms are undesirable for 18
peninsula residents. So, in-unit laundry machines are becoming very popular and workaround 19
do the plumbing requirements are these very… they have these unique units that don’t require 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
as much plumbing and venting almost ventless machines. That’s another system that’s drawing 1
a lot of energy. I think that the consequence of this approach is going to increase the cost of 2
housing exponentially and it seems like Palo Alto… I shouldn’t say that because I would also 3
suggest to you that there is no way this flies. There’s no way that the community is going to 4
support this, but I would suggest to you that there is a problem. If we are so prepared to shell 5
out the capital that would be required to make this transition and assume that the entire 6
community of people in the peninsula who can barely afford to live here should just jump on 7
the bandwagon because we’re all progressive thinkers. 8
9
And it… look, I don’t want to suggest to you I have some sort of climate-denying philosophy 10
here. I absolutely appreciate this notion that we may be underwater in our children’s lifetime 11
and I subscribe to many of these ideals. I commute, I began commuting just last summer, the 12
summer before this one, on my bike to work several times a week. This is a behavior I’m 13
attempting to adopt in my life and I would imagine… we’ve had conversations where the next 14
vehicle purchase will likely be an electric one but requiring it is a problem. I think that if you 15
wanted to suggest for example taxing use in the City like the way London has a Vehicle Tax in 16
City, where you wanted to increase the disincentive to using your vehicle for local in-town trips. 17
Ok, that’s one stick if you will that I could get behind, but requiring a homeowner who has in 18
otherwise an operating unit to retrofit it I think is a mistake. I think that that… and I think it’s a 19
mistake on a single-family residential perspective because it… my opinion it’s too expensive for 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
the individual owner to do without having anticipated that capital requirement in advance. And 1
I think it’s a tremendous mistake on the multi-family front which I appreciate is a tremendous 2
opportunity to save… to claw back some of those greenhouse gases, but I think it’s going to 3
exacerbate the problem of affordable housing. And it’s ironic that we’re having this 4
conversation and the flip side of it well if we zone for more of this dense affordable housing 5
then VTA will start serving us again. At the same time, I think half of this discussion is talking 6
about changes that would make the affordability of our housing significantly lower. 7
8
And so, my… I wouldn’t support some of these goals in their current execution. I think what is a 9
target if it’s not… if we don’t require it, what’s… it’s kind of like what they did with the 10
[unintelligible]. They just required the stores not to carry them. You couldn’t carry 11
incandescence anymore. They have to be florescent and the access to purchase them became 12
quite difficult and as a result, builders started to exclusively use LED. LED is significantly more 13
expensive, the increase in demand to use LED in California brought the prices down because 14
now people where… the market place was competing to get those purchases because the price 15
was so high. So, I would suggest that we need to come up with a different tactic. Whether we 16
encourage competition through requiring new purchase to be X, ok, or all new construction to 17
comply. I think we’re probably already there, but there is a significant chance that you’re going 18
to require… that in 2031 there’s an individual, maybe a retiree or maybe a young family, who’s 19
required to do a retrofit that will tip a domino. First, it’s well we can’t use this gas heater… 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
water heater so we need to get this electric one. Ok, bring it in. Oh, wait a minute, we don’t 1
have the amperage. We need to bring in the electrician. Oh, we’re going to need a new meter. 2
We’re going to need that 400 because the 200 or 100 that this 50-year-old house has is no 3
longer adequate. Oh, no I need to pay for the… I mean I think it’s a problem and I don’t want to 4
suggest to you that I have the answers of how to solve it. And I wouldn’t suggest to you that I’m 5
some sort of behavioral economist that can come up with an answer. I’m not, but I’ll give you 6
one more antidote. Not too long ago then Assistant Director Lait was before about gas leaf 7
blowers. The irony was not lost on me, the hypocrisy was not lost on me that all single-family 8
homeowners were expected to immediately eliminate the use of gas leaf blowers on their 9
property. Do you know what properties weren’t required to eliminate the use of gas blowers? 10
The City’s properties. Every park, every school, and for good reason because that would have 11
required a labor expense and possibly an equipment expense that was far too expensive for the 12
schools to absorb or for the Parks Department to absorb and I get it. We can’t thank our local 13
budget with the requirement. We have to balance it. It was really easy for the department and I 14
don’t know who it was to decide well, put that cost on the single-family homeowners. They’ll 15
deal with it, but we didn’t require it of our golf course, we did require it of our local schools and 16
we don’t require… I mean that might be a different… that might be school district. I don’t know. 17
We don’t require it for our libraries, we don’t require it of our City’s City Hall, and I think 18
that’s… it’s a sign that I think this… look that was in theory just to overcome that problem. I 19
think this is different. I think that we need to come up with an approach that creates incentives 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
as opposed to requirements and I would add that I also think that the distinction that upon sale 1
all of these changes have to happen is a really good way to make the case that you’re upping 2
the price. This house you could sell in 2028 as is. In 2030 the same house will require the 3
following retrofit. All of this equipment new and so if at say… I think on Page… let’s see here. 4
Electrified gas appliances in single-family homes upon sale beginning in 2025. I can’t think of 5
something that you could do today that would increase the… that would reduce the 6
affordability of our housing stock more than that sentence and for me, I’m really grappling with 7
that. And I once had a conversation with our current City Council Member Allison Cormack and 8
I said to her I think affordable housing is the number one priority in our town. And she 9
suggested that there are other priorities and I remember her saying something about this with 10
sea-level rise. And I, in somewhat of off the cuff suggested look, you can’t care about your 11
home flooding if you don’t have one. And my point here is that we can’t… I’m not suggesting 12
that we ignore the sea level rise. I’m suggesting we have to approach this with a sensitivity to 13
the affordability of our housing whether it’s single-family or multi-family. And maybe there’s a 14
way that there could be a… and this is my last comment. Maybe there’s a way that some 15
analysis can be done that demonstrates the projected increase in cost of ownership associated 16
with this. So, you put a line item that says all home sales require electrification. Go pick a 17
home… go pick five homes, one that was built in the ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s, ought, and 2010s in the 18
neighbor… in the community. I don’t know how you would do that but pick five, do a quite 19
Feasibility Study, figure out what will be required on each home to meet that goal in 2025. So 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
that residents, not just residents, so you, so me, so City Council could say wow. So, if you’re 1
sitting in a home built in 2007… 1970 you’re looking at $16,000. Get an electrician to bid it, get 2
a plumber to bid it because without that info, without that data suggesting how the 3
affordability goes up, I think we’re ignoring the second… maybe the other biggest priority in our 4
community above climate change which is how to afford to live here for members of our 5
community. Ok, that’s it. 6
7
Chair Templeton: Thank you Commissioner Alcheck. Did Staff want to respond to any of the 8
comments? 9
10
Ms. Tanner: I think Commissioner Alcheck made some really great comments. I think one of the 11
main themes of your comments is really about not just affordability overall but that seeks some 12
practicality of these ideas, right? So, I’m wondering if Ms. Luong if you can talk a little bit about 13
how the study or the next steps because I think there’s a calculation of ok option strategy one, 14
how much GHG will this issue… will this reduce over what period of time? And that’s a great 15
number to see which strategies are most effective, but then there’s the other side which is 16
what’s the cost in dollars and cents in other social goods or equity or these other things that 17
might make these things untenable. Whether it’s that we don’t believe in forcing people to do 18
stuff as a political philosophy in a way of governing or yes, we could retrofit every home, but 19
the cost of that is prohibited. The impact on affordability is prohibited and therefore though 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
effective, may not actually be realized so why would we focus on that type of activity if they’re 1
really not going to get us where we need to go. So maybe Ms. Luong you can speak a little bit to 2
how there’s the GHG calculation and maybe this other screen of what will be able to be 3
implemented to move us where we want to go. 4
5
Ms. Luong: Sure, and thank you for raising the… all these issues around affordability and 6
everything else you just brought up Commissioner. So, our directive was to come up with a 7
whole host of possible key actions that could get us to 80 by ’30 without ruling any of them out 8
based on feasibility or legality or just dump them all on the table and then AECOM will do the 9
analysis. So, AECOM is going to look at all of our suggestions and look at not only what is the 10
potential greenhouse gas reduction potential of the actions we’ve proposed but also how much 11
it would cost. So, we’ll have a cost per metric ton of CO2 reduced metric and then also to look 12
at the sustainability co-benefits. So, we are currently getting feedback from the sustainability 13
co-benefits that matter the most to the community. Those include things like cost of living, 14
equity, indoor air quality, productivity, I can’t remember all of them off the top of my head but 15
affordability is embedded in some of those sustainability co-benefits. So, we will then take all of 16
that data to then further refine the Key Actions. Some of them are probably going to be ruled 17
out just because they will be cost-prohibitive. They might… for example, banning all ICE cars, 18
that would get us to our 80 by ’30 goal, but that would probably be way to cost-prohibitive for 19
us to be able to implement. So (interrupted) 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Alcheck: If I could just say I think if that’s the intent to have that analysis done at 2
some future time. I would really… because cost per metric tone might be a number that you 3
can relate to and understand, but I would really encourage Staff and yourself also to consider 4
some real examples. If you want to treat them as case studies because you may surprise 5
people. Maybe you’ll surprise people and they’ll go wow, electrification wouldn’t cost that 6
much, but I think for the community to really debate this. It can’t just be graphs that suggest 7
cost per metric tone or the increased… what is the dollar value of better air quality or 8
productivity? I think we also just need some examples and (interrupted) 9
10
Mr. Luong: And (interrupted) 11
12
Commissioner Alcheck: And you may find that there are volunteers. There may be members in 13
the community who would volunteer their home for a Feasibility Study and you can create a 14
nice diverse set… data set. 15
16
Ms. Luong: And that is a great suggestion. That’s something that I… the Utilities Department has 17
already been looking into. A lot of this… with the last Reach Code cycle, we did do a study to 18
see what is cost-effective. So, for us to be able to… and I hope I’m not getting this wrong but for 19
us to be able to introduce new changes to the Reach Code we have… everything that we 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
introduce has to be cost-effective when it comes to the Energy Reach Code. So, the 1
recommendations in the Energy Reach Code were to require all new homes and low-rise multi-2
family buildings to three-stories or less to be all-electric. And that was only possible because it 3
costs less than to have a mixed fuel home and that’s also why we did not have the same 4
requirements for commercial because some of the large commercial it is not cost-effective to 5
switch to all-electric. So, with that and I’m not the expert in that area, but they did do a cost 6
break down for how much it would cost to electrify a home and what the overall saving would 7
be. And from some of the… I wouldn’t call them pilots but from some of the earlier doctors and 8
the lessons learned are that currently one of the biggest barriers to electrification is the City’s 9
internal permitting process. [unintelligible] cumbersome and for us to be able to include 10
electrification as a key action we need to address the permitting process or it just won’t work. 11
12
Ms. Tanner: Thank you Christine for that and I think I also appreciate Commissioner Alcheck’s 13
comments around how do we make sure people could understand what we get out of the 14
study. And I think that will be part of what Christine and the multi-department team is to try to 15
turn some of these things into real numbers that mean things to regular people. And I think in 16
addition to just the overall cost we’ll be thinking through who bears that cost. So, a high price 17
tag someone might say well it’s fine if someone else is paying for it. And I think you’re leaf 18
blower example is an excellent one of just how do we say who is barring the cost of 19
implementing some of these new policies and what planning sources might be available for 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
them to less that burden; especially with the equity focus. Sylvia, if you had any comments I 1
welcome you to make them and I don’t know if we can… if there’s anything else that 2
Commissioner Alcheck wants to say. 3
4
Ms. Star Lack: I don’t really. I’m interested in his new bike commute which we can talk about 5
some other time but other than that I appreciate the focus on affordability practicality and just 6
implement ability. 7
8
Ms. Tanner: Thank you. 9
10
Chair Templeton: Alright thank you all. Thank you Commissioner Alcheck. Commissioner 11
Hechtman, would you like a bite at this apple? Alright. 12
13
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes, and thank you. I have to confess I thought when I read the Staff 14
Report over the weekend we will be done by 6:45; but this has turned out to be, to me, one of 15
the most fascinating, interesting dialogs we’ve had with every Commissioner that’s spoken so 16
far really bringing a different perspective and a different idea and focus to really, I think flesh 17
out the complexities of this. And so, I’m appreciative that I just get to participate and I’m 18
appreciative of the work that Staff has done to deliver this document to us. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
I did have a couple big picture just overview questions. First of all, Sylvia, you mentioned a 1
July… coming back on July 8th to… is that… are we going to hear this again in 14-days? 2
3
Ms. Star Lack: You’re going to hear the item about recent changes to the California 4
Environmental Quality Act that have to do with Transportation Analysis. So yeah, that’s what 5
you will hear and it fits into all of this conversation. 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok, thank you. So, my next question is, is this the first time that this 8
has come to the PTC since 2016? 9
10
Ms. Tanner: Christine have you brought this to the PTC previously? 11
12
Ms. Luong: Well (interrupted) 13
14
Ms. Tanner: Or some version of it? 15
16
Ms. Luong: Well it wasn’t… well, I wasn’t involved in the 2016 version so I don’t know about 17
that time, but in terms of the 2020 S/CAP, I believe this is the first time we’ve come to the PTC. 18
19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: So, thank you. I’m still trying to get my arms around what comes to 1
the PTC and when. And this, it seems like, the heart of this issue is planning and transportation 2
and it… I was interested [unintelligible – audio cut out] fact that this has been at the Council 3
three, four, five times and this might be our first look at it. So, I don’t know if there’s a short 4
answer as to why that is or maybe this is something I take off… should be taken offline, but 5
again it’s… it seems like something we should be deeply involved in. And clearly, the 6
Commissioners have ideas worth building into the process. 7
8
Ms. Tanner: I think unfortunately myself and Sylvia are relatively new to Staff and the PTC. 9
Albert’s probably our longest-serving person here and I don’t know Christine if you can reflect 10
broadly on just the process of the S/CAP. Because I know that there’s been some other local 11
bodies that have been created and advisory bodies. And so, I think there was a specific group of 12
citizens that were really charged with some of this work and that may have been some of the 13
reason things were not coming to the PTC perhaps in the same way that this is coming forward. 14
Is that true Christine? Am I making that up? 15
16
Ms. Luong: Yeah so for the 2016 S/CAP process there was a sustainability… I don’t remember… 17
their call was like a task force that helped the former Chief Sustainability Officer come up with a 18
lot of the items. In that S/CAP, there was also a S/CAP Summit that had about 500 community 19
member go to that, that really drove what was in the 2016 S/CAP. So, one of the… it’s sort of 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
the cart before the horse for the last S/CAP process. The community-generated a lot of the 1
ideas and then the consultants went and did the analysis and then they went to Council. So, 2
Council had pretty much no feedback on the process until it was… the final product was 3
presented. And at that point all these wonderful discussions we’re having tonight, they never 4
happened and they all happened on that final night. And that is part of the reason why that 5
version of the S/CAP was not approved in full. Only the goal and the framework because they 6
didn’t have this very robust discussion that we’re having tonight. 7
8
So, the 2020 S/CAP process we decided upfront that we wanted to go to Council more before it 9
does to the consultants for analysis so we’ve gone to Council twice. This first time in January it 10
was just an informational report to let them know that we were launching the process. We 11
went to Council not related to the S/CAP but we also went to Council for our annual Earth Day 12
Reports which is a progress report of the previous year’s sustainability progress. And then we 13
went to Council on our Sustainability Work Plan, but in terms of just the S/CAP itself, we went 14
to Council in April and then in June. And I’m not sure how involved the Commissions were in 15
the 2016 process, but for this process, we did want to involve three Commissions, UAC, PTC, 16
and PRC more heavily before AECOM starts their modeling and their Impact Analysis. So that 17
we can get your feedback before to much work is done. And then after that, we’re going to 18
regroup, see what AECOM and Fehr and Peers come back with, and then Staff is going to look 19
through everything. Look at the feasibility, look at the legality, the co-benefits, affordability, all 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
of those factors, and hopefully come up with a package of options that can then be discussed 1
further before it goes to Council again for a final approval. 2
3
And one of the scenarios might be, for example, we could have one scenario where we do some 4
of these high interventions and there’re a lot of pain points if you really want to do true 5
emission reductions to get to 80 by ’30. One scenario might be what we can get to 80 by ’30 but 6
only if we continue the purchase of natural gas offsets. And then we will have true emissions 7
reduction to get… so we have 80 by ’40 or 80 by ’50 we’ll be true emissions reductions. But 80 8
by ’30 we’ll have to use some natural gas offsets to get there. So, everything that we’ve 9
presented tonight and that was included in the Packet, they’re all up for discussion and debate. 10
And we’re really glad that this… the Commissioners have been so engaged with this because 11
this is very helpful for us as well. 12
13
Ms. Tanner: Thank you, Christine. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Alright so (interrupted) 16
17
Chair Templeton: Commissioner Hechtman, do you have more questions? 18
19
Commissioner Hechtman: Oh yes. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Templeton: Excellent. 2
3
Commissioner Hechtman: So, but on this point, I would hope that when the studies are done 4
that it comes back through PTC on its way to Council rather than after Council so that we can 5
add our voice and thoughts to those studies. I think we’re more useful in that role than in a 6
reactive role after it’s been to Council. 7
8
So really the… I’m hoping to get a better understanding of the goals and I do incidentally 9
understand here Staff’s charge is they’ve been given a directive by the City Council. We want to 10
meet our GHG goals 20-years earlier than the state says we need too. So, what would that look 11
like, and as the Staff member said nothing is off the table in asking that question. And so, I 12
understand that… I understand better now that we’ve had this discussion, [unintelligible] 13
because actually as I read through this without knowing… without really understanding that, 14
some of these things seem to me wholey unrealistic, and they may be. And I think Sylvia, your 15
point was Staff thinks that some of them may be wholey unrealistic too, but we’re going to look 16
at them and get some empirical proof if they’re wholey unrealistic. So, and I appreciate that. 17
18
So, but I did want to try to understand these potential major goals that as I understand you’re 19
now going to deliver to AECOM to analyze from a data perspective. And so, what I’m looking at 20
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
is Packet Page 19 where you’ve got all of the potential major goals on one page. I don’t know if 1
you can pull that up or if you have a different page as part of the presentation. One for energy, 2
one for mobility, and one for electric vehicles. These will all work but I think it will be easier if 3
we’re looking at those major goals but energy is the first one and it had a goal and then an A, B, 4
C following it. 5
6
Ms. Star Lack: Can you pull that up, Christine? Oh, you are muted. 7
8
Ms. Tanner: I think she’s pulling it up it looks like. 9
10
Ms. Star Lack: Oh ok. Thank you. 11
12
Ms. Luong: Yes, sorry. 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: That’s ok. So, let’s start with the one on the top of the page, energy. 15
16
Ms. Luong: Ok. 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: Thank you. So, one of the graphs you showed during the 19
presentation and I just didn’t write down the figure is the natural gas component of what we’re 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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trying to achieve is… the number was… it’s the smaller percentage. I mean if we were 1
completely… if we eliminated 80 percent of the gas… of the natural gas by 2030 that’s not an 80 2
percent reduction of GHG. It’s just a percentage of that, is that… did I understand that right? 3
4
Ms. Luong: Correct so of our remaining sources natural gases is about a third and road 5
transportation is about two-thirds. 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok, that’s right. So, help me understand that we have it looks like in 8
this energy three choices or possibly six. Are… so let me just ask, on Line A is 40 percent below 9
1990 level the same as 24 percent below 2018, or are those two different possible standards? 10
11
Ms. Luong: Great question. So, we’ve actually changed this because it is confusing but so for 12
energy, the goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the direct use of natural gas in 13
Palo Alto’s building sector. What we don’t know is what the final percentages will be, so we 14
want to wait and see what analysis from AECOM is before we say if that’s going to be 40 15
percent below, 60 percent below, 80 percent below. So, it’s… there’s a footnote but not many 16
people read the footnote so we’ve changed this wording because it is too confusing, but yes. 17
We know we want to reduce some… the use of natural gas but we don’t know by what 18
percentage yet and that will be dependent on AECOM’s analysis. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok and actually I do read the footnotes. I had a… there’s a con-law 1
professor at Hastings who was known for saying if you don’t read the footnotes your babies will 2
go hungry. It’s very important, but I’m still… and so I do understand the differences between 3
the 40, 60, and 80. That AECOM is going to look at those but is the 40 the same or different 4
from the 24 for example? Is that (interrupted) 5
6
Ms. Luong: Right it’s the 24 below the 2018 bubble. Correct, that’s the same, yes. 7
8
Commissioner Hechtman: Alright and so one of the things you’re hoping that this study will 9
result in is a data-driven recommendation of which of those three potential levels you need to 10
be at to achieve what we’re trying to achieve. 11
12
Ms. Luong: Correct. 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok, thank you. Alright and then moving to mobility which is on your 15
screen there. The question I had is in Point B or Action B I guess, Key Action B. In order to 16
reduce… if we’re going to increase the proportion of residents within a quarter-mile walkshed 17
of frequent transit corridors in order to get from our 61 percent to our 100 percent, is there a 18
calculation yet of how many residents we’re talking about or is that something that will come 19
out of the AECOM study? 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Ms. Star Lack: So, this one might come out of the modeling that is done and this one could… so 2
yeah, I do… I can’t tell you what that would be I mean because population is going to increase. 3
So, one way to do this would be to direct growth to particular locations where we might want 4
transit to be occurring. So yeah. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: I mean (interrupted) 7
8
Ms. Star Lack: We would have to model that. 9
10
Commissioner Hechtman: Right because to me I mean B is to my thinking one of the clear ways 11
we move in the direction of our goal, but I think we’re going to need a quantification of what 12
that looks like to reach our goal in any amount of time. So, I am hoping that some answers in 13
that regard will come out of the study. So, we have a sense well that means of Palo Alto’s 14
anticipated growth of 20,000 people in the next 15-years, two-thirds of those people have to 15
live within a quarter-mile of transit. Whatever the numbers are. 16
17
Ms. Star Lack: That’s what I’m hoping… that’s exactly the level that… of data that I was hoping 18
for. Some kind of… something like that so we can all understand what that means and what 19
that might look like. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Hechtman: Ok and then… so then help me understand the relationship between 2
mobility and electric vehicles here. So, between these two categories we’ve got two-thirds of 3
our GHG production that we’re going to try to get rid of, right? And so, these Key Actions will 4
each of those take a bite out of the reduction or are these five actions… actually, there’s… well 5
some of them are, some of them aren’t but for example, if we go to Electric Vehicles A; 6
increasing the EVs from 4,500 to 42,000. If that actually happened would that solve… that alone 7
would hit our number? 8
9
Ms. Star Lack: Yeah. 10
11
Ms. Luong: Pretty much. 12
13
Ms. Star Lack: That’s why we have the same goal and so… and we wanted to give… I mean A is 14
unrealistic. I mean or maybe it’s not unrealistic it’s just really expensive and has other bad… 15
may have other bad effects but yeah. We wanted to provide all of… a combination so that 16
Council could pick and choose from a menu of items. 17
18
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
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Commissioner Hechtman: So, are there any other of the mobility or electric vehicle Key Actions 1
that also would standing alone, get us where we’re going? I didn’t seem like it to me. Like B… 2
oh I’m… just on that page, I meant. 3
4
Ms. Luong: Oh, just on that page. 5
6
Commissioner Hechtman: Yeah so for example, the Electric Vehicles B, if the only thing we did 7
was increase the share of EV commute vehicles from single digits to 80 percent. Would that 8
alone get the reduction we need? 9
10
Ms. Luong: It would get us close, yeah. 11
12
Ms. Star Lack: I would get us close. I’m not sure… those are commute vehicles so you know 13
there’s cargo, there are other vehicles so and those other heavy vehicles pollute a lot but yeah. 14
15
Commissioner Hechtman: Alright. So, there’re… to me, there’s kind of a mixture of potential 16
Key Actions here. Some will take us part of the way, some… to the extent that they are feasible, 17
some would take us all the way to the extent they’re feasible. 18
19
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Alright then really the only other thing I want to express concern about is at the end of this 1
process we have to have a realistic plan forward. And I think a number of the Commissioners 2
touched on this and I don’t have any reason to believe that Staff has not seen it the same way. I 3
understand the Council has given us a direction to make this happen by 2030, but to my 4
thinking, it is an acceptable and appropriate answer if the data suggested to say we’re not going 5
to get there realistically, but here’s where we can get taking into consideration all of these 6
factors. And that’s really where I think I believe this process is going to end up, but I think we 7
need to recognize that on the front end rather than be surprised and be forced into some kind 8
of admission to failure for not finding a way to get it done when really, from the day it was 9
envisioned it was not realistically going to happen. So those are my comments, thanks again for 10
your good work. 11
12
Chair Templeton: Thank you, Commissioner Hechtman. Staff, did you want to respond to any of 13
these comments? Alright, I see some hands up. I would love to be able to give my comments 14
next and then go to the Commissioners who have follow on comments if that’s alright? I’m 15
going to try since we are going into 2 ½ hours on this item, I will try not to cover anything that 16
we’ve already… any ground we’ve already tread. 17
18
First all just I agree with several of the Commissioners before who have express gratitude that 19
you have brought this to us and engaged us in what is an absolutely wonderful discussion and 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
very meaningful about how to improve the quality in Palo Alto over the next few decades and 1
century. So, thank you for doing that. I understand it is an opportunity to get a lot of feedback 2
and you’ve already gotten a lot of feedback, but that is a signal that you are doing this right and 3
involving the community effectively. Ok if you are not speaking, if you could please mute, thank 4
you. 5
6
Ok, I appreciate the comments about this being more challenging for multi-family homes and 7
single-family homes so I won’t readdress that. The charging of electric vehicles at the workplace 8
may be an incentive in itself. If we can find a way to encourage more businesses to offer 9
charging to their employees. Although I do note that one of our Commissioners and some other 10
folks in the community have suggested that potentially not necessarily offering that as a free 11
service. So that folks will focus on the convenience of being able to charge and not the cost of 12
charging being better at work versus other places in the community. 13
14
I would love to see more charging opportunities on City property. I think we have a few of those 15
but we could do more of that. It would be interesting when you propose this to the City Council 16
in our alternatives just to maybe speculate about what kinds of locations would be better than 17
others because that’s something that we could do sooner. And again, that would incentivize 18
electric vehicles. For example, I’m thinking about the Mitchell Park Library, the few stations we 19
have there are almost always full which is a great sign. And that might be an opportunity for us 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
to do a little bit better and then we can also think about the comments about raising funds 1
through Parking Fees and things like that may become easier if we have the charging stations 2
associated with it. I know that’s a little too much detail on this item so I will move on. 3
4
Thinking about the carrot and stick comment that some of the Commissioners have made. We 5
may want to frame any of the costs that we add as maybe a carbon tax or something like that. 6
So, people understand where the costs are coming from and that it’s for a good reason and not 7
a random reason. So that they can connect these two items that may also help people get on 8
board if we do need to go that direction. 9
10
One of the things I wanted to ask about and I’ll pause in my list of questions to discuss this now. 11
Do we know… do we have information about the two-thirds of students who are not biking to 12
school and what kinds of trips are being incurred and for what reason and how much of that is 13
local? That kind of thing. 14
15
Ms. Star Lack: So, we only have information about school trips, but we do have on the Safe 16
Routes website all the data that we’ve collected for several years; decades in some cases. We 17
have bike… park bike data for decades but if you want to know about the… who’s coming to 18
school by car, who’s coming to school carpooling, we have that data on our website. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Chair Templeton: Great. 1
2
Ms. Star Lack: On the Safe Routes website. 3
4
Chair Templeton: Great, thank you. I bring it up because I think a lot about how we can address 5
that. Mainly I think about it when I’m one of those parents that is in the car trying to deal with 6
that issue and how I wish I was not contributing to that traffic. So, I would love to think about 7
how do… expand the transit discussion to schools in general from a public transit side, not the 8
PAUSD bus. 9
10
But also, since you’re also heading over to the PRC next. Just thinking about… I just did a little 11
search here of what of the parks that I might want to go to… could I get to without driving and… 12
using transit alone. And the quick search I did, didn’t show any ability to get to Foothills or the 13
Dish or whatever with transit. Now that may be COVID related but I would love for you just to 14
think about how some of these common trips would be easier with transit. And we don’t have 15
to cover the whole City necessarily the first moment we roll it out. We can have specific things 16
in mind if we do manage to get our shuttle back. Just thinking about opportunities like that. 17
18
Social equity comments were mostly addressed. The only thing I would add is potentially at the 19
point of replacement, I think Commissioner Alcheck mentioned this, at the point of 20
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3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
replacement might be the best opportunity for us to influence purchases and skew it in the 1
direction. I don’t know how far down that path we want… how prescriptive we want to be and 2
say if you replace… if you’re buying a new appliance it must be this versus using the availability 3
and other incentives that Commissioner Alcheck described. 4
5
I agree with the comments of Commissioner Lauing about and others about the ambitiousness 6
of some of these proposals. However, I think it’s really good for us as a community to know 7
where our bookends are. What’s too little, what’s too much and then that helps us define our 8
space. So, I think it’s really useful to have that, but like some of the other Commissioners, I 9
would encourage you to frame it during your presentation that that is what your intention is. 10
That… and I think you’ve taken some steps to doing that tonight, but potentially… especially 11
when it goes in front of Council, potentially you could be even clearer about that. 12
13
Do we know… one of the Commissioners made a comment about COVID effecting 14
transportation demand. Do we know if that is for health reasons or that people have been 15
asked to work from home? 16
17
Ms. Star Lack: So, transit has experienced… I mean across the country as experienced massive 18
drops in ridership because of Shelter in Place. 19
20
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Chair Templeton: Oh ok, ok. 1
2
Ms. Star Lack: Yeah but at the same time as places open up and if social or physical distancing 3
rules still apply that will reduce the capacity of transit. 4
5
Chair Templeton: I see so how many people could fit on a bus or a train at the same time. And I 6
do understand people are wearing masks when they take public transit now and taking steps to 7
make it safer so ok. 8
9
Ms. Star Lack: Sorry, just one more thing, sorry. And there will be people who will not want to 10
get on a bus or a train at all and will instead… who maybe have already… who may have 11
commuted that way before, but will get into their cars instead because they still feel 12
uncomfortable being in a transit vehicle with the possibility of COVID. That’s what I think that 13
comment is about. 14
15
Chair Templeton: So, do we think that the projects here that we may not have 10-years to work 16
on increasing transit? That needle has been moved ahead 2-years or until whenever a cure is 17
found and that shortens the amount of time that we have to ramp up transit programs? Just 18
something to think about in terms of framing how ambitious we’re going to be because we may 19
not have all 10 of those years. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
I agree with Commissioner Alcheck that it’s good that Staff will be presenting the menu of 2
options because they will be able to have a sense of what the community is ready for. And we’ll 3
have… we’ll continue to have public involvement, public feedback during those discussions. 4
5
And I really liked the idea about case studies and I’ve been thinking about this in general for the 6
City but specifically just to apply it to this situation. Have we developed personas or different… 7
for those who don’t know this marketing term, it’s an imaginary person with characteristics that 8
reflect members of our community. So that we can look at programs from different angles and 9
do we have personas in the City that we could apply these… that would use that lens to look at 10
the proposals through? Like it would affect this particular community more or this particular 11
community less. 12
13
Ms. Tanner: Chair, I’m not sure we have those personas developments, although I love when 14
those are part of understanding things. It gets especially helpful in communication and for 15
people to understand a typical person puts those statistics into something that all of us can 16
understand or relate too. So that maybe something that we can incorporate. I don’t know how 17
it would be incorporated [unintelligible] into the study but perhaps into how we might think 18
about the ways that our Palo Altan’s life looks and relates to that. I see Sylvia nodding. Maybe 19
she can add to how that might fit into the study and this work. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
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provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Ms. Star Lack: I think that might be something to think about after we get through the analysis, 2
but I think that’s a great idea. 3
4
Chair Templeton: Yeah, I think it would be helpful and at least to be able to document. Like 5
Commissioner Hechtman said, we had all these wonderful different ideas from different 6
perspectives and it would be nice to be able to document those perspectives in those lenses to 7
look at. So that if someone comes back and says did you think about this group that would be 8
affected? We can say yes or no, we didn’t and yeah, I think it would be helpful. It’s a way to 9
capture that filter for what is something to consider versus what may be out of scope. 10
11
Ok, I like the idea about the Parking Fees funding the shuttle. I don’t have more to say than 12
other I’m intrigued… other than I’m intrigued by it so that was interesting to hear about. 13
14
And yes, just to close I’m… oh, that’s this page of notes, sorry. Yeah, alright so let me just 15
quickly get to my other notes that I had in the document. It’s not that much. Yes, I agree with 16
Commissioner Summa and the others who have mentioned Corona Virus is… some of these 17
behavior modifications are not lasting, right? These are things we’re doing for now but that are 18
hard and we’re, as a community, I think we may see some major changes whenever it becomes 19
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2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
safer again. So, I wouldn’t rely on the fact that people are going to continue working from home 1
to the extent that they have and things like that and you have that noted on Packet Page 13. 2
3
When you say… right under that on Packet Page 13, that education is an area of focus missing 4
from the 2020 S/CAP. Can you clarify what you mean about that? What kind of education? 5
6
Ms. Luong: Sure, so what we meant is that a broader educational campaign to the community is 7
missing. So, we had 204 participate in our first community workshop which was a great turn 8
out. It was I think a… it happened in week two of Shelter in Place so that was great, but 204 9
people is not a very significant percentage of the 68,000 people who live in Palo Alto. So, if 10
we’re serious about getting to 80 by ’30 with true emissions reductions, then we need to 11
educate the community about what that means. We need to educate them about what it 12
means to potentially shut down the natural gas utility for example, what it means to electrify, 13
what it means (interrupted) 14
15
Chair Templeton: So, education about the program and the kind of decisions that are being 16
made in the program and not necessarily broad education on climate change or something like 17
that? You… specifically awareness of this program? 18
19
Ms. Luong: Correct. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Templeton: Ok, that’s helpful and you just mentioned the Utilities Scale Infrastructure 2
Shift is how it’s worded on Packet Page 15, but that is an interesting outer boundary of what we 3
could do. So, my feedback on that is really that you have abstracted that concept pretty 4
dramatically to say Utilities Scale Infrastructure Shift. It may be worthwhile to say, for example, 5
discontinuing gas service or something like that. So, people can understand it because it’s a 6
little… yeah, it’s a little abstract right now. I think people wouldn’t get… they’d go oh, ok but not 7
really know that that’s what you’re talking about without reading the full Packet. 8
9
Ok, that’s it. I just wanted to say thank you all for presenting this, for preparing this, for 10
incorporating the feedback from the previous discussions so quickly and encouraging such an 11
interesting and lively discussion. I do see we have a few more comments from people with 12
follow up questions. So, I hope you’ll stick around, but fellow Commissioners, I would love for 13
us to maybe set a soft target of 9 o’clock. So, let’s try and keep it short and sweet for these 14
follow-up comments. Thank you. Alright so we’ll call on Commissioner Riggs followed by 15
Commissioner Lauing and then if you want to raise your hand please do so now. 16
17
Commissioner Riggs: Yeah, I can keep it pretty short. So, a couple things, I just wanted to… that 18
I had my original notes on the report that didn’t come up that I wanted to bring up. Congestion 19
pricing, I think Commissioner Alcheck brought it up but I want to reiterate that. It’s a really 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
powerful tool. We didn’t talk about curb or roadway pricing though and curb pricing is 1
definitely emergent so I think Sylvia may want to consider that within our suite of tools. And I 2
know Fehr and Peers has done some experimentation on this. They had a TRB paper on its last 3
year so maybe nudge them a little bit on it. 4
5
Fuel mix, we… this… all the suggestions are super EV heavy and I’m just going to… again if 6
you’ve been tracking the market. The company Nickola is actually valued… a higher value than 7
Ford right now. They are a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle company so I think the fuel mix part needs 8
some investigation. Hydrogen is definitely a part of the future in the next 10-years. It’s… 9
hydrogen is super-hot right now and hydrogen isn’t mentioned once in here and I’m not… the 10
Simpson’s episode is the monorail episode. I’m not trying to be the monorail person but 11
because we’ve been talking about hydrogen for a long time, but hydrogen is definitely should 12
be a part of I think the fuel mix. And we didn’t… this is very EV centric but anything… what 13
we’re seeing now is… even Rivian is going to do wrench vehicles that are hydrogen fuel cell 14
electric. So, we… this needs to be more market-responsive that’s my comment there. 15
16
Sylvia, you’re totally right, our TDM Programs are amazing. I want to commend the Staff but I 17
think more can be done. You recognized that as well and I think I’ve said this a couple times 18
again like integrating behavioral signs is actually critical. It’s something I’ve talked to a number 19
of the corporations around the Bay Area about and Sylvia, you probably at Stanford when they 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
were doing the CAPRI Program. I mean we should bring back the CAPRI Program. If people don’t 1
know about it, Google it. It was actually awesome. 2
3
There’re opportunities with the TMA and with… I’ve been talking with Greg Tanaka and a 4
couple people about little micro experiments we could do in a better radical TDM [note – TMA]. 5
So, I think that maybe circling back with the TMA and looking synergist opportunities with them 6
would be great. 7
8
Finally, low hanging fruit on the EV component, you know Commissioner Alcheck brought the 9
power upgrade question up. I try not to be antidotal here but I did a panel upgrade recently for 10
an EV and the permitting… the Permit Fees were pretty exorbitant. So, I did permit it, I’m on 11
Commission, I went through all the channels and it was really costly and immediate low hanging 12
fruit like why are we charging Permit Fees for a panel upgrade for an EV? I went from a 100-13
amp panel to a 200-amp panel. I should not have had to pay a fee for that and I’m not thinking 14
about this for my own perspective, but as immediate incentive, you could give to do that. 15
16
Lastly, I just want to underscore Commissioner Hechtman’s comment. I’ve expressed 17
frustration from the dais before and I’ve said crass things about being irrelevant. We’re not 18
irrelevant but I do think that Council needs to take advantage of coming to us early and often. 19
And I think that’s… I want to underscore what he said about I feel like we need to see some of 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
this stuff a little bit earlier in the process. And I’ll be honest with you, Commissioner Hechtman, 1
I have the same frustration; is that I’m not sure when stuff is supposed to come to us and I 2
would love to have seen this 6-months ago. And this is not a Staff critic, it’s not a process critic, 3
but I just think… and please, I would love to see this stuff earlier and to be a part of the dialog 4
earlier. That’s it. 5
6
Chair Templeton: Thank you, Commissioner Riggs. Commissioner Summa and then 7
Commissioner Lauing. Commissioner Summa, you had some comments to share? 8
9
Commissioner Summa: Sorry I didn’t realize I was had put my hand up, but I will… just I’ve been 10
putting a couple things in chat. Oh, we’re not supposed to be using chat, ok. 11
12
Chair Templeton: It’s fine. Let’s just share it here now. That’s fine. 13
14
Commissioner Summa: I didn’t realize we weren’t supposed to be using chat. I just… since you 15
called me… on me, I do want to mention that a lot of the assumptions that we’ve made about 16
transit-oriented development, even by Peter Calthorpe, who’s sort of the father of transit-17
oriented developer for all you planning nerds like me out there. They’ve decided that won’t 18
work in the Bay Area. One of the reasons is the inadequacy of the existing public transit systems 19
we have. They just don’t go to the places people need and also the extremely absorbent cost of 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
creating new public transit systems. So, he has made a come around for those of you who know 1
Pete Calthorpe he has a different model that’s based on really small electric vehicles that would 2
have… take you from destination to destination. Which is kind of futuristic for us to consider 3
right now, but I do think that it’s important to remember that transit all over, but especially in 4
the Bay Area, has been declining. The use of public transit every year as kind of in lockstep with 5
the rise of ride-hailing services. And so, I want to be careful about counting too much on that 6
because I think it… we may get caught up in something that we’re trying to do in good faith that 7
it’s… is no longer actually as viable as we would hope it might be. So, and I also want to put in a 8
plugin for vegetarianism because it has a profound effect on the environment. I’m just being 9
goofy. 10
11
Chair Templeton: Alright thank you, Commissioner Summa. Mr. Yang? 12
13
Mr. Albert Yang, Assistant City Attorney: So, I’m just going to share my screen quickly. I just 14
realized recently that there were some Commissioners who were using the chat function of the 15
webinar and just to ensure that these communications are also being made publicly. I’m going 16
to basically share the… what went on there. It’s basically Commissioner Riggs shared the 17
statistics from the Census that he also spoke about on the record, Commissioner Roohparvar 18
[note – Vice-Chair Roohparvar] thanked him for that information and then Commissioner 19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Summa made some comments that she just reiterated again on the record. But this was what 1
was happening in the chat and we will refrain from using that feature in the future. Thanks. 2
3
Chair Templeton: Thank you, Mr. Yang. I would also like to disclose that I have been 4
coordinating speaker order on one to one on the chat as well. Just asking if a Commissioner 5
wants to go next so we will refrain from using that and move on. So, Commissioner Lauing you 6
are next. Thank you for your patience while we worked through that legal item. 7
8
Commissioner Lauing: Thanks. What Commissioner Riggs brought up at the end, I had as one of 9
my two points quickly that I wanted to raise. And I would say that the fact… it is a process 10
problem that we’re not seeing these things before Council does. Council only saw this a week 11
ago, so if we had seen it two weeks ago or four weeks ago that would have helped them which 12
is one of our goals because we just had a 3-hour very productive discussion. And they could 13
benefit from that and I think that’s the better process than to have it a week after Council. So, I 14
would just record that for the record. 15
16
And the second thing is that I totally understand how you folks got your assignment and how 17
your bookending all the options. Frankly, I’m just thinking that for efficiency purposes for your 18
time and the consultant’s money. If there are things like the ICE vehicles, you already know that 19
if we eliminated internal combustion engines the problem is solved. So, I don’t really 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
understand why you would bother to have them run that scenario because you already have 1
the answer. 2
3
So, it’s such just kind of out there and then the second one is I think… I hope when you come 4
back with these options you also have some sort of a probability or maybe even better say 5
these are ones we don’t recommend for such a reason. You can say that the hot water heaters 6
cost $500 not including fees and you don’t think that we really want to burden people with 7
that. So, we would have to pay for it ourselves and there’s 50,000 households so that’s $25 8
million, what do you think we should do? I think we should skip. So just a reasonability quotient 9
there which I think would help Council parse all these options on the menu when they get 10
them. So, thanks. 11
12
Chair Templeton: Alright last call for hands-on speaking on this item? Alright seeing none I 13
wanted to thank you all again. Great conversation. As the Commissioners have shared we’re 14
eager for this kind of content. We would love to see more and engage in these types of topics 15
more. So, thank you for bringing it to us and we hope to see more sooner, earlier, whatever we 16
can to engage on these kinds of conversations. We’re really excited about it as you can see so 17
thank you very much for joining us tonight. Ok, we will close that item. 18
19
Action Items 20
Public Comment is Permitted. Applicants/Appellant Teams: Fifteen (15) minutes, plus three (3) minutes rebuttal. 21
All others: Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 22
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Approval of Minutes 1
Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 2
3. May 27, 2020 Draft PTC Meeting Minutes 3
Chair Templeton: And I believe the last agenda item is minutes. Would anyone like to make a 4
motion about the minutes? Raise your hands or unmute yourselves. Ok, Commissioner Summa. 5
6
MOTION 7
8
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: I’ll move to approve the minutes. 9
10
Chair Templeton: Thank you. 11
12
SECOND 13
14
Commissioner Summa: Second. 15
16
Chair Templeton: Was that Commissioner Roohparvar… I mean Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 17
18
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yes, yes. 19
20
Chair Templeton: Ok thank you. Any seconds? 21
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Commissioner Summa: Second. 2
3
Chair Templeton: Commissioner Summa, thank you. Any comments? Seeing none. 4
5
Commissioner Riggs: I wasn’t (interrupted) 6
7
Commissioner Hechtman: Comment. 8
9
Commissioner Riggs: I wasn’t at this meeting so do to COVID related issues so I’m going to 10
abstain. 11
12
Chair Templeton: You will abstain, alright. We’ll do the voice vote and thank you for clarifying. 13
14
Commissioner Hechtman: Comment. 15
16
Chair Templeton: Oh, comment, you do? 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: I had sent in some revisions. They weren’t mentioned but I had sent 19
those to Staff a few days ago. I think of… yeah, the May 27th. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Chair Templeton: Alright Staff did you receive those comments? 2
3
Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: I believe so. So, Vinh can you verify if you received the 4
comments? 5
6
Mr. Vinhloc Nguyen, Admin. Associate III: Yes, I did. I thought I had sent it out to everyone. Did 7
that not happen? 8
9
[note – many people started talking at once] 10
11
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: I thought I got them. Sorry. 12
13
Chair Templeton: That’s ok. Were there any substantial changes in case anyone did not see 14
them? 15
16
Mr. Nguyen: No, they were actually only just grammar changes. 17
18
Chair Templeton: Ok great. In that case maker and seconder would you amend the motion to 19
approve with Commissioner Hechtman’s feedback incorporated. 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
MOTION AMENDED 2
3
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yes, so I’d like to move to approve the minutes including Commissioner 4
Hechtman’s comments. I mean revisions. 5
6
Commissioner Summa: Sorry, I agree. 7
8
Chair Templeton: Alright thank you. Mr. Nguyen can we take a voice vote? 9
10
VOTE 11
12
Mr. Nguyen: Yes, Commissioner Alcheck? 13
14
Commissioner Alcheck: Aye. 15
16
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Hechtman? 17
18
Commissioner Hechtman: Yes. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Lauing? 1
2
Commissioner Lauing: Yes. 3
4
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Riggs? 5
6
Commissioner Riggs: I’m abstaining. 7
8
Mr. Nguyen: Ok. Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 9
10
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yes. 11
12
Mr. Nguyen: Commissioner Summa? 13
14
Commissioner Summa: Yes. 15
16
Mr. Nguyen: Chair Templeton? 17
18
Chair Templeton: Yes. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Mr. Nguyen: Thank you, the motion passes. 1
2
MOTION PASSED 6(Alcheck, Lauing, Hechtman, Roohparvar, Summa, Templeton)-0-1(Riggs 3
abstain) 4
5
Chair Templeton: Excellent. Thank you all. We will close Item Three and move onto Committee 6
Items. 7
8
Commission Action: Roohparvar motion, Summa seconded. 6-0 vote (Riggs abstained) 9
10
Committee Items 11
Chair Templeton: Any Committee updates? 12
13
Commissioner Questions, Comments or Announcements 14
Chair Templeton: Ok, hearing none we can move onto Commissioner questions, comments, 15
announced, and future agenda items. And I would like to remind you if you have new vacation 16
plans that would prevent you from dialing into this meeting remotely or cause any other 17
absences, please let us know. Thank you. Alright and I’m not seeing any new comments come 18
up. 19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
1
Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: If Commissioners don’t have comments I can speak to 2
the future agenda items if that’s alright? 3
4
Chair Templeton: Yes, please. 5
6
Ms. Tanner: So, as we mentioned several times today on our next meeting on July 8th we’ll be 7
talking about VMT. That was also a discussion that happened at Council and they did make a 8
decision because we had a July 1 deadline to make a decision about our new VMT threshold. 9
And so, part of the purpose of that study session is because as the PTC will be reviewing EIR 10
documents with these new thresholds with the new VMT applied. And so, we want to make 11
sure that you all are acquainted with and school in as much as we can in one study session this 12
new threshold. And so that when you see that it will be different than previous CEQA 13
documents and EIRs that we may have reviewed in the past. 14
15
And then we’ll also be having a discussion about the Regional Housing Needs Allocation and 16
Ms. Atkinson who was here this evening will be bringing that forward to talk about the RHNA 17
allocation. You may have recently seen that HCD, the Housing Community Development 18
Department with the state, did release the numbers to the Bay Area of what the total allocation 19
is for the Bay Area. All of the counties that are under the jurisdiction of ABAG and MTC and that 20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
is about 440,000 homes needed in the next RHNA cycle which is I believe an 8-year cycle. So, 1
this is a 6-cycle and for context, the previous cycle I think was like 100 and… don’t quote me, 2
like 187,000 or so home which was just only 8-years ago. So not that long ago was the 2015 to 3
2022 cycle, so it’s a significant increase from that time. And I will say I love housing and I think 4
RHNA is really important. I know we have different… people have different views about RHNA 5
but I think figuring out housing is important. I think the uncertainty of COVID has made all of us 6
kind of want to take a pause but I don’t see that happening and I think that this is going to 7
continue. We’re going to be moving forward with our Housing Element, we’ll be moving 8
forward with addressing the housing crisis even as it continues to take shape and change 9
perhaps under COVID. This is the role that we’re wadding into. So, we will welcome your 10
feedback on that process and as we can at this point give feedback to the Housing Mythology 11
Committee on the methodology that we’ll be using in the Bay Area to take that big RHNA that is 12
for the whole area and allocate that out to jurisdictions. So, we’re at a good point in time to 13
really be giving feedback on that. 14
15
And then later in July at our second meeting, we’ll be having the Castilleja project come 16
forward with it’s final published EIR for consideration. So that will be a long night I imagine so 17
please your sleep the night before and be ready to pay attention to what may be our longest 18
Zoom meeting at least as the PTC. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
So, I’ll leave it at that and then just add that tomorrow, and next Tuesday for the NVCAP we’ll 1
be having two small group meetings to try to have… to facilitate more discussion by having not 2
all 14 of us there, but having groups of seven. To see if we can work towards actually building 3
some consensus around how we might tackle some of the issues that that group is working to 4
address. So, I look forward to that, I think it will be a really rich discussion as it always is, but 5
hopefully perhaps even more dialog just we’ll have more capacity and more space to talk 6
amongst us. So those are the upcoming things and I think the last thing I wanted to add is I 7
believe we did all confirm and thank you to have a joint session with the ARB. I believe that’s in 8
August and so we’ll make sure that you have the Zoom link and everything for that. 9
[unintelligible] just a hold on your calendar and we’ll work to get you prepared for that meeting 10
as well. So, thank you all for your responsiveness to that item. 11
12
Chair Templeton: Thank you. Do you think we could add that to our list of 2020s scheduled 13
meetings, that joint session? 14
15
Ms. Tanner: Yeah. 16
17
Chair Templeton: I know that it’s not on our original meeting list, but it would be great to have 18
it in there for the public. 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Ms. Tanner: Yeah that’s a great suggestion. Thank you, we’ll that in there for the next meeting. 1
2
Chair Templeton: Thank you. I see Commissioner Summa has raised her hand. 3
4
Commissioner Summa: Just a quick request for Staff, I think our next meeting is going to have 5
big, really heavy material and reading and studying up. And if any of that is available before the 6
Friday before the meeting it would be great to get it early and (interrupted) 7
8
Ms. Tanner: Yeah. 9
10
Commissioner Summa: Yeah. If it’s possible obviously. 11
12
Ms. Tanner: That’s a great suggestion. We try… we do have some materials probably that we 13
can provide earlier that may not be with the Staff Report that they’re kind of… I don’t want to 14
say evergreen, but they’re not going to… the material… the attachment is the attachment 15
whether the report comes out on Friday or today and so we may be able to provide those. 16
There’s also a couple of videos that are part of the Staff report that do a really good job of 17
giving an overview of these new thresholds and that’s a good primer before diving into the 18
reading materials. Sylvia? 19
20
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Ms. Sylvia Star Lack, Transportation Manager: I mean the… a lot of… I mean all the Council 1
materials are public and you can read those. So, we could just forward the Council Staff 2
Reports. 3
4
Ms. Tanner: Yeah but what we can do we’ll have Vinh send the Staff report from the Council 5
meeting and maybe highlight… Sylvia, we can highlight what’s relevant to maybe pay attention 6
too. And also include the video links in that email so you can just really quickly find those 7
materials. 8
9
Chair Templeton: I really (interrupted) 10
11
Commissioner Summa: That would be helpful. 12
13
Chair Templeton: I appreciate that suggestion Commissioner Summa especially as there is a 14
holiday weekend in there that one may try to not spend 8-hours a day in front of the computer. 15
It would be nice to be able to frontload that a little bit so I appreciate that suggestion very 16
much. Ok, any other comments? We are adjourned. Thank you all. 17
18
Ms. Tanner: Thank you, everyone. Have a good night. 19
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1. Spokespersons that are representing a group of five or more people who are identified as present at the meeting at
the time of the spokesperson’s presentation will be allowed up to fifteen (15) minutes at the discretion of the Chair,
provided that the non-speaking members agree not to speak individually.
2. The Chair may limit Oral Communications to 30 minutes for all combined speakers.
3. The Chair may reduce the allowed time to speak to three minutes to accommodate a larger number of speakers.
Adjournment 1
9:11 pm 2