HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-01-27 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: January 27, 2021 2
Virtual Meeting 3
6:00 PM 4
5
Call to Order / Roll Call 6
Approximately 6:02 pm 7
Chair Hechtman: Let’s see, Ms. Klicheva will you please conduct the roll call? 8
9
Ms. Madina Klicheva, Administrative Assistant: Yes. Thank you. Chair Hechtman? 10
11
Chair Hechtman: Present. 12
13
Ms. Klicheva: Vice-Chair Roohparvar? 14
15
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Present. 16
17
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Alcheck? 18
19
Commissioner Alcheck: Present. 20
21
Commissioner Alcheck: Commissioner Lauing? 22
23
Commissioner Lauing: Present. 24
25
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Summa? 26
27
Commissioner Summa: Present. 28
29
Ms. Klicheva: Commissioner Templeton? 30
31
Commissioner Templeton: Present. 32
33
Ms. Klicheva: Ok, thank you. We have a quorum. 34
35
Chair Hechtman: Thank you. We are now... we’ll move into Oral Communications. 36
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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.
Oral Communications 1
The public may speak to any item not on the agenda. Three (3) minutes per speaker.1,2 2
Chair Hechtman: This section is for the public to speak on items not on the agenda. Please raise 3
your hand if you wish to speak. On the Zoom app, there is a raise hand button on the bottom of 4
your screen. If you’re dialing in from a phone remember to press *9 to let us know you want to 5
speak. Ms. Klicheva, are there any public speakers for Oral Communication? 6
7
Ms. Madina Klicheva, Administrative Assistant: Yes, we have one raised hand, and let’s bring up 8
the timer. 9
10
Chair Hechtman: I believe you will have 3-minutes for your public comment. Good evening. 11
12
Ms. Klicheva: I see Aram James. You can unmute yourself and share your public comments. 13
14
Mr. Aram James: Good evening. Can you hear me? 15
16
Ms. Klicheva: Yes. 17
18
Mr. James: I was able to learn a little bit about… my mom saw a backdoor neighbor. You know 19
Teddy use to do a lot of walking out on the Baylands and I’ve got a poem that I might share with 20
you Bart [note – Chair Hechtman] called Harker Pelican. But in any event, I… you’ll find… my 21
name’s Aram James and normally you’ll find me at City Council meetings. I’m a retired public 22
defender and I see the amazing number of lawyers here. I don’t have that kind of a law firm 23
background. I spent my entire career as a public defender, line public defender. In fact, every 24
day in the courtroom cross-examining mostly cops and other folks, but I have to… and I spend a 25
lot of time at City Council and HRC meetings but I have to admit that I’ve spent very little time. I 26
don’t think I’ve ever talked at the Planning and Transportation Commission. I sent you all some 27
notes today and an article from the Roll Stone on Safe Parking Programs. And since we’ve got 28
some really amazing folks and I know that the liaisons, MIT, everybody is really extortionary 29
great academics. I know one of the Members went to Georgetown. I went to another school in 30
Washington DC for my first half. It starts with an H but in any event, I want to talk to you about 31
the Safe Parking Program that’s being proposed in Palo Alto. It’s really an embarrassment. It 32
wants to just use a couple of poor churches. You know cash-poor churches to do what the City 33
should be doing and I’m wondering with all these amazing land use folks and lawyers here 34
whether we could find an appropriate piece of property in Palo Alto where we could have a 35
robust Safe Parking Program. A program where you know modeled after the program that I 36
sent you the piece on, on the Santa Barbara Safe Parking Program and they have a… I visited 37
there with Chuck Jagoda back in about 2011, 2012 when I was on Stop the Ban. I also sent you 38
an article on a piece that I wrote back in about 2013 when Liz Kniss and the City Council wanted 39
to ban people from living in their vehicles altogether. I’d like to take some funds from our… the 40
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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.
Police Department. Not a lot but they have an extraordinarily [unintelligible] fund and also from 1
the proposed jail. I should say new police station and see if we could use those funds instead of 2
trying to ask Churches to do the impossible. We back in 2012/2013 reached out to 41 faith 3
communities. There was very, very little interest. People are very fearful of having folks living in 4
RVs in Palo Alto but we really need to do that as a social statement. That Palo Alto takes care of 5
its own. Ok, I hope to talk with you later on some of the agendized items, but it’s a great 6
pleasure to be dealing with folks with so much background and so much experience. Really an 7
honor. Talk to you soon. 8
9
Chair Hechtman: Thank you for your comment. Are there any other (interrupted) 10
11
Ms. Klicheva: So, for interrupting. Yes, we have one more raised hand. It’s Rebecca Eisenberg. 12
13
Chair Hechtman: Ms. Eisenberg you have 3-minutes. Welcome. 14
15
Ms. Rebecca Eisenberg: Thank you so much, Chair Hechtman. I am grateful to be here. First, I 16
want to thank my good friend Aram James who is always a voice for the community and he 17
speaks too loudly on behalf of public interest. So, I want to remind you that you’re also 18
supposed to be a voice for the community and you’re also supposed to speak on behalf of 19
public interest. So, I’m sure that you’ll do that this year. 20
21
As Aram pointed out, there are lots and lots of different kinds of lawyers that practice in 22
property real estate related law. There are lawyers who represent tenants. There are lawyers 23
who represent buyers. There are lawyers who represent… well, buyers of small property. There 24
are lawyers who present small businesses; again, mostly tenants. There are lawyers who 25
represent Cities when they do their job and actually prevent harmful developments to take 26
place in a City. Developments that cause pollution, cause dangerous traffic that, for example, 27
put a commercial operation in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Who interpret laws 28
the ways that they’re supposed to be interpreted on behalf of the public interest. Lots and lots 29
of lawyers, including me and my husband, who have all practiced lot in the field of real estate 30
and property. All three of you on this Commission represent a very tiny, yet most lucrative, slice 31
of property… real property law practice, as I’m sure you know, which is representing 32
commercial developers. And especially, representing commercial developers in their disputes 33
with Cities like Palo Alto. 34
35
Now it wouldn’t have been my first choice to have three of you, half of the Commission, 36
represent… and the Chair and the Vice-Chair actually have legal duties on behalf of clients who 37
are on the other side of the table. Maybe… but maybe one of you would be fair but given that 38
you’re in his situation, I think it’s more than fair for you all to take the possibility, not 39
mandatory, but still if you asked me, morally required stand of disclosing any or all conflicts of 40
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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.
interest. Including even interests that created perceived conflicts of interest. Such as the fact 1
that one of you has a family that is a huge donor to Castilleja and is from what people say, 2
hoping that Castilleja will grant admission to your own daughters and that one of you actually 3
shares a lawyer with Castilleja’s lawyers which maybe creates the perception that you might be 4
partly paying for Castilleja’s legal fees. Why not just get everything out in the open and just let 5
the public know so you can reassure us there are no conflicts. Thank you so much. 6
7
Chair Hechtman: Thank you. Are there any additional Oral Communications? 8
9
Ms. Eisenberg: I don’t think that was combative, do you? 10
11
Ms. Klicheva: No, we don’t have any raised hands. That concludes Oral Communications. 12
13
Chair Hechtman: Thank you very much. So, we will move now to Agenda Changes, Additions 14
and Deletions. 15
16
Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions 17
The Chair or Commission majority may modify the agenda order to improve meeting management. 18
Chair Hechtman: And I do have an agenda change tonight that I’d like to propose to the 19
Commission. Tonight, we have two study sessions. Agenda Item Two is the South Palo Alto 20
Bikeways Project study session. Item three is the PATMA study session and I would like to flip 21
those two agenda items. Any comments from any of the Commissioners? Let’s see, 22
Commissioner Summa, I saw you raise your hand. 23
24
Commissioner Summa: Oh, thank you so much. So, I’m concerned that the item regarding the 25
VERBS, if I can use the acronym, grant project for bikeways and community engagement plan 26
was considered two night ago in an Action Item by the City Council and that both of our 27
suggested recommendations from Staff, One and Two, were covered in an Action Item by the 28
City Council. In addition to other considerations they had which were I think more budgetary 29
which isn’t really in our purview. And that it isn’t necessary at this time for us to discuss this 30
until… on Council Action until Staff comes back with some specific options for both the… for 31
Number Two which is the plan to engage the community and also the plans to… the actual plan 32
options for the improvement to bicycle paths. So, I was just very confused by the timing and 33
why it was on our… why it was before us tonight when it seems kind of backward because we 34
cannot… we don’t have the ability to recommend something to Council that they have already 35
taken an action on. So, I was wondering if it might be a better use of everyone’s time to only 36
take public comment since this was agendized. Open the public hearing, take public comment 37
and close it and then not discuss it amongst ourselves until there was further action by Staff for 38
us to respond to. 39
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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 Hechtman Alright, let me hold that thought for a moment and again, find out if there any 1
other Commission comments on flipping these two agenda items and then I’ll come back to this 2
point Commissioner Summa has made. Any other… I’m not seeing any other Commissioners 3
raised their hand. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: I am. 6
7
Chair Hechtman: Oh, sorry. I’m not (interrupted) 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: I’m just raising this hand. 10
11
Chair Hechtman: Oh ok, good. [unintelligible] the (interrupted) 12
13
Commissioner Templeton: What would… do you want to share your rationale for the proposed 14
change just for the benefit of the public? 15
16
Chair Hechtman: Sure. One of our Commissioners won’t be able to participate in Item Two so I 17
was hoping to move Item Three up so that Commissioner could participate and (interrupted) 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: And sign off. Ok. Yeah, that’s fine. I can support that. 20
21
Chair Hechtman: So, I’m not seeing any objection to that. Mr. Yang, is it the discretion of the 22
Chair to reorder the agenda or do I need a vote? 23
24
Mr. Albert Yang, Assistant City Attorney: Yes, that’s within the Chair’s discretion so there’s no 25
motion required. 26
27
Chair Hechtman: So be it and then Commissioner Summa, what I would ask is if we… when we 28
get to the Bikeways Project agenda item, let’s have that… the issue you raised, let’s discuss that 29
upfront and get Staff input on why they might want to go forward with Commission 30
communication or not based on action the Council took two nights ago. Would that be 31
acceptable? 32
33
Commissioner Summa: That sounds reasonable but I’m wondering if you could shed more light 34
on the… who will not be available later? I just… if you could be more specific. 35
36
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Do you want me to just… go ahead, Chair Hechtman. 37
38
Chair Hechtman: I’ll recognize the Vice-Chair. 39
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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.
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: I can’t participate. I can’t participate. I live within 500-feet of the project 1
so I’m going to have to recuse myself. Yeah, cannot discuss the topic. 2
3
Commissioner Summa: Got it. 4
5
Chair Hechtman Got it? 6
7
Commissioner Summa: Thank you. 8
9
Chair Hechtman: Alright, alright so we’ll… after City Official Reports, which we’re about to do, 10
then we’ll move to our study sessions and we’ll start with the… what is Agenda Item Number 11
Three. And once that’s concluded we’ll go to what is listed as Agenda Item Two on the agenda. 12
So, let’s move now into City Official Reports. 13
City Official Reports 14
1. Directors Report, Meeting Schedule and Assignments 15
Chair Hechtman: Ms. Tanner, do you have a report for us? 16
17
Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: Yes, first we will do just a little bit of business. We kind 18
of began this last time, thinking about our calendar together for the upcoming year. So, you’ll 19
notice on the calendar there are three dates noted with notations in the rightmost column. So, 20
one of them is the 8th, or sorry, is August 11th which is the PAUSD start week so that’s when 21
school begins for the next school year. Hopefully, it will be in person so perhaps even more 22
momentous than a normal school year. We have the date before Thanksgiving and then the 23
29th of December which is the week of New Year's Eve and New Years Day. And so, we would 24
want to see if the Commission would be interested in proposing those four cancellation. In 25
addition, I did speak with Chair Hechtman and possibly proposing July 28th and August 11th for 26
cancellation. That would give a little bit of a summer break to the Commission and so a time to 27
hopefully late enough in the year, perhaps we can even be planning a real vacation, who knows, 28
but a time to know that we will not have meetings if there is need to plan for travel or for other 29
time off. Even if it’s a staycation, so we can come back to that if we want or I’m interested if 30
Commissioners have comments about having those three and possibly four days canceled in 31
the calendar for 2021. Is anyone opposed to it? I see Commissioner (interrupted) 32
33
Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Lauing, I see your hand. 34
35
Commissioner Summa: I see Commissioner Templeton has a hand. 36
37
Commissioner Lauing: Did you recognize me? 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.
Chair Hechtman: I did. 1
2
Commissioner Lauing: Oh, sorry. 3
4
Chair Hechtman: And then Commissioner Summa. 5
6
Commissioner Lauing: It just feels a little bit early to do that is my first automatic response. In 7
the context of, we’ve had a couple of lean years where we didn’t get a lot of agenda items and 8
we’ve had a lot of cancellations. If that were to happen again early in the year then we’d 9
already have other plans booked for those other 3-weeks. So, it seems a little premature is my 10
first reaction. 11
12
Ms. Tanner: Is that for the July date? I’m assuming… I guess I’m making an assumption that the 13
New Years' Eve week and the day before Thanksgiving would be canceled but unless there’s 14
strong opposition to that. We’ve just traditionally (interrupted) 15
16
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah, I would like... yes, Ms. Tanner but my comments were focused 17
more on 7/28 and 8/11. I don’t actually know at this point if there’s… how many of the 18
Commissioners… the start week for school is an issue. I could be one or two or three, I don’t 19
know but. 20
21
Ms. Tanner: Yeah, that’s a good point. 22
23
Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Summa then Commissioner Alcheck. 24
25
Commissioner Summa: Thank you so much. I don’t see the need and I don’t… for a summer 26
break for the Planning Commission. We have not typically had that because we don’t meet 27
every week. I mean we meet twice a month typically so I don’t see the need and I agree with 28
Commissioner Lauing it’s a bit premature. I also think the start of school, I don’t know, I mean it 29
seems like… I appreciate what an important time that is for parents of young children or 30
children in school but it seems a bit arbitrary to me. So, I would say that we should meet 31
throughout the year to do the job of the Commission. 32
33
Chair Hechtman: Thank you, Commissioner Summa. If I could ask if your comments also apply 34
to the meeting schedule the day before Thanksgiving and the meeting New Year's Eve week, or 35
are you really focusing on just the summer? 36
37
Commissioner Summa: Oh, thank you for asking. The day before Thanksgiving, I’m kind of iffy 38
on and I don’t feel as strongly about that but I think that the summer holiday concept is not one 39
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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 has been a tradition in the Planning Commission. I think we work throughout the year 1
because we don’t meet every week and I feel more strongly about that. 2
3
Chair Hechtman: [unintelligible – no audio] New Year's Eve, the December 29th? 4
5
Commissioner Summa: New Years, I sort of feel the same about. It doesn’t seem necessary for 6
me but if people felt strongly about it. I actually spoke to the… the ones that I felt more strongly 7
about so thank you for asking. 8
9
Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Alcheck. Unmute please. 10
11
Commissioner Alcheck: Thank you. I’ll do my sort of big picture perspective on this is that I have 12
always suggested that I don’t… hold on one second. 13
14
Chair Hechtman: Looks like school-aged children. 15
16
Commissioner Alcheck: I know, it’s crazy. I don’t know where they came from. I don’t… they 17
just invaded my home. Ok, let me try that again. Big picture, I have always sort of suggested 18
that I think that we don’t need a full house to do the work of the City. And in the past, we’ve 19
had efforts to ask will everyone be at this meeting, it’s an important meeting and I sometimes 20
think that that gives the wrong impression to the community that we do… we’re here to show 21
up when we can. There are always going to be instances where Commissioners can’t make a 22
certain meeting and I think that we shouldn’t assume a meeting will get canceled unless, for 23
example, Staff receives multiple cancellations and then goes oh, we’re worried about having a 24
quorum. So, that’s just my philosophy. I don’t think we should be afraid to have meetings of 25
four people if the City’s… if our By-Laws say four people is enough for us to do the business of 26
the City. 27
28
Ok and then I would suggest to you that we should absolutely cancel the meetings between 29
Christmas and New Year’s. We should cancel the meeting before Thanksgiving. This is not just 30
because that would be convenient to us. The vast majority of the people that we are hosting 31
these meetings for, both applicants and residents, are not going to find a meeting in that 32
timeframe convenient to provide their public testimony if you will. Right, and what is awful is 33
when we feel… it’s…. that phone never rings. What is awful is… hold on a second. What is awful 34
is when we feel like we haven’t had a chance to collect public testimony or the public wasn’t 35
given enough of an opportunity to respond right, and so we’d be setting ourselves up for that 36
criticism if we hosted a meeting during a period of time when nearly every corporate office is 37
on break. 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.
And so, and then I would add one more thing which is that I don’t have strong feelings about a 1
summer break. I would suggest to you that, and I have said this in the past too if the City 2
Manager is running his Planning Department in such a way that they are lean during one of the 3
summer months. Which is to say that like if applications were received, maybe the Planning 4
Department hasn’t had a chance to properly vet them or prepare them. Then I don’t see why 5
we would schedule meetings during that period time if we knew that we were sort of lean and 6
couldn’t. So, if it’s the intention of the City’s head to operate lean during that month as some 7
sort of HR policy for the Planning Department then I think we should respect that. And so, I 8
would just throw it back to Assistant Director here, Tanner, and suggest that if her office is 9
working late during one of the summer months. Then I don’t see why they would have to 10
remote in just for us. 11
12
And then I would say one more thing which is I think that we would earn a lot of praise from 13
our community if we figured out a way to get ahead of the game when it comes to the 14
publication of our weekly reports. Which is to say that in a perfect world, I imagine… we have a 15
meeting scheduled right now for February 10th. What if we told only… we didn’t tell ourselves 16
but we told everyone else that that meeting actually wasn’t going to take place on February 17
10th. That we were going to push it a week and then we prepare like it was going to be on 18
February 10th and then we got the Packet a week and a half before the meeting as opposed to 19
two days before the meeting. What I’m trying to say is I would love it if we somehow got on this 20
schedule where we were ready for meetings like 2-weeks out as opposed to 72-hours out and I 21
wonder if is that all just pushing every meeting like 2-weeks? I don’t know if that just means like 22
pushing everything out like 1 ½-weeks or 2-weeks and so that we’re basically ahead of 23
schedule, but I feel like we got that criticism a lot towards the end of last year which was just 24
that people felt like they didn’t have enough time for these very thick Packets. And I sometimes 25
feel like, even though I can make the time, it seems rushed. So, to the extent that that’s an 26
option when we have space in the schedule, we sort of don’t give it to ourselves but we do 27
push it anyways. And then we accomplish two goals at the same time. You give yourself break 28
but we’re also ahead of schedule. Sorry, last comment. 29
30
Chair Hechtman: So, Chair Templeton, I see your… Commissioner Templeton, I see your hand is 31
up. Old habits, but Ms. Tanner, do you want to talk about the timing of Staff reports now or do 32
you want to hold it until we finish this discussion of which meetings we might take off the table, 33
and then we’ll cover it during your… the remainder of your report? 34
35
Ms. Tanner: Certainly, we can conclude this section. I mean I can say briefly, it’s not a matter of 36
pushing things back. It’s a matter of when we’re requiring Staff to have reports finished and 37
project sponsors and other items to be submitted. So, it isn’t about pushing the meeting date 38
back. I don’t know if that was the suggestion. It’s a matter of the publication deadlines and then 39
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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 Staff deadlines for finishing items and preparing them for publication. So, I don’t know if 1
that answers the question but. 2
3
Chair Hechtman: I understood Commissioner Alcheck. Although he’s speaking euphemistically 4
about imagining the dates were pushed out, he’s really talking about earlier publication of the 5
materials so there’s more time to work with it before the actual meeting. 6
7
Ms. Tanner: It would be a challenge. It’s not impossible but it would be a challenge. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Alright, well just to transition us back, I would agree with 10
Commissioner Alcheck that it’s also challenged to prepare with a short amount of turnaround 11
time between when the Packet is received. Mine didn’t come until Monday this week so in this 12
case, it’s ok but in some cases, that’s too short. 13
14
Back to the schedule, I think that somehow maybe some context was lost about the week that 15
school starts. That is just a particularly challenging week for those of us with kids in the school 16
system. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we want to take that time off so those of you who 17
were implying that that was the request. You know if Commissioners can’t make it that week, 18
they can let people know they can’t make it that week, but I think it was important to let Staff 19
know that that week is typically challenging. And it’s expected to be more challenging this year 20
than any other [unintelligible] so heads up. So, I think it’s fine to have it has an annotation and 21
especially as you’re thinking about what items to agendize. Please just keep that in mind that 22
attentions may be split that week. 23
24
Regarding the summer break, I was… I always appreciate it if we do have a light week and if we 25
can combine that week with another week and that’s especially true over the summer. That’s 26
again up to Staff and how they want to agendize things but it’s always appreciated that we’re 27
really efficient with the use of our times and especially our on-call times. Of course, all of us are 28
more than ready and available to meet when we need to meet. 29
30
I think that the holiday times that were suggested as cancellations are fine with me and just to 31
let the other Commissioners know. Just like we did this year, if we find ourselves in an 32
especially heavy load time, there’s always the possibility that we can agendize an additional 33
meeting during adjacent weeks. So, that it doesn’t interfere with the holiday and we can still 34
get the business of the City done. So, I think all of that is to say let’s definitely cancel 35
Thanksgiving and New Years' Eve weeks and be on the lookout for other potential changes that 36
may come as we develop the agendas. 37
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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 Hechtman: Thank you. Vice-Chair Roohparvar, do you want to share some thoughts or 1
you may have… well, let me share mine and we’ll wait for Vice-Chair Roohparvar to come back 2
on. 3
4
I’m supportive of eliminating the two-holiday proximate meeting dates. We did that this year 5
and I am open I would say to taking the meeting of the August 11th off and if it’s the will of the 6
Commission, to take the July 28th off for the reasons that Ms. Tanner explained. But I’m… it 7
feels like subject to Vice-Chair Roohparvar’s comments that maybe on those two were not… I’m 8
not hearing consensus so far that we should take that action now, although we may look at it 9
later in the year. So, let me have you chime in Vice-Chair Roohparvar and then I want to talk for 10
just a second on the timing of Staff reports. 11
12
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Sure. I agree, I think we should take the November and January… the 13
holiday breaks off. I think that’s what most people agree on and I would agree. With respect to 14
the August date, given people have childcare and there’s going to be less engagement with the 15
public and then I’d be open to taking July off too Commissioner Hechtman [note - Chair 16
Hechtman] if the Commission so chooses and feels that’s the right direction. 17
18
Chair Hechtman: [unintelligible – bad audio] 19
20
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Just similar to what you said basically. I basically agree with what you 21
said. 22
23
Chair Hechtman: Sure. So, my sense of the will of this group is that we’re comfortable 24
eliminating the November 24th and December 29th at this time but really not ready to take 25
action on the summer schedule. So, to do that Mr. Yang, is that just the will of the group or do 26
you need a motion? 27
28
Mr. Yang: I think this is actually an area where Assistant Director Tanner, as the secretary for 29
the Commission, works on the schedule for the year. And so, she’s just soliciting feedback from 30
the Commission and will take it from there. 31
32
Chair Hechtman: So, then Ms. Tanner, do you have adequate direction on this? 33
34
Ms. Tanner: Yes, I do Chair, thank you. 35
36
Chair Hechtman: Ok so just before, I did want to very briefly touch on the desire that 37
Commissioner Alcheck mentioned with just a couple of points. I do… I work in a number of 38
jurisdictions and it’s pretty typical that the squeeze, as Commissioner Alcheck might call it, that 39
we find ourselves in with the Staff material coming shortly before the meeting. It’s a pretty 40
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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.
typical timeframe. A Friday delivery for a Wednesday meeting. Sometimes a Thursday meeting, 1
or a Thursday delivery for a Tuesday meeting in those jurisdictions that are having their 2
meetings on Tuesday. One thing I have noticed when I started on the Commission last January, 3
we would receive our Packet on Friday, as we do now, electronically, but also our Packets were 4
typically hand-delivered on Friday. That action had… was curtailed with the pandemic for 5
reasons of Staff safety I think and so now our Packets do arrive somewhat later. But I think it’s 6
clear to me that a number of the Commissioners value the hard copy and that it’s a more 7
workable document. And so, I’m… while it won’t get us all the way to what Commissioner 8
Alcheck is thinking of, I’m wondering if Staff can look at whether there’s a feasible way of 9
getting those Packets before the weekend; the hard copies delivered. 10
11
Ms. Tanner: Yeah, we can certainly look at that. I think part of the challenge has been with City 12
Hall closed, our courier service getting access to the mailroom and the print shop that’s 13
physically in the building. So, we can maybe revisit the protocols that would allow that and the 14
timing of perhaps our print shop being able to provide that access for the courier service. And 15
we as you know, probably know, we’ve been using the mail and so that’s part of the timing 16
delay. 17
18
Chair Hechtman: Thank you and I’m not dissuading you from investigating. Rather you may be 19
able to push the typical date sooner than the Friday before the meeting to help out with 20
Commissioner Alcheck’s concern. 21
22
Ms. Tanner: Great, thank you. 23
24
Chair Hechtman: Alright, more? 25
26
Ms. Tanner: I do have just a few quick updates. I do promise to be quick. I know we’re a little 27
behind schedule. One is just what you probably all already know which is that we’re now in the 28
purple tier as a county on the state’s color-coded four-tier system. You’ll… you may remember 29
that there are four colors. Purple, red, orange, and yellow. Purple is the most widespread of the 30
virus is widely spread in the community so it’s still not a great place to be compared to where 31
we were before. I mean in the summer we were heading toward yellow and so some new 32
services in and activities are now allowed. Outdoor dining, you can get your hair cut, there 33
some more allowance for certain types of gatherings, certain sports and things like that. So, it’s 34
definitely hopeful that we’re moving in the right direction with our ICU beds and things like 35
that, and certainly welcome news for some of our restaurants, tours, and other local 36
businesses. That they can have increased capacity or really for hair salons and things, that they 37
can operate at all as they were not able to operate in their facilities for the past almost 2-38
months. So that certainly is good news. 39
40
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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.
We do have the City Council will be having a retreat on Saturday, January 30th from 9:00 am to 1
4:00 pm. It remains a remote and virtual meeting. So, if you’re interested in participating in that 2
retreat the agenda is online and the information for participating. Again, that’s this coming 3
Saturday which is already at the 30th of January. 4
5
And then for the Regional Housing Needs Assessment or allocation process, the RHNA process, 6
this month ABAG Board voted to… voted on the methodology by which they would allocate 7
housing units to jurisdictions within the Bay Area Region. And so, we have, as Palo Alto, 8
received an allocation of about 6,000 units. You may recall earlier reports that we had about 9
10,000 units allocated to the City of Palo Alto and as a result of integration of the updated 10
blueprint which the blueprint is the 2050 long-range plan for the Bay Area. The integration of 11
that data as well as some changes in the strategies that looked more towards putting housing 12
units and jobs in areas that are closer to transit like some of our major Cities; San Francisco, 13
Oakland. Those Cities had an increased allocation and Cities like Palo Alto and others have a 14
reduced allocation. So, we went from about 10,000 to about 6,000 units. How that will next 15
come to you all will be through our Housing Element process which is going to be the topic that 16
City Council will discuss next week to help us figure out how to we’re going to get together a 17
community input process for the Housing Element. What that will look like and how we can 18
begin in earnest working on our 2023 Housing Element. 19
20
So, those are my updates. Sylvia, Ms. Star-Lack, did you have an update you wanted to give. I 21
saw you come on screen but maybe you were just getting ready for the next item. 22
23
Ms. Sylvia Star-Lack, Transportation Manager: Just getting ready for the next item. 24
25
Ms. Tanner: Ok, alright, sorry about that. So, that’s my report, and thank you so much, 26
Commissioners. 27
28
Chair Hechtman: Thank you. I see two Commissioner’s hands. Commissioner Summa and 29
Commissioner Lauing, are you wanting to speak to the report here? Commissioner Summa, let’s 30
start with you. 31
32
Commissioner Summa: Thank you so much. Just very briefly with regards to Commissioner 33
Alcheck’s concern about the date of release of Packets. I do think and I could be wrong about 34
this and I know that Staff is still working on finalizing the new BCC Handbook, but I do think that 35
there is a standard in there for Board and Commission... but I could be wrong and Rachael 36
Tanner will correct me if I’m wrong. But I do think there is a standard that is consistent with the 37
Council release which is supposed to be 10-days I think before which is different than the state 38
law. But I’m not sure but I think there is some clarification in the new BCC Handbook about 39
release times for Boards and Commissions. So, I just wanted to mention that. Thank you. 40
Page 14
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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. Tanner: Thank you and certainly one of the things we are working on and Vinh Nguyen is 2
helping us is a process to get our procedures in line with that, but we do need a little bit of time 3
to do that. And then also the handbook is supposed to be coming back to the Council as 4
ordinance changes so we want to start moving in that direction. I also do want to see the ink 5
dry on the ordinance changes before we move too far because you never know things could be 6
tweaked. Especially, we have some Council Members so we are preparing for that and we’ll be 7
bringing that before you as well as an item to discuss some of those changes. 8
9
Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Lauing. 10
11
Commissioner Lauing: Yes, two quick things. I want to underscore that it’s not just the attorneys 12
here that want the paper. I think most of us want that paper because it’s just more convenient 13
to work that way and then have it in front of us when we’re chatting. 14
15
Secondly, while it’s not probably always possible to get it earlier than how it’s coming. I’ll raise 16
a point that I have mentioned many times in the last 4-years which is on some significant items 17
that are going to be not only controversial but take a lot of time to prep for. We just can’t have 18
those on an action calendar with only one meeting. It’s a disservice to us because we can’t 19
prepare adequately to give our best judgment, and it’s a disservice to the public who don’t 20
benefit from our best judgment, and also kind of get that all sprung on them, and then it’s an 21
action item that night. So, I would really ask again, with a double-underscore, that on these 22
more complex issues we just have to have time to do it and if you can’t get to it. I’m not making 23
any comment on that but then we should have to extend it to a second meeting or maybe even 24
boot it. So, you can make that call maybe in conjunction with the Chair. Thank you. 25
26
Chair Hechtman: Thank you. Alright, Ms. Tanner, you’ve concluded your Director’s Report? 27
Alright, then let’s… we’re going to move now onto Agenda Item Three which is a study session 28
with the Palo Alto Transportation Management Association, PATMA regarding the 29
organization’s efforts to reduce single-occupancy vehicle trips, reducing congestion and 30
demand for parking, and improving the quality of life in Palo Alto by mitigating transportation-31
related emissions and adaptations during COVID-19 pandemic. 32
[The Commission moved to Agenda Item Three] 33
Study Session 34
Public Comment is Permitted. Five (5) minutes per speaker.1,3 35
36
3. Study Session with the Palo Alto Transportation Management Association (PATMA) 37
Regarding the Organization’s Efforts to Reduce Single Occupancy Vehicle Trips, 38
Reducing Congestion and Demand for Parking, and Improving the Quality of Life in 39
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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.
Palo Alto by Mitigating Transportation-Related Emissions and Adaptations During 1
the COVID-19 Pandemic. 2
Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: Thank you very much, Chair Hechtman. We have our 3
Office of Transportation. This is turning kind of into a transportation evening in some ways and 4
so we have Ms. Sylvia Star-Lack who will be introducing our guest who will be with us. We also 5
have Philip Kamhi who is our Chief Transportation Official with us as well so Sylvia, take it away. 6
7
Ms. Sylvia Star-Lack, Transportation Manager: Thank you so much. Good evening 8
Commissioners. Tonight, the two remaining topics on the agenda both relate to a major focus 9
of the Office of Transportation and that is improving quality of life via reducing traffic 10
congestion. The first is the Palo Alto Transportation Management Association and the second 11
one is the Safe Routes to School or VERBS project. Both of tonight’s items fall into the category 12
of transportation demand management which is a fancy term for reducing single-occupancy 13
vehicle use and increasing the efficiency of our roadways by diversifying the types of 14
transportation available. And you may hear us use the term SOV which stands for single 15
occupancy vehicle that carries a driver only. So, just in case we transportation folks start talking 16
in this lingo, you… I’m sure you’ve heard it before, you know what it is. 17
18
The first item, the Palo Alto TMA, is a non-profit funded by the City that works to help 19
commuters into Palo Alto to leave their cars at home by providing transit passes and car pool 20
subsidies. The TMA reduces congestion, reduced demand for parking in our garages and on our 21
neighborhood streets, and improves air quality. The TMA Board consists of businesses located 22
in downtown and California Avenue and the City is also a member of the TMA’s Board of 23
Directors. 24
25
The second item tonight is the South Palo Alto Bikeways Project and that’s a grant-funded 26
project to improve safety and accessibility on three school bike routes. So, that more families 27
will use biking for the school commute. It turns out that reducing the number of cars arriving at 28
a school improves safety for everyone commuting to that school. A bonus of this particular 29
project is that it has key bike network connections that will benefit all users of those facilities. 30
So, I just wanted to frame tonight’s items in the Transportation Demand Management world for 31
you. These are our two most successful and really kind of unique in the world or maybe not the 32
world but unique in the nation very successful programs each in their own way. The Safe 33
Routes Program and the TMA. 34
Page 16
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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
So, now I’d like to introduce Steve Raney and Kruti Ladani from the TMA and they will take it 2
from here. 3
4
Mr. Steve Raney: Thank you. Good evening Chair Hechtman and Vice-Chair Roohparvar, 5
Commissioners, and City Staff. I’m Steve Raney and presenting with me tonight will Kruti Ladani 6
as well and we are the Staffers for the TMA and then the Board is representing Westin, Premier 7
Properties, Amazon, and City of Palo Alto. I also want to acknowledge some of our hall of fame 8
Board Members from the past including restaurant owners Rob George and Zareen Khan, the 9
City’s Michelle Flaherty, Palantir’s Bob Magrew, and Google’s Lucy Noble. 10
11
So, the objective tonight is just to orient you to the TMA; who we are; what we do. So, we’ll 12
cover the history and mission, our Transit Pass Program which is unique in the US, our metrics 13
which are actually pretty unique and we’ll explain how the metrics have gone down due to 14
COVID. We’ll talk about our unique in the nation Bike Love Commute Incentive Program and 15
talk about collaborating with the two new Marriott’s on TDM. Talk about our unique survey and 16
then give a look to the future. 17
18
So, as you know, pre-COVID traffic was the number one and number two issue in all the 19
peninsula Cities. As part of our response to that, Council canalized the formation of the TMA 20
with a Colleague’s Memo in 2013 leading to a TMA study and the TMA was in operation by 21
2016. The first program was a Scoop Carpool subsidy and then it was followed by the Transit 22
Program. And the TMA has non-profit status and began as fiscally sponsored by the Silicon 23
Valley Community Foundation and then achieved 501c3 status in 2019. And my and Kruti’s 24
company ALTRANS started providing Staffing services in 2018 and the Board wanted us to grow 25
by 5 quick rapidly and that was the big push. So, as previously stated, our mission is to reduce 26
traffic and demand for parking by improving in-commuting, contributing to quality of life, 27
economic vitality, and environmental goals. And we serve both downtown and Cal Ave and Cal 28
Ave was just a recent Council decision this year. And our funding primarily comes from City of 29
Palo Alto and primarily that comes from the University Avenue Parking Fund. In the previous 30
fiscal year, that was $750,000 and because of COVID, that got reduced to $750,000 [note- his 31
slide says $350,000] in this fiscal year. We also collect revenue from grants and employers and 32
with that, I want to pass it to Kruti to talk about the Transit Pass Program. 33
34
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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. Kruti Ladani: Thanks, Steve. Well, our commuters are low-income workers that work in 1
restaurants, hotels, healthcare, finance, and retail in the downtown as well as California area… 2
California Avenue Area. Some of these jobs are ideal for Spanish speakers and we communicate 3
in Espanyol where it is preferred. Inside jobs, we’ve seen that Staff turns over twice per year 4
but our program has significantly improved employee retention over the years. Pre-COVID the 5
TMA administered 271 passes with more passes for Caltrain than the other buses. Indicating 6
the in-commuters from our Norther Peninsula and South Bay are more frequent than the 7
neighboring Cities. We were spending $31, 000 per month serving 66 businesses through a 8
unique door to door outreach method. Next slide, please. 9
10
By way of a remarkable and nationally significant programs, we’re changing lives and 11
businesses here. We help employers attract and retain talent by elevating the cost burden and 12
making it feasible for employees to work in an expensive area. You might have seen these 13
testimonials in the City Council presentation as well. Next slide, please. 14
15
So, what does a typical service worker commuter profile look like? Service worker usually works 16
low—wage jobs, often two jobs at a time, with varying hours so that makes commuting very 17
challenging. The tech workers on the other hand get massages, sleep pods, at their workplace. 18
The low workers are often SOV or drive alone just to have a place to nap. The gentrification of 19
local housing to South Bay or East Bay further increases the commute challenges by increasing 20
the distance. Some workers move their cars every 2-hours with… and because of their month to 21
month job perspective. They avoid purchasing the 6-month low-income parking permit. In 22
contrast, some works receive housing subsidies to live closer to work. SOV tech commuting in 23
Palo Alto is as low as anywhere else. Next slide, please. 24
25
So, how does the program work from the PATMA? PATMA distributes Clipper Cards and 26
electronically adds monthly passes to these cards via the unique backend on consumer 27
software Clippercard.com website. It’s amazing that the… that this software works because it’s 28
really old, but it’s not 100 percent reliable. For instance, the Caltrain users are expected to tag 29
when they get on the train, ride the train and then tag another reader when they get off, but 30
reading the second tag can often result in a negative balance and a $75 citation fee that the 31
service workers eventually pay for. In contrast, BART’s Fare Gate avoids this problem and so we 32
look forward to the Clipper 2.0 upgrade. The current system requires an extra level of customer 33
support and administration work that presents challenges of scale. We’ve documented some of 34
these complexities in a National FTA Report which is linked here on the slide and with that, back 35
to you Steve. 36
37
Page 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.
Mr. Raney: Thanks Kruti. Late-breaking news, we have a potential for a very exciting cost-saving 1
from Caltrain and it’s worth actually reading Caltrain’s equity statement from their Equity 2
Report. They want to prioritize the needs of transit-dependent riders, enhance equity in its 3
system, make services more relevant to lower-income people and members of racial groups 4
who have historically been marginalized and overlooked in planning processes. So, what they’re 5
proposing to do, what they’ve adopted, is to have employers donate Go Passes to non-profits 6
such as PATMA which would potentially eliminate our $31,000 per month Caltrain costs. So, the 7
details, the timing are to be determined. You know it was just adopted last week but it’s very 8
exciting. Ok, so that’s the Transit Pass Program and now let’s talk about our metrics. 9
10
So, if you're skeptical about TDM efficacy, well so is Council Commissioner Filseth who said 11
don’t tell me about effort-based TDM. The list of things that you do. That’s a little too touchy-12
feely. I want performance-based outcome metrics and so one of our key metrics is the number 13
of cars we’ve removed. And this is a look at 2020 and in February we removed 387 cars. The 14
blue is Caltrain… blue is the Transit Pass Program and green is our Ways Carpool Program and 15
you can see that once we had sheltered in place. Then things dropped way off and then began 16
to pick up as we began to hit orange level in the fall and then drop a little bit again when we hit 17
purple in December. So, that’s our cars removed metric key performance indicator. 18
19
Now next we’re onto our innovative new Bike Love Incentive Project. So, we’re going to provide 20
daily incentives for verifiable first mile to transit trips and direct to work commutes and up to 21
$600 per year per commuter. And very innovative project and we’re going to geofence with 22
location tracking to confirm those active mode trips. Including putting geofences around 23
Caltrain stations and the… and this is all sort of smart phone driven. Incentive dollars can be 24
redeemed with your Apple or Google Wallet to local merchants. So, we’re going to geofence 25
how you can get authorized to use the money. So, we’re going to pour that money back into 26
the Palo Alto economy and so there’s a multiplying effect from that. And this is a $346,000 27
project where we’ve won $100,000 in federal funding. And it’s important that Council’s pushing 28
us to graduate or to generate more revenue from external sources and reduce the hit on the 29
University Avenue Parking Fund. And in our particular grant proposal, two grants were awarded 30
out of 40 proposals and we were ranked number one. So, we had a uniquely, well-received, 31
concept and unlike a typical TMA, we’re in the software product management business team 32
with our software developer. It’s an exciting project and regionally MTC is forecasting that four 33
of the upcoming mode shift, the biggest gain is going to be to bicycling. And this project is 34
nationally prominent because we’ve got the Federal Transportation Research Board, American 35
Public Transit Association, Los Angeles Metro Transits Office of Extraordinary Innovation, MTC’s 36
new Mobility Group. It’s important that we have the bike storage vendors that have the bike 37
storage at Caltrain stations. If you think holistically of the challenges that we have to do to get 38
people to bike to Caltrain and park. Silicon Valley Leadership Group and Silicon Valley Bicycle 39
Coalition. So, that’s our Bike Love concept. 40
Page 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
And another activity we have is collaborating with the two new Marriott’s at 744 San Antonio 2
on their TDM Plan. So, there’s 30 required items in the TDM elements of the entitlement and 3
one of those items says you’ve got to join the TMA and so that’s caused our collaboration. And 4
if you think about our program such as Ways Carpool we have a nice way to account for trips 5
that go to those hotels by… again by geofencing and we’ve got the scale of having a City-wide 6
Ways Carpool Program. The economies of scale for applying that to those hotels. Interestingly, 7
there is a requirement to have a shuttle to get people for meetings at Google as well as to 8
Caltrain. And there’s a potential to City to TMA sub-regional collaboration between PATMA and 9
MVgo that already offers a shuttle that [unintelligible] San Antonio. So, we may be able to add a 10
stop at the hotels and those hotels are about three parcels away from Mike’s Bikes and there’s 11
going to be a Mike’s Bikes that’s going to help with the bike program there. 12
13
And now we’re onto another activity we do which is our commuter survey and like SRPgo, we 14
have an outreach focus Commute Survey to drive adoption of our programs. So, the idea being 15
you take the survey and we motivate you to start using Ways Carpool the next day or we inform 16
you about our Transit Pass Program and get you to apply for it. So, we are able to lower the 17
cost of our Commute Survey by bringing it in-house and by this very painstaking walking down 18
University Avenue, door to door going in and picking up business cards, and so forth. We’ve 19
tripled the number of responses and we’ve read some interesting information for the Business 20
Registry and we were able to increase our program adoption by 30 percent. So, it really worked 21
to reach out our tentacles into the 800 businesses, mostly tiny, in downtown. 22
23
Now, this is a look at some of the charts from our Commute Survey. So, we have four economic 24
sectors. Government, lite office, service workers and technology and they have different 25
commute mode share. So, if you look at government, that’s City of Palo Alto, then the bars four, 26
five, and six on the left show a reduction in SOVs, single-occupancy vehicle, commuting over 3-27
years down to 42 percent. Then we’ve got lite office. Then we’ve got the service workers who 28
have that higher baseline SOV mode share at about 70 percent and then again, our tech 29
workers literally have the lowest SOV in the nation, but one thing you’ll find is when you 30
increase a number of respondents. Then there’s a phenomenon where that tends to increase 31
your SOV but SOV in 2019 was 37 percent from the tech worker respondents. That is our 32
Commute Survey. 33
34
Then the other key metric we have looks at cost efficacy. The cost per year of one car reduced 35
or one SOV commute reduced. So, in row one there are super cost-effective ways to do it 36
where the Gates Foundation Seattle charges people $12 a day if they commute via SOV. So, 37
they actually make money from their program, and then our programs are four, six, seven, and 38
eight in blue. So, our Bike Love Program has the potential to reduce our cost per year for SOV 39
reduced and then our other three programs run around $1,600 per year per SOV reduced. And 40
Page 20
_______________________
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.
then also comparing with some other sorts of TDM efforts, SRPgo gave their cost per commuter 1
at roughly $5,000 per year for running private express motor coaches. 2
3
So, finishing up, looking into the future thinking about the world post-vaccine, returning to 4
work, economic recovery. A key role in the TMA is helping to accelerate the rehiring of service 5
workers providing restaurants and retail with a competitive advantage over other Cities by 6
having a subsidized commute. So, we think of ourselves as part of the Uplift Local effort to 7
reenergize the economy and the other thing that’s interesting is all those folks that are working 8
from home. When some of them return there’s this psychological fresh start where we can 9
build a new and greener commute habit. And also looking into the future, we’re discussing 10
collaborations with other Cities and we changed our By-Laws to allow collaboration sub-11
regionally, and East Palo Alto and Menlo Park have TMA studies underway. So, they may from 12
TMAs that we can help with and we aspire to come back later to the Commission this year to 13
talk about the progress on our Bike Love Project. And of course, we’re always open to meet and 14
brainstorm with Commissioners and with residents. So, thank you very much for your time. 15
16
Chair Hechtman: Thank you Mr. Raney and Ms. Ladani for that informative report. I’d like to 17
find out from the Commissioners if any of you have questions that you feel need to be asked 18
before we take public comment. If so, please raise your hand. Commissioner Lauing, I see your 19
hand up. I’m thinking that’s a carryover from before. Alright, I’m not seeing any Commissioner 20
hands up. So, this is not a… this is study session item, it’s not a public hearing, but we do invite 21
public comment and so now I’m going to open the floor for public comments. Please raise your 22
hand if you wish to speak to this item. On the Zoom App, there is a raise hand button on the 23
bottom of your screen. If you are dialing in from a phone, remember to press *9. Ms. Klicheva, 24
are there any public speakers for this item, Number Three? 25
26
Ms. Klicheva: Yes, we have three raised hands at the moment and our first speaker is Aram 27
James. Aram James, you can speak now. 28
29
Mr. Aram James: So, this seems inextricably linked with a Safe Parking Program. The folks that 30
are living in their RVs and their vehicles are being told to move every 72-hours. They’re really 31
environmentally inappropriate and I see that we’ve got… maybe I’m going to push Ms. Tanner 32
to move beyond the next time she presents on the Safe Parking Program just the poor… cash-33
poor strapped churches and maybe we get Google. Do a grant writing to Google and Facebook 34
so that they, as well as City government, can support a very strong, robust parking program 35
where these vehicles don’t have to drive. They’re admitting all sorts of bad toxics and they’re 36
permitted to be here under the constitution. I’ll remind you, the ninth circuit decisions in 37
Desert Lane that when Liz Kniss was trying to prevent people from living in the vehicles 38
altogether. That decision came down and quashed her mean-spiritedness but I don’t think you 39
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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.
are mean folks here. I think you want to also consider the most vulnerable here in this 1
transportation equation. 2
3
Also, if we could get our police from running around all the time in their police vehicles. Get 4
them out of those vehicles, unless there’s really a need for it, and get them walking the beat. 5
Getting to know the community. When was the last time you had somebody over here in the 6
Duveneck Neighborhood, for example, walking the beat? When do you ever see our cops? 7
Unless they’re driving real fast by, polluting the sky, etc., etc. So, part of the defunding notion 8
isn’t that we don’t like some police officers, ok? There are some good ones out there but 9
(interrupted) 10
11
Chair Hechtman: James? Can I interrupt you for just a moment? 12
13
Mr. James: I’d like my time back and (interrupted) 14
15
Chair Hechtman: I’d like to stop the clock, please. 16
17
Mr. James: Thank you very much. 18
19
Chair Hechtman: Yeah, The reason I interrupted you is that (interrupted) 20
21
Mr. James: I’m glad you [unintelligible – audio cut out]. 22
23
Chair Hechtman: Your clock is stopped. While your comments are of interest, they don’t seem 24
to be on the topic of the presentation that we just had which is the agenda item which is the 25
sole focus of comments that we’re taking right now. So, that’s this effort by PATMA to reduce 26
single-occupancy vehicle trips, congestions, and demand for parking. So, if you have comments 27
on this topic, then I invite… we’ll turn back the clock… turn the clock back on and you can make 28
them. If your comments are on the item that you have been discussing then again, we value 29
those comments. This is just not the right place for them. Public comment is the right place and 30
of course emails. We… this Commission is very good about reading those, so I will ask you if you 31
do have comments on this particular agenda item. If so then we’ll hear them out for the next 32
minute and 25 seconds. Mr. James? Are you still there? 33
34
Ms. Tanner: I think we may need to unmute Mr. James for him to be able to speak. Oh, there 35
we go. Ok. 36
37
Ms. James: We disagreement Mr. Chair. I believe the comment I made are exactly on point. 38
We’re talking about transportation issues that spoil the environment of the City of Palo Alto. 39
And I’m talking about the Safe Parking Program that needs to get cars off of the roads and into 40
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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.
a safe place and I’m talking about our police officers who drive around recklessly often and we 1
need to control that as well. So, you and I disagree and that happens between Members of 2
Boards and citizens all the time, but I draw your attention to New York Times versus Sullivan 3
which is the core principle of the (interrupted) 4
5
Ms. Tanner: Ok, Mr. James, I do appreciate your comments but as the Chair noted they are not 6
on the topic of the Palo Alto TMA and so in respect for our rules we’re going to need to 7
conclude your comments at this time. Is that the will of the Chair, to conclude those 8
comments? 9
10
Chair Hechtman: Yes, it is. Mr. James, please email any comments you didn’t get to make. The 11
Commission will read them. 12
13
Ms. Tanner: Thank you. 14
15
Chair Hechtman: Thank you, Ms. Tanner. Let’s move to the next speaker, please. 16
17
Ms. Klicheva: Our next speaker is Rebecca Eisenberg. Rebecca, you can speak now. 18
19
Ms. Rebecca Eisenberg: Thank you. First of all, I want to say that that was pretty uncool to mute 20
Aram like that. I think his comments were related to this extent. How can we actually talk about 21
taking cars off the street if we don’t talk about housing the people who live in cars or providing 22
a place for the people who live in cars to live in maybe a more permanent place? And I didn’t 23
see any of that in the presentation and so that’s why it’s possible to talk about the 24
presentation… well, talking about things that were missing. 25
26
With that said I only have 2 ½-minutes so I just learned about this Palo Alto TMA which I 27
understand is a non-profit organization funded mostly by Palo Alto. So, given that, we need to 28
know who’s on its payroll. I couldn’t even find a list of employees before this presentation. Not 29
on the website and I couldn’t find any publicly filed documents with the IRS. Maybe I need to 30
look harder. That’s actually pretty relevant since the City funds it. 31
32
What you did reveal for the first time after me doing a lot of digging of who sits on their Board 33
of Directors. So, I actually have… this is relevant. I’ve actually sat on several non-profit Boards of 34
Directors, including Craig’s List Foundation and also the National Board of Legal Momentum 35
which is the national organization for women, legal defense, and education fund. The oldest 36
organization on earth that represents the needs of women and girls and especially violence 37
against women and having sat on at least… actually a couple other in addition Boards of 38
Directors of non-profits. I know from personal experience, also from being a lawyer for 30-39
years, that Boards of Directors actually have control and power over the employees. Given that, 40
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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.
I wonder why the people that given the biggest control over this effort to make our City car-1
free include only four organizations. Westin Hotels, Amazon.com, a commercial developer, and 2
the City of Palo Alto. Wouldn’t it be wise to put an environmentalist, an expert on making Cities 3
car-free, someone who works for tenants, someone who works on the human being side and 4
not the profit-making side of the equation on this Board of Directors? I think it’s pretty 5
appalling. I mean fine, have one of those companies but we all know that hotels, commercial 6
developers, and… well, sometimes commercial developers but always Amazon needs, as part of 7
their business model, to keep cars on the road. This is a terrible and absolutely holy unfitting 8
choice to lead this organization. 9
10
Finally, and there’s so much more to say but finally, how can you actually have a presentation 11
about taking cars off the road without talking about putting housing near jobs. Also, how about 12
lifting the ridiculous parking requirements that are required for any housing development? 13
Hotels don’t want that. Neither does Amazon. Come on guys, can we take this seriously, 14
please? Thank you for your time. 15
16
Chair Hechtman: Thank you. Next speaker? Next public comment? 17
18
Ms. Klicheva: Our next speaker Chuck Jagoda. Chuck, you can speak now for 3- minutes. 19
20
Mr. Chuck Jagoda: Ok, can you hear me? 21
22
Ms. Klicheva: Yes. 23
24
Mr. Jagoda: Thank you very much. I would just like to say two things. One, Steve, that 25
presentation I assume you were involved but others also was amazing. I really am very 26
positively impressed. You took into consideration an important issue in this county right now 27
which is equity amongst people. You thought of disabled people, you’ve thought of poor 28
people, you’ve thought of commuters and not only did you think of all these people and things 29
but you handled it all brilliantly. I mean it was a model of efficiency that I was very, very 30
impressed, and thank you. You and who all else ever else who was involved, but my colleagues 31
Rebecca and Aram were not as off-topic as it may seem. They both made very important points 32
and it seems to me what we need… the issues they raised, both of them, are sort of the next 33
level. So, in other words, what Steve presented was very inclusive, very involved, very 34
wonderful in every which way. So, what would be a great next level would be to continue, 35
evolve, tweak, you know do whatever but also think about raising the consciousness to the 36
level that you take into consideration the things that Aram and Rebecca meant… raised. 37
Homeless people do need safe parking. How you might help them with PMA, I don’t know, but 38
it’s a worthy goal, and the poor, the commuters, I mean the people that don’t have so much. 39
And this was a wonderful thing that Palo Alto where people do have much are really living up to 40
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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 responsibility and doing something wonderful. The PTMA is very impressive. You should all 1
be very proud. We should all be very proud of Palo Alto in this instance. Thank you. 2
3
Chair Hechtman: Thank you. Are there additional public comments? 4
5
Ms. Klicheva: Yes, we have one more hand raised. The next speaker is Rob George. Rob, you can 6
speak now. 7
8
Mr. Rob George: I want to thank the Commissioners. My name is Rob George. I’m one of the 9
founding members of the Palo Alto TMA, former Chair, and actively involved with the 10
development of the TMA. I want to acknowledge the speaker’s comments about their concerns 11
about the TMA but I’m very proud of the progress the TMA has made over the almost 6-years 12
that the TMA as existed as a program and as an independent 501c3. 13
14
Initially founded with the goal with economic prosperity to reduce traffic in the City by 30 15
percent. At our height, at the TMA’s height, they were reducing car traffic downtown 16
equivalent to emptying the Bryant Street garage. In its second phase, it focused on the equity of 17
allowing folks to be able to work in Palo Alto without the cost of paying for an exuberantly high 18
parking pass and then in the last year as we’ve all experience COVID. Basically, a strategy City-19
funded to help with the recovery of businesses. There are so many businesses in Palo Alto that 20
are struggling to pay their employees and what better gift the City could give them as a transit 21
pass to get to and from work free. 22
23
I think it’s a novel but amazingly powerful tool that the City has done and the progress is in the 24
hands of both collaboration of businesses, residents, and the City Staff itself. So, I count myself 25
proud to be part of the organization. I would be glad to talk to any of the Commissioners about 26
the work that the Board, all be it small, and most of the small Board Members, the small 27
businesses have left to take care of their businesses. So, we’re looking to grow the Board and 28
they have always been because it’s such a challenging task but again, thank you to Staff, thank 29
you to Steve and Kruti for their comments and I’d be glad to talk to any Commissioners. Rachael 30
and Sylvia have my contact information about the trajectory of the TMA to this point and the 31
years to come. Thank you very much. 32
33
Ms. Klicheva: Chair Hechtman? I see that Chuck Jagoda raised his hand again. 34
35
Chair Hechtman: He has spoken and so I think we only take one comment per member of the 36
public per agenda item. So, Mr. Jagoda, to the extent there are things you realized you didn’t 37
say but would like to, please email them to us and we’ll read them. Are there any other hands 38
raised for people who have not spoken? 39
40
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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. Klicheva: I don’t see any hands raised. That concludes our public comments for this item. 1
2
Chair Hechtman: Thank you. Alright, we will now turn to Commissioner discussion. 3
Commissioner Templeton, your hand is first. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you very much. Thank you for this presentation. I am really 6
excited that we’re talking about this and so grateful that you did bring it to us on the PTC. The 7
first question I have and I may already have an answer for this but I’m just wondering if we can 8
hear more about students. So, I love that your programs address low-income workers and 9
getting them onto transit and getting single-occupancy vehicles off the streets. I’m wondering 10
do we have any similar programs in mind for students or would they be eligible? Since they’re 11
not necessarily working, I don’t know if they’d be eligible for the current programs. 12
13
Mr. Philip Kamhi, Chief Transportation Official: So, I’ll speak to that (interrupted) 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: Sure. 16
17
Mr. Kamhi: And [unintelligible], maybe Steve might want to chime in but just to speak to the 18
purpose of the formation of the TMA going back to that Colleague’s Memo originally back in I 19
guess it was 2016. The TMA was really formed to reduce the single-occupancy vehicle trips to 20
Palo Alto. You know specifically targeting employees that were taking up not only the parking 21
capacity in the downtown which was really, really impacted but also impacting the congestion 22
and frankly pollution. 23
24
Commissioner Templeton: Right. 25
26
Mr. Kamhi: So, that’s really the reason why the Colleague’s Memo was put out and the Palo 27
Alto TMA as a non-profit was formed to address that need. So, that said, students is not really 28
what I would say is a key focus of them, and noting (interrupted) 29
30
Commissioner Templeton: Hold on a second. I understand all of that Mr. Kamhi. I really 31
appreciate you bringing that up, but as somebody who… I mean it’s technically not a single-32
occupancy vehicle if I’m driving my child around but if I could put them on a bus instead it 33
would be a less… one less car. 34
35
Mr. Kamhi: Yeah so just furthering that point, I think that that is work of the Office of 36
Transportation specifically because really this organization was formed with that sole purpose 37
of eliminating single-occupancy vehicles. That’s not to say (interrupted) 38
39
Commissioner Templeton: Alright, then I’ll turn the question to you. 40
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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. Kamhi: Yeah, but if I can just finish. I just want to note that also the funding that the City 2
provides for the Palo Alto TMA and noting that they also get funding from their contributing 3
members that sit on their Boards and otherwise. But the money that we provide comes out of 4
our University Avenue Parking Funds and thus it needs to have a nexus to a reduction of parking 5
or impact in that area in order to be used for that program. So, sorry, I hope that (interrupted) 6
7
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. It does not answer my question at all so you’re saying 8
that they won’t look at it because of it… where the funding comes from? 9
10
Mr. Kamhi: No, I’m sorry, I’m just mentioning that that’s… that dictates how the funding needs 11
to be spent. It needs to be spent for a purpose that impacts downtown. If you’re talking about 12
students getting to downtown because I’m assuming you’re talking about students getting to 13
school. 14
15
Commissioner Templeton: No, I’m not talking about school at all. 16
17
Mr. Kamhi: Oh, I’m sorry. 18
19
Commissioner Templeton: No, I didn’t… yeah. 20
21
Mr. Kamhi: So, are talking students that work in retail in downtown because that’s really what 22
the (interrupted) 23
24
Commissioner Templeton: Every kind of activity that a student would need to get to that 25
someone else is driving them right now. It’s (interrupted) 26
27
Mr. Kamhi: Yeah, so just mention I think the program is really set up to primarily target low-28
income workers in downtown. To the extent that a student lives in Palo Alto or otherwise, 29
anywhere, is an employee that is a daily commuter to downtown. Certainly, the program would 30
include them in the target, regardless of age or any other [unintelligible](interrupted) 31
32
Commissioner Templeton: Ok, so if they work… I was reading through on their website and it 33
wasn’t clear if there was an age requirement. So, as long as… if they had a job, they could 34
qualify for these programs but if (interrupted) 35
36
Mr. Kamhi: I believe so I’ll let Steve answer that more (interrupted) 37
38
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah, I would love to hear more about that. Thank you so much Mr. 39
Kamhi. 40
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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. Kamhi: Yeah, sorry for the confusion there. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: That’s ok. It’s good to talk about. 4
5
Mr. Raney: So, definitely. Any type of employee and I guess heard actually the Stanford 6
Shopping Center’s worker demographics is skewed a lot to students at a first job situation. For 7
what that’s worth. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Yeah and do they… if they get these passes or these benefits, they 10
wouldn’t just be for work. They could use it for any other kind of activity around right, so I just I 11
wanted to emphasize that that is a demographic that’s important not only because sometimes 12
they rely on other people to take them. So, that doubles the amount of time that that car is on 13
the road but also because if people can get accustomed to public transit, alternate modes of 14
transportation, then that’s something they can take with them for their whole lives. So, I just 15
appreciate that. Thank you. 16
17
Chair Hechtman: Alright, thank you, Commissioner Templeton. Commissioner Alcheck you are 18
next. 19
20
Commissioner Alcheck: Thank you, Chair. Ok so first I just want to say thank you for this 21
presentation. This is an interesting sort of… this is a discussion that I think is really relevant to a 22
lot of the review that we do because we often utilize these TDMA solutions. These TDM 23
solutions, excuse me, and we invoke the TDMA when we’re reviewing development projects in 24
the City and imposing conditions that need to be met that require TDM programing. And so, I 25
think this idea well, number one I really like the presentation. I did not know the group behind 26
the TDMA by name and so that… I think that’s good information. 27
28
I have a few questions. They’re high level. Let me do the first one. It’s sort of a two-part. The 29
first one is what are the most effective programs that I guess the leadership or the association 30
has learned about that they are hoping to add to our, I guess tool chest if you will? And 31
similarly, so a flip side of that is are there programs that you’ve learned of that are very 32
successful but that you don’t think could be added to the Palo Alto environment for making 33
greater reductions in the SOV trips? 34
35
Mr. Raney: Point one is that interestingly at the regional level, MTC’s policy EN7 talks about 36
capping Bay Area SOV commuting at 40 percent SOV by 2035. So, that would be the most 37
ambitious policy in the US right now. Primarily driven by meeting the Greenhouse Gas Emission 38
goals so that is potentially a game-changer over the years and then from a cost-efficacy 39
standpoint. More information on the Gates Foundation on row one is they will charge you $12 40
Page 28
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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.
a day if you SOV and they’ll give you $3 a day if you take an alternative mode. So, it’s a carrot 1
and stick and if you do all the math, the cost of reducing an SOV commute is a negative cost of 2
$400 where as like Stanford Campus like TDM is sort of throttled to be revenue-neutral. The 3
SOV parkers pay for the alternative takers and then I think it’s also interesting to think about 4
the University Avenue Parking Fund. That is typically non-resident in-commuters who are 5
buying Parking Permits that then go to fund other non-SOV commuters. So, there’s a nice 6
behavioral nexus there. 7
8
Sort of missing from the TMA’s tool kit sort of as not having the scale of SRPgo would be a van 9
pool program like Commute by Enterprise or having the scale to do a private bus service. SRPgo 10
has a few buses and certainly, Facebook and Google famously have many. That’s the main thing 11
and we really hope that a combination of changes can really energize biking. Including there’s 12
theories that with a better price-performance on electric bikes. We can increase bike commute 13
distance for your average schom as opposed to your hardcore biker to up to 10-miles. So, you 14
get that catchment area and I think I’ve said hopefully enough to answer Commissioner 15
Alcheck’s question. 16
17
Commissioner Alcheck: Yeah, no, that… does the… I don’t know who would do this. Is this the 18
transportation department or the association? Is there a collection of data that occurs that 19
you… for example, that you would know for how many of the individuals that you are targeting 20
with these programs live within a certain radius? So, for example, with this… that extended bike 21
access if you will because of electrification of bicycles, there’s a threshold and so if a certain 22
population of the people you’re working on with such a program are beyond 10 or 15 miles. 23
Then maybe that… do you have an idea of sort of the concentric circles of distance that many of 24
the targets for these programs live? 25
26
Mr. Raney: Yes, we have some idea and I know that (interrupted) 27
28
Commissioner Alcheck: That sounds very big brother, right, but you know if would be 29
interesting to know just far how people are commuting into downtown for the various jobs. 30
And it would (interrupted) 31
32
Mr. Raney: I would note that (interrupted) 33
34
Commissioner Alcheck: Not to cut you off but I would presume and I know we shouldn’t make 35
assumptions but I would presume that as the income goes down, the distance goes up. Which 36
is… I don’t know if that’s… that if the data supports that. But I would presume that those that 37
are working or that are earning the least amount of probably traveling the farthest but I don’t 38
know if that we data for that so that’s sort of my question. 39
40
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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. Raney: Yeah and I would propose that we’ll provide commute set information to Staff to 1
get to you. An analysis of commute rings from zero to five, five to ten, 10 to 20, and 20 and 2
beyond. I mean it's sort of… you know the key take away from that is for the Stanford’s and the 3
Facebook’s and the Google’s of the world, the zero to five-mile segment has the highest SOV 4
because SOV is really competitive unfortunately there. So, that’s why they have a theory that 5
electric bikes are pretty time competitive with SOV in that ring. But, you know and of course, 6
the zero to five-mile rings is where you get the active modes and the 20 plus is where you get 7
carpooling. From our commute shed, look, plotting of where people live, there’s a lot of 8
potential along the Caltrain spine which is good as long as we can solve that first-mile problem. 9
So, we can provide that, and also, I think potentially we can provide this analysis of the 10
hammering on low-income commuters where their commute distance are getting worse. 11
They’re getting priced out of the easier commutes, right? So, like [unintelligible] use to say 12
yeah, everybody used to live in East Palo Alto and they’re no more. In fact, some people had to 13
move out of state things got too bad financially. 14
15
Commissioner Alcheck: One more question thought that I want to run by you guys which is that 16
in my mind a lot of these TDM measures serve to make the growth in the community more 17
palatable because they diminish the impacts that result from that growth. As if to suggest that a 18
resident would be more comfortable with a project if the impacts of that project were reduced 19
by a TDM measure; which would suggest that none of these TDM measures are really serving 20
residents directly. And so, if… and I’m not asking this question because Commissioner 21
Templeton sort of asked it… a slight variation of it, but I guess my question would be, what… 22
where would you go or let me ask this different question. Where… what would the responsible 23
department be if the community members wanted to understand where to send inquires about 24
improvements in reducing their trips within the City if… and have those programs? Where 25
would that go? 26
27
Ms. Tanner: If I might, Commissioner Alcheck before I had it over to Sylvia and to Philip. I think 28
that generally speaking the TDM measures that the TMA is implementing and that we focus on 29
today do focus on commuters coming to Palo Alto. That isn’t to say that just generally TMD 30
overall as a field only focuses on folks coming into a City. So, certainly every Palo Altan who 31
bikes to the train station and takes a train is reducing SOV use and that is certainly something 32
that the City would want to see an increase. Reduction of the SOV use, so when TDM might be 33
applied to a development. Depending on what the development is, it could be a service that 34
does provide some incentive or some carrot or stick for the resident, a Palo Altan, to not take 35
their car by themselves to a trip. So, for example, the carpooling system, other things could be 36
available to residents of Palo Alto if they are commuting outward to work or even commuting 37
within Palo Alto. I think as Steve mentioned when you’re really close to the City and close to 38
your job. The incentive to take your car is pretty easy, right? It’s a short drive. You got it. You 39
just hop in and you’re there. So, I might ask if Sylvia or Philip can address kind of how we have 40
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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.
maybe some resident focus programs on getting our residents of Palo Alto out of their vehicles. 1
At least their vehicles by themselves. 2
3
Mr. Kamhi: I wasn’t sure if Sylvia was going to jump in but just to mention, what we do on a 4
local region is we focus on building infrastructure. As an example, bicycle infrastructure and 5
providing local amenities that enhance that and then also includes as mentioned. If there’s a 6
local business and someone lives and works in Palo Alto. Hopefully, that business has amenities 7
for storing a bicycle or potentially giving somebody a shower or potentially is mindful of their 8
parking infrastructure and their availability of parking. And if they don’t have enough parking or 9
there isn’t adequate parking available. Then they’re providing some sort of incentive to car pool 10
or hopefully take transit if they’re available local to transit and that’s really what a good TDM 11
plan should supply. 12
13
Commissioner Alcheck: Ok, alright, well, those are my… those are the comments that I had so 14
far. I would add that I support this idea of sort of focusing our public comments on the item and 15
I would… but I would also suggest that maybe during the part of the meeting where we discuss 16
future agenda topics. Maybe Staff could help the Commission understand when a conversation 17
about I guess car living, which is an important topic and should… I don’t think anybody on this 18
Commission intended to diminish the importance and relevance of that conversation. Maybe at 19
the end of the meeting tonight we could have an idea of when a topic like that could be 20
addressed and effectively and appropriately. So, thank you, guys. 21
22
Chair Hechtman: Thank you, Commissioner Alcheck. Vice-Chair Roohparvar, followed by 23
Commissioner Summa. 24
25
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Thank you. Thank you for your presentation today. It was extremely 26
enlightening. I just had a couple of comments that I’ll go through. I had the same question 27
Commissioner Alcheck had about where the commuters are coming from. Like specific Cities or 28
do we have data because I think we need to know where they’re coming from in order to create 29
a plan that effectively addresses it? If the vast majority of commuters are coming from areas 20 30
plus miles away. I don’t think it’s realistic to think or expect or emphasize coming in by bike. I 31
don’t think most people are going to bike 25 or 30 miles. 32
33
Also, I think there was kind of a desire to promote e-bike and e-scooter and I guess to me that 34
seems a little bit consistent with our desire and people can disagree with me. But our desire to 35
serve low-income people because they hear in one breath… in one breath I’m being told its 36
low-income people, they have to move their cars every 2-hours, they don’t want to pay for 37
parking. And then I was… while you guys were talking I looked up e-bikes and they were 38
between $600 to $8,000 and so I don’t think anybody who is having difficulty is then going to 39
drop that much money on an e-bike. 40
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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
So, another comment I had was I don’t know if you guys have thought about this. If it’s of use, 2
but I use to live in Washington DC and they had an amazing public transportation system. They 3
had something called the Circulator in addition to a public bus and what that did was it was 4
focused on the downtown area. The George Town area but it would stop at maybe three to 5
four key stops that they knew people would be coming into George Town to… for employees 6
etc. and the purpose was to reduce congestion and traffic. That way you don’t have to park in 7
George Town in order to work there or whatever. The Circulator would come on the regular 8
and you could park 2- miles, 3-miles away in a different garage or where ever in a different part 9
of DC and take the Circulator and go into George Town. It was intended to reduce congestion so 10
I want to throw that out as an idea. 11
12
And I guess along the same lines of that and is I want to hear more about cross City initiatives 13
and what we had in mind there? So, for example, if we’re learning that the vast majority of 14
people are coming in from let’s just say Mountain View. I don’t know if that’s true. Let’s just say 15
Mountain View. Can we collaborate with Mountain View to have a Circulator or some sort of 16
system that picks people up from that City and brings them in? I’m not suggesting the private 17
bus because I saw the price on that of $5,000. It’s something that’s public but that could still 18
serve the need. So, I think those are my comments. I’d love to hear your thoughts on where am 19
I misunderstanding something or where are we on cross City initiatives? 20
21
Mr. Kamhi: Well, I think… I’ll just chime in on a few of those items and probably I’ll miss… 22
there’s quite a lot of thought there but probably I’ll miss some of them but I’ll try. One thing on 23
the e-bikes, yes, they can be fairly expensive but if you’re considering that as a comparison to a 24
car with insurance and gas. They’re two different worlds. So, even if the e-bike costs $600 25
which I have one that was cheaper than that personally. It was around $200 but if you had a 26
$600 e-bike, it’s significantly… I mean you pay for that once and that’s a couple of months of 27
insurance. Forget about the cost of gas and a car. 28
29
But moving on, the cross-City initiatives and Steve can really probably speak to this a lot of their 30
efforts but the real challenges I think in Palo Alto when you look at where people are coming 31
from. The answer is everywhere. Everywhere accept for Palo Alto probably. So, I think what you 32
have is you have a lot of people coming from San Jose, you have a lot of people coming from 33
the East Bay, and you have people coming from all around up and down the peninsula. All the 34
way from San Francisco. The good news is and that is where Palo Alto really has a really great 35
transportation infrastructure already there is Caltrain. Caltrain is a huge, huge mover of these 36
people and that’s where I think you heard Steve earlier in his presentation get really excited 37
when he was discussing that there might be an opportunity for Caltrain Go Pass to go to some 38
of his low-income workers or some of his people that really can’t afford the Go Pass. Because 39
the challenge with the Go Pass system is if you want to be an employer that provides a Go Pass. 40
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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.
You have to buy a Go Pass for every one of your employees. Every single one and as an 1
example, the City of Palo Alto does. So, we buy Go Pass for all of our employees. Some of our 2
employees work at the MSC which is off… over down by the 101 and sorry, the reality is those 3
people are not taking Caltrain. So, there’s people… there are unused passes in the City and we 4
have to buy one for every single employee. So that’s a real opportunity for the TMA to provide 5
more transit passes and noting that the Palo Alto transit stop is currently in the entire Caltrain 6
system the highest used stop. Pre-COVID it was the second-highest but right now it’s the 7
highest used stop. Probably primarily due to the medical center and a lot of essential trips that 8
are happening there but that’s a real opportunity. You know and then the people that are 9
coming from the East Bay are able to take the Dumbarton Express and we have VTA buses and 10
SamTrans buses that all come to Palo Alto. So, those are kind of the cross country, cross City 11
connections that occur but really that’s the challenge with this is we do have people coming 12
from everywhere. So, I don’t know that answered all of your questions but Steve, do you have 13
anything that you want to add to that? 14
15
Mr. Raney: Just one tidbit to keep in mind that uniquely in the world there’s this 36-mile 16
commute for tech workers who like the culture of San Francisco and like to work in Silicon 17
Valley. That’s changing a little bit but nowhere is there this crazy 36-mile commute that’s so 18
popular except San Francisco to Silicon Valley. And that’s the reason Caltrain… one of the 19
reasons in the past that Caltrain has this great ridership and it’s amazing if you worked at 20
Palantir or Amazon. You could walk one block to get to your job at downtown Palo Alto. So, I 21
just wanted to throw that in as a tidbit and again, I’ll follow up with Staff on commute in 22
information to get a graphical depiction of yes, everybody’s living all over the place, 23
unfortunately. 24
25
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: I had one follow up. Thank you, those are helpful. I have one follow up 26
comment to kind of maybe challenge you a bit more on the bike issue. I know it’s just doesn’t 27
settle well with me. I don’t think people are going to… if somebody is low income, they’re going 28
to replace their car with an e-bike. You still need your car to transport your family. You still 29
need your car for groceries. You still need to pay insurance on that car. Maybe I could see if the 30
economics of the gas but to me, an e-bike seems like a luxury add-on. Instead of… I don’t know. 31
I just don’t… I just don’t think… it just doesn’t settle well with me. I just have a hard time 32
believing that somebody who is low income is going to be like let me forgo my car and buy an e-33
bike. So, those are my comments. 34
35
Ms. Tanner: If I might Commissioner, I think that is a fine point. I think that we certainly… you 36
know I have a vehicle and I have bikes. I don’t have an e-bike yet but I think part of it is that it’s 37
about there are a diversity of low-income workers. You can be a pretty high-income general 38
person and still be low income in the Bay Area due to circumstances like your family size and 39
things like that and so while the TMA is certainly focused on service workers. They do have a 40
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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.
number of kind of I guess maybe Steve would you say mid-level managers, entry-level 1
managers who are earning moderate-income and they’re still not super high incomes but they 2
might have means where they can have an e-bike and a vehicle as part of their commuting. And 3
then of course they may take the e-bike to a transit stop, to a BART station as Mr. Raney was 4
saying. Folks are still along the Caltrain spine but maybe getting to the Caltrain station is just a 5
little far and so those are some areas where an e-bike can help. It’s certainly not going to help 6
everybody and it’s certainly not going to replace a vehicle if you have a family that you need to 7
take around. So, certainly, it would be a luxury for some of our lowest-income households. 8
That’s to be sure. 9
10
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Yeah, thank you. That’s really helpful. 11
12
Mr. Kamhi: I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I have to chime in because I actually have Staff that’s 13
listening on this call that uses an e-bike to take their kids around Palo Alto. So, I just have to say 14
that that is a real thing. That you don’t have to have a car to get around and there are people 15
that do not do that. And personally, I typically commute to Palo Alto from the City of Oakland, 16
which is quite far, by taking transit and using either e-bike or e-skateboard. So, I just want to 17
note that there are possibilities to do that and that some people do. I know that my Safe Routes 18
to School Coordinator Rosie is on the line right now and she has a cargo bike that she takes her 19
kid around Palo Alto in. So, I’m not saying that… certainly it’s a choice and it’s something that 20
everyone has to feel comfortable with. Their mode of transit but… or travel I should say but for 21
somebody that’s considering the cost of Parking Permit in Palo Alto, the time that they spend 22
potentially in congestion or circling or looking for parking, and the cost of insurance and gas and 23
all that. There is mathematics that do come into it depending on where you are. 24
25
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: You know it would be helpful if we could get the math and stuff. I think 26
that would… at least for me, to be able to see the math and the economics and I think maybe 27
educating the public on that would be tremendous. To show people the economics of it. 28
29
Ms. Star-Lack: Sure, can I [unintelligible] (interrupted) 30
31
Mr. Kamhi: Yeah, I think that’s a great point. 32
33
Ms. Star-Lack: Can I jump in here? I think in the coming discussions that Council is going to have 34
around the Sustainability Climate Action Plan. There is a certain amount of… I think there will 35
be a certain amount of economic modeling that shows the cost-benefit for bikes and e-bikes 36
over cars, over even electric vehicles. I mean the cost savings that you get are tremendous and 37
there is a tremendous diversity of bikes out there. If you’ve traveled in Europe you’ve probably 38
seen particularly Amsterdam, North Europe. There are tremendous… there’s a tremendous 39
diversity of bikes out there that we’re just beginning to see on our own streets. You’ve seen 40
Page 34
_______________________
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.
some box bikes on our streets. If you’ve seen there’s moms who carry three or four kids on one 1
bike. So, I mean I think that’s our future frankly and I look forward to bringing more information 2
like this to the Commission. 3
4
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Thank you. 5
6
Chair Hechtman: Alright, thank you. Thank you. I’d like to move forward to Commissioner 7
Summa. 8
9
Commissioner Summa: Thank you so much, Chair. Well, I’d first like to thank my colleague 10
Commissioner Roohparvar [note – Vice-Chair Roohparvar] for bringing up something that I 11
think is really important. When we think about people that can use… that have a luxury of not 12
having to use a vehicle to accommodate their work needs and their family needs. We are really 13
talking about, in most cases, a privileged class of people and I think that we have to keep that in 14
mind when we’re making… when we’re talking about these things. And I’d also like to thank 15
Commissioner Alcheck for acknowledging the members of the public who may be didn’t speak 16
to the right topic but who are concerned about certain members of our community. 17
18
That being said I’ll move back to more specifics about the issue at hand and there was 19
something that has troubled me about the TMA which is not called the PATMA, PATMA, is I 20
don’t… and this is sort of a little outside of our purview. So, I don’t expect to be answered 21
specifically on this but I don’t understand the finances of this group. Who’s financing it? How 22
it’s being paid for and what it’s paying for? So, I just want to say that because I think it’s a little 23
mysterious. 24
25
And then I wanted to ask a variety of questions and one is about a member of the Staff 26
mentioned that this was set up for downtown but it’s now extended to also Cal Ave. So, I 27
wanted to get… California Avenue Business District so I wanted to get some clarification of how 28
that’s working. If there’s members of the California Avenue business community that are also 29
participating in this? 30
31
Ms. Star-Lack: I don’t see Philip so I’ll answer those. So, regarding who funds the TMA, there’s a 32
Council… there’ an annual report that the TMA provides to the Council that shows their income 33
and revenue for their programs. So, we can forward that to you if you want to see that. They 34
are mostly funded by the public, by the City for their programs through members do provide 35
dues. 36
37
And then regarding downtown and Cal Ave, I guess Steve can talk about how well the expansion 38
to Cal Ave is working but until recently we had Zareen Khan from Zareen’s on the Board and I 39
think Steve is working to get someone else from Cal Ave on the Board. 40
Page 35
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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. Kamhi: I’ll just jump in before Steve does. Apologies. Just to add onto that, the… as Sylvia 2
mentioned the primary funding for the TMA currently is City funds. It comes out of Parking 3
Funds so if somebody purchases a Parking Permit in downtown Palo Alto. That’s funding 4
essentially removing cars off the road that are coming to downtown and the same thing for 5
California Avenue. So, that’s why the Parking Fund actually pays for removing cars that would 6
be parking in downtown if that makes sense. 7
8
Commissioner Summa: So, that’s for Cal Ave business area also? 9
10
Ms. Star-Lack: Correct. 11
12
Commissioner Summa: That there is funding (interrupted) 13
14
Mr. Kamhi: Yeah so in the beginning of the year, the budgeting process, it was expanded to 15
California Avenue in addition to University Avenue. Although the TMA did have a pilot that was 16
funded by a private organization, not the City of Palo Alto, so they had been trying out a pilot in 17
California Avenue before this year. So, this year they officially expanded to California Avenue 18
with the City’s support. 19
20
Commissioner Summa: Ok, thank you for that. It’s a little bit mysterious to me what this agency 21
is and [unintelligible – audio cut out] (interrupted) 22
23
Mr. Kamhi: I just want to say I think that’s the main reason why we wanted the TMA here 24
tonight is to remove a little of that mysteriousness. 25
26
Commissioner Summa: Oh ok, thanks for that then and then the Staff report. I don’t know if 27
you mentioned it in one of your slides but our Staff report said I think that… and I think there is 28
an emphasis on helping downtown specifically low-income commuters, and it was either 270… 29
pardon me, I have too many pieces of paper in front of me… or 240 something low-income 30
commuters downtown who were served by I think getting transit passes. And I was just 31
wondering what percentage of downtown, I think it was specifically downtown, low-income 32
commuters that represent and also if you have data on how many are using the passes? 33
34
Ms. Star-Lack: Steve, I think that one’s for you. 35
36
Commissioner Summa: Sorry. 37
38
Mr. Raney: Get it out. So, we use to think that there are 2,000 service workers downtown and 39
3,000 other kinds of workers downtown. You know that’s completely changed. We don’t have 40
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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.
great numbers at all. So, we use to be able to calculate the nominal commute mode share that 1
we shifted and put that in our annual reports. And I think it was 11.9 percent in one year and 2
that’s the transit subsidy and we also have a Lift Afterhours Program. So, if you take… don’t 3
take a car in to start your job at the bar at 4:00 pm to get off at midnight, we’ll give you a lift 4
home, and so combining the lift Afterhours program and the transit. Those are income limited 5
and in the Ways Carpool covers all kinds of workers as will the Bike Love Commute Incentive 6
Program. And there is real push to have programs not just for low-income workers and so… and 7
of course, the City is kind of very enthusiastic about increasing bike use. So, the Bike Love 8
Program makes sense that way, but I don’t have current commute mode share but at one point 9
it was 11.9 percent that sort of. 10
11
Commissioner Summa: Sure. I understand that the COVID... the pandemic skews everything 12
from what would be normal understanding, but I think these were pre-COVID numbers we 13
were given. And for me, I really need to see the numbers and the numbers… the percentage of 14
people being served and how they were being served flushed out more to really understand 15
how well the program was working. So, that would be my recommendation for the next time 16
you come to us is to have more in-depth data. Just so we can understand how well you’re doing 17
really because from this Staff report it’s not very… it’s not clear. 18
19
And then also Rob George who was a member of the public who spoke, I think that’s the right 20
name, who is a founding member of the TMA also said the primary goal was to reduce single-21
occupancy vehicle trips downtown by 30 percent. And I was just wondering if you had a simple 22
data point on that. Like how close are you to 30 percent? Are you way over 30 percent? 23
Obviously pre-COVID and understanding that we can’t really know this in these unusual times. 24
25
Mr. Raney: Yes, we have the tracking towards that 30 percent goal broken down by our four 26
economic segments. And I believe that’s somewhere in our 2019 annual report and we’ll… I 27
think we’ll follow up on that and get that information. And Council Member Summa [note – 28
Commissioner Summa], are you saying you’re looking for sort of a… just trying to gauge the 29
Commission’s interest in the income statement break down and other second-level metrics that 30
we have? 31
32
Commissioner Summa: Sure. I mean I think taking COVID out of it is because it makes 33
everything crazy. And so, I don’t expect you to account for that but just it’s hard to gauge the 34
success and who you’re serving by the information we’ve been given so far. So, maybe it’s just 35
you have the information and we haven’t got it, or I’m just saying that in the future, for me 36
personally as a Planning Commissioner, it would be important to have more specific and 37
detailed data on these numbers. And that’s all I’m saying because this is a study session and so 38
I’m hoping that that’s helpful for you… the agency going forward to know that I would like to 39
see more data on that. 40
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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
And then the one last thing I’ll say is there was one slide that showed that I think Seattle, well 2
maybe it was just a single employer in the Seattle area. It was actually making money on… 3
through some sort of efforts by requiring people to not use single-occupancy vehicle trips to go 4
to work. And I was wondering if I saw that incorrectly or whether it might be something we 5
could actually employ here in Palo Alto once things get back to normal after the pandemic. 6
7
Mr. Raney: So, that’s row one from this slide on the Gates Foundation. 8
9
Commissioner Summa: Yeah, thanks. 10
11
Mr. Raney: So, it’s a $12 a day stick and a $3 a day carrot is one of the greatest behavior change 12
drivers, but that’s more politically viable in Seattle than it is in… on the peninsula. But again, I 13
would say that the regional MTC is pushing to cap SOV commuting at 40 percent by 2035 so 14
they are considering various types of congestion pricing to provide the motivator to drive that 15
behavior change. So, it is not a possibility at all in the future. 16
17
Mr. Kamhi: If I can though, really quick? That’s actually somewhat what we do with the TMA. 18
So, we charge people that are parking in downtown and we take that money, the money that 19
we get from that charge that we charge people for parking in the downtown lots and garages 20
and same thing in California Avenue. When we charge them, we take that money that we’re 21
charging them for that Parking Permit and we put it into this program for reducing single-22
occupancy vehicles. So, that’s kind of… it’s kind of similar to that. It’s not as direct, it’s not with 23
saying for each and every person that’s making a trip downtown and driving a single-occupancy 24
vehicle we’re going to give that money to somebody that’s or give that to a program that’s 25
directly helping every single person. But that is essentially what’s happening through this 26
program, just to note. 27
28
Commissioner Summa: Ok and just a follow-up question, why is it more feasible this cost 29
recovery from paying people to not single-occupancy vehicle commute? Why is that more 30
efficient in Seattle? Is it because they have better public transportation or is there some other 31
reason it’s more suitable to the Seattle and the Gates Foundation than it is to the peninsula? 32
33
Mr. Raney: Definitely it’s density, it’s super, super downtown traffic congestion. Look at… you 34
know downtown San Francisco is the same thing, right? $30 a day to park downtown and in the 35
precise core San Francisco downtown, the SOV commute mode share is reportedly 8 percent. 36
Nobody who’s sensible drives and pays $30 to park downtown just because other alternatives 37
are better in so many ways. So, the paying, when you have the paying in multiple dimensions, 38
that really helps. 39
40
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.
Commissioner Summa: So, help me figure this out. Does that mean that we’re not charging 1
enough for commuter parking in Palo Alto? 2
3
Mr. Kamhi: I’ll let you off the hook here on this one. I think that the simple answer to that is we 4
could always be charging more. One of the easy metrics that you can use to compare parking 5
prices to determine whether you think parking prices are adequate is, is it cheaper to park in 6
Palo Alto than it is to buy a transit pass? Because if it’s cheaper to park in Palo Alto than to buy 7
a transit pass then the people that potentially are trying to make that decision. Not everybody 8
can make that decision because you have to a car, you have to have insurance, but if you are 9
making that decision. You’re going to pick whichever’s cheaper probably. Especially if you’re 10
really concerned about each and every dollar that goes in and out of your pocket, right? So, 11
right now our parking is cheaper than a year transit pass on Caltrain. So, I think that this kind of 12
discussion is a little bit outside of the purview of the TMA but it’s still a worthwhile topic to 13
have. 14
15
Commissioner Summa: Thank you very much. I’ll just end up by saying I think the worst thing 16
we can do in Palo Alto is making it difficult for lower-income people who depend on cars, as we 17
know, to participate in this community in any way. So, thank you very much. 18
19
Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Lauing. 20
21
Commissioner Lauing: Thank you. So, so far you have about 5-years of whatever we want to call 22
this. A pilot study or at least experience set sort of from ’16 to ’21 and it’s a good point at which 23
you should and are, evaluating it and then saying where do we go from here? So that’s kind of 24
what I’m focused on and so a couple of questions just to make sure I’m getting it. In the overlay 25
that came in the physical Packet, there was a reference that pre-COVID PATMA reduce demand 26
for more than 300 parking spaces per month. And then I think that’s the same as the number 27
that you put in your PowerPoint which was 387. Is that about, right? So, I just used the 300 28
because it was there and if you divided that by the 30 days in a month, that means it’s 10 cars 29
per day, but maybe after divided by 20 because that means they’re only here 5-days a week. 30
I’m trying to figure out on a daily basis what that means? How many fewer cars are there on a 31
daily basis during the weekdays in Palo Alto as a result of this? 32
33
Mr. Raney: [unintelligible – bad audio] 34
35
Commissioner Lauing: Pardon me? 36
37
Mr. Raney: That’s on a daily basis. 38
39
Commissioner Lauing: Ok, so it’s about 15 if you don’t count weekends, cars per day. 40
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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: No. 2
3
Mr. Raney: 300. 4
5
Chair Hechtman: 300. 6
7
Ms. Star-Lack: 300 per day. 8
9
Commissioner Lauing: Ok, good, good. Glad I asked that question and on the I think it’s the last 10
slide, you calculated the… second to last slide, cost of efficacy metrics. For example, Ways 11
Carpool is 1,638. How did… what did you allocate in there and what did you leave out? 12
Specifically, did you allocate Staff time on the basis of how much each of those projects was 13
more or less complicated? How comfortable are you that those are comparing the true costs? 14
15
Mr. Raney: They are subsidy only. 16
17
Commissioner Lauing: Ok. 18
19
Mr. Raney: So, and the Transit Pass Program is much more labor intensity than the Ways 20
Carpool or the Lift. 21
22
Commissioner Lauing: Right, so then if you allocated it they would cost more. Just again as a 23
sort of looking forward what could be more cost-effective way of doing it and did you have for 24
the last couple of years annual goals around this number of cars reduced? In other words, what 25
was your definition of success and did you make it? 26
27
Mr. Raney: I remember going to Finance Committee with our TMA machine where you put the 28
money in one side and cars reduced comes out the other. So, you know we hit the numbers and 29
in fact, we were too popular. So, we got to the point where we had a cash flow crisis where we 30
had to shut down the new application to the transit pass program and let some attrition 31
happen to get so we didn’t go bankrupt. I mean we were really managing cash every single 32
month for many months with this TMA. So, we can go more cars where there’s money and 33
where there’s a robust economy. 34
35
Commissioner Lauing: So, that’s an excellent introduction to my substantive question which is 36
how do we scale this? If we decide that this important, I certainly think it is, what are the levers 37
that you think are the highest priority to really scale this? I mean Stanford, even without the 38
GUP, was talking about bringing in thousands more so they have to figure out a way of how to 39
scale their TDM. So, what do you think are the magic bullets here? 40
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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. Raney: The… so, new revenue sources, so we’d love it when the entitlement requires 2
joining the TMA. That’s a great thing. That just TMA perspective, that’s not the City’s 3
perspective. Grant funding and then cost reduction in terms of this potential Caltrain savings is 4
just huge. I mean it’s just massive; $30k times 12 is $360k per year and then this notion that we 5
can provide a smaller incentive but get tons of people bike commuting, which isn’t really 6
proven enough in the US but that’s where I think Council’s heart is on S/CAP. Is to crank up 7
biking and so those are sort of medium-term ways to scale up to double or triple I think. And 8
then eventually you’ve got this regional thing where capping SOV at 40 percent, congestion 9
pricing, and so they’re talking about you know the fast track charges in express lanes? Well, 10
making every single lane on the freeway chargeable, road user charging VMT fee. Stuff like that 11
so (interrupted) 12
13
Commissioner Lauing: So, a lot of the answer there is funding and it seems like you have 14
confidence in the number of… a number of the things that you showed in the second to last 15
slide there. 16
17
Mr. Raney: Yeah and this out there a decade policy hammer coming down. 18
19
Commissioner Lauing: Ok. Good, thank you. That’s all I have. 20
21
Chair Hechtman: Alright, I see a couple of Commissioner’s hands up for second-round 22
comments and so we’ll go there but I’m going to ask you to be brief. I would like to move us 23
along to the next agenda item in the near future. So, we will start with Commissioner Alcheck. 24
25
Commissioner Alcheck: I think I know the answer to this but I just want to probe it a little bit. 26
You had said earlier… this is to Mr. Kamhi. You had said earlier that every single employee of 27
the City has to get a pass which sort of suggested that there’s this imposition that makes the 28
use of that program more expensive than it otherwise would need to be. I think I understand 29
that that’s a Caltrain policy. Is there a way we can communicate to Caltrans as a City formally 30
that that policy is working against itself to some extent because maybe we could convince more 31
people to purchases passes if they could only buy them for the individuals who will use them in 32
their workforce? 33
34
Mr. Kamhi: Yes, well, so just to clarify on the pass program. It’s called the Go Pass Program and 35
it’s a discounted… deeply discounted pass program where companies can purchase for all of 36
their employees. Just to note, that’s really the only way that it works for Caltrain is if they can 37
have a company not just purchase it at a discount for a few employees, but if they can get that 38
kind of… I don’t know how… what that model is called but it’s the model where it’s kind of like 39
insurance. Where you know everybody is paying into it but not everybody uses it. That way the 40
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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.
insurance has the money to pay when somebody gets into an accident or something like that. If 1
you know what I’m saying. It looks like Steve wants to jump in but really quickly, to note that as 2
a City and I personally have written letters to Caltrain previously specifically requesting that 3
they start considering a low income or allowing employees to join together or employers to join 4
together to purchase bulk passes for employees that need it. It just really hasn’t gone 5
anywhere. I think I’ve written (interrupted) 6
7
Commissioner Alcheck: In theory if… so I get it. That analogy that you made for the insurance 8
was literally perfect and so what I would suggest to you is do we as a City have a program 9
where if an employer can’t purchase Go Passes… if it doesn’t make financial sense for the 10
employer to purchase Go Passes for all 50 of their employees because only 10 of them will use 11
it. Does the City have a scholarship fund or something? Could the City step in and say we’ll 12
supplement a little bit because number one… and I mean maybe there’s some reciprocal. I 13
don’t know. Maybe there’s a relationship with Caltrain or this is… it’s not important to us. I 14
don’t know, or it’s that cheap. 15
16
Mr. Kamhi: No, so the way it works currently is we can only… you have to have a City-issued ID 17
and essentially the Go Pass is tied to that ID for using the City as an example. With this new 18
policy, it will allow us to do is to essentially donate our unused passes. So, this new policy is 19
exactly what you’re asking for and we’re really thankful as the Office of Transportation and I’m 20
sure the PATMA are really thankful that this new policy has been passed by Caltrain. 21
22
Ms. Tanner: If I can, just one thing? I know Steve wants to jump in. It may help to understand 23
the pass is a physical little sticker on your ID and so it’s not like the Clipper Card Program that 24
Steve was describing where it’s loaded monthly. It’s like a little thing on your badge and so 25
there’s a physical donation that would happen of the access amount that we are not using that 26
would go to organizations which Steve mentioned would help to save significant time and 27
resources that they have to do with the Clipper Card updating. 28
29
Commissioner Alcheck: Mr. Raney, did you want to add anything before I ask my second quick 30
question? 31
32
Mr. Raney: Yeah, the City Staff themselves are super virtuous in their commute behavior and 33
they were just like a tech company with a little bit higher biking and 39 percent transit mode 34
share. Again, this is sort of record-setting for in the US for a City like Palo Alto and that’s going 35
to be primarily Caltrain. And so, the point being on pricing is that if you have the alternative of 36
buying a years’ worth of monthly passes, maybe that’s $1,600 per employee, but if you’re up 37
there at 39 percent. Then the City… it’s very cost-effective for the City to buy the Go Pass that’s 38
more like works out to something more like $800 per year per employee. Even though only 39 39
percent are using it. It’s cost-effective for the City for those 39 percent that use it even with 40
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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.
strange pricing with insurance model pricing. Whereas if you’re at 10 percent Caltrain usage 1
then it doesn’t make sense to buy Go Pass. You should just buy monthly passes. 2
3
Commissioner Alcheck: Thank you for that. I think I’ll just make this point then. You know there 4
are buildings in San Francisco where it cost $54 a day to park and in those buildings work 5
individuals who make $654 an hour. And so that’s a not… I guess what I’m trying to say is the 6
income essentially provides for that behavior and what I would suggest to you and this is a bit 7
responsive to Commissioner Summa. Palo Alto Forward actually did a presentation once and if 8
I’m getting this wrong I will correct myself but I will reach out to them. They had a presentation 9
I believe that was called the High Cost of Free Parking which I think Mr. Raney hasn’t… he has 10
sort of subtly suggested to us that we are bankrupting his efforts by not making it more 11
expensive to ignore his efforts if you will. And so, it’s funny because you made that comment 12
about insurance and I thought oh yeah, that’s a great analogy and then I thought we are 13
bankrupting Caltrain as a City by asking them to give us an even deeper discount and to make 14
more concessions to us. So, that we can improve our Go Pass distribution because we’re 15
essentially saying to them that their passes need to be so cheap in order to be appealing and if 16
we charged for parking in downtown. And by the way, congestion traffic, I mean we have to… if 17
we can’t even stomach meters in our downtown. We have to be so far away from congestion 18
charging or highway lane use charging. I mean those are… I guess what I would suggest to you 19
that presentation, the High Cost of Free Parking, is so relevant and I will try to get ahold of it 20
and distribute it because this isn’t the night to talk about whether we should be instituting 21
parking meter downtown but for sure, our parking pricing strategy is actually strangling our 22
effort to improve this situation. And if for example, the individuals who had the most wealth 23
were incentivized to some extent to pay more for the access. We would have all these 24
additional funds to then… he wouldn’t be worrying about going bankrupt 4-months out of every 25
year. He would be sitting a huge pile of money and maybe a $5,000 bus ride wouldn’t out of the 26
question and so, I think actually we need to at some point have that conversation. We need to 27
at some point investigate that path because we’re sort of acting like the best course of action 28
would be for Caltrain to give us even greater concession and that to me, now that I’m saying it 29
out loud, is ridiculous considering their ridership is so low. They’re struggling at every pass. 30
We’re basically passing tax laws to fund them. They’re controversial, so it seems to me like 31
actually, that is a piece of this conversation that we should have at some other point. So, I’ll try 32
to get a hold of that presentation and send it your way. 33
34
Ms. Kamhi: If I can, the High Cost of Free Parking is a very, very famous book written by Donald 35
Shoop which is exactly [unintelligible](interrupted) 36
37
Commissioner Alcheck: Right, they did a presentation. I think they had a speaking… a few 38
speakers on it and I’m sure it was Palo Alto Forward. They probably taped it and so maybe I 39
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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.
could get that link and share it. It would be particularly relevant and I’m sure their conversation 1
was particularly relevance to Palo Alto. 2
3
Chair Hechtman: Thank you. Commissioner Templeton. 4
5
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you, Chair and I acknowledge your comment about trying to 6
get through this agenda item. One thing that has struck me listening to the comments, it’s not 7
really clear what Staff is looking for in this discussion tonight and I say this just hearing several 8
ideas about generally dealing with parking and mitigating emissions and reducing congestion 9
and demand and hearing push back on that. That doesn’t fit into that program or this niche. Is it 10
possible for Staff to clarify what they’re looking for from us and have you given you what you 11
need? 12
13
Mr. Kamhi: Yeah, sure, so I think not to say that any of that… anything that’s being discussed 14
doesn’t fit in. I think this all is really relevant to the conversation which is really around 15
transportation. Just generally transportation in Palo Alto. I think what we were seeking tonight 16
is a couple of different things. One is which I think is really clear is to provide more awareness 17
around the PATMA and also to get feedback on the TMA. The programs the TMA’s working on, 18
maybe any ideas or suggestions you might have, and really ideas to grow the TMA. And I think 19
definitely… and also ways that you would like to hear about the TMA. I think Steve tonight is 20
taking probably copious notes about for instance how PTC and potentially the Council might 21
want to hear about how the TMA’s has been operating. Yeah, he just held it up. He’s got a big 22
list of notes. So, I think that’s really what… the reason we wanted to get in front of the PTC. I 23
think that the TMA some… an organization, it became a non-profit about a year ago that’s really 24
still trying to grow and figure out what exactly they can do and is still trying to get Board 25
Members to join. It’s still trying to get new businesses to join. I’m sure they would love it if the 26
PTC had an application in front of them if they would tell the person that’s applying to join the 27
TMA. So, I think they’re trying to build advocacy as well and Steve, I hope I didn’t step all over 28
any of your lines, but Steve, do you have anything you want to add to that? 29
30
Commissioner Templeton: Well, thank you for that Phil…. Mr. Kamhi. I’m… I guess I just want to 31
go back then and say if we’re saving 300 trips a day through this program that targets low-32
income workers that work in California Avenue and University Avenue and we’re looking for 33
ideas on how to grow the impact to possibly affect more numbers of cars. I don’t want to let it 34
go just because it doesn’t fit into this box to say that figuring out how to deal with the large 35
amount of afternoon, after school, after school activity traffic, other kinds of localized stuff 36
that’s happening perhaps over our neighboring borders. To Mountain View; to Redwood City; 37
Menlo Park; East Palo Alto. Those are all things that I see first hand quite often. It’s also stuff 38
that I think really contributes to the congestion at a busy time. So, perhaps if it doesn’t fit into 39
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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 PATMA set of resources, maybe there’s another conversation that we could have in the 1
future to talk about some of the localized traffic phenomena and trying to address that. Thanks. 2
3
Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Summa I saw your hand go up but then down. Are you ok? 4
5
Commissioner Summa: I’m ok, thank you. I’ll save the comment for another conversation. 6
7
Chair Hechtman: Alright, thank you. So, then I’m going to say a couple of things and then move 8
us along. I do want to thank the PATMA and Staff for the presentation. For me, it was really an 9
introduction and an education because honestly before I got the Staff Packet I didn’t know 10
there was such things as a PATMA. You haven’t been before us in the last year and I think one 11
of the… first of all, this was a more robust, as often happens, the conversation among the 12
Commissioners is more robust than I was anticipating coming in. But one of the things that 13
really helped me to listen to the variety of comments and the responses from Staff and Mr. 14
Raney is really to understand kind of where, at least as currently envisioned, the PATMA ends 15
and our City of Palo Alto Transportation Department begins. And so, I agree with some of the 16
comments earlier that all of these things I think that the Commissioners have raised were good 17
to voice and it’s just a question of which bucket they fall into. Some of them are sort of in 18
PATMA’s purview but a lot of them I think are messages that we are sending to our 19
Transportation Department and I have every indication that they are hearing those. And they 20
can carry those thoughts forward and fold them into their forward-thinking. So, I think it was a 21
really great conversation and I thank all the Commissioners as well as PATMA and Staff for 22
contributing to it. So, I would like to now move us on to the next Agenda Item in our… it’s 23
another study session. 24
[The Commission moved up to Agenda Item 2] 25
26
2. Study Session: Status of the South Palo Alto Bikeways Project Funded by the VERBS 27
Grant and the Community Engagement Plan 28
Chair Hechtman: It’s Agenda Item Number Two which is the status of the South Palo Alto 29
Bikeways Project funded by the VERBS Grant and the Community Engagement Plan. And before 30
we receive the Staff report there, I’d like to have Commissioner Roohparvar [note – Vice-Chair 31
Roohparvar] address the Commission. 32
33
Vice-Chair Roohparvar: Thank you. I will be recusing myself from this item because I live within 34
500-feet of the project and I spoke with the City Attorney and that’s what’s appropriate in this 35
case. So, I will be leaving, thank you, everyone. 36
37
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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 Hechtman: Thank you, Vice-Chair. Have a good night. So, Commissioner Templeton, I see 1
your hand up. Are you wanting to say something before we receive the report? 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: Yes, I wanted to say that it’s 8:30 and I wonder if we might have a 5-4
minute break? 5
6
Chair Hechtman: Ok, that’s a wonderful idea. Let’s do that, so I have 8:32, and let’s come back 7
in… let’s come back at 8:38. 8
9
[The Commission took a 5-minute break] 10
11
Chair Hechtman: So, it appears that we have the five Commissioners moving forward. Are we 12
ready to resume? 13
14
Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: We are ready to resume. Vinh and Medina, if you want 15
to remove the pausing slide. We are going to Agenda Item 3, Chair if that’s alright? I would like 16
to introduce Philip Kamhi for the item. Did you want to say a few words first Chair Hechtman? 17
18
Chair Hechtman: Yes, that it’s Item 2 in the third slot. 19
20
Ms. Tanner: Two, sorry, yes, you’re right. Thank you. So, Director Kamhi, do you want to take it 21
away? 22
23
Mr. Philip Kamhi, Chief Transportation Official: Thank you and thank you for listening to all 24
these transportation items tonight. Good evening, I’m Philip Kamhi, Chief Transportation 25
Official. I’ve already been talking tonight so you all know that. I’m not sure, is the PowerPoint 26
showing yet? It looks like it’s just getting ready to show but tonight the Office of Transportation 27
is before you to engage you on the South Palo Alto Bikeways Project and specifically, we’re here 28
to share details about our proposed Community Engagement Plan which really stems from the 29
lessons learned from other projects and from other prior transportation projects. And as you 30
might be aware, on Monday the City Council approved this proposed Community Engagement 31
Plan and they also assisted us in providing additional groups that we can reach out to. We’re 32
here before you tonight seeking similar feedback. Anyways that we can further improve the 33
Community Engagement Plan that was developed and the PTC is of specific interest to us in this 34
process because we intend to return to the PTC after almost every single phase of the outreach 35
and it’s a five-phased approach to the outreach. Additionally, tonight we’ll share the proposed 36
timeline which includes next steps to move the project forward to meet grant deadlines. 37
38
And I think now Sylvia, you might have to skip two slides. Yeah, if you can just go one more 39
slide. There we go. So, just to give some project background, this project is funded by a 40
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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.
$919,000 grant through the Vehicle Emissions Reductions Based at Schools Program or VERBS. 1
That was actually applied for by the Office of Transportation in 2017 and the project consists of 2
upgrading bicycle facilities on three segments. The Waverly path, the East Meadow Drive, and 3
Fabian Way and due to grant timelines, this project has to have authorization for construction 4
from Caltrans by January of 2023. Next slide. 5
6
This project is actually a follow up to a 2010 VERBS Grant that was… that had developed the 7
initial Walk and Roll Maps for PAUSD School. And in this planning process, the Waverly Path 8
was specifically identified as needing improvements and it certainly has not gotten any better 9
since then. It’s in some serious disrepair and also enhanced bikeways on Fabian and East 10
Meadow were identified as key projects in the Council Approved 2012 Bicycle and Pedestrian 11
Transportation Plan. And then further Council asked Staff to develop a Class Four separated 12
bikeway on East Meadow in 2015. 13
14
So, not including the current pandemic, cycling to schools whose catchment areas encompass 15
this project have seen an increase in student bicycle mode share since we initially applied for 16
this project and going back to 2016. And with that, I’m going to turn the presentation over to 17
Sylvia Star-Lack, our Transportation Planning Manager. 18
19
Ms. Sylvia Star-Lack, Transportation Planning Manager: Thanks, Philip. This slide shows the 20
project map that shows where the segments are located. The Waverly Path on East… Waverly 21
Path, East Meadow, and Fabian Way. Note that this project is essentially the gateway project 22
for the Adobe Bridge which is currently under construction by Public Works. Pedestrians and 23
cyclists using that bridge and the Adobe Creek Reach Trail will find themselves on this project. 24
Creating low-stress bicycle facilities to connect to the new bridge will capitalize on our 25
investment in the bridge and our investments on the nearby Charleston Corridor which is on 26
that map in that dark blue that connects to these… those two legs that you see there in the 27
light blue. Beyond this project's benefits for the school commute, this project improves lengths 28
to the Charleston Corridor Project, the many public and private facilities housed at or adjacent 29
to Mitchell Park, the facilities at the JCC as well as to employment and housing on Fabian Way. 30
As you know the JCC serves a wide range of users including vulnerable road users such as 31
children and seniors. 32
33
Is it not switching? Oh sorry, it’s got… there we go. The Waverly Path improvements include 34
widening the path by at least 2-feet where feasible to accommodate high flows and varying 35
speeds of cyclists and pedestrians. Repaving and regrading will help to mitigate the uneven 36
surfaces caused by root damage and school Staff told us about, at the time, it was eight injuries 37
due to the unevenness of the path. 38
39
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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 along East Meadow, proposed changes to include bicyclist visibility and safety include 1
installing a protected or buffer bicycle facility that may require some parking reconfiguration or 2
limited removal. This is a school commute corridor and a popular bike route. Additional 3
facilities are needed to accommodate peak school commute traffic volumes. The bike lanes are 4
immediately adjacent to travel and parking lanes within a buffered space in between. 5
6
Along Fabian Way, the project will enhance bicycle safety where there is only a stiped bike lane 7
and the project there could include reconfiguration with a travel reduction to accommodate a 8
protected bicycle facility in each direction. Given the large crossing distances, high volumes of 9
traffic, and current land configuration with narrow or shared bike and parking lanes as you can 10
see in the picture on the right. Arriving on or crossing Fabian Way is part of a walking or biking 11
school commute with children is a challenge. Parents who live here have told us that they won’t 12
bike to school from here given the poor bicycle facilities. 13
14
We’re here today to inform you that we are initiating project planning. Since it has been a few 15
years, we’re reevaluating the initial concept plan that’s in the application and this spring we will 16
develop a couple of concept plan alternatives and conduct community engagement to collect 17
feedback on those alternatives. We anticipate returning to… we’re going to go to Council in late 18
spring with a final concept plan based on Findings from this round of community engagement 19
and we plan on releasing a request for proposal for design in the summer if our concept plan is 20
approved. 21
22
And we’re going to move into our Community Engagement Plan. Our Community Engagement 23
Plan updates are approached from the Neighborhood Transportation Safety and Bicycle 24
Boulevard Project. We’ve modeled the plan on the spectrum of Public Participation Framework 25
developed by the IAP2, the International Association of Public Participation, to determine the 26
right level of engagement for each phase of the project. 27
28
The draft purpose statement for the Community Engagement Plan are to number one, provide 29
accessible information on the South Palo Alto Bikeways Project alternatives and to provide 30
opportunities and platforms to enhance and encourage community engagement and 31
participation. To identify, engage and work with key stakeholders to inform the community 32
about the project, urgency of timely decisions, and the need to participate to assist Council to 33
adopt a preferred solution. 34
35
This is our draft community engagement schedule with the level of engagement indicated for 36
each phase… for each phase of the project. We are using the involved level of engagement until 37
the final design is approved. Note that there is a lag time between public engagement for 38
Stages Two and Three and that is due to the need to get necessary environmental clearance 39
and school permission to work on their property. We will be working on the project all of this 40
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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.
time. These stages only refer to the… when we will be doing active outreach with the 1
community. The full draft project schedule with milestones is on Page 11 of the PTC Staff report 2
or Packet Page 18 if you want to refer to that. 3
4
So, we have two main questions and a third general question for you tonight and the first is, did 5
we omit any groups in our Community Engagement Plan? This is the stakeholder list. I’ll just run 6
through the questions and we’ll come back to this. The second question is which outreach and 7
communications tools are most or least effective given our limited time and budget? And this is 8
a list of our tools and then the third question we have is do you have any other feedback for us 9
on the Community Engagement Plan? So, I will just come back here. Thank you for your 10
attention. That’s the end of the presentation. 11
12
Chair Hechtman: Thank you. So, before we take public comment, are there any questions that 13
any of the Commissioners want to ask Staff about the presentation? Alright, I see no hands so, 14
like the last item, this is a study session so it’s not a public hearing, but we do invite public 15
comment and so I’m now going to open the floor for public comments on this agenda. Please 16
raise your hand if you wish to speak. On the Zoom App, there’s a raise hand button on the 17
bottom of your screen. If you are dialing in from a phone press *9. Let’s see, Ms. Klicheva, are 18
there any public speakers for this item? 19
20
Ms. Medina Klicheva, Administrative Assistant: Yes, we have one hand raised. Rebecca 21
Eisenberg, you can speak now. 22
23
Ms. Rebecca Eisenberg: Hi again. Thanks so much for letting me speak. I first want to say this is 24
such a great plan and it’s so exciting and it seems to remedy so many of the problems of the 25
paths which I won’t mention because it doesn’t matter. But I have two… not but, you know all 26
that aside, all that stands and then in addition just two quick thoughts. 27
28
First is I noticed that Commissioner Roohparvar [note – Vice-Chair Roohparvar] stepped out. 29
What is that word? Kurt, what’s that word? No, her… not… ok, you know what I’m talking 30
about. Due to conflict but I’m not so sure it actually is a conflict of interest. You know the fact 31
that she lives close to this. When I complain about conflict of interest I’m really talking about a 32
situation where there’s a potential tit for tat like money going back and forth, like one of you is 33
being… recused is the word… where one of you is being extra kind to an applicant because 34
you’re hoping for something from the applicant in exchange. Whether it’s a campaign 35
contribution or whether it’s maybe admission to a private school or whether it… lord knows 36
why. I don’t really think that is really the case here. So, maybe it could be… I mean this is for 37
you all and also for the City Council and I’ve been begging for this. There could be an actual 38
focus on what the more specific rules of conflict of interest are because quite frankly, I’m not 39
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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.
really so confident in the City Attorney’s Office to get that done correctly. And so that is 1
something that you all are lawyers that you could devote some of your expertise to. 2
3
Additionally, the other thought is also related to half of you being… half of you are lawyers and 4
your expertise is that… and I said this at the City Council meeting… what good is it to create bike 5
paths if you don’t put in some sort of ordinance that protects the bike paths? So, and of course, 6
right now I’m talking about what’s about to happen with regard to Bryant Bike Boulevard. The 7
only bike boulevard in North Palo Alto or is its Northeast Palo Alto that so many hundreds, 8
possibly thousands of little kids, use when school is actually in session. Kids as young as 4-years 9
old ride up and down bike… the Bryant Street bike boulevard and now we potentially have a 10
private school putting a huge garage underground with entrance and/or exits onto bike 11
boulevard. That is going to create a real freakin safety hazards unavoidably for these little kids 12
who are going to be biking. So, when you talk about this, can you please put in… which 13
obviously I oppose that garage so strongly and you’ve heard me say that for safety reason. I 14
have two children myself. Anyway, so maybe if you’re going to create a bike path, put in place… 15
you know recommend an ordinance to the City Council to protect the safety of the bike path. 16
Please, I beg of you, please. Thank you very much for your consideration. Have a good night. 17
18
Chair Hechtman: Thank you. Are there any other public comments? Hands raised? 19
20
Ms. Klicheva: Yes. Aram James, you can speak now. 21
22
Mr. Aram James: I’ll be brief. I just wanted to support the bike plan. It seems to be a good one. 23
Something that’s much needed to get us out to the Baylands and to have students traveling in a 24
safe manner but I also want to support Rebecca’s comments about the Castilleja School matter. 25
26
I won’t present it tonight but when Castilleja comes up in the larger context, I think I have a 27
solution to how we can resolve the bitter dispute between those folks that want to expand 28
Castilleja and those who are opposed to that and I’ve been thinking a lot about it. I’ve actually 29
been in contact with the Public Relations person by the name of Lorain Brown (interrupted) 30
31
Chair Hechtman: Mr. James? Please pause the clock. 32
33
Mr. James: Yeah and I’m about finished here. 34
35
Chair Hechtman: Ok, on the Bike Pathway Project before us tonight, please. 36
37
Mr. James: I understand what you’re saying. So, you want to let me finish (interrupted) 38
39
Chair Hechtman: Yes, I would like (interrupted) 40
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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. James: Or do you want to go two… you want to cut me off a second time? What’s your 2
choice? 3
4
Chair Hechtman: I would like you to take your remaining time as much of it as you want to talk 5
about the agenda item. 6
7
Mr. James: That’s what I’m doing. You know it’s not always a narrow path, you know and I’ve 8
been doing this for a lot of years. 9
10
Chair Hechtman: Alright, start the clock again, please. 11
12
Mr. James: I’ve been doing this a lot of years, talking to Council and Commissions and so I think 13
I understand the process and somethings go, like I said, not in a straight line when we’re having 14
conversations about important issues, but Rebecca’s raised a critical issue and that’s regarding 15
the issues around Castilleja. I’ll leave it at that and will present more details because I have a 16
solution to Castilleja and I think it’s quite creative and I hope that we can talk about that in 17
detail. 18
19
And I’m hopeful that in the future you’ll be more mindful Mr. Chair, regarding the First 20
Amendment rights of citizens to talk on these kinds of critical issues and not necessarily always 21
directly to the point that you want to hear. And I thought it was really tacky, by the way, for you 22
then to use Rebecca Tanner [note – Rachael Tanner] to ultimately cut me off. I’m not… and I’ll 23
leave it at that tonight. I think she had a conflict of doing that because I’ve been so critical with 24
her on her Safe Parking Program. Thank you. 25
26
Chair Hechtman: Are there additional public comments? 27
28
Ms. Klicheva: No, we don’t have any hands raised. That concludes public comments for this 29
item. 30
31
Chair Hechtman: Thank you, so we will move now to Commission's questions and discussion 32
and the first hand I see up is Commissioner Templeton. 33
34
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you so much. I’m really excited about this project and the idea 35
of getting the grant funding. So, I will start by saying I don’t know if I have shared this with Staff 36
or not. My kids go to school across town so we live in one part of town and we drive down 37
Meadow and over across Ross to get to school and when we were biking in the spring a couple 38
of years ago. We were… my child was hit by a car on biking on Meadow right in front of the 39
elementary school and she was ok. She was thrown off her bike. Scared but ok but I learned 40
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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.
what a dangerous place that is and how much we desperately need improvements to make a 1
safety corridor along Meadow. 2
3
Also, when I worked over in the Shoreline Park I biked from my home in South Palo Alto, Barron 4
Park, down Meadow, and across Fabian. And I have interacted on these spaces as well as bike 5
commuter myself and I think it’s a great place to prioritize bike improvements. I think there’s a 6
lot that can be done there that will not just benefit our students but also people that live in Palo 7
Alto and might work nearby. So, I think it’s a great idea. 8
9
I wonder… you know enhanced bicyclist’s safety and visibility; do we have more details on that 10
or do we not need them at this point? Are you mainly focused on looking for who to outreach 11
with or any more details that you sneak in there for us? No, not yet. 12
13
Ms. Kamhi: At this point, we’re just really looking for feedback on the Community Engagement 14
Plan. What we want to do next and as I mentioned before, PTC is going to be involved in every 15
phase of this. So, after Phase One, what we plan to do is bring a concept plan back for PTC to 16
look at. So, I think that at this point what we’re going to do is try to make sure that we’re 17
reaching out to everybody that wants to be… provide feedback so that we can develop what 18
that concept is going to look like. And then… so that’s really what we’re hoping to get tonight 19
and thank you for the kind words about this project. Just so you know, the Staff that you have 20
here with you tonight and also listening are actually the Staff that wrote this grant back in 2017. 21
So, it was in a former role, Sylvia was in her formal role, and Rosie Mesterhazy who is also 22
listening worked on the grant. So, (interrupted) 23
24
Commissioner Templeton: That’s kind of awesome. 25
26
Mr. Kamhi: [unintelligible] so we’re (interrupted) 27
28
Commissioner Templeton: That’s great. 29
30
Mr. Kamhi: We take that to heart. 31
32
Commissioner Templeton: Well, I would add then the only thing I could think of is you have 33
business owners. That you might want to talk to some employees who use those pathways as 34
well. 35
36
Mr. Kamhi: Yeah, that’s great. 37
38
Commissioner Templeton: Alright, well that’s all I want to say for now. I may come back a little 39
later. Thank you. 40
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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 Hechtman: Commissioner Alcheck. You’re muted. 2
3
Commissioner Alcheck: Oh gosh, sorry. Ok, first question, would you mind pulling up the slides 4
real quick? I’m not sure who’s managing them. If we could go back to the timeline real quick 5
that said something about inform… no, inform… I don’t know. Yeah, perfect. What is the date at 6
which or let me ask this question? Which stage do you have to reach for you not to lose the 7
money and by what date? 8
9
Mr. Kamhi: So, I’ll answer your question kind of backward as Sylvia tries to figure out what… 10
how exactly it ties into this because this really the Community Engagement Process but noting 11
that what we need to do in order to meet the obligation for our grant. Is we need to have 12
something into Caltrans which is called the E76 which is their authorization to proceed to have 13
the funding obligated. That’s by January of 2023. That ties into where we’re at, at Stage 5. 14
15
Commissioner Alcheck: Right so look, I’ll just suggest this. Number one I’m concerned that 16
things always take too long in the City of Palo Alto and so and I think you should… I’m sure you 17
have worked this into your schedule but I wonder to myself if you’re planning on having the 18
design be finalized in the last 6-months stretch before the funding had to be not lost. Would 19
that potentially put us in a position where we’re perceived as cutting corners in involving 20
people enough right and then in order to meet the needs? And I’ll just tell you that I hate that 21
moment when they’re like you’re rushing this and we’re like well, we have a financial incentive. 22
23
Ok and then I want to… can you switch to the slide about tools? Yeah. This is not the thinking of 24
someone who’s been on a Planning Commission for 9 plus years speaking like I’m too tired to 25
participate in the public process. That’s not where this is coming from, but I would suggest to 26
you that this is so much for what I would consider a rather simple goal. The simple goal here is 27
to create a safer bike route in multiple places. I just think that we don’t need… I don’t think we 28
need standing meetings. I don’t think we need to have interviews with key partners. I don’t 29
think we need City communication channels. I don’t think we need… I mean it’s just… there is I 30
think a population in the City that wants all of this as squared and then there’s 60… and there’s 31
40,000 people in the City that are like what is taking so long and they don’t presume to be 32
experts in any of the design. And so, my message to the Staff would be get a competent 33
designer of bike protection plans or whatever. Bike… whatever it is and then let’s just invest in a 34
workup, whatever you want to call it, design one, and then just have an online survey and that’s 35
it. And people can write… the usually suspects can write hours of information and I will commit 36
as a Commissioner, I only have one year left, but I will commit on behalf of all the 37
Commissioners that the Commissioners will read every piece of information. That it makes 38
absolutely no sense for there to be small meetings that the City puts on for the public to come 39
and stand around big posters that display Version One and Version Two and Version Three and 40
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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.
everybody’s trying to feel it out and there are people who have never been on a bike before 1
who have really strong opinions about it. I just think that we got to go 21st century on this, 2
right? We’re at the heart… we’re in Silicon Valley. Have a good website with really clear 3
indications and if there’s a concern that individuals in the public don’t have access to the web 4
or they can’t possibly get access to a computer. Create a work station in the City Hall that 5
allows them to do it and then offer people the opportunity for 6-months, I don’t know; 4-6
months; 3-months. A plenty… of 90-days, a 120-day span of time to respond with comments 7
and then have responsive Design Two, Version Two. 8
9
I just think that the presentation to neighborhoods, like we’re treating a bike boulevard like 10
it’s… I mean it can’t be this way. It can’t be… this is the sort of effort… I know these are just 11
draft recommended outreach. I know you’re asking which one of these to do. Look, I’m not 12
saying your suggesting we use all of these but these are the tools we would use for Cubberley 13
projects that involved 1,500 housing units, for all the teachers and Staff and the City. Plus, 14
400,000-square feet of community usage space. That’s what that page looks like to me. For a 15
bike boulevard? You know, you can send me a card in the mail with a little picture and if I have 16
an opinion I’ll share and let’s get this done because it’s so… it's like I’ve said this before and it’s 17
been a long time but every street in Palo Alto would be better off if it had a bike lane. And I 18
don’t need any… we don’t any meetings to… for… I think for the general public to share that 19
view. The question is, is it going to infringe on parking spaces? Ok, in those regards… do we 20
have… you were talking about Fabian Way. Fabian Way looks like an expressway. It looks like 21
Foothill Express Way and if your there for any part of the day that’s not 8:00 am and maybe 22
5:00 pm. There aren’t that many cars on it and so it’s like you’d be crazy… if you’re a kid and 23
you want to cross the street. You’re like I got to get to the corner because if I cross anywhere 24
else, it just seems… it’s just too big, right? So, the idea that you suggested maybe reducing a 25
lane of traffic there to accommodate protected bike lanes. Yeah. I mean you want to reach out 26
to the businesses there and get their buy-in, that makes sense. 27
28
But I really don’t think that we should assume that we need to use… it’s like we have 3-minutes 29
that we make available for every speaker. Not every speaker needs to use all 3-minutes. Some 30
people can finish in 30-seconds. We have 3-years to figure this out. We don’t need to use all 3-31
years to do it just because we have that time and so what I would suggest to you is if… and my 32
Commissioners I’m sure will feel differently. I saw three hands go up the minute I started saying 33
what I was saying so I’m sure there’s some disagreement here with what I’m saying. But if we 34
do feel very strongly about getting a lot of input, can we still run it? Can we still treat it like it’s a 35
sprint instead of a marathon? Can we try to demonstrate to the City of Palo Alto that we can 36
effectively create a bike boulevard in less than the 24-months that we have to do it? 37
38
And then can we go back one page? Do we omit any groups or sorry, sorry, you can stay right 39
there for a second because it’s relatively similar or no, no, no. Sorry, one forward. You jumped 40
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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.
two. So, I would be very specific if, for example, this comes back to the Planning Commission in 1
plan development form. Like if this comes before us one more time before you begin the 2
process I would suggest to you that we should be very narrow, right? If you’re going to talk 3
about Fabian Way, then it’s just the businesses that front Fabian Way. We do not need to hear 4
from what’s that market that’s down on Middlefield and Meadow or whatever it is? It’s kiddy 5
corner from Fabian Way. You know like we really should be precise and I think if you want to 6
reach the parents for… if you want to reach families, go through the school. Maybe you just 7
contact the PTAs and say listen, can you distribute this survey? 8
9
I guess what I’m trying to say is be really thrifty and air on the side of less. Can you go back to 10
the slide with the schedule? Yeah, air on the side of less involvement. I think we’re very 11
confident in our new City Council. We’re very confident or the City should be very confident in 12
its new City Council. The City I think should be confident in its Staff. Like let’s do Concept Plan 13
Development, maybe that is informal and then feedback is involved, and then let’s, you know, 14
cut one of these out or two… one and a half of them out. I just… and I really… we… there’s… 15
before this year, the notion of doing anything digitally was loath to the sort of… and I don’t 16
want to say this in a negative way but to the Staff of this City, right? I remember Adrian Fine as 17
a Commissioner suggesting is there any way we can invite people to participate from their 18
homes in Commission meetings and it was like no. No. You work for NextDoor, we know what 19
you’re doing, conflict of interest, no. I mean it was crazy and now we’re totally online and so 20
we’re doing it. And so, what I would suggest to you is let’s utilize that, let’s go with it, let’s keep 21
the meetings short, let people engage with Staff individually instead of in front of 200 people as 22
if it matters how many people hear your comment as opposed to whether or not the Staff 23
themselves actually read it. And so that’s… I’ve spoken a lot with defending my idea because I 24
felt like I saw the opposition. So, good luck, that’s all I’m going to say on this topic, I can’t wait 25
to see this project move forward and I hope it happens before 2023. 26
27
Chair Hechtman: Thank you. Commissioner Lauing, you’re next. 28
29
Commissioner Lauing: Yeah, thanks. Obviously, this batting order is quite odd. That it’s coming 30
to us after it’s already been approved by City Council. So, I don’t know if that was intentional or 31
it just happened on the schedule or whatever but it’s kind of [unintelligible] one of our 32
objectives. In fact, I mean it’s not even making recommendations to the Council and they don’t 33
have to take our advice and, in this case, they didn’t have the benefit of that; which I don’t 34
think is terrible but here we are making recommendations after they’ve debated it 48-hours 35
ago with all seven Council Members and passed it 7 to 0. So, if you’re just wanting our feedback 36
as well I think that’s fine. I think that’s fine. 37
38
Mr. Kamhi: If I can, a couple of different things. Yes, number one, we are wanting your feedback 39
as well so I think first of all we really appreciate your feedback. Second, it’s going to be back to 40
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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.
you three times more before it goes back to Council so you’re going to have plenty of 1
opportunity. In particular, we want you to provide us with the feedback to give to Council 2
moving forward so that’s why it’s coming back to PTC three times before it gets back to Council 3
again. 4
5
Commissioner Lauing: Right and in that regard, I think maybe it could have even of skipped this 6
time so maybe what happened is ok because they got through it pretty promptly and very 7
thoroughly and approved it. So, my comments will be more conscience than the previous 8
speaker. I think that it’s very consistent with the Comp Plan. I think bike safety is one of the top 9
priorities we should have in this town and this does it in multiple areas. I think the breath as has 10
been commented on is broad and arguably too broad when you get to the level of running 11
newspaper ads. I think that gets a little bit far relative to what we have to accomplish. So, that 12
would be the kind of area I would suggest was a little bit less effective and you might look at 13
trimming those areas in the interest of time. 14
15
So, look forward to how it comes back to us but don’t need to belabor sort of the deed that’s 16
already done. Thank you. 17
18
Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Summa you are next. Before you speak I want to apologize. I’m 19
still getting my footing here as the Chair and I realize when I saw your hand up that I had 20
intended to give you an opportunity at the very front of this item for discussion of the issue you 21
raised early in the meeting; why are we talking about this tonight? So, I’m sorry, I overlooked 22
that. 23
24
Commissioner Summa: Oh, thank you so much. No worries. I just felt as Commissioner Lauing 25
mentioned there was no real reason for us to review this at this preliminary stage since both 26
recommendations in the Staff report that Staff recommended Council voted on 2-days ago. But 27
so that’s irrelevant at this point and so we’re hearing it and thank you for remembering but no 28
big deal. 29
30
I also think there’s not much to say because what we need to do is to work with the options 31
that are brought back to us and thank you for Staff for acknowledging that you’re going to 32
come back to us three times during the process with options. So, that we can help the 33
community work towards the best options for these bicycle boulevards which is very important 34
I think and I think that the community does have a lot of opinions about these. So, that’s all I’ll 35
say and thank you very much Chair. 36
37
Ms. Star-Lack: Chair can I just make a comment? I just want to clarify. These are not bicycle 38
boulevards. 39
40
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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 Summa: Oh, I know. Oops, sorry. 1
2
Ms. Star-Lack: Yeah, that’s ok. I just… a couple of Commissioners have been calling them that. 3
Yeah, these are bike lanes. It’s bike lanes on two streets and a bike path. 4
5
Commissioner Summa: I’m sorry that I made that mistake. Thank you for correcting me. 6
7
Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Templeton. 8
9
Commissioner Templeton: Thank you. Yes, I think you can just see how eager and supportive 10
we are if we’re aggrandizing these projects. We’re looking ahead to what else can we do? 11
Anyway, so just to address a couple of comments from the Commissioners and to clarify for my 12
own information. Are we required to announce these kinds of projects in the newspaper? Is 13
that part… I feel like some kinds of City activities are required to be announced in the paper. Is 14
this one of them? 15
16
Mr. Kamhi: So, I… yes, we would probably need to I believe and I’m looking to our legal here but 17
we would probably need to announce it before construction, pre-construction I believe but I 18
don’t think… oh, there we go. I see Albert. I don’t know that we would have a legal requirement 19
to do so beforehand. 20
21
Commissioner Templeton: Well, that makes sense and I can see why you would include 22
newspaper ads. I don’t think it’s for purposes of a campaign in favor of this but more for 23
information that requires different outlets. That makes sense so thank you for that and then a 24
couple of other things. 25
26
I was wondering, just looking back over your list of people, why are we specifying Mitchell Park 27
Field users and not Mitchell Park users? So yeah. 28
29
Ms. Star-Lack: So, I… we want all Mitchell Park users but I think in coming up with that list I 30
wanted to make sure that we were able to think about the leagues that use those fields for 31
recreation. To ensure that those folks could get their voices in for… you know I think that there 32
are a lot of… actually, to your point earlier in the earlier item where you were talking about 33
having to schlep kids around after school. The… a project like this could actually free up parents 34
for after-school schlepping I guess. 35
36
Commissioner Templeton: Yes, there is no better word. You’re absolutely right and I was 37
thinking about that for the next line item you talk about community center users. You know my 38
kids were dancers so I was always taking them over to the different dance programs that are at 39
the Cubberley Community Center. You know one step over and so I would think about… I don’t 40
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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.
know if you mean only Mitchell Park Community Center users or if Cubberley’s near enough 1
that you’d want to talk but to bike, to Cubberley, you’d all these same paths. 2
3
And the other use case I was thinking about for Mitchell Park is yes, I think it’s really important 4
to think about the athletes who have to bring their gear with and that would include people 5
that use the field or people that are doing art type activities at Cubberley. But also, we have the 6
park, Magical Bridge Park, that is kind of near all of these routes and there are some users of 7
that park, some visitors there who wouldn’t necessarily be biking themselves but we might 8
have people driving bikes that have different specifications. Bringing their child with them or 9
someone with a larger bike that needs to bring a larger child to a park-like that for the diverse 10
needs. So, I think that’s also interesting just to think about are there other ways that those bike 11
paths are being used, but I know you will reach out to those and those communities will 12
certainly speak up. I just wanted to acknowledge them here in this discussion and make sure 13
that we all say together, yes, we hope to get all those feedback. 14
15
And then I just disagree with my fellow Commissioner, Commissioner Alcheck, about not 16
reaching out to employees at sites that might appear distant. For example, like Shoreline, there 17
are several large employers there and many of their employees may use these paths. They are 18
all obviously many of them very digital so you might be able to solicit feedback there at low to 19
no cost and be able to get some insights just over email or something from the employees 20
there. 21
22
And then the last thing that I wanted to ask is I noticed that that bike underpass is highlighted 23
in red on your map. So, it’s not the cyan. That little stretch, has that already been recently 24
improved? I think it has, right? Is that why we’re not including it in this project? 25
26
Mr. Kamhi: Can you pull up that map Sylvia? I believe you’re talking about the Adobe 27
(interrupted) 28
29
Commissioner Templeton: Slide Six. 30
31
Mr. Kamhi: Reach Creek I believe? So, the Adobe Reach Trail is part of the bike bridge project. 32
So, that connects to the 101 bridge and that’s the red that you’re seeing so that path is going to 33
connect to the 101 bridge, bike bridge that goes over the 101 that’s currently under 34
construction. That path there along the Adobe Reach Trail will connect there into Meadow. 35
36
Commissioner Templeton: So that stretch is already covered in another project and that’s why 37
it doesn’t (interrupted) 38
39
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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. Kamhi: Yeah, it’s currently under construction right now. So, this really connects that and 1
connect thus to the other side of 101 as well. 2
3
Commissioner Templeton: It makes it even more urgent. I love it. Well, I guess I just want to 4
wrap up my comments by saying how much I appreciate the effort you’re putting into outreach 5
and communication. I think back to a few years ago when we didn’t have this attention on 6
outreach and it led to some frustration on the Ross Road projects and some part of this where 7
Ross meets Meadow may also be part of this project at some point. So, you know it does 8
appear to me that you guys have, as a department, really embraced that feedback and adopted 9
those lessons learned and I’m really excited to see that so thank you. 10
11
Chair Hechtman: Alright, thank you. So, I guess I’ll start… I’ve got a question and a suggestion. 12
So, the question really it sort of tacks onto Commissioner Alcheck’s asking about the breadth of 13
the community engagement and all the tools. I know this is not our Transportation 14
Department’s first bikeway rodeo and so I was imagining that you have designed this process 15
based on your prior experiences which I’m not aware of. I mean I know where the bike facilities 16
are around town but I don’t know the process you went through to get them approved and in 17
place. So, I’m curious and I think the Commission would benefit hearing a little bit about your 18
thought process as you design what does appear to be a pretty elaborate Community 19
Engagement Program. 20
21
Mr. Kamhi: Alright, well I’ll take a first stab at this, and then Sylvia might want to jump in 22
because I’ll just tell you that although I was with the City previously when it had worked on the 23
Ross Road and the original Neighborhood Traffic Safety and Bike Boulevard Project. I did not 24
work on that project. I was not… I was working on primarily parking and the shuttle and Safe 25
Routes to School and for other things. So, I’ll just mention that I joined in a little over a year ago 26
and we’re still cleaning up things from really lessons learned from really what I would say was a 27
community outreach process that we’ve learned a lot of lessons from. And that’s what’s 28
indicated in this really, really robust outreach plan that Staff has developed and I want to 29
acknowledge that we have Staff on the line here that worked on this plan, but everything that 30
you see in this plan comes out of the fact that we, as transportation, heard that the outreach 31
on the prior project was not adequate. And so that’s really what this plan seeks to do and it 32
really seeks to set a model for this type of project, for this level of project, the type of outreach 33
that we believe is necessary. When you’re talking about something like potentially removing 34
parking in front of somebody’s house when they’re use to parking there; or removing a travel 35
lane. When somebody says I need that travel lane because that’s how I… you know that’s the 36
lane that I drive to work. If you take away that travel lane what happens? Is Fabian Way going 37
to be trafficked? It's all those different kinds of difficult decisions and discussions that need to 38
occur and we can’t have this plan go out there and be in construction and have somebody I 39
didn’t know about this. What is going on in front of my house and that’s what we heard 40
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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.
happened frankly, with some of the prior projects. And so, that’s what this plan set out to make 1
sure does not happen. 2
3
And I hear every one of Commissioner Alcheck’s comments that we might have gone too far on 4
this, but I hope that’s what we hear at the end. Is that we went too far, we talked to too many 5
people, but I think we’ll see because I still believe that this is going to be something where it’s 6
going to be a project that some people are going to really strongly support and some people are 7
going to really strong oppose. 8
9
Chair Hechtman: Ms. Star-Lack, did you want to add anything before I continue? 10
11
Ms. Star-Lack: Thank you. Just a little bit, I think if you look at the tools we really tried to 12
emphasize the digital just to refer to Commissioner Alcheck’s comments. We really did try to 13
think about much more digital than we otherwise would so and we were cognizant about our 14
limited budget for this work. So, that all worked together to create the plan. Thanks. 15
16
Chair Hechtman: So, when I think about your community engagement being rolled out, the… 17
what I think about is the… in my perspective the stakeholder group that is potentially most 18
impacted by this project are the people who live along these three roads or live or work I 19
should say. So, they are either the homeowners or the tenants and the businesses. Owners and 20
employees and so to me the… it’s critical to have your outreach successfully connect with that 21
group because those are the ones that are going to have to live with it on a daily basis. And so, 22
the only thing I noticed in looking at your kind of detailed roll-out of which tools you would 23
intend to use during which phases is that you had door hangers as a tool to use in Phase 5. And 24
to me, door hangers are a very effective way to get my attention and I know that most of the 25
tree trimming services in the peninsula must agree because they love those. And I always look 26
at them before I recycle them but so I was wondering about moving that door hanger concept 27
up to Phase 1 for the buildings along the routes. That would be my suggestion. 28
29
Ms. Star-Lack: Thank you. 30
31
Chair Hechtman: And so that’s really all I had to say about it other than it’s exciting and I love 32
the linkage and I love how this fills in this quarter of Palo Alto and it creates that connectivity. I 33
have been missing that underpass that’s been closed while they build the new Adobe overpass 34
and I ride by it at least twice a week. And I love seeing the progress and so I’m really looking 35
forward to crossing over the freeway on that and eventually connecting to all these new bike 36
paths. 37
38
We’ve got a couple more Commissioner hands up and I will start with Commissioner Summa. 39
40
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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 Summa: Thank you. So, I just want to say that I think it is really important how 1
we plan this part of Palo Alto because we’re planning for a lot of new housing in this part of 2
Palo Alto and it will be housing with families and children. So, I think it’s really important to get 3
this right and I appreciate that Staff has been very comprehensive in their ideas about how to 4
address the community. And I say none of those ideas are so daunting that they have to hold 5
Staff back from coming up with solutions and options that they bring to Council and hopefully 6
PTC for specifics along these project routes. 7
8
And I think it’s really good to get the word out early and I think one of the ways it can be done 9
is to post signage along the routes because I think it’s really easy to know who lives there and 10
who works there along these routes but it may not as clear who uses… who are the users of 11
these routes on a daily basis whether they’re children going to school or adults. So, I think 12
anything you can do to expedite and get early information from users of the route will make 13
this a more successful project and so that’s it. Thank you very much. 14
15
Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Alcheck. 16
17
Commissioner Alcheck: So, I just want to ask a few questions. I mean I did not watch the 60-18
minutes episode about the Ross Road controversy. So, I don’t know the learning that 19
apparently you guys have walked away with, but if… I guess my first question is was that… were 20
you suggesting that there were individuals who abutted those changes that had never been 21
properly informed? They didn’t receive notice? 22
23
Mr. Kamhi: So, I can’t say that that’s the case but I can say that that’s what we’ve heard. So, to 24
this day we still hear from people that (interrupted) 25
26
Commissioner Alcheck: I guess the right question would be did the City mail all the people that 27
abut that route an information packet? 28
29
Ms. Kamhi: I would say I believe so but [unintelligible](interrupted) 30
31
Commissioner Alcheck: I guess I would say this. Look, look, I hear this all the time in my 32
professional work. You know I mailed it in and it didn’t arrive. Ok so I would agree with… first of 33
all, I mean the notion that Commissioner Hechtman’s suggestion… Chair Hechtman’s suggestion 34
that you put a door hanger somehow saves this project from what would have otherwise been 35
a disaster right? So, I completely agree with him. This idea of getting them… their attention 36
early and I would suggest to you that the best use of your money would be to do a door hanger. 37
And then, I don’t know if you get this from Amazon where they take a picture of each door 38
package. Take the picture. I’m not even kidding because when someone says never, it never 39
was left. In fact, do it twice. You should do a door hanger and a month later a second door 40
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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.
hanger and they should both be photographed. That would be the best use of your money and I 1
would suggest that it is the worst thing that you could do is suggest that you’re going to begin 2
the conceptualization of a bike lane because that doesn’t tell someone what they’re about to 3
lose. You know and I’m not suggesting you make the case for them. Here’s why you should hate 4
this project. You’re going to lose your street parking. No, I’m not suggesting that either but it’s… 5
to invite people into a process 3-years before it happens with a concept that you’re going to 6
improve bike safety on their road. That is the sort of thing that many people might be like 7
alright, whatever and then they don’t pay attention. And then you put that second door hanger 8
on the 3-weeks before you start construction and they’re like wait, wait, wait. What’s that pole 9
you just put up that said no parking? That’s not going to work either which is why I would 10
suggest… and you know that when you said it’s not a bike boulevard which made me feel like I 11
wasn’t paying attention. And then it made me laugh because I was thinking yeah, it’s not a bike 12
boulevard, it’s a bike lane. We’re talking about a bike lane and it’s going to take over like this 13
department for the next 3-years because we got stung on the last one I’m guessing. 14
15
And so, I guess what I’m trying to suggest to you is I really think that if you came up with your 16
first design and then door hanged that. This is what it will look like and these are the 17
implications. We invite your comments. So, it’s not some conceptual invitation to participate in 18
a process because most people in the City don’t have the time to go to a presentation about 19
how to improve bike safety on their street. They will make the time to go and participate in a 20
process if they think a change is going to impact their lives in a way that they’re not excited 21
about. And so, like I said, I’m not suggesting you make the case for them to be against it, but it’s 22
too early to invite every neighborhood of this bike lane, bike lane, to be weary because you 23
haven’t even come up with anything yet and so it’s a door tag that will likely get recycled 24
without much thought. So, I would suggest to you is we just… you draw it up the best you can. 25
This is a draft idea. This is one conceptualization of it. Here are the impacts of this 26
conceptualization. Do you have any suggestions or concerns? Participate in the process and 27
then once you come up with Version Two. You put that up in a door tag again and then you 28
don’t need to reach out again until you do construction assuming you’ve really notified people 29
of the process. That would be my suggestion to you. 30
31
I absolutely sympathize. If there is an individual out there who doesn’t find out they're losing 32
some parking space in front of their house until the construction starts. That’s terrible and if 33
there are creditable accounts of that happening with the Ross Road. Then that’s inexcusable 34
and for sure the department probably deserved the thrashing that it got. And we don’t want to 35
do that again so let’s make sure that we don’t. Amazon has it. They’ve like… they had enough 36
times they had to send the same package twice. They figured that one out quick. Let’s do that. 37
Hire the same guys and then maybe they can deliver our Packets. Ok, that’s it. I’m done with 38
that. 39
40
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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.
I really, really, really wish you guys success here. I really do and I want to suggest to you that 1
the… everything we do as a Commission as this… this department has been particularly… you 2
know I’ve been on this Commission almost 9-years, a little over 9-years maybe, and I’ve seen so 3
many different transportation heads and it’s like the toughest job. It’s got to be the toughest 4
job. I can’t even imagine and what I would suggest to you guys is I’m sure and maybe Assistant 5
Director Tanner, even Director Lait and even City Manager Shikada probably has an opinion 6
about this which is that you know if you set up the process for a bike lane that is to over 7
scrutinized. Then how will we deal with parking, paid parking? How will we… what is the 8
expectation, a bike lane? To get a bike lane 2 ½-years. Paid parking should take approximately 9
14 ½. That’s the rationale, right? So, I guess I’m a little concerned that we set expectations right 10
but I also want to be responsive. I think that Commissioner Templeton and Commissioner 11
Summa, you’ve guys have sort of… and Commissioner Hechtman [note – Chair Hechtman]. You 12
guys all triggered me and it made me think about that idea and so let’s be smart about it. Let’s 13
give them something that they can actually appreciate the impacts of. Not an invitation to 14
participate in a 3-year process. Nobody… most… I shouldn’t say that. A significant but unknown 15
number of people will just recycle that flyer and that will be… you’ll have the same result. 16
They’ll come back and be like what are you talking about? You gave me a flyer about bike 17
safety. You didn’t tell me I was losing my parking spot. So, I agree with that. I would double 18
down on that and I would… and I wish you success. 19
20
Mr. Kamhi: Thank you. 21
22
Chair Hechtman: Alright, I don’t see any other Commission hands up so I’ll ask Staff on this 23
item, did you get what you came for? 24
25
Mr. Kamhi: Yeah, thank you very much, and look forward to seeing you all again after Phase 1 26
of this project. Well, I’m sure I’ll see you before then but see you [unintelligible -audio cut out]. 27
Oh, sorry, see you specifically on this item again after Phase 1. Thanks. 28
29
Chair Hechtman: Alright. 30
31
Ms. Star-Lack: Thank you. 32
33
Chair Hechtman: So, I’m going to move us now into Commissioner questions, comments, 34
announcements or future agenda items. 35
Committee Items 36
None. 37
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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 Questions, Comments or Announcements 1
Chair Hechtman: Ms. Tanner, do you have anything here? 2
3
Ms. Rachael Tanner, Assistant Director: I can speak to the future agenda items. At our next 4
meeting, we will be having… it’s listed here in your Packet as a study session. We’ll actually be 5
making it an action item regarding ADU code changes. I believe I mentioned before that the City 6
Council did adopt the recommended changes that the PTC looked at last spring. I think it was 7
around April or so that we had the item. They did ask the PTC to take a look at some additional 8
items that were raised by a group of local architects and to see if we wanted to… if the PTC 9
wanted to recommend any further changes to the ordinance. So, we will make that an action 10
item so you can either provide direction to keep the status quo or to have us come back with 11
certain items adjusted. 12
13
We will have 855 El Camino Real which is the Towne and Country Village which will be looking 14
at doing a Zoning Text Amendment to allow medical office use at a portion of their facility. And 15
then the 181 Addison, I do need to confer if Staff, that may be to be moved out. I think we got 16
some late items from the applicant. We will at least have the two items which are pretty meaty 17
and so I think we’ll be well occupied and then we have a couple of topics coming in future 18
agenda items that are listed as well. And those will be coming forward I believe as scheduled 19
and we actually have more items than that. So, we have quite a full first quarter of the year for 20
the PTC. 21
22
Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Summa. 23
24
Ms. Tanner: I’m available for any questions if there are any or back to you Chair. Commissioner 25
Lauing did you (interrupted) 26
27
Commissioner Lauing: I just wanted to repeat my commercial message from earlier. ADUs is 28
one of those really tough things to get down to the details. We’ve got to have more than 36-29
hours with that Packet, so please let's… hopefully, what’s there is already there. So, you’d be 30
able to get it out a little bit earlier than usual. Thank you. 31
32
Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Summa, your hand is up. Do you want it to be? 33
34
Commissioner Summa: Yes, thank you. I also wanted to bring something up which is that the 35
new BCC, Board, Commissions and Committees, regulations are… it’s sort of unclear if they’re in 36
play right now or if they’re not. I would appreciate Staff’s comment on this because I think 37
where it is, is it went… it was voted on and it’s not an ordinance. So, it doesn’t need a second 38
reading but it’s at… it was voted on by Council last year and it’s not very clear to me what… how 39
these new rules affect our body and when they start affecting our body? And I think it’s 40
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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.
important for us to know really honestly and if it's not going to be into effect until which a 1
member of the Clerk’s Office told me until there is tweaking or clarification of some of the 2
language. So, I was would just like clarification on that. 3
4
Ms. Tanner: Yeah, it’s a great question. One that we’re working on actually, so we have plans to 5
come on our first meeting in March, which I think is March 10th, to have a discussion about the 6
handbook. Which we’re hoping one, we’ll get some more clarity on some of the items, but my 7
understanding is that the intent of Council was to have it begun to be implemented; which 8
would mean for us to fully implement would be to change some of our By-Laws and other 9
documents that we have regarding our procedures. Which I think we would want to do in order 10
to make sure the public knows that these are the procedures and especially for some of our 11
bodies. There are… there’s code language even that we need to update for especially like the 12
ARB and other bodies so there’s a bit of work. I don’t know Mr. Yang if you know from the City 13
Attorney’s Office, I don’t know if you’re assigned to this project when we might be seeing the 14
item come forward because it is a bit of a… there’s a lot of moving parts (interrupted) 15
16
Commissioner Summa: I know. 17
18
Ms. Tanner: That needs to get updated for it to all be in place. 19
20
Mr. Albert Yang, Assistant City Attorney: I don’t know specifically when that’s expected but my 21
understanding is the same I think is what Commissioner Summa heard from the Clerk’s Office 22
which is that the… there are some tweaks and kinks in that document that still need to be 23
worked out. And so, it’s going through an additional vetting process right now and then there’s 24
I think there’s a plan to have training for both Staff liaisons and Commission Members when we 25
get to a final product that’s going into effect. 26
27
Commissioner Summa: So, many I ask Albert, I’m sorry, it’s not in effect now? 28
29
Mr. Yang: That’s my understanding. I don’t think that there’s really a technical answer to 30
whether it should be or isn’t. It’s just that it’s something that we, I think Staff when they looked 31
at it realized that it needed a little bit of work before it was fully implemented. 32
33
Ms. Tanner: But I will give you one example Commissioner Summa. For example, there is… they 34
need to develop a Work Plan for different Commissions and so we want to work on that with 35
you and with the Chair and Vice-Chair developing that. Particularly, when we both one, can 36
understand the Council’s priorities that they’re going to set up their retreat this week. We’ll 37
soon have some new Commissioners with us and so those are some items that we do want to 38
start working on. Even if the handbook hasn’t been memorialized through the code updates. 39
40
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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 Summa: But how… I mean how actually can we work on it before the handbook 1
is legal? I mean I feel… I’m not (interrupted) 2
3
Ms. Tanner: It’s a bit awkward. 4
5
Commissioner Summa: For or against anything. I’m just asking for clarification. 6
7
Ms. Tanner: Yeah, it is a bit awkward in that. It’s like I said one of the things that we’re looking 8
into as we’re preparing to kind of bring it before you all for discussion. Just even if it’s what it is 9
but I know when it did… when it was adopted by Council I think the intent of especially the 10
subcommittee which was then Council Member, now Mayor, DuBois, and Council Member 11
Cormack was that we would begin implementing it. And so, I think we do need to… to your 12
point get clarity on is it mostly fine and we can start implementing and or again, will there be 13
some changes that may happen where we wouldn’t want to start implementing something and 14
it changes further. 15
16
Commissioner Summa: But may I ask another question? It’s not an ordinance. It doesn’t need a 17
second reading so when does a vote by the Council that’s not an ordinance… when does it 18
take… when is it in effect? 19
20
Ms. Tanner: I think that my understanding is that some elements of our City’s codes and 21
ordinance do need to be updated in order for elements of the handbook to be in effect. So, for 22
example, some Boards and Commission have code-related kind of mandates on how they 23
should operate that are in opposition to what’s in the handbook. And so that would need to get 24
changed or else that body would be acting outside of the code. So, that’s I think part of the 25
cleanup. I don’t want to say clean up but the adjusting that would need to happen and then 26
others are not as restricted and so that’s I think probably some of the work that the attorneys 27
are working through. 28
29
Commissioner Summa: Well, I mean I don’t mean to overstep my boundaries but it seems like 30
something that needs to be cleared up. I mean I don’t understand how we’re all acting legally in 31
the absence of understanding how this legislative act by Council affects us. So, it’s just a worry 32
for me and a concern and I think for the public a little. Not that the public cares so much about 33
the nuance maybe or knows about it but that we’re all operating on the same page. You know 34
what I mean? So, I think it’s very important this gets cleared up kind of soon. I don’t know if my 35
colleagues agree with me but it’s kind of a weird grey area I think. So, yeah, thanks. 36
37
Ms. Tanner: Thank you. We’ll keep looking into that. 38
39
Chair Hechtman: Commissioner Templeton. 40
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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 Templeton: Thank you. So, following right after Commissioner Summa’s 2
comment I will say that I’m satisfied if you guys just bring us an update. I’m curious to know 3
when the old process stops and the new begins but I feel pretty comfortable that you guys will 4
tell us so good. I’m glad that you brought that up, Commissioner Summa. 5
6
I wanted to let you guys know… well, that you all know that the XCAP had its almost last 7
meeting today. They did not finish. I had to jump over here. They were still going, but we think 8
that that will go one more time and we are doing some final edits on the report that will be the 9
outcome of that process. So, if you are interested in following along we should have a final 10
draft ready in the next 2-weeks. So, we’ll have approved it next week hopefully, and then it will 11
go through an editing round. So, if you’re all holding on until the last document is ready, it’s 12
almost time. 13
14
Speaking of documents, we… Staff forwarded our letter to City Council so no changes were 15
presented or suggested. And then finally congratulations Chair Hechtman on your first full 16
meeting as Chair. I think things went very smoothly. 17
18
Chair Hechtman: Sorry, I just was… I just got disconnected from the internet for a minute. 19
20
Commissioner Templeton: Right when I was complimenting you. So sorry, I said great job on 21
your first full night as Chair. 22
23
Chair Hechtman: Well thank you. I was going to have to read the minutes. Ok, so I just have 24
very briefly one item. So, we have been meeting this way for nearly a year now since last March 25
by Zoom. And so, I think it’s appropriate to have check-in because I think we’re going to be 26
meeting this way for a while longer and so at our next meeting, February 10th, when we get to 27
the Commissioner questions and comments, I would be interested in some comments on how 28
it’s going? Are their little tweaks that we could make to how we do this to make it a better 29
experience for the public or Staff or the Commissioners? So, it may be a short discussion, I don’t 30
know, but I’d like everybody to give that a little bit of thought before we reconvene. So, with 31
that, I do want to… Staff… I want to thank our presenters tonight and our Staff and particularly 32
wanted to tell Ms. Klicheva that she did an outstanding job as our host. She was well tutored by 33
Mr. Nguyen and I know we’ll be in capable hands whenever it is that Mr. Nguyen does take that 34
vacation. So, I want to applaud that effort and thank all the Commissioners for being ready to 35
go and contributing to the meeting tonight. So, with that, we are adjourned. Thank you. 36
Adjournment 37
10:00 pm 38