HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-11-16 City Council Summary MinutesCITY OF PALO ALTO CITY COUNCIL
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Special Meeting
November 16, 2015
The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council
Chambers at 5:03 P.M.
Present: Berman arrived at 5:41 P.M., Burt, DuBois, Filseth, Holman,
Kniss, Scharff, Schmid, Wolbach
Absent:
Closed Session
Mayor Holman: We will now consider going into Closed Session regarding
CAO compensation, unrepresented employees, City Manager, City Attorney,
City Auditor and City Clerk.
Council Member Wolbach: So moved.
Council Member Burt: Second.
Mayor Holman: We have a Motion by Council Member Wolbach, second by
Council Member Burt to go into Closed Session.
MOTION: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member
Burt to go into Closed Session.
Mayor Holman: I see no lights or hands, so vote on the board please. That
passes on a soon to be 8-0 vote with Council Member Berman absent.
Thank you all.
MOTION PASSED: 8-0 Berman absent
Council went into Closed Session at 5:05 P.M.
1. CONFERENCE WITH LABOR NEGOTIATORS
Agency Negotiators: Mayor, CAO Chair or Other Council Members
Unrepresented Employees: City Manager, City Attorney, City Auditor,
City Clerk
Authority: Government Code Section 54957.6(a).
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Council returned from Closed Session at 6:05 P.M.
Mayor Holman: We'll call the meeting to order in the chambers. We just
concluded our Closed Session about labor negotiations, and there is no
reportable action.
Study Session
2. Potential List of Topics for the Study Session With Senator Jerry Hill.
Mayor Holman: Our next item on the agenda is Item Number 2 which is a
Study Session with Senator Jerry Hill. Welcome, Senator.
Jerry Hill, California State Senator: Thank you very much, Madam Mayor.
Mayor Holman: Do you have some opening comments you'd like to make?
Senator Hill: I don't have anything prepared, but I'm always happy to say a
couple of words. One, it's wonderful to be here.
Council Member Kniss: Have you ever been stuck or ...
Senator Hill: No, I've never been stuck, lately anyway especially. It is great
to be here, and the opportunity, I think, is so important with the wonderful
Council that we have in Palo Alto. To me, the important thing are the very
thoughtful questions that have been provided by the Council that I've looked
at, thought about and will be happy to respond to as we move through the
evening. For me, it's important to understand the issues and more
importantly the direction you would like to see us go and me, especially and
particularly, in Sacramento as we begin the next year of our second
legislative session. Madam Mayor, thank you.
Mayor Holman: Thank you. As you noted, we do have a list of questions
that have been submitted ahead of time to give you kind of a heads up of
the things we would like to discuss. Would you care to tackle any of those in
the order that you might?
Senator Hill: Whatever you would prefer. We can start from the top and
work down or however you're comfortable with.
Mayor Holman: If you would do that please. I think the transportation
items you'll find are in the top section there. Some questions submitted by
Council Member Burt. High Speed Rail and ...
Senator Hill: Certainly. We may as well start with High Speed Rail. I think
that's a very good place to start. First, I want to just let you know how
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much I appreciate the leadership that Palo Alto has taken, is continuing to
take, with regards to High Speed Rail and the electrification of Caltrain and
how it will be implemented in the future and that kind of integration between
Caltrain and High Speed Rail at some point in time. It's critical. As, I think,
Council Member Burt may have mentioned, we met together a couple of
weeks ago with the President and the Chair of the High Speed Rail Authority
to look at a number of the issues that Council Member Burt had and the City
of Palo Alto had. They're similar to the issues that I've been feeling related
to grade separations. I think I came away with—what my feeling and sense
is related to High Speed Rail is that it's—you know I used to be a pilot and
fly. When I did that, there was one little saying that always stuck in my
head and still does. In God we trust and everything else we check. That, I
think, is the one that applies to High Speed Rail as well. I think we've been
told a number of things, whether it comes to grade separations. I know San Mateo is working right now and they're funding a grade separation, that
they're looking for about $80 million, I believe, from High Speed Rail to fund
part of that. They will be funding it almost in equal part; they are providing
some funding for grade separations. Palo Alto is very similar to San Mateo
and a couple of other communities where it's critical that we have those
grade separations I came away from the conversation that it will be
something that they will look at and, if possible, there are ways to
implement grade separations and that the conversation is ongoing related to
it. I've also looked at the issue of trenching. I think the trenching especially
for San Mateo and Palo Alto could be ideal and sell the air rights above. It
doesn't have to be covered completely. Even though the diesel is there, I
don't know what the percentage is, but almost two-thirds could be covered
and have development at those locations, which is an opportunity to provide
some of the funding. It does allow some changes there that I think would
be important. I'm going to be someone who—as you know I've been
following it from the beginning, was able to get the $600 million help with
the electrification. We were able to codify in statute the blended system so
that there will not be, cannot be a change in that as we move forward. I will
continue to be your representative on that issue as time goes on. When issues come up, I know I will hear and we will work together to make sure
that we're represented. It's a trust issue to some extent. As I mentioned, it
only goes as far as you can verify it, and that's where I will continue to work
on that. If we're looking at the Santa Clara transit tax issue, I am fully
supportive of Palo Alto's position. The 15 percent issue, I think, is appropriate. I couldn't determine whether that number is correct, but I will
be happy to work with you to make sure that that measure, at least before it
will get support from me, will have to meet the needs of this community.
We certainly don't want the money to go—BART's wonderful, but we have
other needs in this county that have to be provided for, especially in north
county. That's my priority, so I will be there during that whole conversation
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with you. Just let me know how I can help, whether in Sacramento or here
or as it moves forward. The cap and trade funding, that's an interesting—I
was just looking at some of that. As you know the cap and trade funds have
increased considerably. I think we're at $1 billion now and that will be going
up as time moves on. I had some issues, and we had legislation last year
that I've been trying to get. As the cap and trade numbers come together,
there's 60 percent that is funds allocated according to the statutory formula,
25 percent High Speed Rail, 20 percent housing and sustainable
communities, 10 percent transit and rail, 5 percent transit and bus, and the
40 percent left for the legislature to kind of decide how they want that
appropriated. What I've been trying to do is increase the funding for
regional rail. The legislation that I—my push in the cap and trade legislation
that still hasn't been completed from last year, that's still an ongoing
discussion because there's so many people that want a piece of that and want to make sure that it continues. Where I see the success of where I
want to go is we're not alone in northern California. Southern California has
the same needs with regional rail and transit that we have. I can and have
made the case and the argument that we need to add at least double the
amount that is allocated for regional rail and transportation here. That's the
goal that I'm working on and will be advocating for when we get back in
January. Pat, I think those are your questions. The merger of ABAG and
MTC, Madam Mayor, I know that's a question that you had here. There's
legislation, as you know, by Assembly Member Levine that he introduced
that would kind of throw everything out and start over again with a new
agency that would be independently elected. I don't know if there's a value
in that, in going to that extent, because it almost will then become like the
BART Board, which is not necessarily the best represented. The aspect of
having one agency, I think, is important, but I like the fact that they're
taking a few steps back and doing a thorough analysis of where they can
bring the two together or at least provide for the implementation and the
programs that each one uses in a way that could be thoughtful and
representative. The challenges, I think, we all face is in regional bodies. We
all sit on them and have in the past. I think the challenge is who's actually making the decision and do they really have a stake in the outcome. When I
was a Council Member or County Supervisor, you go and sit on ABAG or MTC
or the Air District Board and you make decisions, but there's no one really to
hold you accountable because there's no one right in front of you as you
have here every week. That isn't the best—I think there's some problems with that. I don't know if by having one large body elected—in fact this
issue came up. That was Willie Brown's suggestion 15 years ago, I think
about 15, when I was a City Council Member in San Mateo. His suggestion
was one regional body that would make the decisions, and it wasn't received
very favorably by anyone at the time. It may be the time now. I just think
it needs further analysis and further review. I definitely will be looking for
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something that will meet the needs of the communities that I represent. In
saying that, I want to make sure that the housing issues that we've all been
struggling with, the RHNA number and the transportation funding, the
allowances and the allocations of that funding, is done in a way that
supports us. I mean, that's my priority and that's the goal that I have. I
haven't seen that we have not been fairly allocated in this county
historically. I think they have—I differ with Assembly Member Levine who
has looked at a couple of transportation problems. I think his concern is, as
we all do, why haven't they been fixed and why do we have the congestion,
and so we're not looking at it. I think they have been focusing and as I've
seen needs in particular areas they have addressed and directed the funds
to those areas. That's really what we can—all we can expect is a
prioritization there when we have limited resources. That's what I think
we've been doing. I think this is a conversation that is going to go on for the next year. We need to be very careful with the outcome. If you want to
jump in with thoughts or questions, please do and follow-ups too, Pat. I'll
stop there for the time being.
Mayor Holman: Maybe it would be good to like see if there are follow-up
questions to this point, then we can go ahead and get you ...
Senator Hill: That sounds great.
Mayor Holman: Just making sure that we get to Council Member Wolbach's
points. I don't know if your intention—Val Fong who is the Utilities Director
is here. I've written out some comments that maybe you'd like to address
the Senator directly if you'd like too, when we get towards the end of this.
Pat, did you want to do some follow-up to the Senator's comments having to
do with transportation?
Council Member Burt: I want to thank Senator Hill for facilitating this
meeting that he and Dan Richard and I had. What I pushed was the issues
that we as a Council had addressed, both the grade separations and then the
process by which this would go forward and trying to understand why the
urgency on the environmental clearance for this section when it wasn't
anticipated and whether they were going to insist upon that. We received
some, I'd say, constructive responses that asserted that they wouldn't rush the environmental clearance process. If it took longer, they would do so.
They would be open to a discussion on CSS but not a commitment that they
would provide what we believed we had as an agreement under the prior
High Speed Rail plan. Mr. Richard not only acknowledged the need for grade
separations while not offering that the High Speed Rail Authority has funding to make significant contributions to those. We both agreed that even if High
Speed Rail did not come to the Peninsula, the eventuality with additional use
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of Caltrain will really drive that anyway. All that's kind of a preface to that
Dan Richard agreed to have a meeting convened with our City
representatives to discuss the process going forward on this. That was a
good take away.
Senator Hill: I think the other part that I was pleased with was his
willingness to continue and have an ongoing conversation with you and, I
think, with Palo Alto over the concerns that are raised. At any point in time,
we can together make our claim and statements to him.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Scharff.
Council Member Scharff: Thank you. I also wanted to thank Senator Hill for
joining us and actually for all your help on the carbon neutral portfolio issues
that we were having. That was very important to us, and you did a great
job in helping us on that.
Senator Hill: Thank you.
Council Member Scharff: That's a little hard to (inaudible) like this. A
couple of things. I did want to emphasize that I agree. I think the grade
separation issue is probably the existential issue for Palo Alto and probably
more important frankly than most of this other stuff. However, on the
ABAG-MTC thing, I just wanted to weigh in a little bit. You're right it's a
governance issue. What they agreed upon, as far as I understand it, is that
if they don't have an agreement to merge by June, it reverts back to MTC's
proposal that MTC takes all of the ABAG planners over and puts them in
when they do the One Bay Area plan, which basically means that ABAG
really has a gun to its head. It becomes a governance issue. ABAG as you
know—I don't know if you served on ABAG ...
Senator Hill: MTC as an alternate.
Council Member Scharff: It's large. There's lots of individual Council
Members from a wide variety of cities, from small places like Clayton all the
way up to Supervisors from San Francisco. MTC, as you know, is much
smaller and is really dominated by San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose. Very
few Council Members from individual cities on it. In that merger, I think the
concern is that Peninsula cities, for instance, and the smaller cities
throughout the Bay Area will lose their voice. I think that's the likely outcome of this merger of the way that happens. It becomes much more
dominated totally by frankly San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland, which
have the dominant position on MTC. Anyway, that I think is something to
think about given that it's really not going to be a year's conversation, but
it's a six-month conversation with a gun to ABAG's head.
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Senator Hill: I think you raise an excellent point that I think we need to
watch. If that's the—I wasn't aware of that; I hadn't gotten into that detail.
I didn't know of that arrangement. I think the Legislature—in fact the Bay
Area legislative caucus, this has been a very strong conversation and right in
the forefront of looking at and a way in and to see where and how it's going
to play out. If it's going in a way that does what you're saying and we lose
representation around that, there will be a lot of voices (crosstalk).
Council Member Scharff: Thank you.
Mayor Holman: Council Member DuBois, on the topics we've covered so far.
Council Member DuBois: Yep. Hi, Jerry. Great to see you. Thanks for
coming.
Senator Hill: Thank you.
Council Member DuBois: I've personally been very interested in trenching
and seeing if we could really do something in really both parts—a connecting trench in both Santa Clara and San Mateo County. I'm glad to hear you're
interested in that idea. I think it could really reshape Silicon Valley, the Mid-
Peninsula region. Like you said, you could potentially use those air rights. I
think the issue's just much bigger than just Palo Alto, and we need to look at
it that way and ideally tap into not just local funds but State and maybe
even Federal funds. I'd be really interested in talking to you about how you
get a huge project like that accomplished. It really is something that, I
think, you need to look at in like a 50-year, even 100-year kind of
timeframe. I appreciate your support on the Santa Clara County sales tax.
We'll see where that ends up. I actually just had one quick comment on
something you hadn't mentioned; it's not on your list. We're starting to see
a little bit of movement on the aircraft noise issue. Again, I know that's a
federal, FAA thing, but any support you can give us there as we kind of work
that issue would be appreciated.
Senator Hill: Have you been subject to the noise? I know Atherton with the
Surf Air issue, are those aircraft flying over Palo Alto as well?
Council Member DuBois: Yeah, a ...
Senator Hill: We had a meeting last week with their CEO and
representatives of San Mateo County, because Atherton was such a—it was at San Carlos Airport. I think their goal is to work with the FAA and the
controllers at SFO, well, in the Bay Area. Because of the flight path and the
GPS that they have to—they claim they have to fly a straight approach every
time, and they can't deviate; whereas, everyone else seems to be able to
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deviate as they see fit. They're going to go together with everyone.
They've been told that they couldn't, but everyone's going to work to try and
get some changes with that so that it could improve that as well some other
issues. I will work whatever I can. I kind of understand the system a little
bit, how to see if I could help in some way. Thank you. Tom.
Mayor Holman: Council Member DuBois, maybe you want to clarify one
thing. In relation to the sales tax measure, you made mention to the
Senator's support for that. I think you need to clarify maybe what support
you intended by that comment.
Council Member DuBois: He covered like allocating a percentage to grade
separations and not just to BART. That's what I was referring to.
Mayor Holman: Okay, good.
Senator Hill: I certainly support that.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Kniss.
Council Member Kniss: Senator Hill, thank you for coming. It's always good
to see you.
Senator Hill: Always great to see you too, Liz.
Council Member Kniss: I thought Greg would bring this up, but I don't think
you really addressed it, Greg, is MTC-ABAG. I'd like to weave the Air Board
in there as well. I don't know if the entire Council is aware, but there is a
plan to move that entire organization into one building, which is on Main
Street and fairly close to the train in fact. I think there's a sense that MTC is
kind of that giant sucking sound, as it pulls ABAG perhaps in. I'm not sure
that Air Board isn't uneasy as well, which seems kind of interesting.
Between the three, the transportation and the RHNA numbers that have
come out of ABAG and what goes with Air Board, I think there's some real
uneasiness. You served on Air Board for a long time; you may have also
been on MTC; I don't recall. Talk a little about that and also about where
that would leave the RHNA number if indeed there is a merger.
Senator Hill: I don't know on the RHNA numbers if there were a merger. I
don't think there would be in a merger with the Air Board with the other two,
but there certainly should be a closer relationship between the three that
could work, especially related to air quality and transportation and housing, as you know it by your tenure on the Air Board. My reason for saying I don't
think there would be a merger of the three including the Air Board is
because of the unique regulatory authority of the Air Board. They're not the
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funding and the transportation, but they actually do the—they regulate and
quite extensively. I think that would prevent the other two. I think what we
need in the RHNA numbers, and we've all been on the same page, is the
issue of reality checks. That's not what we've seen, is the reality of what's
expected and what's real. We need more of that. Now, we have to look at
whether whatever arrangement comes together at the end, if that will get us
to something that's a little more reasonable and real. I don't know if we'll
see that from them. That's the challenge.
Council Member Kniss: Thanks for that answer. I think it's all pretty
complicated, though. I think putting everyone in the same building is going
to be a real challenge. There are already a number of interesting
conversations that have gone on. The chance that ABAG may be in with
MTC makes me somewhat uneasy.
Senator Hill. Yeah. It may be. I just think it's depending on what they develop in the next few months, depending on how they plan to implement it
and what their end goals are in terms of the plans, I think that's really what
we have to look at and carefully and to see what the make-up will be.
That's where I will count on your help to advise me, because I think
legislatively something will have to be done. That will be very helpful.
Thank you, Liz.
Council Member Kniss: Good. Thanks.
Mayor Holman: Thank you for those responses and upload of information.
The technology question and then housing supply as well. Small topics.
Senator Hill: Why don't we skip that one. Thank you, Cory, for the question
on privacy and technology. I had legislation this past year that somebody's
really raised for me a concern and that's how we balance our civil liberties
with the need to know, especially in light of what occurred over the
weekend, or Friday, in Paris. How do you balance that need? One of the
issues that has been troubling for me is the use of license plate readers by
private entities as well as law enforcement and public safety. Then as we
saw the use of cellular intercept technology and how that has kind of
mushroomed in California with very little or any public discussion and the
implementation of it with no policies or privacy policies in place for any of them. The legislation I had and the Governor signed in both accounts,
whether it's cellular intercept technology, which as you know is a little
suitcase device that you can put in this room and all of our cells will go to
that, cell signals will go there rather than to the tower or someplace else.
That could intercept and take whatever information off of that as necessary. It bothered me. The license plate readers, how is the information used?
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How long is kept? Under what policies is it used? Who can access it? A lot
of questions came up. We established some policies for both the use of
those and when it's used in California. The troubling part for me is, that
we're going to look at next year, to see if there is an over—because it's
almost impossible to anticipate the next piece of technology and then have
to write new legislation every time there's new technology. What we're
going to look at is if a kind of overarching policy based on all of this
technology that we can adopt and move towards. In one of the cities that I
represent in the north, south San Francisco, they looked at last week
interestingly an ordinance requiring businesses, requiring businesses, to
install video cameras on the outside of their buildings that they can access
the video information. That I found troubling. I talked to the mayor and
sent a letter thinking that maybe there should be some use policies in place.
I think we need certain things as protection. That's what I've been looking at in trying to make sure that we have some efforts in place to help and
assist local governments with some policies in place to protect the liberties
and kind of the rights of citizens and to make sure that they're used in an
appropriate manner. They haven't been in some places in this country, but
we want to make sure in California they are. In many cases, that cellular
technology was used. Eleven jurisdictions in California have it, and they
adopted it and purchased it and are using it without any public hearing by an
elected body in a public setting. That's troubling to me. Housing ideas,
State support, local possibilities. It's an embarrassment; it really is, on what
we've done since redevelopment has been eliminated which was, as you
know, providing 20 percent of those dollars for affordable housing. When we
lost that, there have been attempts, as you know. Special interests have—in
the case of the California Association of Realtors, this is the $75. There was
a bill by Toni Atkins, Mark De Saulnier before and Speaker Atkins, to apply a
$75 recordation fee to documents filed with the County Clerks that would
generate about $1/2 billion per year. That money would be directed
specifically to affordable housing. That has not passed the Legislature
because the interests have been strongly opposing that. That was in last
year's bill and the year before, which was a real challenge and a problem. The other aspect that we have a problem is—it's almost unique to this area.
I don't get a lot of sympathy in Sacramento from my colleagues, because
they say, "You're from Silicon Valley. You've got a housing problem? Oh."
Frankly, I was very dismayed. I was at the opening of the new regional
patent office and trade office, and one of the speakers that evening—the question was what are we going to do about affordable housing for our
workers. The answer was we'll pay our employees more. That's not an
answer that's sustainable. We need to be able to provide funds, but here
again this is almost a regional problem. Bakersfield doesn't have this
problem. Fresno doesn't have the problem. Sacramento doesn't have the
problem. No one else but this area really has that problem today. To get an
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understanding and appreciation for that is very difficult. The challenge I
have was to try—I mean, the poverty level where we live is certainly not as
great and the unemployment is minimal if you compare it to Fresno or
Bakersfield—I'm just picking on them—other areas in the Central Valley or
the interior of California. There's not a lot of understanding or need or
willingness to really provide a lot of help for that. The good thing is in
affordable housing that is something, because of the lack of redevelopment,
that there is some efforts to do. I frankly think the issue is we need to be
able to provide—the State needs to work on and we've tried every year
some form of tax increment financing opportunities for local government
after the elimination of redevelopment. That has not been successful. The
Governor is very much opposed from what he has shared with any idea or
the ability to have tax increment financing that would take away from cities,
counties, school districts or special districts as redevelopment did. The only way you can kind of allocate those funds—it has to come from somewhere,
that then you could bond for housing. I would hope that these—my sense is
these have to be done regionally, whether it's done within—a city can't do it
alone; whether it's defined out—some of the tenant protection and
preservations. One city can tackle it and look at it. If you have a region
that's looking at that, either in Santa Clara County, in San Mateo County, I
think that's really where we have to do it. The interest here on those issues,
as you know, are very strong and have a lot of impact on legislation.
Mayor Holman: Why don't we stop there? Council Member Wolbach turned
his light on. Maybe at the end of your question you might clarify your other
question which was climate change and sea level rise. That's a huge topic;
maybe you'd like to hone that in a little bit.
Senator Hill: Cory.
Council Member Wolbach: I also want to say thank you very much for
coming. It's always good to see you.
Senator Hill: Thank you, Assembly Member--did I give you a proMotion—
Council Member Wolbach.
Council Member Wolbach: Very nice to see you. Also I wanted to say hello
to one of my former colleagues, Lisa Chung, of your staff who I know from firsthand experience for a couple of years does fantastic work in your district
office in San Mateo. I just wanted to check. Your current liaison to Palo Alto
is now Lisa, as I thought. She does a great job for everyone else on Council,
on Staff and the community who needs to get in touch with you. I know we
can look to her. First, I wanted to say thank you for being a leader on the privacy-civil liberty-technology question in Sacramento. We've not seen that
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kind of leadership in Washington, DC. Quite the opposite at times. If you
have any other thoughts about things we can do at the local level that would
be helpful, I've been in some discussions with some people in the local area
about whether to explore something perhaps here addressing an overarching
policy in the manner you described. Also on the housing issue, if you have
any other thoughts on—it's really a collective action problem. We have this
jobs-housing imbalance in the region that goes back from decades that I
think we all recognize now of promoting economic development and
promoting job growth which is great in a lot of ways but now has resulted in
this backlog where our transportation, our housing hasn't kept up. I know
we're not alone in this. As you said, it's a regional issue. A lot of other
cities are struggling with those questions and exploring some of the same
things we're exploring. We're looking at maybe changing our rules around
accessory dwelling units. I know some other cities in your district are going through that same discussion. We're trying to talk about ways to try and
prevent displacement of people at particularly Buena Vista Mobile Home
Park. I know other cities in your district are dealing with other ways to
prevent displacement of longtime residents. Either tonight or in the future,
any other ideas that you have about how we can emulate what's been done
successfully in other cities in your district or ways we can work with our
neighbors, we'd definitely welcome those suggestions. Regarding sea level
rise, I've spoken about this with you in the past. I think that the four
biggest challenges that we really need to tackle right now, the next five, ten
years in our region, are transportation which we talked about, housing costs
we've talked about a little bit, income inequality which you mentioned, and
also sea level rise. Of course, all of those four issues intertwine. The threat
to not only Palo Alto but a number of other communities in your district from
sea level and other risks from climate changes such as water insecurity, fire
risk, etc., are quite severe. If we don't tackle them and get them right now,
we're going to be in a lot of trouble in 30 to 50 years, to put it mildly. If you
have any thoughts that you'd like to add to the discussion about how we can
prepare for what is already an inevitable change from climate change.
Senator Hill: I think the best thing that we can do on the issue of—Assembly Member Gordon's legislation, I think, will go along a way in
allowing for and requiring a database, the collection of data so that we can
understand what the problem is throughout the state. Once we understand
the extent of the problem, the potential of the problem, then we can work to
try and find the solutions. Our area could be devastated economically from this. It will be a major problem that we have to really tackle. It has to be
brought up as a priority, that it's not today as much. I think people are
becoming—because it's such a long term, 30 or 40 years, that's a long time,
but it's not. It'll be here quickly. We have to really make it a priority.
Every decision needs to be based on that, every aspect of it. I know BCDC
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is looking at it carefully and closely, now obviously more than they had
before, to see if we can get some Bay strategy in place for that. It's going
to cost a lot, and that's really going to be, I think, one of the major
challenges, where those funds are coming from. It's certainly obvious it's
something that we need. For us and for me, the realization of the
tremendous economic impact it would have on all of us.
Mayor Holman: Vice Mayor Schmid, questions for the Senator.
Vice Mayor Schmid: It's a pleasure to have the opportunity to grapple a
little bit with the local and state issues together. We focus so much on the
local. I'd like to bring up property tax. Property tax is the local tax ...
Mayor Holman: Vice Mayor, I think what we're going to do is ask questions
of the things the Senator's addressed, and then we'll come back to the
property tax. If you have something for housing that we've already
discussed or sea level change, excuse me, for climate change.
Vice Mayor Schmid: If we'll have an opportunity ...
Mayor Holman: Yes.
Vice Mayor Schmid: ... I do want to tie it into housing and other elements
we've talked about.
Mayor Holman: If you want to tie it in, go right ahead.
Vice Mayor Schmid: The key thing about property tax is it accounts for 25
percent—business accounts for 25 percent of our property roll. That's been
going down since 1979, continues to go down even though we are building
more commercial office space than we are housing. That sets up a unique
disparity between local governments and State governments. The fact that
we're tied to property taxes where the business is spending less and less.
The State getting its revenue from income and capital gains does much
better with the growth in business. The discussion we had about the MTC
and the ABAG and local governments is important. That can be seen as an
allocation of funding, that the MTC has the funding that they give to ABAG
and thus controls a lot of the decisions. That's why the influence and power
within those organizations are with the flow of funds rather than local needs.
It comes down to the Legislature came close this year to getting passed a
reform, a (inaudible) roll on the property tax. The Governor didn't agree. That would certainly change the balance of funding that comes in, if we
could deal with it in getting to the housing issue. The solutions are regional,
but the funding source, if local government had more housing funding that
they could utilize effectively, they could take the place of redevelopment and
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form the basis for the ABAG allocation supplies and funding source for it.
For High Speed Rail, they could provide more of the funding source. This
disparity of tax-based income could be balanced a little bit through the
property tax reform. You could talk about High Speed Rail. You could talk
about the MTC-ABAG issue. You could talk about housing. More of that
funding could be locally based, going to these issues which are so critical. I
see a lot of the reform basis of government and the levels could be tied to
what happens to the property tax.
Senator Hill: That may be why the Governor is not so excited about it.
You're right. We did have an opportunity this year to look at that carefully.
It's true. Today, 72 percent of property taxes are from commercial side and
28 are from residential. When Prop 13 passed in '78, it was about 50/50.
That's a big difference and quite a disparity that we're seeing. The
unfortunate part is that without the—I doubt it would get the two-thirds vote to start with in the Legislature. That's really, I think, the reason we're
seeing so many initiatives coming our way next year, because it's been
difficult to get a two-thirds vote for anything in the last couple of years in
the Legislature. A couple of reasons for that. One, the Legislature is
becoming a more moderate body, so some of these actions. I think there's
a stronger business influence that we're seeing in the Legislature. Those
interests who would be paying the price of this are very strong. That's a real
challenge. On top of that, the Governor has a lot of cachet still and could
move something if he were so inclined. With his negative reaction to this,
it'll be very difficult to see some. I keep thinking that there's an opportunity
to at least change the—Tom Ammiano, we didn't always agree on things.
When he was an Assembly Member from San Francisco, the issue of taking
the corporate ownership of property when a corporation changes hands, the
stock ownership changes, that owns property, it's not reassessed today.
That goes on for years and decades without any reassessment. That would
be an easy—I don't think that was intended, from what I understand, from
when Prop 13 was approved. I think there are ways around it, but we're not
going to have success there.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Berman.
Council Member Berman: Thank you. Thank you, Senator Hill, for joining
us. I wanted to actually go back to one of the earlier topics that I didn't pipe
up quickly enough to ask a question about, which is a combination of High
Speed Rail, Caltrain electrification and modernization, and grade
separations. Caltrain modification and electrification is receiving—I can't remember if it's $800 million or $1 billion from the High Speed Rail bonds.
Senator Hill: I think it's 600 to 700 million.
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Council Member Berman: I just saw an editorial—there's an editorial in the
LA Times. We can have a go and then follow it up by one in the Mercury
News, talking about how a report came out. This also goes to the trust
factor, that the High Speed Rail Authority had received a memo from one of
their consultants saying that expectations are that even just that initial leg
of the High Speed Rail is expected to be upwards of 30 percent over budget
at $40 billion, which (a) makes me skeptical that there will be any funding
for anything else, whether it's grade separations or anything out of the High
Speed Rail funds. I also wonder, one of your last points to Council Member
Schmid, I just wonder how long this project will last once Governor Brown is
no longer in office and, depending on who replaces him, given how much
he's been an advocate of it. My concern and question is are you concerned
at all with—I can't remember the timeline for Caltrain modification—what
happens to that money if the High Speed Rail project kind of goes sideways.
Senator Hill: My goal is hopefully if it does die at some point in time it's
after the Caltrain modification and modernization. 2019 is my
understanding of the electrification conclusion.
Council Member Berman: It should be completed? That's probably not
much of a concern.
Senator Hill: It should be completed by then. That's right after the
Governor would be termed out, so that should fit in. That money would be
spent well before that. I was as concerned as you were about that report. I
know that Council Member Burt and I raised that issue or he did with
Mr. Richard. My understanding is—in fact I saw him making the same claim
on television the other day that it was a draft report that was not official, it
was not accurate and all of these reasons. The bottom line in the grade
separations that was a take-away for me was that if this is what it's going to
cost, this is what it's going to cost if we have to do that. That's where I
think, frankly, if we can keep the—because this is a very important leg to
High Speed Rail. This is the final leg into San Francisco. I think it's
important that we make sure that we're on top of it, that we're watching it,
that we're monitoring it, and that we're advocating for the things that will
make this community and this right-of-way work best for these communities. I think that's the critical part. That's why being vocal and
active in it is so critical and important for us.
Council Member Berman: Thank you.
Senator Hill: Thank you.
Mayor Holman: One question and then a request. As we all know, social services funding was significantly cut back several decades ago. It really for
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the most part has not been replenished. This wasn't on the list, so I'm sorry
I'm throwing you a curve here a little bit.
Senator Hill: That's all right.
Mayor Holman: Do you see any strong advocate for any inroads that we
might be advocating for to get some social services funding reestablished?
The reason for that is because of homeless situations that we have, and a lot
of people who are homeless need assistance that we can't provide at the
local level and certainly need some State support for that. Do you have any
thoughts, comments or any news on that front?
Senator Hill: This kind of goes hand-in-hand with a number of issues and
social service issues in California that have been neglected for many years,
especially since the cuts that we made in 2008 when the recession hit. We
had to make very major cost reductions, expenditure reductions in a matter
of two months, three months. They were made, but they haven't—a lot of it goes to a couple of things. One, this past year as you know, we ended the
fiscal year with probably $5 billion more than we had anticipated. There
were a lot of opportunities there to do something with it. Because of Prop
98 in education and the maintenance of effort and the money that we took,
almost all of that went to K through 14 education, which is a good thing. I
think we can all be pleased with that. We tried in the Senate especially—the
Assembly wasn't quite as supportive. We tried internally to work and we
were able to provide about $300 million for early childhood education and
daycare, child care, money for that. The Assembly wasn't excited about
doing that. We were able to get that part of it. The issue with the
developmentally disabled and the other issues in human services, the
problem that we've run up against is that the Governor has not been
receptive to any longer term programmatic increases that would have to be
sustained down the road. He's very fearful of a number of things, and that's
why I think he's so popular. He's fearful that, one, when the tax increase
that we all voted for and supported expires in a few years, if it is not
renewed especially where the proposal now is to maintain the high-end
earner tax, that would be before the voters next year probably. If those
expire, we will see a $5 billion annual hole in the budget. He doesn't want to have to be looking at that without some changes. As you know and
mentioned, the State budget is based on and the revenue stream is strongly
dependent upon those capital gains, personal and corporate income taxes.
Basically this part of California is sustaining California and, I think, the
nation today because of that. We're not seeing that in other parts of the state, but this is where the money is. Even the resources that the budget—
in the last few months, we're already $1/2 billion increase in the first three
months of what was projected in revenue this year. That's another good
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thing. The problem that we're finding is there's no willingness that I've seen
on the part of the Governor or some parts of the Legislature for a long-term,
sustained program implementation increase. That doesn't solve the
problem; I know.
Mayor Holman: If you can identify any ways that we might help advocate
for some relief in that regard, especially given that homeless situations
actually cost more money than it would be to house people. If you can find
some avenue for that.
Senator Hill: We will continue to look at that especially this year, because
we will not have—if the revenue enhancements that we've had and the
increases to revenue this year, we should not have the same Prop 98
educational requirements at the end. We would have resources that we can
apply more on a one-time basis than on a sustained basis.
Mayor Holman: Thank you for that. Before we go to Director Fong who has some comments to make, and we have one member of the public who wants
to speak, some of us haven't seen you since yesterday. Nice to see you
again.
Senator Hill: It's good to see you too. Thank you.
Mayor Holman: Nice to see you again. I'd be loathe if I didn't give you a
couple of minutes to talk about some of the things that you've accomplished
in the nearer term. I know you've been very active in dealing with
antibiotics. We had a conversation what—gosh, it's been closer to a year
ago now—about antibiotics and cattle. Maybe you'd like to just recap a little
bit of the accomplishments that you've achieved this last year.
Senator Hill: That's nice. Thank you very much. It was a very good year
for me. We had 20 bills that were passed through the Legislature and 18 of
them were signed by the Governor. They were in a number of areas. A
couple of those that were most important. One is the use of biosimilars. We
talk about antibiotics. Right now the issue of biologics—there has been the
development of biosimilars which are similar to generics only there are no
such things as generics for biologics. They are close to but never the same.
That's why they're similars. In California you could not prescribe a—a
pharmacist could not substitute a biosimilar for a biologic at a lower cost, because the law would not allow it. The bill that I had will now allow for the
substitution of biosimilars in healthcare. The antibiotic-resistant—I followed
for the last few years this very serious issue that 70 percent of all antibiotics
in the country are used in farm animals and agriculture. They purchase
them at a feed store without a prescription. They can apply it in water and in feed. It's been used as growth stimulating. They use it as preventative
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and prophylactic for animals. Rather than to treat a disease or a bacterial
infection, they use it for prophylactic methods. That has been why one of
the reasons has determined why we're getting so many antibiotic-resistant
bacteria that have killed about 23,000 every year and have injured and
people suffer, about 2 million. We were able to work this year with the
agriculture community and with environmental community and had
legislation that now will become law January 1st which will require a
prescription for every use by a veterinarian. No longer can they purchase it
in a feed store. No longer can they administer it for prophylactic use unless
it's for a specific reason that has been identified by a veterinarian, so his
license or her license is now responsible for the prescribing of antibiotics in
agriculture. Hopefully we'll see a change with that. I've also had, because
of this issue, a stewardship program adopted that went into effect last year
that in every hospital in California there has to be an antibiotic stewardship program to manage the use and the prescribing of antibiotics to make sure
that they are done in a way that's important. Another just a couple of little
bills. One of the reasons that you never see many AEDs, automatic external
defibrillators, in office buildings—you see very few of them. You'll see them
in city halls and around there, but you won't see them in office buildings.
The reason for that is that the liability for the building owner and the
business owner was extreme, and there was so many conditions and
requirements on the placement of those. They had to be tested weekly or
monthly, had to have someone trained in the building. A physician had to
be on—I mean it was quite a bit. Working with El Camino Hospital, very
closely with them, we were able to get legislation passed this year that made
that much easier, and the business owners. We'll see many more of those in
place. One bill that I was kind of proud of, that we fought hard on, is made
in USA, the ability for products that are made in the USA or made in
California. If you are a California manufacturer, right now that product has
to be 100 percent made in the USA in order for it to be claimed made in
USA, which makes good sense. You would think 100 percent made. There
are certain products that are not available in the United States, certain
things. There was a small young fellow who manufactured a product that was a light bar on off-road vehicles. He could not get one product—one
diode was made elsewhere. He could not claim that. Every other state in
the Union uses the Federal standard which is based on where it can come
from. It really put California businesses at a competitive disadvantage when
we weren't able to use the same standard; we used our own unique standard. Now, you have to have 95 percent or 90 percent if it's not
available in California and you can claim it's made in the USA after that.
That will be, I think, helpful to businesses in California. Those are just a few
of the bills. One that did not get signed and it gets to the utilities is a dig-in
bill that we had. You probably saw the news over the weekend in
Bakersfield, where a large backhoe near Highway 99, the fellow dug into the
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ground and ruptured a very high concentration, 39-inch diameter gas line.
That killed the operator instantly. There was a home near there; the family
ran out. The parents were injured. The baby was saved. Someone either
didn't call to find out where it was or they called and it was mismarked. We
don't know that yet. That goes on every—we had someone in March of this
year—in April, I'm sorry—in Fresno, the same accident where they dug in
and killed someone. It goes all around the state because there's no set right
now requirement or process of how you adjudicate that violation. At the end
of the line, we've worked hard all year, had legislation and the Governor
vetoed it. We're going to work with him to see if there's a way that we
can—I think there is. He wants the jurisdictional authority to be with the
Public Utilities Commission. No one has confidence in the Public Utilities
Commission. That has been the problem with the contractors and the
utilities and the telecoms in their dealings. They don't want to have to deal with the PUC. We had it tied to a new board within the contractors' license
board that everyone agreed to. We'll have to work to continue that
conversation. This is something that needs to be resolved, because people
are dying because of that. That will be continued. Thank you for that
opportunity.
Mayor Holman: You're very welcome. Thank you for all the effort that you
make on our behalf. I think the antibiotics one and cattle is just a huge one
that affects all of our health every day. I really appreciate that and all your
other efforts. Director Fong, we've had the privilege of having Val working
here in the City of Palo Alto for a number of years now. I apologize; I don't
know how many years. We are sadly losing Val to retirement—nine years—
in just a little bit. Val had some comments; Director Fong had some
comments to make, Senator Hill.
Valerie Fong, Utilities Director: Thank you very much, Mayor Holman. I just
channel City Manager Keene next to me, and I echo Council Member
Scharff's thanks to you for all of your efforts over the past legislative
session, in particular your support of our commitment to a carbon neutral
portfolio. You know well it could have had some unintended cost impacts,
because the State imposed a 50 percent renewable portfolio standard when we are already 50 percent large hydro in a wet year. Resulted in language
in Senate Bill 350 that, one, encourages continued early action on the part
of the City and, two, provides protection from runaway costs where the City
is taking all the right steps to ensure a carbon neutral portfolio that is 50
percent or more eligible renewable. We look forward to working with you again next year on some cleanup language in Senate Bill 350 around
integrated resource plan requirements that have some erroneous references
and further efforts to give full RPS credit to distributed generation. We want
to assure you that we'll continue to take the lead on environmental solutions
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that show the value of early action and environmental stewardship. I think
City Manager Keene has a comment or two.
James Keene, City Manager: Thank you. Madam Mayor, with your
indulgence on this. Senator Hill, we want to thank you and recognize your
efforts on behalf of our Utility and utilities in general just on utility safety
issues. As you well know, our Utility puts the highest priority on those
issues. I think you're aware that we're currently in a relationship challenge
with PG&E right now related to some of their work related to their
transmission pipelines and the impact it has on trees in Palo Alto, to the
point where I think initially we were hearing about 600-plus trees, most of
them on private property, needing to be removed as part of their sort of
safety issue. It's now down to under 300, I think, private trees and about
56 City trees. We've had a disagreement with them about the approach that
they've used about the public outreach and actually have been advising some folks not to proceed with them at this point. We scheduled a special
community meeting December 2nd with PG&E and our folks. We wanted to
bring it to your attention and certainly hope we could rely on you and your
staff as much as possible given your background in this event. If you had
any observations or comments, not to put you on the spot right now, but
happy to hear from you.
Senator Hill: If I could just respond. You're absolutely correct, and I've
been following it in the press. I do want to work with you on the issue. The
concern I have is it's hard to argue when they're doing something for safety
when we were, certainly I was, very critical of their actions in the past when
they were not concerned about safety. I think there is also the fear of an
overreaction that may not be necessary under the circumstances. I think we
have to look at what's the best practices, what are the historic practices
elsewhere. I mean, this is not a unique problem or situation. I think what
we need to do is look at and work together on this, if we can in the City, to
see how it's been done elsewhere. We can talk about that. I'd like to
maybe do a little outreach elsewhere in the country to see how they've been
able to maintain what's the threat, the risk analysis that's been done on that
Just a compliment to Val and your Utility. I use it and bring it up constantly as a model for how I think all utilities in California, all utility and electric and
gas service, should be provided to our citizens. It's the exact same way that
Palo Alto has been doing it for many years. It's safe. It's reliable. It's
inexpensive compared to what I'm paying where I live through PG&E. It's a
much better model when that profit is not tied to the end of the day. We've seen the effects of that in drastic form. Thank you for the great work that
you've done for the residents and the citizens of Palo Alto and for the Council
who have led that charge.
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Mayor Holman: Val, if you can get your head through the door when you're
leaving here, have a good rest of your evening. We do have one member of
the public who'd care to speak to this item, Sea Reddy. You'll have three
minutes.
Senator Hill: Just to tell Val, if I could while the gentleman is coming up.
We'll work on the next year and the 350 amendments and changes. Let me
know and we'll talk about that. Thank you. Lisa's there, and we'll work with
Sacramento.
Sea Reddy: Thank you, Senator, for being here. You're a great asset to us.
Karen, thanks for letting me speak for a minute or two. First things first. I
think it was totally cowardly to have people killed, innocent people killed, in
the other part of the world. I think you'll agree with us that that is very sad,
very sorrow. We are going to remember it for a long time. I think we need
to do what we need to do to help them heal as well as heal ourselves. On that tone, I do want to ask you. I work in southern California, national
assets by the beach communities here. In the '50s and '60s and '70s, we
had the conflict with Russia and all that. We were being watched as to how
to protect our assets. Now, we have national assets here in the Bay Area for
all the IP work we do. I hope you have some influence in preparing us for
anything that we don't want to hear, of course. I hope you get people ready
for things we need to do to prevent any of these things. I hope you have
that in mind. I don't really need you to help me to elaborate all that. That's
one thing I wanted to ask you. The second thing is more important, High
Speed Rail. Who really needs High Speed Rail? Many of us, we don't want
it. We don't want every 20 minutes to be woken up by a big bullet train.
We especially don't want anybody to come here from LA in three hours. We
want them to come as slowly as possible, if they want to come here. There
are airplanes; there are other things. We'll have a beautiful Caltrain. How
do we sabotage this whole project? I mean, I'm sure you can't help me on
that. The sentiment is we don't need it. We absolutely don't need it. We're
improving slowly and steadily We need to do things we need to do. There is
enough public transportation at hand that we need to fix. We don't need to
dig up our environment where we have a potential for earthquakes and things like that. Please keep that in mind. I really think we need to think
through to see do we really have a project that's already decided and who
decided it, how we decided, how do we stop it. In LA, there used to be a
thing called 105 freeway that ran from the middle of the east-west side to
LAX. It took ten years for Jerry to get it restarted—I mean Jerry Brown—in the '70s. I think we can delay this one too. If they want it, they can have it
50 years from now, but not on our watch. Thank you.
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Senator Hill: Thank you. If I could just respond to a couple of things. On
the High Speed Rail issue, I think time will tell. When the Governor's tenure
is over in 2018, there may be a new conversation around this. It may not
have the legs that it has, the wheels I guess, after that. I will let time tell.
In terms of the security and the other things, you raised an excellent point.
There's a new book by Ted Koppel. I haven't read it yet, but it's related to
something that was a concern of mine last year. When the substation in San
Jose was shot in the middle of the night, someone attacked the substation.
There was very little security. They shot through some transformers; it
destroyed them. The fear that I have and that we will be working on this
year is the security of the grid. That is something that a concerted effort
around the country or in the west coast could put the power out for weeks or
months at a time with—I hate to say it—not a lot of effort. A concerted
effort by someone could create some real problems. I think the utilities are now taking it more seriously. PG&E is. I've been by that substation
recently, and it is now almost a fortress, which it should be. Those
transformers are very expensive, one. Two, they're not available; they have
to be manufactured because they're so large and important. We want to
really work on that security system this year to make sure that that part is
something that we can depend on. Thank you.
Mayor Holman: Senator Hill, thank you for coming this evening, spending
time with us and sharing your thoughts. You know you're always welcome
here. Thank you so very much.
Senator Hill: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure, Madam Mayor. Thank
you. Council Members, thank you. It's great to see everyone tonight.
Thank you all very much.
Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions
Mayor Holman: Council Members, the next item on our agenda is Agenda
Changes, Additions and Deletions. I believe we have Item Number 7 which,
I believe, Staff is pulling. Is that correct, City Manager?
James Keene, City Manager: Yes, Madam Mayor. We had gotten some
additional questions and concerns about that item. I felt if we just pulled it
off the agenda, added some more information to it, we would bring it back on Consent on December 7th with the expectation that we would effectively
answer those outstanding questions and not require you having to have an
agenda item discussion on an action portion of an agenda.
Agenda Item Number 7- Adoption of a Resolution Revising the Citywide
Records Retention Schedule… removed from the Agenda at the request of
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Staff to be heard on December 7, 2015 with changes as outlined in At Place
Memorandum.
Mayor Holman: Thank you for that.
City Manager Comments
Mayor Holman: Our next item on the agenda is City Manager Comments.
Jim, back to you.
James Keene, City Manager: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Members of the
Council. I did want to call out to attention that this morning we raised the
French flag at half-staff, at the same level as the American flag, as the
President had instructed to be the situation until Thursday and as a way to
show our support to the people of Paris following the terrorist attacks last
weekend. As you now, we have some especially close ties to France through
our Sister City Albi which is situated in southern France on the Tarn River 50
miles from Toulouse. I did want to thank Council Members who asked me
about the French flag this weekend, in particular to thank Lon Peterson in
Claudia Keith's office who not only helped with the photo and everything this
morning. If you came in or if you leave through the main foyer in City Hall,
on the big screen we've got up a couple of photos with the tricolors of
France and pictures of our City in support for the folks in Paris and in France.
Thanks to the Staff for that. I've reported on these before, but just since
we're getting very close to them. There are a couple of community
meetings we just again want to remind our community about. First again,
this Wednesday, November 18th, we are hosting a public community
meeting related to the site assessment for a new Public Safety Building on
Lot C6 and C7 between California and Sherman Avenues. We'll be bringing
that back to Council for discussion and approval next month. There's a
dedicated webpage for the project which is
cityofpaloalto.org/publicsafetybuilding. It will have more meeting
information and a current draft of the presentation. That will be at
Escondido Elementary School Wednesday, November 18th, from 7:00 p.m.
to 9:00 p.m. I think especially importantly on Thursday, November 19th,
the San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority in partnership with East
Palo Alto, Palo Alto, Menlo Park, San Mateo County Flood Control District and Santa Clara Valley Water District, which comprise the membership of the
Joint Powers Authority governing body, is hosting an important community
meeting from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. at Lucie Stern to talk about what has been
done to reduce flood risks; sand bags, when, where and how do people get
them and place them; as well as highlight the new flood warning site; and just have a general dialog related to the potential El Nino winter. Speaking
of sand bags, we had a very successful sand bag day yesterday at the
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Municipal Services Center on East Bayshore. We loaded approximately
1,700 sand bags into cars, not only with City employees but we had
Explorers and volunteers from the Rotary Club helping provide this service.
So far this winter we have provided over 10,000 filled sand bags to the
public. Last year during the severe storms we had in December which
seemed to be a precursor to a wet winter that never really arrived, we
provided approximately 16,000 filled and loose bags in a 24-hour period.
We're on track to surpass that mark, and it's only early November. We
continue to restock our supply and inventory at the three identified sand bag
stations, Rinconada Park, at the MSC and at the Palo Alto Airport. For more
information, folks can check out the website cityofpaloalto.org/storms. I did
want to just share that Palo Alto tomorrow and the next day will be hosting
the cities of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Santa Monica, California, on
Tuesday and Wednesday with other guests from Boulder, San Jose, San Francisco and the Carbon Neutral Cities Alliance in a (inaudible) learning
exchange to explore the development of a zero net energy policy. This
exchange was organized by our Office of Sustainability and funded by the
Urban Sustainability Directors Network. Discussion will include the
challenges and successes Cambridge has faced during their development
and adoption of its Net Zero Action Plan and evaluate barriers and solutions
to net zero energy policy development. As most of you know, last Friday the
City hosted the fourth annual Building Carbon Zero California Conference.
We thank Mayor Holman for delivering the opening address and speaking to
our City's strengths and leadership in green building. Along with Passive
House California, the City brought together experts to discuss carbon
reduction strategies for buildings, cities and regions. The keynote address
was delivered by Dr. Diana Urge-Vorsatz, lead author of the Nobel Prize
winning report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Her
presentation was live-streamed to Vienna where a simultaneous event was
taking place as part of former Vice President Al Gore's Climate Reality
Project. The conference also brought together members from all
departments of the City to have an open dialog about our future and green
building. On Saturday, conference attendees were invited to join Former Mayor Peter Drekmeier on a bicycle tour of passive energy efficient homes in
Palo Alto. Along those lines, more to come on this, but we are pointing
towards a community sustainability summit on January 24th at Jordan
Middle School from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. It will be part of our Our Palo Alto
initiative and focus on sort of the background work to precede our Sustainability and Climate Action Plan. I'll have more to report on that.
With the approach of the Thanksgiving Holiday next week, a couple of fun
events to be sure to put on calendar to kick off the holiday season. This
Saturday, November 21st, from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., you can join the
artists of Cubberley Artist Studio Program in Wings E, F and U at the
Cubberley Community Center as they open up their working studios during
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the Annual Holiday Open House. In addition to meeting artists in their
studios, visitors of all ages will have the opportunity to engage in art making
and participate in hands-on workshops. The Holiday Open House celebration
will feature drop-in tours and special teen MakeX exhibition also curated with
artists. Those of you who walk past Lytton Plaza will see that the holiday
tree is up in Lytton Plaza, yet unlit. The fifth annual Holiday Tree Lighting
will take place on Friday, December 4th, from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. on Lytton
Plaza. This is always a fun family-centered event. We encourage folks to
come Downtown for that. That's all I have to report.
Mayor Holman: Thank you for all of that.
Oral Communications
Mayor Holman: Our next item on the agenda is Oral Communications. I
want to thank our friends at SEIU for coming back to speak at this time
under Oral Communications. With that, you'll each have three minutes. We
have 11 speakers at this point in time. We have Lynn Krug, to be followed
by Joseph Duran. If you would, when you hear your name called, if you
would come down to the front, that will help save us a lot of time and be
very efficient. Thank you. Welcome, Ms. Krug.
Lynn Krug: Good evening, Mayor Holman and Palo Alto Council Members.
I'm Lynn Krug. I'm the chapter chair of the SEIU unit of full-time
employees. We're here tonight to introduce ourselves again to you. We're
in negotiations now. We carry the institutional knowledge, the dedication to
service and the respect for the City and its residents. We are the face of
Palo Alto. We're the people that interact. We're the people that answer and
serve. Ourselves and our families depend on these jobs, so we are
dedicated to our service to the City of Palo Alto. Tonight I'd like to read to
you a gentleman's speech who wasn't able to attend. We have public safety
dispatchers who are also part of our unit. I'm going to read on behalf of
Mark Chase. One of the most important functions of my job—this is Mark
speaking by the way. One of the most important functions of my job is
keeping the citizens and the visitors of Palo Alto safe and secure. The
dispatch center in Palo Alto provides a wide variety of services. We are the
dispatch center for Palo Alto Police and Stanford Department of Public Safety. We also dispatch for the Palo Alto Fire Department and provide
medical dispatching instructions before paramedics arrive to the scene. We
can help a bystander give CPR, stop bleeding or deliver a child amongst
many other things. In addition, the dispatch center also provides 24-hour
dispatch services for the different Utility Departments throughout the City, water, gas, wastewater and electric. Finally, we are the 24-hour dispatch
center for Palo Alto Animal Services which provides service for three local
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cities including our own. Our dispatch center is a 24-hour operation serving
residents days, nights, weekends and holidays. A resident is always able to
get a hold of a City employee with no voicemail tree when they call us. Here
are some calls Mark personally handled in recent days: a motor home fire,
an elderly resident who had stopped breathing, a woman who went into
labor at 40 weeks of pregnancy, vehicle accidents, bicycle accidents, a
woman stuck in an elevator, citizens concerned about traffic at their local
schools, an intoxicated man trying to break down the door of an occupied
resident's home and more. Mark provides quality public services as do all
the other dispatchers to all the residents and employees that utilize the
dispatch center. When you are asleep at 4:00 a.m., Mark and his colleagues
are at work in the dispatch center keeping the community safe. Their
experience and knowledge of the City is invaluable, especially when he is
training the next generation of City employees. For all our jobs, institutional knowledge is key. Thank you very much.
Mayor Holman: Thank you. We do discourage emotive comments of any
sort, positive or negative, so that it's kind of an even playing field for
everyone. Thank you for coming. Our next speaker is Joseph Duran.
Again, if speakers could come to the front row, that would be helpful. The
next speaker is Mark Chase, but it sounds like he is not present. Is that
correct? Then our next speaker will be Diane Meyers, after Joseph Duran.
Welcome, Joseph.
Joseph Duran: Thank you. Thank you for this time for letting me share a
little bit about my department. My name is Joe Duran, that's what I go by.
I work for Public Works Facilities. We are a team of 13, one manager, two
leads, six mechanics, two painters, one carpenter and an electrician. We are
all journeyman level in our trades. Palo Alto has over 130 buildings, 1.6
million square feet and 900 maintained pieces of equipment. The median
building age is 50 years. Palo Alto has some older buildings, but we also
have some new buildings. One of my favorite buildings is Mitchell Park
Library and Community Center. This is a LEED Platinum Certified building.
It boasts a living roof. It has solar panels, solar water heaters. It has a
night sky system. The night sky system sprays water at night allowing the cool air to pre-chill water for the chiller which actually adds energy efficiency
to the chiller, makes it work less. Rinconada is another building that has
been upgraded recently. It has three geofields that help efficiently heat and
cool the entire building. It works really efficiently actually. Palo Alto also
offers electric car chargers. Our electrician has supplied electricity to these stations. He also maintains them. He's also been retrofitting old light
systems with new LED energy efficient systems. I'm really nervous right
now. Our carpenter has renovated and constructed new office space. He's
made patio shade for Rinconada Pool. When you come into Palo Alto, one of
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the first things you notice is how many trees are here. Something that you
may notice is the graffiti. This is in large part due to the two painters that
when they're not painting offices or accent walls, they help to keep Palo Alto
beautiful. The care for these buildings is no small task. It takes a team with
good leadership, a team that knows their buildings and has the expertise to
do the job right. I like to say we can fix everything from the ground up. I
love what I do, and I love to do it for the City I care for. We are just one
spoke in the wheel. I hope to continue to provide the services Palo Alto
deserves. Thank you.
Mayor Holman: Thank you, and thank you for your service. Diane Meyers
to be followed by Aimee Bailey. Again, if speakers would please come to the
front row, it would be most helpful. Thank you.
Diane Meyers: Good evening. I'm going to speak on a different topic. First,
I would like to thank the representatives of the Council who came to the first neighborhood meeting that we had at Duveneck School. I appreciate also
the participation of the City Staff who also participated in that meeting. It
was really very informative, and it was a wonderful conversation. I hope
that process continues. I'd like to speak on something that was touched on
at that meeting, and that was the air traffic noise. I came to this community
in 1984 with my family. The reason we came was because we value the
quiet that this City provides us. I live in the Triple El neighborhood which is
just across 101 from the local Palo Alto Airport. I know that this evening
you'll be touching on the topic of the airport. I wanted to register my
concern about the noise that the airport and its air traffic produces. We are
constantly reminded about the helicopters that are in training over our
neighborhood. It has affected the joy that we have in being outdoors in our
own backyard. It interferes with our quiet space that we have there. I
know that so much of the SEC controls what happens in and out of that
airport, but I do know that the City of Palo Alto as the administrators for that
airport does have some control. I ask that you please keep our interests in
mind when you make decisions that do affect the airport and the traffic that
travels through it. Thank you very much.
Mayor Holman: Thank you, and thank you for mentioning the neighborhood meeting. Actually our next one is December 3rd. Watch the City calendar
for that. Aimee Bailey to be followed by Amy Christel.
Aimee Bailey: Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak. I'm
Aimee Bailey. I'm a resource planner in the resource management group in
Val's Utilities Department. I'm very happy to share a little bit about what I do. I'm one of five resource planners, so this is kind of representative work.
I work mainly on local solar, and then emerging technologies and
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sustainability. For instance, I lead the implementation of the Local Solar
Plan which was adopted by Council on Earth Day of last year, including the
development of a community solar program which would allow anyone within
the community to go solar even those that may have a roof that doesn't face
the right direction, live in a historic building, rent, maybe they live in a
condo or maybe their roof is shaded by our beautiful urban tree canopy
here. If you're a member of the Finance Committee, I'll be speaking to you
all December 1st on a couple of solar items, specifically a recommendation
for PV partners and then also some design guidelines for net energy
metering, specifically the successor tariff program. The other half of my
work is mainly emerging technologies and sustainability. For instance, I run
the program for emerging technologies which is a program to help launch
pilot projects for innovative products and services that will better use and
manage energy, water and fiber optic services. Also, I perform some strategic analyses, for instance, related to cost effectiveness of residential
fuel switching. That analysis underpinned part of the work plan that was
presented on electrification recently. Those are just a few examples of what
resource planners do. I think that these services are really kind of important
for the community, specifically for helping the community meet the very
aggressive sustainability goals that it sets for itself. This community
embodies the value of embracing innovation. I love my job. I'm very happy
to work here. We ask you, the elected leaders, to support your frontline
workers by investing in quality public services and a fair contract that will
help achieve that. Thank you very much.
Mayor Holman: Thank you. Amy Christel to be followed by Rita Vrhel.
Amy Christel: Hello, and thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight. I
also thank all of the amazing people who keep the City running like a fine-
tuned machine. Tonight I would like to speak to the obligations of this
Council and the City as owners of Palo Alto Airport. The benefits of that
airport are many, but they come with costs, very real costs. Noise pollution,
the need for financial support in the way of maintenance. None of these
costs can or should be ignored. I ask this Council, number one, to install
noise monitors in the neighborhoods of this community. We need data to monitor the very real impacts of air traffic, both jets and general aviation
traffic that is generated inside our neighborhoods, not just over the Bay or
the airport. Number two, I would respectfully request the City to stop taking
FAA airport improvement grants. Those AIP grants cost us any control over
operations at Palo Alto Airport well into the future. By accepting those grants today, you are handcuffing future leaders and future residents of this
community. The impacts of aviation activities involve impacts on the
environment as well as enjoyment of life as you've heard tonight. Number
three, I would like the City to really address the costs of maintaining the
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airport and not give up our rights to control that airport by accepting funds.
Maybe it costs, but let's face the cost. Number four, I would like
transparency, greater transparency in matters related to Palo Alto Airport.
For instance, I would like a reporting of noise complaints made to that
operation. So far in the year of ownership, I've not seen one noise report
made public. I know I complain. Also, I would like to have residents be
informed of any requests or applications for new operations at the City of
Palo Alto's Airport, new operations that will certainly, most certainly, have an
impact on our lives. Thank you very much.
Mayor Holman: Thank you. Rita Vrhel to be followed by Esther Nigenda.
Rita Vrhel: Good evening. I'm here to talk about dewatering again. A lot
was said tonight about climate change and sustainability. I don't think any
sustainability can occur without looking at groundwater as a vital resource. I
gave each one of you a copy of the groundwater supply feasibility study by Carollo Engineers which Keith Bennett referenced last week. I believe that
he emailed you the list of his analysis of this report and an earlier report. I
also wanted to call your attention to a really fantastic website put out by the
US Geological Survey. It's usggov.ed. It talks about the entire water cycle.
Of interest to me was infiltration, the way that precipitation becomes part of
our aquifers and the relationship between the different levels of aquifers and
groundwater. 713 South Hampton is still pumping. This is 18, 15, 16 days
after the mandatory cutoff. I wanted to speak of something that is also of
interest to our community which is This Thanksgiving Dinner which is put on
by the Downtown Streets and Innvision Service Community. It will be on
the 26th from 12:00 to 2:00. Leftover dinner will be on the 27th which is
Friday from 11:30 to 1:00 p.m. This will occur at All Saints Episcopal
Church, 555 Waverley Street. If anyone in the community has not
participated in this wonderful event, you can go to the Innvision or
Thanksgiving Dinner website. There's a list of foods that you can bring or
prepare. All prepared food needs to be dropped off on Wednesday between
9:00 and 12:00. The Episcopal Church also contains the Food Closet. If you
have any cans or other foods that you would like to donate, that also can be
done at the same time. Thank you.
Mayor Holman: Thanks so much. Esther Nigenda to be followed by Phil
Harsh.
Esther Nigenda: Good evening. First of all, I want to thank City Council for
the approval of the incorporation of climate protection, climate adaptation
and sea level rise in the Land Use and Community Design Element of the Comprehensive Plan. Pardon my ignorance, but I hope this directive of
incorporating climate change applies to the whole Plan, especially Goals 3
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and 4 of the Natural Environment Element which refer to our urban forest
and the protection of our water resources. FEMA Director Craig Fugate says
droughts have the potential of all the hazards we face to be the most
destabilizing, both to our nation and to the Earth because of food shortages,
food insecurity and water wars. The USGS says groundwater is among the
nation's most important natural resources. It provides half of our drinking
water and it is essential to the vitality of agriculture and industry as well as
to the health of rivers, wetlands and estuaries throughout the country.
Large scale development of groundwater resources would accompany
declines in groundwater levels and other effects of pumping has led to
concerns about the future availability of groundwater to meet domestic,
agricultural, industrial and environmental needs. I'm an Emergency Services
volunteer. Some of you might have seen the disaster management cycle
which includes mitigation, preparation, recovery and response. Speaking only for myself as an Emergency Services volunteer, I take Director Fugate's
warnings seriously. I believe that saving Palo Alto's groundwater falls in the
categories of preparedness and mitigation for future droughts. That is why I
joined the organization Save Palo Alto's Groundwater. Our group, Save Palo
Alto's Groundwater, is no longer asking for a study to determine the effects
of dewatering for the construction of basements. We are requesting that the
City change its policies to reflect the fact that with climate change
dewatering is a gift to a few homeowners that our City can no longer afford.
September 8, 2015 was Protect Our Groundwater Day. Policy N-18 of Palo
Alto's Comprehensive Plan states protect Palo Alto's groundwater from the
adverse impacts of urban uses. It is our hope that the implementation of
City policies will truly protect our groundwater. For more information about
dewatering and related issues, please visit our website
savepaloaltosgroundwater.org. Thank you.
Mayor Holman: Thank you. Phil Harsh to be followed by Winter Dellenbach.
Phil Harsh: First of all, I'd like to thank you all for allowing me to speak
here. Secondly, I'd like to thank you for organizing, maintaining and
encouraging one of the finest Fire Departments in the country and one of the
finest Police Departments in the country. I'd just like to speak very briefly to three points that have come to my attention since Friday the 13th. One is
that Palo Alto Fire Department no longer has a rescue truck. It may not be
critical to the City's needs right now, but in the case of a big emergency it
would be very useful. Secondly, in light of what happened and how quickly
it happened in Paris, I think it would be helpful, if it's possible, to build a new police station that's a little more hardened than other police stations in
this area, so that our police are protected and also to encourage a defensible
perimeter around the new police station, if that's possible. Thirdly, I think it
would be advantageous if our emergency departments could have more
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modern communication equipment. This isn't a simple matter, because it's
necessary to get approval. If digital radios that could not be listened to by
any of our adversaries were in their hands, things might be a little smoother.
I think all of these three points are not only local issues, but they're national
issues in that this is the heart of the Silicon Valley. Everything that happens
here in a big way influences the whole nation. I think there's some
responsibility for the City to pay for these things. I think the greater
responsibility in my view is for the Federal Government. Thank you.
Mayor Holman: You're welcome. Winter Dellenbach to be followed by Herb
Borock.
Winter Dellenbach: Hi. I live in Barron Park, and I'm really glad to do this
while there are so many Barron Park neighbors of mine here. It's time for
Posada. You're all invited to Posada, everybody at Stanford, everybody in
Palo Alto. Buena Vista fourth annual community Posada. We're going to have a really good time. The famous Barron Park donkeys will be there from
4:30 to 5:30. Anyone who wants to spend quality time with the donks,
that's the time to do it. Of course, we will do the annual procession that's
the traditional part of Posada, where we all as a community come together
and support each other, looking for shelter, for a place to stay the night.
How appropriate in Palo Alto to be looking for housing. The folkloric dancers
from Raices de Mexico will once again, the girls in their really colorful outfits,
be dancing. Some of these girls live in Barron Park, and some of them live
at Buena Vista. It's always very sweet to see them dancing for their
community. Afterwards, of course, there will be tons of homemade tamales
and enchiladas and all kinds of things to drink. It's just going to be so much
fun, and everything lit up and really pretty. Please everybody come, 4:30 to
5:30 for the donkeys, 5:00 to 9:00 for Posada. There'll be some greetings,
I've heard, from some City officials, perhaps a County official. A good time
will be had by all. Everybody come to Posada.
Council Member DuBois: Which day?
Ms. Dellenbach: December 5th. Thank you so much. Saturday,
December 5th. It's coming right up. December 5th.
Mayor Holman: If you haven't been before, the Posada is a pretty amazing event. Who doesn't love the donks? Herb Borock to be followed by our final
speaker, Stephanie Munoz.
Herb Borock: Good evening, Mayor Holman and Council Members. Five
weeks ago you adopted some actions related to the rail issue, including
having the Mayor reappoint the City Council Rail Committee. The Rail Committee, when it existed, was a committee that was always subject to the
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Brown Act even before it was included as a Standing Committee in the
Council's procedure manual. Since that action five weeks ago, I haven't
heard anything about the Committee, who's appointed to it or whether it's
having any meetings. It's important because there are issues that are
coming up on rail. For example, I believe tomorrow is the High Speed Rail
Authority Board's meeting which includes the awarding of the contract for
the contractor to do the environmental review for the San Francisco to San
Jose section of High Speed Rail. As far as I know, the schedule is still to
complete that environmental review by the end of next year. I'm not aware
that it takes into account one of the other items that was approved five
weeks ago which was to have the Staff and Mayor convey to the High Speed
Rail Authority that the timeline of the Environmental Impact Report should
be adjusted to include adequate timing for the EIR and adjusted for time
needed to fully integrate context sensitive solutions in that process. Secondly, there's another item that's come up related to High Speed Rail.
That is that there has been a proposed statewide initiative submitted to the
Attorney General for the 30-day public review. It's titled the New Surface
Water and Groundwater Storage Facilities. Included in the language of that
proposed measure is to reallocate $8 billion from High Speed Rail bonds to
this Surface Water and Groundwater Storage Facilities Act. I think it would
be appropriate for that to be reviewed in the public process to be able to
decide whether to make comments about that initiative by the deadline
which, I believe, is December 13th. In terms of what happens at the High
Speed Rail Board, they're required to have, under the Bagley-Keene Act, the
ten-day advance notice of their meetings and their agenda items. There
clearly is enough process time there to schedule Rail Committee meetings
and make recommendations to the Council for anything that's on that
Board's meeting as well. Thank you.
Mayor Holman: Just quickly for public information, the Rail Committee is
comprised of Council Members Burt, Scharff, DuBois and Berman. Maybe
the City Clerk could get that on the City's website as to Committee
configuration.
Beth Minor, City Clerk: Yes, I will.
Mayor Holman: Thank you.
James Keene, City Manager: Madam Mayor, if I just might say something
before the last speaker and before folks leave. On the issue of dewatering,
we'd previously announced that the Policy and Services Committee was
going to take that up at its evening meeting on December 8th. That meeting has been rescheduled to December 1st. We'll be taking that item
up before Policy and Services on the evening of December 1st. Thanks.
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Mayor Holman: Thank you for the update. Our final speaker under Oral
Communications is Stephanie Munoz.
Stephanie Munoz: Hi. Like one of those previous speakers, I'm grateful for
the opportunity to talk and thank you. I wanted to remind you something
about consistency and the law and the Constitution. I know many of you are
lawyers. That gives you a special interest and a special need and a special
responsibility to protect the law which is the Constitution. The main thing
about the Constitution as far as the rest of us are concerned is that the
amendments to it aren't prescriptive. They are proscriptive. They are
concerned because the people that wrote them out came from authoritarian
and totalitarian governments. The governments could just do anything they
damn pleased. They didn't want that for us. What we find as our society
progresses, especially with capitalism, is that people pay lip service to the
idea of being equal and that everybody be equal is not really possible. I don't mind that I get bone china and somebody else has to eat off a paper
plate. That doesn't bother me. When it gets to the point where some
people don't have any home at all, that bothers me. Robert Reich used to
be Secretary of Labor has written a couple of books. One's called Saving
Capitalism. The point that he makes is that certain forces in the society are
able to have laws made which favor wealth. I don't think any of you have
any prejudice against poor people. I really don't. I know you. The way
these laws work out is like this. Over in Hawaii we had a situation similar to
Buena Vista. The native poor people owned the land on which the City of
Honolulu is. The wealthy people or the middle class people rented from
them. The Legislature of Hawaii passed a law that the owners, that is these
Hawaiians, brown-skinned people, had to sell their land to the wealthy
middle-class white people who had the houses on them. This has not
happened in Buena Vista. It's very clear that it's because of the money
discrepancy between the people. It's not so much that you have anything
against poor people. Give it some thought. Thank you.
Mayor Holman: Thank you. With the Council's indulgence, just a couple of
quick acknowledgements. You probably have noticed this evening at the
Council's desk there are actually three people. Jessica Brettle, the new Assistant City Clerk, has joined the table this evening. Welcome to you,
Jessica, for your first Council meeting. At the rear of the room, some of you
may have noticed the last several weeks that there is a young man, John
Burton, who has been studying at the feet, if you will, of Vince Larkin who
announces the Council meetings. Thank you, John, for your dedication to listening to our meetings and interest in public service.
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Minutes Approval
3. Approval of Action Minutes for the October 5, 13, 19, 26, and
November 2, 2015 Council Meetings.
Mayor Holman: With that, we then go to Minutes Approval. Council
Members, these are the Action Minutes for the meeting of October 5, 13, 19,
26 and November 2nd. Could we have a Motion please?
Vice Mayor Schmid: Move approval.
Council Member Berman: Second.
Mayor Holman: Motion by Vice Mayor Schmid, second by Council Member
Berman, to approve the Minutes.
MOTION: Vice Mayor Schmid moved, seconded by Council Member Berman
to approve the Action Minutes for the October 5, 13, 19, 26, and November
2, 2015 Council Meetings.
Mayor Holman: Vote on the board please. That passes unanimously.
MOTION PASSED: 9-0
Consent Calendar
Mayor Holman: We then go to the Consent Calendar. We do have some
comments here. As mentioned previously, Item Number 7 has been pulled
by Staff. As noted in the agenda, Item Number 13 has been continued to
December 7. Council Member Burt.
Council Member Burt: Excuse me. I would like to move to pull Item
Number 9.
Council Member DuBois: Second.
MOTION: Council Member Burt moved, seconded by Mayor Holman, third
by Council Member DuBois to remove Agenda Item Number 9- Approval of a
Seven Month Contract With Cypress Security… from the Consent Calendar to
become Agenda Item 13A.
Mayor Holman: Item Number 9 has been pulled. I believe we can hear that
this evening. It's just a quick comment—Council Member DuBois. It's just a
quick comment we want to make on that one, I believe.
James Keene, City Manager: We can hear that one tonight, yes.
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Mayor Holman: Yes, indeed. Council Member DuBois.
Council Member DuBois: I'd like to move to pull Item 8 from Consent to a
date uncertain.
Mayor Holman: I will also vote for that.
MOTION: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Mayor Holman,
third by Council Member Filseth to remove Agenda Item Number 8- Approval
of a Record of Land Use Action… from the Consent Calendar to be heard at a
later date.
Mayor Holman: Item Number 8 has been pulled and continued to a date to
be determined. Anybody else? Then we will move Item Number 9 to be
Item Number 13a. On the Consent Calendar then, Items Number 4, 5, 6,
10, 11, 12, 13 with Item Number 8 pulled and Item Number 9 becoming the
new Item 13a.
MOTION: Mayor Holman moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Schmid to approve Agenda Item Numbers 4-6, 10-13.
4. Approval of Change Order Number Three to Contract Number
C15157253 With Daleo, Inc. Extending the Contract Term to January
6, 2016 and Adding $190,000 for a Total Not to Exceed Contract
Amount of $4,599,031, to Provide Emergency Water Main
Replacement Work on Kingsley Avenue.
5. Resolution 9559 Entitled, “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo
Alto Approving the City of Palo Alto's Continued Participation in the
Mortgage Credit Certificate (MCC) Program Through the County of
Santa Clara.”
6. Approval of Amendment Number One to Contract Number S14152214
With Toubar Equipment Company Inc. in the Amount of $600,000 for
Closure Maintenance Assistant Services at the City of Palo Alto Landfill
(Capital Improvement Project RF-11001, Landfill Closure).
7. Adoption of a Resolution Revising the Citywide Records Retention
Schedule and Repealing Resolution No. 8688.
8. Approval of a Record of Land Use Action for a Variance to Allow for a
Reduction in the Required Front Setback (Contextual) From
37 Feet 1-1/4 Inches to 32 Feet for a New Two-Story Single Family Residence Located at 224 Churchill Avenue.
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9. Approval of a Seven Month Contract With Cypress Security, Inc. Not to
Exceed $439,441.84 for "Track Watch" Contract Security Services.
10. Ordinance 5359 Entitled, “Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo
Alto Amending Chapter 18.79 of Title 18 (Zoning) of the Palo Alto
Municipal Code Regarding Development Project Preliminary Review
Procedures (FIRST READING: October 26, 2015 PASSED: 9-0).”
11. Ordinance 5360 Entitled, “Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo
Alto Amending Section 2.28.080 (Amendments after Adoption) of
Chapter 2.28 (Fiscal Procedures) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code
(FIRST READING: November 2, 2015 PASSED: 9-0).”
12. Budget Amendment Ordinance 5361 Entitled, “Budget Amendment
Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Authorizing the
Reappropriation of Fiscal Year 2015 Funds to Fiscal Year 2016.”
13. PUBLIC HEARING - Certification of the Final Environmental Impact
Report (FEIR) and Approval of the Record of Land Use Action to Allow
Demolition of Four Existing Structures Totaling 265,895 Square Feet
and Construction of Four Two-Story Office Buildings Totaling 265,895
Square Feet of Floor Area With Below and At-Grade Parking and Other
Site Improvements Located at 1050 Page Mill Road. Zoning District:
Research Park (RP). Environmental Assessment: An Environmental
Impact Report has Been Prepared (Staff Requests This Item be
Continued to December 7, 2015).
Mayor Holman: That said, vote on the board please. That passes
unanimously.
MOTION FOR AGENDA ITEM NUMBERS 4-6, 10-13 PASSED: 9-0
Action Items
13A. (Former Agenda Item Number 9) Approval of a Seven Month Contract
With Cypress Security, Inc. Not to Exceed $439,44 for "Track Watch"
Contract Security Services and Adoption of a Related Budget
Amendment Ordinance 5362.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Burt, to Item Number 13 a, the prior
Number 9.
Council Member Burt: I support the funding of this contract. The reason I wanted to pull it was to be able to look at when the Council can review
essentially the source of funds. As it's currently written and agendized, it
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would be from the Stanford Medical Center Development Fund for Health
Services and Safety, which is something that we had identified $2 million of
that fund toward Project Safety Net. I think the uses of that fund toward
Track Watch and our City's share of the fencing are very important
measures, but I think they should come from the General Fund and reserve
the dollars in the Stanford fund toward continuing support for Project Safety
Net. My question would be of the City Manager, if we approve this tonight,
how can the Council in the nearer term be able to have a consideration how
to perhaps backfill the Stanford Community Health Fund to keep those
dollars dedicated toward Project Safety Net.
James Keene, City Manager: Thank you, Madam Mayor, Council Member
Burt. First of all, we would really need to have the Council's approval
tonight to use the funding as proposed and a Budget Amendment Ordinance
so that we could initiate the new contract effective December 1st. That being said, I know that some of the concern would be that, one, Project
Safety Net itself is a larger initiative than just the issues of means restriction
to the track. Of course, the City has been contributing and then actually
contributing funding to sort of the broader range of issues related to Project
Safety Net. However, with this contract award, effectively the City would
have allocated all of the authority of the $2 million essentially that the
Council has already approved. I would propose two things. One is that
when the City comes back to the Council in the winter with the mid-year
Budget review, that we would have the opportunity to identify funding
sources in different amounts that the Council could use to essentially
replenish the Stanford funds to whatever degree you thought would be
appropriate when we do the mid-year Budget review. Tomorrow night, the
Finance Committee will be taking up the CAFRA, the Comprehensive Annual
Financial Report. In that report already, the year-end closing from the prior
fiscal year identifies a lot of both under-expenditures in the General Fund
and over-collection of revenues that are recommended for different uses,
going in the Budget Stabilization Reserve, going in the Infrastructure
Reserve, some suggested potential payments. There's a significant amount
of funding there that certainly could allow the flexibility for a good discussion by the Council as a whole. Not tomorrow night, but post-that, when we get
to the mid-year Budget review to give you the flexibility to look at options on
keeping a large portion of the original $2 million for Project Safety Net
available for ongoing and future expenditures. In addition though—I've
talked with some of our Staff—there could be a situation in the nearer term. For example, we're out looking at hiring a Project Safety Net Director. We
anticipate, if that happens, bringing that person onboard and beginning their
salary and support of those efforts. I think we have sufficient capacity in the
nearer term between now and the mid-year Budget review to be able to
handle any of those expenses within the departmental budgets. I have the
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ability as City Manager to be able to move funding to ensure there would be
no disruption, no slow down in any way at all on some of the other Project
Safety Net efforts that we would have. I would propose that the Council
approve the recommendation as put forward with the Staff coming back at
the mid-year Budget review with proposed options for funding potentially up
to all of the means restriction public safety expenditures that have been
taken out of the existing Stanford funds over the past four or five years.
Council Member Burt: That sounds fine by me. Because the City Manager
brings the Budget to the Council, I don't think that we would need a Council
direction tonight given what the City Manager just stated. I'm satisfied with
that commitment. I just want to say to colleagues that I think it's important
as we're moving in Project Safety Net to hiring an Executive Director and
looking at strengthening the collaborative nature of it, the collaborative
partners really need to have a confidence that the City has an ongoing commitment to the program. I know that we do have that, and the City
Manager has expressed that. This Stanford fund has been the principal
funding source. With the way it looks in the Budget, it's not a clear enough
commitment to those partners. Frankly, moving the dollars into this fund is
another one of our essentially reserves. I look forward to the Council
discussion on that.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Burt, as you were the initiator in pulling
this, do you want to make the Motion then to approve the item?
Council Member Burt: Yes, that would be fine. I would move that the
Council approve the seven-month contract with Cypress Security in an
amount not to exceed $439,000 for Track Watch security services and
adoption of a related Budget Amendment Ordinance.
Council Member Scharff: Second.
MOTION: Council Member Burt moved, seconded by Council Member
Scharff to approve a seven-month contract with Cypress Security, Inc. not to
exceed $439,441 for “Track Watch” contract security services and adopt a
related Budget Amendment Ordinance.
Mayor Holman: Do you care to speak any further to your Motion?
Council Member Burt: Nope, thank you.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Scharff, to your second?
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Council Member Scharff: I did. I just wanted clarification from the City
Manager that in this process it'll come to Finance first. I think that's our
usual procedure.
Mr. Keene: Is the usual procedure to go to ...
Council Member Scharff: I think so. I just wanted to ask because I wasn't
sure.
Mr. Keene: ... with mid-year Budget review to Finance? As appropriate.
Council Member Scharff: You don't know?
Mr. Keene: I'm assuming—if it's our usual procedure, then definitely we
would do that.
Council Member Scharff: That's what I thought. I was asking if it was. I
thought it was, but I'm not sure. We don't know?
Mr. Keene: My recollection is we typically bring it to Finance. I mean, I
would say ...
Council Member Scharff: That's my recollection too, but I just don't recall.
All right.
Mayor Holman: Council Member DuBois, you had also voted to pull this. Do
you have any comment?
Council Member DuBois: Just the one about we're in the process of trying to
hire, so I think the optics are important. There's not a lot of runway for a
new Director of Project Safety Net to get established and seek other sources
of funds. I think we want to make sure it's clear that we support the
program.
Mayor Holman: The Motion before the Council then is to approve the seven-
month contract with Cypress Security Inc. not to exceed $439,441.84 for
Track Watch contract security services and adopt a related Budget
Amendment Ordinance. Not a part of the Motion but agreed to by Staff was
that they will bring forward options on funding sources as part of the mid-
year Budget review. With that, seeing no other lights, vote on the board
please. That pass unanimously. Thank you, Council Members.
MOTION PASSED: 9-0
14. Review and Direction Regarding a Draft Ordinance Regulating
Hazardous Materials Users and Sensitive Receptors Such as
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Residences, Schools, Day Care Centers, Convalescent Homes and
Similar Uses in Office, Research and Manufacturing Districts and
Making Related Changes to Municipal Code Provisions Related to Non-
Conforming Uses, as Well as a Draft Ordinance Regarding Amortization
of Uses at Communications & Power Industries, LLC (CPI), 607-811
Hansen Way.
Mayor Holman: We now go to our first action item which is review and
direction regarding a draft ordinance regulating hazardous material users
and sensitive receptors such as residences, schools, daycare centers,
convalescent homes and similar uses in office, research and manufacturing
districts and making related changes to Municipal Code provisions related to
non-conforming uses as well as a draft ordinance regarding amortization of
uses at Communications and Power Industries LLC or CPI at 607-811 Hansen
Way. Before we have the Staff presentation, Council Member Berman, did you have a comment you'd care to make?
Council Member Berman: Yes. Thank you very much. Just out of a kind of
abundance of caution and transparency, I just wanted to flag something for
the community and make a disclosure. One would have a conflict of interest
if one either personally or their spouse or dependent children—City Attorney,
correct me if I misstate this—if their earned income would be affected at all
by a decision they'd make on the City Council. I don't have a spouse or
dependent children, so that's not the case here and it's not the case for me
personally. I do have a mom who is a realtor in town, and she has a listing
on Chimalus. In my understanding and confirmation with the City Attorney,
this is not a conflict, so I'm not conflicting myself out of this issue. I just
wanted to flag it for the community and folks involved.
Mayor Holman: Thank you for that. Does Staff have a presentation?
Hillary Gitelman, Planning and Community Environment Director: Thank
you, Mayor Holman and Council Members. I'm Hillary Gitelman, the
Planning Director. I'm joined by Rod Young of our consulting firm AECOM.
We're going to collaborate on the presentation this evening. First, I wanted
to thank the others who have contributed to this agenda item including Joe
Afong at the Fire Department, other City Staff in a variety of different departments. This evening, we're going to start with a review of the City
Council's direction on this issue about a year ago. Then proceed with the
rest of this outline. Some background information on CPI, a summary of the
current Code provisions that relate to hazardous materials users, a summary
of the proposed zoning revisions, and then a discussion of next steps. It's important to emphasize that we're not this evening asking for the Council to
adopt an ordinance or ordinances. We've brought you two ordinances for
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your early input and discussion. Based on your discussion this evening, we
expect that at least one possibly both of those ordinances will need to be
revised slightly, and then they'll have to go through the normal process that
an ordinance goes through, a recommendation at the Planning Commission
and come back to the Council for your review and consideration. As we'll
explain in the course of our explanation, there were a couple of adjustments
to the information in the Staff Report as we prepared for the hearing this
evening, at least one adjustment to one of the ordinances before you. We'll
go into that in more detail. Just to recap your direction from October of last
year. First you asked us to prepare a draft ordinance for review by the
Planning Commission and the City Council. You asked us to do it pretty
darned quick, and it has taken us much longer than we anticipated. It's
been a very complex set of issues that we've had to confront and deal with.
First, you asked us to consider plating shops and uses similar to plating shops in development of an ordinance. You also asked us to broaden the
current approach to identifying potential sensitive receptors or uses that
might be incompatible with hazardous materials-type uses. You suggested
this kind of tiered approach that ultimately took shape in the ordinance that
we're bringing to you this evening. The City Council's direction came after
discussion of CPI. We included in your Staff Report a chronology of some of
the events having to do with CPI that brought this issue to the fore. We've
included here just a Staff Report that shows how close the CPI facilities are
to the adjacent neighbors. Here is another version of that chronology just
explaining some of the events of CPI including the hazardous materials
releases that happened in 2006, 2007, then Council's adoption of an
ordinance to address hazardous materials users in 2007, the steps that CPI
took to reduce their chemical quantities below the Title 19 or CalARP
thresholds in 2012, and then bringing you up to the current day in 2015, our
work with the consultants and outreach to interested parties which I'd like to
say is still going on. We are still outreaching to some of the businesses now
defined as Tier 2 under the proposed ordinance. There are two ordinances
before you. The first one would define hazardous materials users in three
tiers. Rod is going to go into some detail on that. It would also define sensitive receptors. It's important to know that the ordinance is kind of a
two-way street. We're regulating hazardous materials users that are close
to sensitive receptors, but we're also proposing to regulate sensitive
receptors in industrial zoning districts that are close to hazardous materials
users. In fact, I think the Council received a late email communication from someone who hopes to develop housing on a site immediately adjacent to
CPI whose plans would not be feasible under the proposed terms of the
ordinance. We're also proposing changes to the amortization section of the
Code and a separate amortization ordinance that we can discuss further if
you wish. With that, I'm going to turn it over to Rod who's going to talk
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about the tiered approach and give you just a little more detail on how the
Code would change and how we came up with the tiers that we've identified.
Roman Worobel, AECOM: Thank you, Director Gitelman. Madam Mayor,
Members of the Council, thank you for inviting me to join and participate in
the conversation tonight. Let me go ahead and start by explaining a little bit
more of this notion of a tier, which really simply refers to a grouping or a
classification of a land use type within one of your existing zoning districts.
In this case, we're talking about the industrial or the manufacturing district.
The tiers that are being identified and described for you tonight reflect
different types and quantities of hazardous materials. That becomes the
basis for the tiers. The City's existing hazardous materials regulations,
which are found in Title 18 under the zoning regulations ordinance, identifies
two such tiers; although, they're not specifically labeled as such within the
ordinance. There is one tier that includes hazardous materials at quantities that are covered by the State Title 19 CalARP or California Accidental
Release Program. Then there is everything else. Those facilities that fall
into everything else are what we are identifying as Tier 1 for the time being.
Tier 1 includes all facilities, gas stations, nail salons, hardware stores, etc.,
that have to file a hazardous materials inventory form per the City's
regulations. Those regulations are specified currently in Title 10. They
identify specific quantities at which point a business needs to come in and
secure a permit from the City Fire Department and Planning Department. Of
those—let me go ahead. In Palo Alto right now, as you can see on the chart,
we have two tiers. There really are no use limitations. There's no
conditional use permits, etc., required of these Tier 1 uses. What has been
required and what came about in the existing regulations, which are found at
Code Section 18.23.100, is a notice. A notice has to be provided to
residential uses and districts within 150 feet if a building permit has been
issued, and that permit has been issued in order to (1) enable changes in
the types or quantities of hazardous materials, and (2) those changes
involve exceeding what we call the CUPA thresholds—I'll define those a little
bit later—or they double the amount of hazardous materials at the site or an
incident has occurred such as a release. Those are the conditions under which a notice occurs. That notice occurs within 150 feet of the business.
In addition, for those businesses that reach this threshold, again the CUPA
thresholds, there is a requirement to provide what's called the Emergency
Contingency Plan. That Emergency Contingency Plan needs to be submitted
to the Palo Alto Fire Department, and the Fire Department needs to approve that prior to the permit being issued. Just by way of information and for the
benefit of the community, Tier 1 basically anything that requires a permit
from the City related to hazardous materials, there are about 420 such
facilities throughout the entire City. Of those that exceed what I'll get into
as the CUPA thresholds, there are about 270 of those. The second tier, as I
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mentioned, are those particular uses within the industrial zone. Actually at
this point, we haven't even paid attention to whether it's in the industrial
zone or not. What we've done is we've canvassed and we've inventoried
and we've looked at all the hazardous materials inventory forms that have
been submitted to the City regardless of where they're located, regardless of
whichever zone they actually occur in. What we've identified as this Tier 2
are those uses that exceed Tier 3 as those uses that exceed the Title 19
CalARP thresholds. As far as we know right now, there are no businesses
that exceed these thresholds based on the inventory forms that we've
reviewed to date. As far as we understand, CPI was the last such business.
When they reduced their quantities of certain chemicals, they fell below the
Title 19 thresholds. Right now, there are no businesses that would comprise
this third tier. Of interest is that the way the Code currently is written in
18.23.100, any such use that exceeds these Title 19 thresholds would be prohibited within 300 feet of any residential use or any residential zone, and
a conditional use permit would be required for any other similar type use
beyond that 300-foot distance from a residential area. In terms of noticing,
when a business exceeds the Title 19 thresholds, they're required as part of
the regulations to prepare something called a Risk Management Plan. The
Risk Management Plan evaluates offsite consequences from different
accidental release scenarios. That Risk Management Plan is expected to be
available and provided to the Palo Alto Fire Department, and a notice is
supposed to go out to those affected residences that would be within what
they call the zone of effect or the area of potential concern within that Risk
Management Plan. Those are the two existing tiers. Tier 1, pretty much
everything. Tier 3, those that exceed the CalARP thresholds. What's new?
What we are introducing is a new middle tier or Tier 2. What we are looking
at is something that, per the Council's direction, combines the quantities and
the types of hazardous materials onsite. We were looking at those inventory
forms again and trying to identify and isolate the types of chemicals that
produced the kind of health risk, the health concern or health effect, that are
currently of concern within Palo Alto such as those presented by the plating
shops. What we identified are a series of facilities that involve or have toxic or highly toxic chemicals. We've also identified a series of chemicals that
are referred to as extremely hazardous substances. If we are then using
those as the types of hazardous materials, then the corollary is sort of what
quantities are we concerned about. Given that we already have a Tier 1
which makes mention of CUPA thresholds and the fact that we have a Tier 3 that mentions the CalARP thresholds, we're essentially looking for quantities
that fall between those two bookends, if you will. The other thing that we
were trying to introduce with this—not trying to, we did introduce with the
second tier a similar noticing procedure and a similar reporting requirement
to what you find already presented in Tier 1 and Tier 3. What we were
trying to do was establish noticing and reporting provisions that respected
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those two bookends, Tier 1 and Tier 3, and recognizing that the amount of
chemicals and the type of chemicals that could occur in Tier 2 could be as
high as those that are identified in Tier 3. What that meant to us is that the
reporting and noticing requirements should be as great as Tier 3. I'll
present that in a chart in just a moment. From the Council's perspective
again, what I wanted to do is just reiterate again this whole direction of
trying to identify similar uses with similar hazards and acknowledge that, by
reviewing the various inventory forms, we were essentially putting on
blinders in terms of the locations and the types of different businesses.
What we started to do was screen and look at those facilities with hazardous
materials. This is where we started with the roughly 420 different
businesses within Palo Alto. The next step was to take a look at those types
of hazardous materials that pose a human health risk. We are specifically
looking at chemicals that produce a health effect, so there might be an acutely hazardous reaction within a relatively short time. What this would
exclude are those types of facilities that might have physical hazards,
flammables, corrosives, things like that. We are really zeroing in on those
that create health hazards. In order to identify those again, we isolated
those facilities that have toxic, highly toxic or extremely hazardous
substances. I'll get to this note in just a moment. Finally, in terms of trying
to identify the appropriate quantities, since we already had established
quantities from Tier 1 and Tier 3, in CUPA and Cal ARP, we were identifying
for Tier 2 a quantity of toxic, highly toxic or extremely hazardous substances
that fell within those two quantity amounts. The important thing is that we
have not gone out of our way to be particularly creative. We haven't
introduced any new concepts, new definitions for hazardous materials, new
classifications of hazardous materials. We've been very cautious and careful
about relying upon existing definitions and classifications of hazardous
materials. The notion of using toxic and highly toxic as a type of hazardous
material of particular interest, it's really rooted in the Uniform Fire Code
which has been adopted by the State of California and subsequently adopted
but amended by the City of Palo Alto. The toxic and highly toxic substances
have very specific definitions within the Fire Code, and they speak to the lethal dosage from various epidemiological studies and studies on laboratory
animals. The other thing that's important about the toxic and highly toxic is
that they also are consistent with the City's Building Code. The Building
Code references toxic and highly toxic substances in a Building Code group
called High Hazard Group 4. There are certain building requirements associated with these particular chemicals. The extremely hazardous
substances are derived from Federal regulations, in particular Code of
Federal Regulations Part 355, Appendices A and B. These are referred to as
acutely hazardous materials in the City's Fire Code. In terms of
summarizing what all this means in terms of going through all the various
inventory forms, if you take a look at the types and quantities of hazardous
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materials that we've identified, there are 14 similar facilities of concern.
These are those that have greater than CUPA, less than CalARP and toxic,
highly toxic or extremely hazardous substances, so 14 facilities. You saw
earlier all those notes about possibly revising the regulations that Hillary
referred to. We had some concerns about how the Tier 2 was being defined
as it relates specifically to extremely hazardous substances. In
conversations with the City Fire Department, we're also recognizing that
oftentimes they're very, very similar, so that when you capture things that
are toxic or highly toxic, you're oftentimes covering a lot of things that are
extremely hazardous substances. When you take a look at the net effect in
terms of those facilities that would be captured by this Tier 2, the difference
is if we eliminate extremely hazardous substances from the definition, we
still have 13 facilities that would be included in Tier 2 by virtue of them
being toxic or highly toxic at quantities greater than CUPA. I did want to point out that when we did this inventory and we looked at all the different
facilities within the City, there are three facilities that occur in public facility
zoning districts. There are two that are at the Stanford Medical facilities and
there's also the Palo Alto Water Quality Plant. The reason we chose not to
specifically categorize these with the other manufacturing uses is that these
particular facilities provide essential facilities for public health and safety.
The nature of the business and the nature of the process and the activities
are very, very different from the others that are identified in Tier 2. As
Hillary mentioned, one of the Council's directions was to expand the breadth
of populations that could be potentially affected by the regulations. The
existing regulations zero in on residentially zoned properties or residential
uses. Recognizing that the US EPA, public health officials, the CEQA
documents that the City's familiar with, all of them make reference to a
larger population group called sensitive receptors. These include different
occupants of land uses that would be generally considered sensitive to
exposure to hazardous materials. In this broader definition of populations
that would apply in this new zoning regulations, we're looking at residences;
schools, primarily elementary schools, to protect the youth; daycare centers
and homes; homes for elderly, convalescent homes; and other similar type uses. The focus on the noticing and the reporting will expand beyond just
the residential uses, but include now the sensitive receptors. I'll zip through
these really quickly now. This really wraps up the presentation on the
summary of the zoning regulations. Tier 1, as I mentioned earlier, there is a
notice of 150 feet. There is no conditional use permit. There's no requirements that prohibit any kind of Tier 1 facility in any location. The
regulations aren't really changing as far as Tier 1 is concerned. The same
thing applies for Tier 3. These are facilities that have amounts of hazardous
materials greater than CalARP. Right now per the regulations, they're not
permitted within 300 feet of the residential uses, and we would expand that
to sensitive receptors. There is a requirement to notice because there is a
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conditional use permit associated with these types of uses. Anything beyond
300 feet or away from a residential area requires a conditional use permit.
They City's requirements for conditional use permits is a noticing of 600
feet. What we are introducing is this second tier now. As you can see on
the chart, the Tier 2 regulations regarding noticing, the conditional use
permits and what's permitted and not permitted within 300 feet of sensitive
receptors would be the same as Tier 3. That was a whirlwind overview. I'd
be happy to answer questions later.
Ms. Gitelman: Thank you, Rod. I'm going to try and wrap this up kind of
quickly. I know we're taking more time than usual, but we thought it was
warranted given the complexity of some of these issues. Let's cut to the
chase and kind of get to the bottom line here. We've been doing some
mapping of these 14 Tier 2 facilities. This is a map I hope you recognize
from your Staff Report. With many thanks to Vice Mayor Schmid, we now have identified a complete universe of the Tier 2 uses that are within 300
feet of sensitive receptors. That includes three facilities at CPI and one
facility called Target Discovery on Fabian Street. I should say that we are
still working on outreaching to all of the 14 Tier 2 businesses. It's quite
possible that some of the 14 may fall off this list. In fact between the
community meeting on October 22nd and this evening, there were originally
15 uses; now there are 14. Rod was able to work with one of the businesses
on the list and discover that they had been overly conservative in terms of
how they filled out their inventory form. They didn't warrant being on the
list. That's just to say this is still a little bit of a work in progress. Right
now, we have four uses that would become legal and nonconforming under
the terms of the proposed ordinance. I just wanted to take a minute and
talk about what that term "legal and nonconforming" means. Essentially
that applies to uses that were legal at the time they were established but are
no longer in conformance with the existing zoning. Those uses that are legal
and nonconforming generally can't be expanded or intensified. If this
ordinance is adopted, Tier 2 facilities within 300 feet of sensitive receptors
would fall into that category. It would also apply to sensitive receptors in
industrial zones that are within 300 feet of Tier 2 uses. Importantly, we did not draft the ordinance so it would apply to sensitive receptors that are in
other zoning districts. That's an important distinction that we can talk about
a little bit more, if you wish. Generally, legal and nonconforming uses have
a right to continue; although, they can be required to phase out or terminate
if there's a process by which you establish a reasonable amortization period commensurate with the investment involved. If you look at the City's
current zoning regulations, we do have some termination dates for
nonconforming uses as well as a minimum of 15 years for amortization
which we're proposing to amend that minimum standard to allow for site-
specific amortization studies like those that have been completed for CPI.
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Just to refresh everybody's memory. Back in 2011 and 2012, there were
two amortization studies performed looking at operations at CPI. The first
was done by a consultant working for the City. It looked at the plating shop
use specifically and the chemical storage area that supports that use. It
concluded that that use could be amortized over a 15-year period, and it
was 15 years from 2011 which is how we got the year 2026 that's in the
second of the two ordinances. The second amortization study was
completed in 2012, was completed for CPI. It essentially argued that the
plating shop couldn't be separated from the rest of the uses on the site. At
Rod's direction, the folks at AECOM have reviewed these two studies and
found them to be generally sound. There's a memo attached to your Staff
Report that contains the full summary of their findings. Essentially, they
thought these two studies were good for that they were intended to do.
They made a couple of notes about how the findings of the studies might be qualified. The first was that the conclusion of the 2011 study by the City's
consultant might need to be updated if there have been additional
investments that have been made in the plating shop between now and
then. We know there haven't been any building permits issued in that
period, but there might have been other investments that we don't know
about that could affect the timeframe and the value. The other points that
were raised about the 2012 study included an observation that if
technologies changed, this conclusion that you can't separate one use from
the others might also change, and also that updated information about the
value of the investments in the rest of the facility could affect the year that's
identified for amortization or the overall schedule. The approach that we've
taken in the ordinances before you is really to take both of these
amortization studies at face value. That means that the ordinances would
require the plating shop to relocate on the existing site 300 feet from
sensitive receptors by the end of 2026. The 2026 date comes from the first
amortization study; the fact that it would be still proximate on the site to
other uses is consistent with the second amortization study. Similarly,
based on that second amortization study, the other uses at CPI would be
required to relocate or terminate by the 2052 date that we got from the second study. I know that's a lot of material. What we're hoping for this
evening is to hear from public comments, then City Council questions and
comments and direction to Staff. We recognize that we need to complete a
few revisions to the ordinance specifically to address the extremely
hazardous substance portion of the definition, as Rod alluded to. We'd also like to complete our outreach to the potentially effected facilities including
the Target Discovery facility. Our hope is that with your direction and these
few steps we could bring an ordinance to the Planning Commission for their
recommendation and back to the City Council for adoption early in the new
year. With that, we're happy to get public testimony and then Council
questions.
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Mayor Holman: Thank you, Hillary. While this item is not a quasi-judicial
item, I think there are some Council Members who wanted to make
disclosures about their communications and contact with interested parties.
Council Member DuBois.
Council Member DuBois: Thank you. I was invited and took a tour of the
CPI facility including the plating shop about two weeks ago.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Berman.
Council Member Berman: I had a conversation with Leslie Guardino who's a
consultant for CPI. I've also had conversations with members of the
community who I won't name.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Wolbach.
Council Member Wolbach: I, like Council Member DuBois, was invited by CPI
and also their representatives to take a tour of the facility and did so.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Kniss.
Council Member Kniss: I have spoken with the consultants on this including
Leslie Guardino. I've also spoken with several of the residents who live close
by.
Mayor Holman: Thank you. Council Member Burt.
Council Member Burt: Yes. I also had a conversation with two of the
consultants for CPI.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Scharff.
Council Member Scharff: I just had conversations with everybody. I know I
spoke with the CPI people. I spoke with Art. I spoke with Samir. I spoke
with Leslie Guardino, and I spoke with all the people at the CPI meeting. I
think there was five or six of them. I think I've just spoken to everybody.
Mayor Holman: Make me feel like a slacker. I was invited to and took
advantage of a tour at CPI, and I've had conversation with a couple of
members of the public. Thank you. With that, we'll now hear from the
public. We have a number of cards. Our first speaker is Bob Moss. You'll
have three minutes. Again to help us facilitate the meeting, if the next
speaker would come to the front, it would be appreciated. Bob Moss is to be
followed by Bob Fickett.
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Robert Moss: Thank you, Mayor Holman and Council Members. First, I'd
like to point out that over the years CPI has done an absolutely awful job of
working with the neighborhood and the community. They haven't notified
when there have been toxic spills. They haven't talked about changes in the
facility. They haven't made any real effort to communicate with the public.
If there are a lot of people who are really mad at CPI, it's primarily CPI's
fault because they goofed. I thought the Staff ordinance was an excellent
start, but I think it needs some tweaking. I'm sure the people who will
speak will give you some suggestions about details. Let me give you just a
couple. Right now the Fire Department does unannounced inspections at
least annually. I think that after the Fire Department has done their
inspection, they should have a community meeting and report to the
neighborhood what they found, if there were any issues or any problems
that they identified, what those problems were, what the timeline for correcting the problems was, and then make a commitment to get back to
the community when the time has expired and say, "CPI has fixed it. We've
looked at it, and everything's okay," or "They goofed. We have some
problems." We have to keep the community involved and informed about
what's happening. We can't depend on CPI to do that. I would like to see
the Fire Department actively involved. I think that the Planning Department
also should be involved, because it's a planning issue, what goes on that site
and how is it being maintained and operated. Second, if CPI brings a new
material that is not on the site now onto the site, there's no requirement in
the ordinance that anybody be notified. The Fire Department would find out
when they happen to make their annual inspection. If that new material was
mixed with an existing material and created a really serious toxic hazard,
nobody would know. I think there should be an ordinance provision that
says if anything other than what is in the site as of a date certain, a new
material is moved in, the Fire Department has to be notified, the community
has to be notified. If it's a potential for mixing that new material with
another existing material would cause a material, that has to be identified.
Any resolution has to be clearly spelled out, so that everybody understands
what's going on there, what might happen, what the consequences could be, and how the community will be protected. We need to do some
modifications to the ordinance.
Mayor Holman: Thank you. Bob Fickett to be followed by Marina Remmel.
Bob Fickett, CPI President: Hi, I'm Bob Fickett. I'm the President of CPI.
I've worked for CPI and the predecessor, Varian, since 1982, all in the Palo Alto location. As stated in my letter to you, CPI which was the original
business of Varian and Associates was the first tenant of Stanford Research
Park. We've operated in Palo Alto since 1953, and our plate shop has been
in its current location for almost 60 years. Due to the nature of the products
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and our required manufacturing processes, the plate shop has always been
and will always need to be an integral part of our manufacturing
infrastructure. Without it, we wouldn't be able to make the lifesaving
products that treat cancer patients and protect the men and women of the
US military. We're a major company, and we're subject to requirements of
our US Government contracts as well as Federal, State and local oversight
agencies. Safety has always been a top priority for CPI. Our employees
including all of our plate shop employees have excellent safety records.
While we acknowledge that an unpleasant odor traveled into the
neighborhood in 2006, the use of our plate shop is not a danger to the CPI
neighbors. Based on the findings of three separate third-party
environmental firms, there is no realistic worst-case scenario that would or
could cause a danger to the neighbors. Despite this indisputable fact, we've
continued to make investments that further enhance the safety of our operations. We've continued to reduce our onsite chemicals to the point that
our Title 19 chemicals are now at the lowest level they've been in our
recorded history. We've added the implementation of additional redundancy
to our safety features and alarm systems, all exceeding regulatory
requirements. We've improved the communication protocol with the Palo
Alto Fire Department. If there's even a hint of an issue, we contact the Fire
Department. I feel that the proposed ordinance solely attacks CPI without
justification and would definitely have a significant impact on our company's
viability. That's no small thing. There are very few companies worldwide
who are able to make the products that we make that end up protecting our
military and civilian lives. The ordinance unfairly penalizes our company and
our company's employees based on unsupported fears of some very vocal
Palo Alto residents. We plan to continue to operate CPI in Palo Alto, and I
can assure you that we will continue to act as a very responsible and very
safe Palo Alto neighbor. The next two speakers are CPI employees. I
purposely did not seek participation from more of our nearly 600 local
employees, because the level of intensity that some of the people bring to
this issue can and has been daunting to face. I'm aware of a few recent
incidents in which CPI employees and their families were privately and unpleasantly confronted on the issue. This is unacceptable to me, and it
should be unacceptable to all of us. For this reason, I have made it very
clear to our employees that they do not need to publicly identify themselves
and take on the responsibility of speaking for CPI. Thank you very much.
Mayor Holman: Thank you. Marina Remmel to be followed by Sue Courchaine.
Marina Remmel, CPI Employee: Good evening. My name is Marina Remmel,
and I'm a lifelong Palo Alto resident and homeowner as well as a long-term
employee at CPI. My family has resided in Palo Alto since 1959, and I was
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raised in Palo Alto and attended Palo Alto schools, as did my three children.
I joined CPI in 1981 back when it was Varian Associates, and I have worked
there for the past 34 years. I'm a senior human resources representative at
CPI. I work with and am a voice for the approximately 600 employees that
CPI has in this City. We chose not to invite employees here tonight. Instead
these petitions were signed by hundreds of CPI employees. In them, the
employees state, on behalf of themselves and their families, they feel safe
working at CPI every day. I'd like to tell you about our employees, because
they are quite impressive and unique to this area. As I mentioned, we have
approximately 600 employees in Palo Alto. On average, they've been
working at CPI for more than 20 years. That loyalty and dedication is
unheard of in this day and age, and I believe it speaks volumes about the
type of company and employer CPI is. Our employee base ranges from
office workers to assemblers and technicians to scientists and engineers. We have more than 200 engineers in Palo Alto, and we actively recruit from
California colleges. In my role in HR, I help oversee the extensive training
programs that we have. Many of these focus on health and safety because
by keeping our employees safe, we can keep our community safe. In
addition, we conduct extensive annual physicals on employees involved in
the handling of chemicals. They're our colleagues and our friends, and we
want to make sure that they remain healthy. I can assure you that our
employees are not a shy group. If they did not feel safe working at CPI,
they would let me and others know. If they saw a safety concern, they
would speak up. They are regularly encouraged to do so. Yet, their many
years of service as well as the signed petitions that I have here tonight
attest to the fact that our employees feel that CPI is a very safe place. As a
lifelong resident of Palo Alto and as someone who has seen the nuts and
bolts of the operation since 1981, I have no concerns about the safety of CPI
operating in Palo Alto. Thank you for your time tonight.
Mayor Holman: Thank you. Sue Courchaine to be followed by Doug
Daugherty.
Sue Courchaine, CPI Employee: Hello. I am Sue Courchaine, and I am a
CPI employee. I have been with the company for 37 years. In fact, I am the manager of the plate shop in Palo Alto, and all of its employees report in
to me. It is my job to oversee not only the safety of the plate shop but the
well-being of its employees. I have 16 employees in the plate shop. They
are all very highly trained. On average, they have been with CPI for more
than 17 years. Every year these employees are required to participate in more than 70 mandatory job training sessions, and skipping is never an
option. If a question or concern arises in the course of a workday, in
addition to our experienced plate shop staff, we have a chemist and safety
experts on hand and immediately available to help with any issue. Our
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trainings, inspections and audits are rigorous and very effective. I am very
proud to say that we have never had a single injury from the use of our
chemicals under my watch. CPI's plate shop is state of the art. We have
small baths which are covered when they are not in use. Incompatible
chemicals are in separate bath areas. In the extremely rare event that
something spills out of the baths, we have berms in our floors to catch and
contain the spill. We have second and third-level containment mechanisms
to catch solids and liquids. We have exhaust scrubbers in the ceiling to
ensure that nothing leaves the plate shop in vapor form. The scrubbers
have backup generators so they can continue to run during a power outage.
We also have gas monitors and alarms outside the plate shop, on the roof
above the plate shop and on the wall along our property line. These serve
as yet another layer of assurance that nothing harmful has gotten past all of
our other safety measures. As a company, our highest focus is on safety. The safety of our plate shop operations are overseen and regulated by the
Palo Alto Fire Department and numerous other agencies. The Fire
Department conducts announced and unannounced inspections on a regular
basis. In addition to other governing agencies conducting regular
inspections and audits, so do our internal CPI audit teams. These facts and
my own 37 years of experience at CPI give me the confidence to tell you
that CPI's Palo Alto operations are safe and do not pose a risk to my
employees, nor to our neighbors. Thank you.
Mayor Holman: Thank you for coming. Dave Daugherty to be followed by
Jennifer Johnson.
Douglas Daugherty, Ramboll Environ Managing Principal: Good evening. My
name is Doug Daugherty; I'm a managing principal with Ramboll Environ, an
environmental safety and health firm. My qualifications were provided to the
City in my declaration. I was retained by CPI since 2012 to review and
evaluate its Palo Alto chemical management and process safety systems and
the level of risk resulting from its use of chemicals. Based on my review,
there is no realistic accidental release scenarios that would impact offsite
locations. Both I and AECOM confirm that no offsite impacts would result
from EPA and State defined worst-case releases as reflected in CPI's last required Risk Management Plan submission in 2008. AECOM's extreme
scenarios go beyond EPA and State guidance on release scenarios, but they
fail to take into account numerous independent safeguards in place for the
management of chemicals at CPI. For example, in AECOM's extreme nitric
acid delivery scenario mentioned in the Staff Report, it depends on ignoring actual, existing mechanical defenses, human safeguards and the fact that
CPI prohibits the delivery of nitric acid when temperatures reach 90 degrees
or higher. If these existing risk-reducing management features had been
included, then no offsite impacts would have been predicted. Even AECOM
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said this scenario was highly unlikely in their report. I also agree with Staff
and AECOM that the ultra extreme earthquake scenario is highly unrealistic
and, therefore, not an adequate basis on which to base land use decisions. I
also continue to work with CPI to review its chemical management program.
I'm currently reviewing its reported chemicals, and CPI will be updating that
list. As Staff mentioned of one of the reporters, CPI has also been
conservative in its reporting of toxic and highly toxic compounds to the City
in its Hazardous Material Business Plan. Therefore, Table 2 in the Staff
Report is not accurate. Finally, I've also reviewed the proposed ordinance,
and it does not appear to have a scientific basis that supports the proposed
restrictions including that it fails to recognize that you simply can't assess a
hazard based upon its categorization and that small quantities of a chemical
that may impact someone if they ingest it would not impact an offsite
receptor if it's released onsite. There's also no explanation for the 300-foot setback on a scientific basis or why it's only restricted to industrial areas and
not other areas within the City. I thank you for the opportunity to speak
here today, and I'm happy to answer any questions.
Mayor Holman: Thank you. Jennifer Johnson to be followed by Betsy Lake.
Jennifer Johnson: Good evening. My name is Jennifer Johnson, and I'm a
cofounder and principal of Canyon Snow Consulting in Las Gatos. We
recently joined the CPI team as a consultant to help improve
communications with the community. I'm also an environmental engineer,
and my Master's degree focused on air pollution. I thought perhaps I would
take a moment to share some of the assumptions and thinking that goes
into the models that are used to predict offsite impacts. I know in a City
with more PhD's than bachelor's degrees that many of you may not need
this tutorial, but I was hoping that it might provide some benefit. As you've
been hearing, offsite model impact models were run for CPI's facility by two
different teams. One scenario with normal operations showed no offsite
impacts. Another scenario during chemical delivery did show offsite impacts,
but it was during conditions above 90 degrees of outdoor temperature. CPI
does not allow deliveries at that temperature, in that weather. The third
scenario, as you heard, involved an earthquake event that was so unlikely, but it did show offsite impacts. In addition to these conditions, there are a
lot of assumptions that get built into air pollution models. I thought I would
share three examples. First is the chemical properties, properties like vapor
pressure which is used to indicate how easily a liquid could evaporate. The
Title 19 chemicals at CPI have such low vapor pressures that they're not even included in the models, and so we fudged it, if you will. Higher vapor
pressure values were input, so that would result in a higher likelihood or
higher volume of evaporation during a spill. The second are weather
conditions. Weather conditions during these models are usually designed to
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be perfect; high temperature, low wind. The plume of the chemical, if you
will, stays together more than would be realistic as it moves towards any
potential receptors. Third, the modeling exercise assumes that a spill would
occur outdoors and that the total amount of all the chemicals stored onsite
at any one time would be instantly and entirely spilled in a puddle on the
ground. In reality as you've heard, these chemicals are stored indoors, in
baths and in closed tanks. If they were to fail, if the tanks were to fail or the
baths were to splash, the spillage would go into a collection berm system,
down into closed tanks in the lower part of the building. None of the
predicted evaporation would happen and would not give that material a
chance to migrate. I just share all this with the hope that maybe a better
understanding of how these predictions come to be could give members of
the community and the residents nearby some comfort. Finally, I want to
quickly say that my colleagues and I have had the privilege of meeting with several residents. We want to thank them for their time and for giving us
the opportunity to connect. Thank you very much.
Mayor Holman: Thank you very much. Betsy Lake to be followed by Mike
Mielke.
Betsy Lake: Good evening. I'm Betsy Lake. I am a former resident of Palo
Alto, a graduate of Stanford Law School and now with Holland and Knight in
San Francisco. We represent CPI. I have two main points. The first is that
the Tier 2 chemical zoning ordinance has no rational basis and is unlawful. I
understand the process leading to the proposed ordinance was prompted by
reactions to incidents that occurred over seven years ago and that have
been fully addressed. Although CPI may not have been a good
communicator, it has been proactive. You've heard they've hired outside
experts to advise. They've installed redundant systems. I think
importantly, although not required to, they worked cooperatively with the
City to change their processes so that they reduced their chemical use to
under Title 19 thresholds, and they have kept it at that level ever since
2002. CPI has invested and continues to invest heavily in its plating shop
and related safety systems. Now that CPI conforms to the Title 19
thresholds, the proposal before you has been designed to make CPI's operations nonconforming to a new standard. This new standard, as you've
heard from Doug Daugherty, isn't supported by the facts or the science. The
law requires that ordinances have a rational basis, and this one doesn't. The
City should not continue to pursue this ordinance. If it does, however, the
City has acknowledged that CPI has legally protected property rights. That leads to my second point. The proposed amortization ordinance is both
unfair to CPI, and it's also unlawful. First, the City's amortization ordinance
on the books, as you've heard, requires a minimum of 15 years from the
date the ordinance is passed. The proposal would allow ten. Second, the
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proposal to provide less than the minimum number of years for CPI only is
unprecedented. All of the examples within your current Code are extensions
to the 15-year amortization period. Third, the City's experts admit that the
2026 date isn't valid if there's been additional improvements to the plating
shop. There have in fact been additional improvements. Fourth, the City's
experts acknowledge that CPI's plate shop is integral to its whole operation.
If the whole operation were to be amortized, the date would extend to 2052.
Here, it's not realistic to assume that it's feasible to move the plate shop
onsite. Even if CPI were able to, there's no assurance the City wouldn't then
move the goal post again. At minimum, CPI's plate shop should remain and
allowed to stay through the end of its lease in 2052. The current proposed
ordinance would significantly damage CPI. There's no actual corresponding
benefit. On behalf of CPI, I urge you to follow the law and reject the
proposal. Thank you.
Mayor Holman: Thank you. Mike Mielke to be followed by Art Liberman. I
apologize if I mispronounced your last name.
Mike Mielke, Silicon Valley Leadership Group: Well, yes. Good evening, I'm
Mike Mielke, senior vice president with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you tonight. The Leadership
Group, as you may know, was founded in 1978 by David Packard of Hewlett-
Packard, and we represent more than 390 of Silicon Valley's most respected
employers on a number of issues, programs and campaigns that affect the
economic health and quality of life here in Silicon Valley. Our members
collectively provide one out of every three jobs in the region. I am here
tonight on behalf of CPI which is a member in good standing with the
Leadership Group. Silicon Valley Leadership Group strongly supports making
sure the region has a healthy and vibrant environment. We are also focused
on ensuring the region has and keeps good, local, high-paying jobs. CPI has
been a member of the community of Palo Alto, as we've heard tonight, for
over 60 years. Having toured the facility, we understand the company,
which has spent about $15 million upgrading its facility, has successfully
reduced its chemical footprint and put industry-leading safety procedures in
place which have been verified by independent third parties. It is our hope at the Leadership Group that the Council will carefully consider any
ordinance which could set a precedent of unduly punishing corporate citizens
that provide good jobs and which go above and beyond in responding to
community concerns. Again, thank you.
Mayor Holman: Thank you. Art Liberman to be followed by Lynnie Melena.
Arthur Liberman: Thank you. Good evening, Council Members. The Staff
Report may seem on first reading very technical. It refers to toxic, highly
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toxic, extremely hazardous materials, EPA and OSHA regulations, CUPA
thresholds. The issue before you is really straightforward. It's about safety,
our safety, safety of other sensitive receptors and the location. That's the
important word, the location of some very hazardous materials. CPI has
over two tons or just about two tons of acids and cyanide compounds that
are extremely hazardous substances. This has been the same amount that
they've had for the last several years. All their materials are at the back of
the building, about 50 feet from the residents that live in Barron Park. Let
me just ask you a question. Ask yourselves what would you do if a new
proposal were to come before you for a plating shop located this close to
residences with that much extremely hazardous materials. What would you
do if it were to come before you for a prescreening review? I'm sure you
would say, "No way. Don't build it there." Unfortunately, you were not
given the option at that time, but you can do something now and prevent this from happening again. Now, this is not the only case of zoning mistakes
that have happened. There have been places elsewhere where officials have
allowed facilities with extremely hazardous substances to be located too
close to residents. Some of those have had accidents. This is a photo from
an accident that happened just last year in Lawrence, Massachusetts. It was
a nitric acid spill by a metal finishing company. The accident scenario is
very similar to that which was actually described in the AECOM report. The
folks in Lawrence waited too long to make changes to their zoning. Don't
make that mistake here. I don't know if you have any familiarity with
hazardous materials, perhaps you worked in businesses using them. I know
that Council Member Burt owned and operated a plating business for many
years, but none of you live next to one. You don't, as Council Member
Scharff mentioned last year, live in fear of smelling an odor that might be an
indication any time of a toxic gas release. The AECOM study demonstrated
that we residents are in risk. Internal safety systems and standards that CPI
described are certainly necessary, but they are not sufficient. Accidents do
happen. Just a month or so ago, a CPI employee at another of CPI's
facilities was seriously injured in a hazardous material accident and was
transported to the hospital. Just two weeks ago, toxic gases from the garage at the Westin Inn sent a dozen guests to the hospital. If those
people had been 300 feet away, they would not have been affected. The
key to ensure the safety of sensitive receptors when you might have a toxic
gas release is distance, distance between them and extremely hazardous
substances. The separation suggested in the Staff Report of Tier 2 and Tier 3 recognizes that. Thank you.
Mayor Holman: Thank you. Lynnie Melena to be followed by Romola
Georgia.
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Lynnie Melena: Good evening, Council Members. My name is Lynnie
Melena. I live in Barron Park, although, not in the area that would be
affected by a toxic release. However, I first became acquainted with this
issue at a meeting at Art Liberman's house in 2007 as a new member of the
Barron Park Association Board. As a city planner, I was shocked to realize
that this very hazardous use was right next to single-family houses. Ever
since, I've stayed engaged and I'm very happy that we're here tonight with
hopefully a resolution on this and Council support for the two new
ordinances. Thank you.
Mayor Holman: Romola Georgia to be followed by Samir Tuma.
Romola Georgia: Good evening, Council Members, Mayor Holman and Staff.
I'm Romola Georgia. I've lived in Barron Park for 35 years, and I've been
writing and speaking to you since 2007, just after CPI released toxic nitric
acid fumes into our neighborhood. Today, I'm asking you one more time to please make our neighborhood safe. I want you to know that problems
connected with this facility are ongoing. We live daily, weekly, monthly with
geysers of unknown vapors, alarms and sirens, noisy trucks delivering toxic
contents, and we had two other confirmed releases. One was just the day
after the Fire Department inspected. Would everyone here tonight who
wants toxic and hazardous materials removed from our Palo Alto
neighborhoods please stand up and give the Council a big wave? Here we
are. Great, thank you, thank you very much. I want to thank the Council
and Staff for its long work regarding risks and zoning and amortization.
Council has said that one of your top priorities is the health and safety of
residents. I think the risk of toxic and hazardous materials should certainly
be right up there with cigarette smoke as a health and safety risk. The
report and zoning material is long and very complex, but the issue is pretty
simple. Operations that use large quantities of toxic chemicals should not be
located right next to homes. Babies and young children and seniors also live
on our block. We're all sensitive receptors. I believe the City erred when it
approved moving CPI's operations from an industrial area in San Carlos to
just a few feet from our homes without any kind of noticing—Rod certainly
talked about noticing—to the neighborhood. It's time to rectify that error and remove this danger from Barron Park. The news shows us daily that
earthquakes and industrial accidents are neither predictable nor preventable.
Please vote tonight to change the zoning rules and begin the process that
helps CPI move its facility and the toxic and hazardous materials away from
our homes. We've been petitioning you and waiting for nearly ten years. Thank you.
Mayor Holman: We don't encourage either support or displeasure with
speakers please. Samir Tuma to be followed by Stephanie Munoz.
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Samir Tuma: Madam Mayor, Members of the Council, Sami Tuma, 827
Chimalus, right down the street from CPI. I've got really two comments or
one comment and one thing I'd like some clarity on. There was a portion of
the presentation this evening and counsel for CPI has also focused in on this
notion that if they've made additional investments since 2011, somehow
that resets the clock. That certainly is not what we have been told as we've
patiently waited through the years of this process. It sort of flies in the face
of a notion of amortization. Keep spending and you keep prolonging the
clock. I'd like some discussion and understanding of how that works. They
certainly have known since 2011 that this was a very real possibility, and
that time was when the study was done. It was interesting listening to some
of the members from CPI who were here this evening, the HR person in
particular, talking about how comfortable they all are working at CPI. I
suspect that you sort of have to convince yourself that you're comfortable with that. Otherwise, how do you get through the day? Crystal Wise was
comfortable working at DuPont's factory in Houston. I'm going to read you
an excerpt from an article that was published just last Friday. On her way to
work Crystle Wise, a grandmother from Texas, passed a sign outside
DuPont's plant. The sign read safety is our core value. On November 14,
2014, Wise would pass that sign for the last time. Early the next morning, a
massive leak from one of the buildings where she worked left her and three
others dead. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated issue. Every two days a
leak, fire or explosion occurs at a plant in the United States. Last year 27
workers were killed on the job, and more than 2,400 people were evacuated
from nearby areas because of toxic leaks, spills or emissions. Many more
Americans are at risk since nearly 14,000 active such plants exist in the
United States. The father of one of the people killed in that accident was
quoted as saying, "It's a real freak accident. Stuff like this isn't supposed to
happen." Unfortunately, it does. It's time to do something about it.
Mayor Holman: Thank you. Stephanie Munoz to be followed by David
Bomberger.
Stephanie Munoz: Thank you, Mayor Holman and Council Members. It's
funny for me to be here. This is just the converse of what I usually say which is that the Council should keep its word and keep its bargains with the
people that it zones into the City. They shouldn't invite people to the City to
live here and then tell them, "Oh, no. Now you can't live here." Safety is
different. Safety trumps precedent. Safety trumps written law. A year ago,
just about a year ago, you passed a law saying that new apartments had to have electric car chargers. I said to Larry, "Larry, you can't make people
put electric car chargers in their apartments." He said, "Oh, sure we can.
We do it all the time." I had to laugh. You do make people do things.
Often, most often, the demand is for safety. I have a rental house, and the
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City of Mountain View is tying knots in the process, making me do this and
making me do that. The excuse is usually safety, and it really doesn't have
much to do with it. I would like to say, because someone on the CPI side
referred to illegal. She said these laws have no rational basis. That is
illegal—or unlawful, sorry. Those experts may be quite correct. There's
maybe not an atom that's dangerous over at CPI. The argument against
having them there is not irrational. The fact that people object to the
possibility, however small, that is not irrational. The law is meant to reflect
reality. People from the very beginning have always had a prejudice against
industry. I remember, because I was around in the '50s, how Terman said
we could have a very good industrial complex. It would be different from
other industry that people have a prejudice against. People have a prejudice
against industry because it is ugly, because it is offensive and because it is
dangerous. Now, they have done a very good job about ugly. Not ugly. There is one for that company, not ugly. It is dangerous.
Mayor Holman: Thank you. David Bomberger, who I believe is our last
speaker on this. Nope, we've got another card. David Bomberger to be
followed by Lydia Kou.
David Bomberger: David Bomber. I'm director of manufacturing at Target
Discovery. I thought I should raise the flag, seeing as how you started out
talking about us. One of my responsibilities is to fill out our Hazardous
Materials Business Plan every year. I must say I was astonished to see that
little red dot on my facility based on what I see in my Business Plan that I
file. The CUPA thresholds say 55 gallons of liquid, 500 pounds of solid. I
can control those by how often I have my hazardous waste pickup
scheduled. That's no issue. What does cause me a problem with the way
the ordinance is written is your restriction on 200 cubic feet of compressed
gas. If by that you mean my tank of liquid nitrogen, that causes me a
problem because I can't get rid of that. At the same time, that's only a
hazard to the people in the shop. It's not a hazard to people outside. I look
forward to having a conversation with your contractor about how we can
maybe make some changes.
Mayor Holman: Thank you for coming. Our final speaker on this item is Lydia Kou.
Lydia Kou: I really don't mean to be last, but nobody brings up my concerns
so I have to come up and speak for myself. First, I just want to say good
evening, Council Members and Mayor Holman. I don't like the word
receptors. It dehumanizes us. We are mothers and daughters and, I'm sure, fathers and sons and uncles and so forth. There are disabled people in
our neighborhood and fragile. I really would like to use a different word.
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Next, nobody actually really brought up in all of this risk management.
There is one Risk Management Plan that is between CPI and the Fire
Department. It's between CPI and its employees. It does not extend out to
the neighborhood, to the people in the neighborhood or even in the
Research Park. I would like to see that at least there is that consideration of
us in the neighborhood and of the other human beings as well as animals
that inhabit the surrounding close to CPI included in the plan. I would like to
see that CPI and the Fire Department work together with that and bring it to
us to work with us in the neighborhood and to conduct training and
exercises as well. Next, another concern of mine is the transportation and
delivery of these hazardous material. I don't know how it comes in, whether
it's by tanker trucks or by trains and so forth, but it does use our streets.
Today there is an increased use of our streets by bicyclists, by pedestrians
and other modes of transportation. This is all by design. I hope that there is that consideration on their safety as well with the transportation of
hazardous materials. Lastly, horizontal consistency is important for our
Comprehensive Plan and the moving forward of our City. 3159 El Camino
Real would provide 48 housing units, but it's within that 300 feet to CPI. It
brings to mind what happens with the Fry's site which could provide
potentially much more housing. I would like for that consideration to be
taken into account as well. Somebody help me Google it. I don't know how
many feet, but it's definitely 8 minutes walk from CPI to the Fry's site.
Hopefully you'll take a look at that too. Thank you.
Mayor Holman: Thank you. I'd like to give this opportunity to Staff to
respond to anything that they heard.
Ms. Gitelman: Thank you, Mayor Holman. Again, Hillary Gitelman, the
Planning Director. There were a few comments in all of that that I think we
would like an opportunity to respond to. I'd also point out that you're still
sporting Senator Hill's nameplate in front of you there.
Mayor Holman: I don't object to being called a Senator. Thank you.
Ms. Gitelman: Just a few things. First, to Mr. Tuma's question about
amortization and the value of additional investments. I think the concept of
amortization is something we've talked about before. It is based on an estimate of the value of the property and the investments that have been
made. If CPI were to argue that the value of their investment has increased
since 2011 when the City's study was done, they would have to provide us
with evidence of that. As I mentioned in my presentation, we haven't
processed any building permits in that time period. It would have to be in the nature of some kind of equipment that we just wouldn't be aware of that
investment having taken place. We would have to accept their evidence as
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legitimate. In addition, Mr. Liberman talked about what would you do if a
new proposal came to the City that was a Tier 2 use. I just wanted to point
out that comment, because I expect that tonight we're going to have a lot of
conversation about CPI and amortization and things like that. I don't want
to lose sight of the fact that the hazardous materials ordinance we presented
to you is really about making sure that if a new Tier 2 business were to
come to Palo Alto, that they would have to conform to the standards in the
new ordinance. Without this ordinance, a new Tier 2 use would not be
regulated except as a CUPA use or as a Tier 1 use. I wanted to make that
point. In addition, just responding to Mr. Moss' comment about the need for
neighborhood notification. If new hazardous materials are used onsite, that
is included in the current ordinance in 18.23.100(b). I can point that out to
Mr. Moss if he's interested. Now, I think the City Attorney wanted to add
some thoughts.
Molly Stump, City Attorney: Thank you, Mayor Holman. Molly Stump, City
Attorney. Mr. Daugherty and Ms. Lake both made some comments of a legal
nature that I'll respond to at just a very high level. With respect to the
zoning ordinance, Mr. Daugherty questioned the scientific basis for the
categories of the chemicals in the proposed ordinance and the 300-foot
distance and suggested that the ordinance was tailored for one specific
business. We've reviewed these issues very carefully. It's our position that
the rational basis is established for the categorizations that are present in
the ordinance that are before you, most of which are based on existing
categories in State and Federal law. As you've heard tonight from the Staff
presentation and from a representative from another business in town, the
ordinance is one of general applicability. It very well will apply to some
sensitive receptors and other businesses as well as the CPI facility. The
second general area of comment is that there were some comments by
Ms. Lake about the amortization period. We do recognize that this is an
area where there are disagreements that could potentially lead to litigation.
We've presented you with an ordinance that we believe is lawful, but we do
acknowledge that there is a possibility that litigation could be filed. If that
were to occur, it would be the judicial branch that would review these rules and ultimately judge the adequacy of that ordinance against Constitutional
standards. There is some significant possibility of at least delays during any
judicial process. I think it makes sense to hear from Council Members and
to understand Council's direction. If Council wants some additional
suggestions from Staff with respect to potentially attempting to navigate some of these issues, we can provide that guidance as the evening
progresses. Thanks.
Mayor Holman: Council Members, we've heard a lot tonight from a lot of
different sources. Can I suggest that we do—if we need to do a second a
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round, so be it. Could I suggest that we do three-minute rounds that are
questions only, and then we'll come back for comments and Motions.
Council Member Berman.
Council Member Berman: Thank you, Madam Mayor. I wanted to just kind
of follow-up on this issue of amortization and the ability to, I believe it says
make substantial investments. I'll kind of just get all my questions out
before I give you guys an opportunity to answer them. One question is
what's the definition of substantial investment. The second is—I'm just not
necessarily understanding—maybe just the law doesn't say this. If that's the
case, then it's a questionable law. Once an amortization study is conducted,
somebody's on notice that a community is considering limiting their ability to
operate their operations as they currently are at some date in the future. I
just don't understand why somebody would be able to—once they're on
notice, once there's a clear understanding that a community is uncertain about whether or not they want that company to be conducting those
operations in a certain area, why they could then just make a substantial
investment and restart that clock. I'm just still not really understanding how
that—if that is really what the law says. If it is, then it is. That just seems
to fly in the face of why anyone would go through this process at all. Maybe
I'm misunderstanding things.
Ms. Stump: This will be a tag team effort. The legal and planning issues
overlap closely. Council Member Berman, Planning Director will jump in at
some point, I'm sure. Thank you. The question about investment. The
question is capital investments that are subject to depreciation that the law
requires the municipality to recognize in the amortization process. As the
Planning Director indicated, there hasn't been a building permit issued. It is
possible that there are investments that are of a nature that would need to
be taken into account, if the amortization period were reached other than by
a process that involved agreement. Additional investments do not restart
the clock. They may in fact add to the company's property right in the sense
that there are some additional items there that they're entitled to get the
economic value out of before their use is terminated.
Council Member Berman: I'm going to interrupt, just because I see I have the yellow light. I better get my questions out, and then let you guys
answer after it buzzes. That's to say that if—let's say two years before
whatever amortization period is decided upon is to end, a company decides
to invest $1 million in that facility. They would then have a legal right to the
benefit of that investment?
Ms. Stump: Many amortizations programs do include an exception process
where companies are able to request adjustments towards the end of the
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period. We do have examples of amortization of industrial uses in Mountain
view, for example, that did involve some extensions perhaps for reasons
such as that. I think that that is not necessarily exercise of a legal right. To
the point where Council were to establish an amortization period by law, I
think those issues would be quite a bit clearer. I think it would be our hope
and expectation that this would proceed in a way that there would be
commitments on all sides that are enforceable and don't lead to any kind of
adjustment later on in the process.
Council Member Berman: Thank you.
Ms. Gitelman: Council Member ...
Council Member Berman: Please.
Ms. Gitelman: ... Berman, if I can just add to that. We do have a provision
in our Code, the section of the Code about nonconforming uses, that limits
the amount of additional investment that can be made in a nonconforming use. If the first ordinance were to be adopted and the facility became a
nonconforming use, the amount of additional investment they could make
and, therefore, add onto the amortization period would be limited by our
Code.
Council Member Berman: Thanks.
Vice Mayor Schmid: Council Member Scharff.
Council Member Scharff: Thank you. So little time, so many questions. The
first one is—we don't have any Tier 3 sites. Why wouldn't we just prohibit
those period? Why would we want any more to come in? Why wouldn't we
just change the ordinance to say no Tier 3?
Ms. Gitelman: Thank you, Council Member Scharff. That really is a policy
matter. We took the approach in this ordinance not to change sections that
had been adopted by this Council in 2007. You could certainly direct us to
make those changes.
Council Member Scharff: On a high level then, what this ordinance does
right now is it would say in 2026, you need to move that plating shop 300
feet away from any residences. If you move it onsite, which this ordinance
allows as long as it's 300 feet away from the residences, it can stay. Is that
correct?
Ms. Gitelman: That's correct.
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Council Member Scharff: The fact that there's a conditional use permit
required, would that make any difference? Would there be any discretion on
the City not to grant the conditional use permit?
Ms. Gitelman: Based on all of the evidence that we have in the record, I
think we would be able to apply site-specific conditions to the use, but I
don't believe we would be able to prevent them from obtaining a use permit
and moving 300 feet away as anticipated by this ordinance.
Council Member Scharff: Then there's some sense, in the Staff Report that
in 2052 then it goes away. I guess I don't read it that way. I read it that
you can still have the plating shop. You can still have the uses. They just
can't be within 300 feet of a residence.
Ms. Gitelman: That is correct. The plating shop could remain, and the uses
in Buildings 1 and 1A could be moved 300 feet away. We happen to know,
however, that the term of their lease is up around that time. Our expectation is that the uses would be relocated effectively at the end of the
lease.
Council Member Scharff: Unless they renewed their lease for some reason.
There was that comment about liquid nitrogen. I was a little confused on
that. Is that a hazardous material, just having a tank of liquid nitrogen or
did I misunderstand?
Mr. Worobel: I'm going to make sure I get this correct with the City's
hazardous materials specialist. As I understand it, the liquid nitrogen that
occurs and is found at Target Discovery is not considered toxic, highly toxic
within the City. The chemicals that were identified are a miscellaneous
group of, I believe it was flammable liquids. My understanding is when the
inventory forms are completed, if a particular chemical is going to fall below
the CUPA thresholds, the business is told to go ahead and aggregate those
different chemicals. In this particular case with a number of miscellaneous
liquids, each of which would be below the 55 gallons of the CUPA threshold,
they could be aggregated. The aggregate amount at Target Discovery was
110 gallons, but no one specific chemical exceeded the CUPA threshold.
That's kind of the conversation I'm trying to have further with Target
Discovery to make sure I understand that properly. That's why the Planning Director suggested they may come off the list.
Council Member Scharff: Just briefly, I was in Town and Country over the
weekend. I think they have a tank of liquid nitrogen for the new
cryotherapy store next to Douce France, where you can freeze yourself at
150 below Fahrenheit or something like that for three minutes. I just
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wanted to make sure we didn't pick up things throughout the City that
weren't really hazardous. Maybe that is hazardous; I don't know.
Mayor Holman: Thanks. Council Member Kniss.
Council Member Kniss: On a completely different avenue than what we've
been going on, there are a couple of questions that I'd like to ask Molly
Stump. If we get into what we might call an agreement of some kind,
maybe called a settlement, which term do you prefer?
Ms. Stump: Either one will do. I'm not sure where you're going here.
Council Member Kniss: I think we're going to get into some number of
requirements tonight. One thing that I heard tonight—I heard it very clearly
from Art Liberman and from Bob Moss—is that, put very frankly, it doesn't
sound as though CPI has been a warm and communicative neighbor. What
could we put in place that would require certain kinds of communication,
certain kinds of ability for there to be interaction between the neighborhood and CPI? How could that in some way alter what will be the outcome?
We're not going to be shutting CPI down tonight. That's not going to
happen. That's not in our ability. Where could we go with this? We're
talking about amortization. We're talking about a variety of other things
that are very straightforward, very much can be stipulated. What about that
piece of this challenge?
Ms. Stump: Thank you, Council Member Kniss. You're quite right that even
under the City's view of a minimal amortization period, it is quite a number
of years before there would be any movement of any facility on the site.
That does leave open as a potential fruitful area of discussion whether there
are other types of protective measures that the residents may find useful,
helpful and protective of the residential neighborhood and that the company
may be, in fact, willing to adopt and engage in and/or the City may find
reasonable areas of regulation. I think that if the Council is so inclined to
direct the Staff to work with stakeholders in the community and to
communicate with the company about those potential areas—we would also
want to use our experts—that might be a fruitful area. I don't have and am
not aware that the Planning Department has specific recommendations for
you in that area tonight, but it certainly is an area where I think we could do some work and see what we can come up with.
Council Member Kniss: It doesn't in any way—I know Samir Tuma spoke to
this. The danger is real in very many ways; however, if this is going to
continue for a certain number of years, it would seem as though the kind of
relationship that CPI has with the community could be quite different. I don't know if it's been tried before. I see Judy Kleinberg out here tonight
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who probably dealt with it when she was on the Council. We have not dealt
with this recently. I know that others on our Council have. That is the one
thing that seemed to come through loud and clear, this ability to have some
kind of interaction. I realize that CPI opening their doors for tours was very
important. I was glad that a number of my colleagues were able to go. I
hope at some point in the future I can do the same. We could weave that
into whatever current arrangement, whatever we may call it. We could
weave that into where we end up, at least at this point, with not only CPI or
with other companies as well. Thanks.
Mayor Holman: Vice Mayor Schmid.
Vice Mayor Schmid: Three questions. Interested in the consequences of
what we're passing with the ordinance. I think of east of 101. Right now
there's a lot of spaces out there that are being used for a variety of things.
There's new schools appearing, new daycare centers. Are we, in essence, rezoning what is a general manufacturing zoned area? Same thing with San
Antonio and Charleston area. If childcare centers go in there, do we in
essence rezone it?
Ms. Gitelman: Thank you, Council Member Schmid. We are proposing
changes to the industrial zoning districts to put in place this 300-foot
minimum distance between hazardous materials users in Tier 2 and sensitive
receptors including daycare. To the extent that these facilities already exist,
it would place a limitation on new uses within that 300-foot distance. If you
look at the map that we provided in Attachment F that we showed briefly on
the screen, you'll see that that doesn't cover a great percentage of the
industrial zones. It's really ...
Vice Mayor Schmid: My question is the dynamics of the future. If some
alternate school pops up in one of the empty spaces, does it rezone the
substantial area?
Ms. Gitelman: Yes. If you would have new sensitive receptors, it would
have the effect of limiting new Tier 2 uses within 300 feet.
Vice Mayor Schmid: Quick question. The 2006, 2007 incidents at CPI, were
they breaking the Tier 3 rules at that time?
Mr. Worobel: The reduction of the hazardous materials that would have qualified for the CalARP were reduced subsequently. The—Molly.
Ms. Stump: In fact the City did not have what we're now calling the Tier 3
rule in place at that time. The Council adopted that 300-foot buffer distance
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for CalARP chemicals after those incidents. No, they were not in violation of
any rules at that time.
Vice Mayor Schmid: Just some questions on the amortization periods.
People mentioned that the ordinance dates—the amortization period starts
with the date of the ordinance. Secondly, they said that there is a list of
reasons for extension for specific businesses in our Code or somewhere. Do
you have any response to that?
Ms. Stump: When the amortization period starts is one of those areas
where the City's lawyers and the company's lawyers have a stated
disagreement. That is an area that could be subject to litigation. We won't
fully explore it here.
Vice Mayor Schmid: It's not written in our Code anywhere?
Ms. Stump: To amortize a business, you would need to adopt an ordinance
that established the amortization schedule. We have proposed to recognize a study from 2011 that supports amortization of the value of those assets
finishing in 2026. CPI has disagreed with that as unfair on the grounds that
our existing general code provides for 15 years from adoption of the
ordinance, which is a longer period of time.
Mayor Holman: Thank you. Council Member DuBois.
Council Member DuBois: I have a couple of questions for—actually I have
one question for Doug Daugherty and questions for CPI, if you could come
up. In the Ramboll report, you said you found instances where CPI was
conservative and reported stored materials as toxic that didn't actually meet
that definition. Can you just explain what you mean by that?
Mr. Daugherty: Sure. I think one framework to put with the Hazardous
Material Business Plan reporting is it is self-reported information. A facility
like CPI in the past has taken a very conservative tack on how it categorizes
certain materials it has onsite. Essentially it's a form that you fill in what the
material is and then you check whether it's toxic ...
Council Member DuBois: (crosstalk) they consider toxic that wasn't on the
list essentially?
Mr. Daugherty: I think conservatively there is materials they handle that
has hazardous material waste onsite that gets shipped off under other California regulations and check the box marked toxic or highly toxic for
those. In reality, there is a specific definition in the Fire Code of what's toxic
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or highly toxic. When you look at those specific definitions, the material
they have onsite do not meet those.
Council Member DuBois: Thank you. A question for CPI. You guys have
been there a long time, 1953. I guess when your lease is up, your building
is going to be 100 years old. I know you've maintained it. If there was a
way the safety issues could be addressed, would you stay in Palo Alto at the
end of that lease or are you basically planning to move to a lower cost—I
mean, do expect the rent to go up to a level that you couldn't stay there?
Mr. Fickett: Personally, I'm not going to be there. There's always things to
weigh. I mean, there's a lot of infrastructure built into it. There's a lot of
heritage with the employees built into it. As we talked about, the average
lifetime of the employees there, the tenure, so it's not compelling to move.
If the demographics and economics change, I can't really project out that
far.
Council Member DuBois: Before I run out of time, I think you were asked
the last time you were here. As technology advances, do you guys foresee a
time when you could do the plating in an offsite location, transport it in a
clean fashion, basically do your scheduling and your manufacturing process
so that you could continue but with the plating shop somewhere else?
Mr. Fickett: It's hard to look that far ahead. I do know that right now—you
got the chance to see it. I mean, it does need to be integral right now
because you do go from the building to the plating, to the building, to the
cleaning, to the building, several times in and out. The problem is as soon
as you end up making them non-adjacent, you're all of a sudden adding in
inefficiencies, cost, chance for scraps. You potentially take away our
competitiveness. It's really just a question of viability.
Council Member DuBois: Thank you.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Burt.
Council Member Burt: A couple of questions. One is that—in one of the
reports around the worst-case scenario, there was a question about whether
the building itself had had seismic upgrades that affected that likelihood. I
didn't see an answer to that. Maybe it was that CPI's consultant said that
the analysis didn't take that into account. I never saw any data or information that explained if there had been any seismic improvements.
Mr. Worobel: Thank you, Council Member Burt. The report that you're
referring to went through an exercise, a particular scenario, of looking at a
number of different accidental releases, some of which could be caused by a
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seismic event. To your point, the specific retrofits, the voluntary retrofits
that were prepared by CPI were not specifically taken into account, because
the scenarios were looking at a number of administrative, engineering and
management controls. We took those into account in making a
determination about whether the particular scenario was plausible, was
worthy of being evaluated. We did have sort of a qualifier at the end to say
that depending on the voluntary seismic retrofits, it could affect the results
that are being presented.
Council Member Burt: Is there a retrofit that's already occurred or are you
saying it's a prospective, future retrofit?
Mr. Worobel: There was one that was performed previously.
Council Member Burt: Are we aware of what that is and its impact on the
risk?
Mr. Worobel: Not specifically, no. There was subsequent to the original report in January 2014 that was supplemented the request by the Barron
Park neighbors to look at an extreme event which took into account the
potential effects of a catastrophic earthquake. In that particular instance,
CPI then brought forth a report by a seismic consultant, a geotech
consultant, who provided some documentation about why the likelihood or
the probability of that type of event being that catastrophic and resulting in
the (crosstalk).
Council Member Burt: I remember the probability part. I would just say
that as this goes through our next phase of review, it would be of value to
know whether there is or is not a significant seismic upgrade that occurred
and would effect that risk potential. I wanted to follow onto something that
Council Member Kniss had brought up, and that's any additional prospective
measures that might be able to be taken. Part of the previous Motion a year
and a half ago was to really look at not just best practices, but state of the
art practices. It appears that a number of those have been utilized. I am
interested in whether there would be additional communication tools that
could be available to both the public and finally one related to information
going to our Fire Department. One of the issues raised by neighbors has
been the whole reporting mechanism should there be some form of a release. We've heard that there are gas monitors at the property or building
line. My understanding is that those report into CPI. My question would be,
which doesn't necessarily have to be answered tonight, whether it would be
feasible to have those monitors also report directly to our Fire Department
so that they could have real data real time. If they want to respond to information they receive, they can take the initiative to contact CPI. If it
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was at a level that they deemed appropriate, they could take their own
actions independently. That's one other potential that I'd be interested in
finding out about. If you have answers or our Fire Department does now,
that'd be great. If you don't, I'll look for them as the process moves
forward.
Mayor Holman: I have just a couple of things. Council Member Burt asked
one of my primary questions which had to do with seismic. I'm also
interested in that. I appreciate the tour. Council Member Scharff and I
actually went together on that tour. I left, I realized, a little bit unclear on
whether all of the recommendations that have been made, either from the
Fire Department or any other entity, have been adopted and incorporated at
CPI.
Ms. Gitelman: Maybe if Joe Afong or another member of the Fire
Department could respond to that.
Mayor Holman: Okay. I'd be grateful for that.
Ms. Gitelman: I think we believe the answer is yes. I was just hoping
someone in a nice uniform would stand up and confirm that.
Mayor Holman: Maybe the someone in a nice uniform could come forward.
James Hendrickson, Palo Alto Fire Department: You might restate the
question.
Mayor Holman: The question was if all of the recommendations made to CPI
have actually been accepted and incorporated.
Mr. Hendrickson: Recommendations made when, Mayor Holman?
Mayor Holman: Any additional safety recommendations.
Mr. Hendrickson: Over the course of the years, we've had a number of
opportunities to do inspections at the CPI facility. As far as I'm aware, Fire
Marshal Hendrickson, each time we have made recommendations, they have
been incorporated into CPI's business practices. Yes.
Mayor Holman: You have a sidekick there with you.
Mr. Hendrickson: This is Joe Afong. I've only been in the position for about
nine months. Joe Afong has been working as a Hazardous Materials
Specialist, working with CPI, for 12 years, 14 years. He would be my
historical knowledge on the facility.
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Mayor Holman: Mr. Afong, perhaps you'd like to answer the question too
then.
Joe Afong, Hazardous Materials Inspector: Yes, we have made inspections.
With all our special reports, they have always complied, and they always
give us a response, a schedule of completion.
Mayor Holman: Thank you for clarifying and confirming that. Also, one
thing that I did appreciate was that some of the inspections are announced
and some of the inspections are unannounced. I think that's really greatly
helpful. I don't see any other lights for questions by Council Members. City
Attorney Stump, you had a couple of comments to make.
Ms. Stump: Yes. Just before the Council moves into the phase of Motions, I
thought I would summarize some of the things that we've heard from the
neighborhood residents, from CPI and Council questions with respect to the
legal status of where we are. If the Council is supportive of the categories and the creation of the Tier 2 and the proposed regulation, we think that
that zoning ordinance would be ready to move forward through the process
which, as the Planning Director indicated, would be to go to the Planning
Commission. There's further refinement that would be needed in a couple of
areas. That would potentially come back to you for final adoption. I have a
slightly different thought about the second ordinance, the amortization
ordinance. There is a draft before you. I do think it behooves the Council to
think seriously about whether further attempts should be made to bridge our
remaining differences with respect to the application of the amortization
period. Leaving aside from this forum any discussion of the relative
strengths and weaknesses of the parties' positions, there is a substantial
disagreement there. If Council is interested in exploring a resolution of that
that would focus on CPI's argument that it's unfair to apply a period that is
less than the 15 years, Council could direct Staff to work on that issue. I
would expect the Council would be interested in some substantial additional
protective measures for the neighborhood if it were to consider anything like
that. One area I think that you may wish to direct us to work on is with the
potential for there to be technological advances in the future, when is the
earliest possible date that the plating shop could be entirely removed from the facility, potentially in advance of the current date that's proposed in the
amortization ordinance. I leave you with those thoughts as you consider the
direction you're going to give us this evening.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Scharff. We move into the next phase of
three minutes of comments and Motions.
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Council Member Scharff: Thank you. A couple of things that came out of
here. I do think that we should definitely tell the City Staff, I guess, to go
ahead and continue discussions with CPI. Also, having done enough
litigation and those kind of things, I know that without moving forward with
the amortization ordinance at the same time—I don't see why it can't be
done at the same time frankly. If an agreement is not reached that's
beneficial to the stakeholders—by the stakeholders, I mean the
neighborhood and CPI really frankly—and they're not beneficial, then I think
we need to move forward with the amortization ordinance. I don't really
want it to be delayed where we have more and more discussions forever
without actually moving forward. I know that when you have a trial date,
for instance, the ability to settle a case really gets focused on people. That's
why so many cases settle on the courthouse steps or during arbitration,
because people actually have to make some hard choices. I'm really hoping that we will give the direction in the Staff recommendation to move forward
with both, and then we'll also direct Staff to work with the neighborhood
stakeholders in that. The other thing that came out of this for me is it
seems really, really difficult to get rid of uses you don't want in your
community, frankly. I really do think we should prohibit Tier 3 uses in the
community. I asked that question seriously because it struck me that
there's no reason you would want to allow new Tier 3 uses coming into the
community when we have none. If there were reasons and if anyone has
one, I really would like to hear from Staff that says no, there could possibly
be a reason why you'd want it. If you have one, let me know. If not, that's
fine. If it comes up during the process, I think you should come back to us
and say, "We've heard this input and that." With that, I'd like to move the
Staff recommendation that's put forward on packet page 307, and say "with
the exception that Staff be directed to prohibit Tier 3 uses in the
community." I'll say it slowly. Also "direct the Staff to work with
neighborhood stakeholders and CPI to explore whether there is a resolution
that could add substantial neighborhood protections such as a shorter period
to eliminate the plating shop from the site and/or better communication
tools or other neighborhood protections that might address CPI's concerns about the 2026 date as well." I may have to read this again.
Mayor Holman: Did you provide that to the City Clerk?
Council Member Scharff: No, but I can go down there and work with them
on that.
Mayor Holman: It sounded like you were reading it. If you might ...
Council Member Scharff: I wrote it over here, so it's a bit of a mess.
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Mayor Holman: if you might certainly read over this. I think it looks like
you did a great job trying to capture this. If you could confirm that. Council
Member Burt, I heard your second. We'll get to you in just a moment.
MOTION: Council Member Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member
Burt to direct Staff to prepare two Ordinances substantially in the form of
the draft Ordinances regulating hazardous materials users and establishing a
schedule for amortizing a nonconforming use, to be reviewed by the
Planning and Transportation Commission (PTC) and consideration by the City
Council at a noticed Public Hearing before the end of February 2016 with the
exception that Staff be directed to prohibit Tier 3 uses. Direct Staff to work
with neighborhood stakeholders and Communications & Power Industries,
LLC (CPI) to explore whether there is a resolution that could add substantial
neighborhood protections such as better communication tools and/or a
shorter period to eliminate the plating shop from the site while considering CPI’s concerns about the 2026 date.
Mayor Holman: Is this ...
Council Member Scharff: It's not exactly. I'll go down and work with them
to get it exactly right, unless you want me to just tell them right now.
Mayor Holman: If there's much that you have to change, then it'd be good if
you step down there.
Council Member Scharff: I'll just go down and do that.
Mayor Holman: Judging from ...
Council Member Burt: Do you want to speak further to it?
Council Member Scharff: Yeah, that's what I thought I'd do first but, yeah,
just following (inaudible). I think this is a good resolution. What I want to
say is that I'm not sure that there's not more of a win-win situation here. I
don't want that to delay the process. I feel it's been delayed enough for the
neighborhood. I want everyone to know it's moving forward, we're getting
that. In my mind, it may be a better resolution if the plating shop left
earlier and there was maybe a longer or slightly longer period of
amortization frankly or some sort of a deal. That depends on the
neighborhood. It depends on how it's worked out. Otherwise, you could
have a situation where the plating shop is there until 2052, and there is no resolution that's satisfactory, that it's just moved 300 feet. If that's
completely satisfactory to the neighborhood, that's one thing. If that's not
satisfactory, there may be some sort of a solution that works better. There
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may also be better communication tools that were talked about. I think
exploring this makes a lot of sense while we continue to move forward.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Burt, speak to your second.
Council Member Burt: Yes. I think the Motion captures a lot of the—both
the intent of the Staff recommendation, which I think has really come up
with new tools and regulatory mechanisms that are not common but are
sound and add protections that basically don't exist in many communities. I
want to thank Staff for having done the work in response to the Motion we
had a year and a half ago to pursue some directions that frankly there was
skepticism at the time that we could come up with something that would be
sound in its legal standing and be on good general science and add
protections that didn't previously exist. I do have also one question. There
was a reference to a cryogenic facility, and that got some chuckles. Frankly,
it goes to this point and part of why we had this regulation look beyond a specific use that was perceived to be a risk and look at materials. It's the
materials and their uses that pose the risk. One question I have is—I didn't
see anything about gas stations. This goes to the point of we have these
common perceptions of what poses risks and then we have scientific realities
of risks. I heard another laugh earlier when smoking was brought up. In
actuality, almost 20 years ago when I spent a year on the State comparative
risk project that looked at all public health and environmental risks in the
state and tried to rank them according to real comparative risks, smoking
dwarfed everything by orders of magnitude. That's something that we kind
of lose sight of when we see something scary like hazardous materials.
These are really ways that we should be looking at rational approaches to
what we're doing to reduce risk. At the same time, if we have in Orchard
Supply pallets of sodium hypochlorite with no secondary containment at all
or gas tanks that do have underground and secondary containment but tens
of thousands of gallons of gasoline, I want to make sure that the ordinances
that we're having address all of our risks comparably. Any thoughts on
these similar risks in non-industrial areas?
Mr. Worobel: I have a real short response. When I thought earlier about
gasoline stations in particular because you're absolutely right, Council Member Burt. There's a tremendous volume associated with the
underground storage tanks. In going through the various forms and looking
at the check marks that was referred to earlier, the gasoline is not
considered toxic or highly toxic. By virtue of our definition of Tier 2, those
would be off the list. For things that are found at like an Orchard Supply hardware store, that's a really, really good example. There are also
exemptions that allow for certain chemicals, if they're going to be used
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primarily for retail, they're packaged for consumer products and retail use,
they aren't considered part of that.
Council Member Burt: It sounds like we have regulatory exemptions that
may or may not be based on real public health risks. I think that this Tier 2
ordinance addresses some things that existing ordinances simply don't
cover. I think it's a real good step in the right direction. I do think that we
have seen some good progression by CPI in attempting to reduce volume
and other redundancies, and that should be acknowledged. On the other
hand, I would not want to be over the fence from this facility. The
responsibility for that circumstance goes back decades. What we're faced
with is how do we try to fix this as best we can. I think we've taken an
aggressive approach that is not as aggressive as some of the neighbors
would like, but is pushing the boundaries of what is legally permissible and
has already resulted in, I think, risk reductions that are significantly lower than what had been at that site for 60 years, both when we look at volumes
but really even more so in terms of the safety controls and the redundancies
to those. That's probably not adequately reassuring to those neighbors,
especially if there are risks that they weren't aware of historically and were
always there. I think in reality on a scientific level, we've seen a significant
reduction there. That whole notion of can we look at this in a more rational
way, it's difficult. If it's your fence and feeling that jeopardy, it's hard to do
so. In this community, we probably are overwhelming people who would
say to climate deniers that they need to be looking at the science. They're
science deniers. It's much harder when we feel our own eMotions and have
science that we need to stare at and look at that. We have a situation that
has less risk, and still risk that is not what should be there for residents over
a fence. I think these are good moves, and I support them.
Mayor Holman: Because it's a long Motion, I'm going to read it here. Direct
Staff to prepare two ordinances substantially in the form of the draft
ordinances regulating hazardous materials users and establishing a schedule
for amortizing a nonconforming use to be reviewed by the Planning and
Transportation Commission and consideration by the City Council at a
noticed public hearing before the end of February 2016 with the exception that Staff be directed to prohibit Tier 3 uses; and also direct Staff to work
with neighborhood stakeholders and CPI to explore whether there is a
resolution that could add substantial neighborhood protections such as
better communication tools and/or a shorter period to eliminate the plating
shop from the site while considering CPI’s concerns about the 2026 date. I have lights from Council Member DuBois next.
Council Member DuBois: I'm concerned about the Tier 3 restriction. We
have industrial zones for a reason. I'm just concerned that we're not really
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thinking through unintended side effects. I mean, new technologies appear.
I think a couple of the Tier 2 sites are hospitals. Again, I think there could
be even biotech applications that use toxic substances. As long as they were
a sufficient distance inside our industrial zone with proper safety
mechanisms, I think that's some businesses that we might be interested in.
I'm just concerned that an outright ban is too restrictive. I would offer a
friendly amendment instead of just prohibit it, to direct Staff to review the
Tier 3 restrictions and suggest improvements in the ordinance when they
bring it back.
Council Member Scharff: I actually asked Staff if they do come up with
anything that seems Tier 3 that we might want to consider, they bring it
back to us. At the moment, I'd like them to prohibit it.
Council Member DuBois: I guess I would offer that as an unfriendly
amendment.
Mayor Holman: As a separate amendment?
Council Member DuBois: Yeah.
Vice Mayor Schmid: Second.
AMENDMENT: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Vice Mayor
Schmid to replace in the Motion, “that Staff be directed to prohibit Tier 3
uses” with “Staff to review Tier 3 use restrictions and suggest improvements
in the Ordinance when it returns to Council.”
Mayor Holman: Do you care to speak any further to your amendment,
Council Member DuBois?
Council Member DuBois: Now we're on the amendment. I did have some
questions about ...
Mayor Holman: The amendment only.
Council Member DuBois: ... the original ordinance. On the amendment
itself, again, I just think we're not really thinking through unintended
consequences of an outright ban. We do have industrial zones that are set
up for this purpose.
Mayor Holman: Vice Mayor Schmid, do you care to speak to your second?
Vice Mayor Schmid: Just to support the notion that we do want to explore
consequences before making a serious recommendation. I think it makes sense to investigate.
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Mayor Holman: Council Member Scharff, to the amendment.
Council Member Scharff: I wanted to speak against the amendment. I think
there are unintended consequences that go the other way as well, which
we've seen with CPI and the issues like that. Once you put in a Tier 3,
obviously people make an investment. Then it's a 15, 20, 30-year
discussion about if you want to change that. That's a large unintended
consequence. We are talking about dangerous Tier 3—CPI's not even Tier 3.
CPI is now in Tier 2. I don't really think we'd want to invite those kind of
uses into the community and limit, frankly, land uses around them for that
30 years. That's a big decision you're making. I think that is the
unintended consequence you wouldn't want to do. Now I did suggest that if
Staff sees something or hears from people about why you may want to have
some exceptions to that general rule, I think that'd be fine as we go through
the ordinance process, which we are doing. We're going to go to Planning and Transportation and move through that. I think it makes much more
sense to eliminate Tier 3 rather than leaving that out with the unintended
consequence that we could frankly be limiting other land uses then for a
really long period of time. If the community wants to get rid of that once it's
in there, we no longer can do that. I think the other thing we have to realize
is that this is a conditional use permit that's usually granted by the Director
of Planning. It doesn't come to Council. There are a couple of conditional
use permits that have been granted that I didn't agree with. I think they
were a mistake, and I think a lot of people—I mean that's not attacking the
Director's decision. We could make a 30-year land use decision without
oversight by the Council and without an understanding of what's happening.
To me that's a huge unintended consequence.
Mayor Holman: I guess I understand, but I think there is a lack of clarity in
the amendment, Council Member DuBois. It says to replace in the Motion
that Staff be directed to prohibit Tier 3 uses. I think it's also "and replace
with Staff to review Tier 3 use restrictions and suggest improvements in the
ordinance when it returns to Council." Isn't it "and also"?
Council Member DuBois: (inaudible) replace it with (inaudible).
Mayor Holman: Now that gets us clear. Council Member Burt.
Council Member Burt: I am familiar with what Title 19 thresholds are like.
Our industrial areas are light industrial. They're not heavy industry. Title 19
size of facilities that have this level of hazardous materials really don't
belong in light industrial areas in urban environments. We've seen an
evolution as two things have happened over the last 50 years or so here. We've become more urbanized in Palo Alto, and long term it'll be even more
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so. We understand risks and incompatible uses better than we did. This is
part of what we've been talking about. If we had hindsight, we wouldn't
have done this sighting. We need to have enough foresight to not go into
another bad decision. I think this is a sound one. Having levels up to Title
19 is still moderate amounts of hazardous materials. Under this ordinance,
they would have proper buffer zones. I think it's a correct balance, but I
don't see a need to have Tier 3 facilities in our areas. I'll oppose the
amendment.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Filseth.
Council Member Filseth: On the amendment, it seems like both the pro and
the con cases for the amendment, under both those cases, the Staff is going
to go off and think about are there any unintended consequences of this and
are there any applications that actually would make sense to do. It seems
to me that the question between the pro and con is if the Staff doesn't come up with anything terribly conclusive, what's the default? I think the default
ought to be that there's no Tier 3 uses. I think probably the best thing is
that the amendment fails.
Mayor Holman: Seeing no other lights, we will vote on the amendment,
which is to remove from the Motion "Staff be directed to"—Council Member
DuBois, did you ...
Council Member DuBois: Listening to the argument, I would actually
withdraw the Motion rather than vote. I think you guys convinced me. I
appreciate hearing from my colleagues.
Ms. Stump: Point of order, Madam Mayor. To withdraw the amendment,
you need the agreement of the seconder.
Mayor Holman: Vice Mayor Schmid?
Vice Mayor Schmid: I'll go along.
AMENDMENT WITHDRAWN BY THE MAKER AND SECONDER
Council Member DuBois: Could I continue with my questions?
Mayor Holman: Yes, you still have the floor.
Council Member DuBois: Thank you. Actually most of my questions, I think,
are for the City Attorney. I have four questions. If I could just rattle them
off, then you could answer them. Are the Tier 2 restrictions limited to industrial zones or are they Citywide? If a Tier 1 facility exceeds the CUPA,
does it become a Tier 2? There were some comments in the Q&A that
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basically listed it as a Tier 1 as exceeding, which was confusing. I wonder if
you'd give us a quick explanation of the issue with extremely hazardous
substances. The last question is why not include the City Plant under the
ordinance since there's no sensitive receptors, no residences near our Plant.
Why exclude ourselves from the ordinance?
Ms. Stump: I think all of those are questions for the Planning Director and
our expert. I'd like them to at least take the first shot. Thank you.
Ms. Gitelman: Thank you, Council Member DuBois. Let me take the first
shot, and then I'm going to need Rod's help on the extremely hazardous
substance issue. First, your question about whether the ordinance would
apply only to Tier 2 uses in industrial zones. Yes, that is the case. The way
the ordinance is currently drafted, it's an amendment to the section of the
Zoning Ordinance for industrial zones. We did an inventory of where Tier 2
uses exist. We found that they were all in the industrial zones with the exception of the three that Rod mentioned in his presentation.
Council Member DuBois: Does that mean that some of these Tier 2 uses
would be allowed in retail zones, for example?
Ms. Gitelman: I'll let Rod respond to that question. I mean, I think
technically they would be allowed, but his research has shown that there are
very limited applications or opportunities for those kind of uses outside of
our industrial or manufacturing zones. Your second question was about
whether a Tier 1 use can become a Tier 2 use if they ...
Council Member DuBois: In the Q&A, it talked about a Tier 1 use that
exceeded CUPA. Doesn't that make it a Tier 2 use at that point?
Ms. Gitelman: It would be if it had materials that were classified as toxic or
highly toxic. It depends not just on the quantities but on whether these
materials that are identified in the Fire Code are those materials that exceed
the CUPA quantities.
Council Member DuBois: If it was a toxic substance that was below CUPA
and then went over, it would become a Tier 2.
Ms. Gitelman: Then you're correct. It would become a Tier 2. Your
question about why not include the City Plant. Again, the ordinance is
structured as a regulation that would affect the City's industrial zoning districts. That's the section of the Code we've amended. If we wanted to
address facilities in the public facilities zoning district, we would have to
include and amend a whole other section of the Code. I think our feeling
was that that would be an effort that really is not necessary given the nature
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of the facilities and, as you point out, the distance that the Water Treatment
Plant is from sensitive receptors. Let me ask Rod to respond to the
extremely hazard substance issue.
Mr. Worobel: Could you repeat the question please, so I make sure I get it
correctly?
Council Member DuBois: There's notes in here that we may eliminate
extremely hazardous substances. It wasn't clear why.
Mr. Worobel: Glad you're sitting down. When we first started down this
path of trying to identify different methods of screening different types of
facilities and looking at the different types of hazardous materials, we were
originally focused on toxic and highly toxic. There was a suggestion made
by the Barron Park neighbors to why not consider extremely hazardous
substances which are defined in the Federal regulations. We thought that
was a really good idea. It's actually something that's alluded to in the State Health and Safety Code, so that when you prepare a Hazardous Materials
Business Plan, not only are you looking at the specific quantified CUPA
thresholds of 500 pounds, 55 gallons or 200 cubic feet of compressed gas,
but you also take a look at the extremely hazardous substances when those
substances exceed quantities that are defined as threshold planning
quantities. If you hold onto that thought for a moment. The way the Health
and Safety Code reads in the State, it suggests that businesses that exceed
the threshold planning quantities for extremely hazardous substances should
be preparing a Hazardous Materials Business Plan. When you go to the
CalARP regulations, the CalARP says we have a series of regulated
substances, including extremely hazardous substances, and we have three
different tables that you need to refer to. Table 3 identifies quantities at
which point a Risk Management Plan should be prepared, and those
businesses should be part of Tier 3. What we've actually got in our
definition for Tier 2 right now with the use of extremely hazardous
substances is something that just doesn't make sense, because it's actually
suggesting a definition for what should be part of Tier 3. That's why we're
having further discussions with Staff that suggest that perhaps the
extremely hazardous substances limitation be removed from the regulations.
Council Member DuBois: They just wouldn't be allowed under Tier 2
essentially.
Mr. Worobel: Also because most of the extremely hazardous substances
tend to be covered by the toxic and highly toxic substances. They're not
identical. I think what we were facing is that if we don't use the threshold planning quantities for the extremely hazardous substances, what lower
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threshold could we actually establish that would be rational and scientifically
based? I don't really find any other different quantities that would be
acceptable.
Council Member DuBois: Thanks. I'd just like to say, I mean, I think CPI is
a good company. You guys make good products. That's not really the
question. Both the company and the homes have been there a long time.
It's not like one was there well before the other either. If we were zoning
this today, I don't think we would allow it to happen this close. I think some
type of amortization process makes sense. Updating our ordinances on
material handling makes sense. We have a duty to protect the community.
I think there are reasonable concerns. I'm going to support the Motion.
Mayor Holman: I see no other lights so—Molly.
Ms. Stump: Madam Mayor, just one housekeeping item. I'm not sure this
needs to be part of the Motion. Perhaps it is prudent to direct Staff to continue to evaluate whether there are any additional facilities that would
fall under the new proposed Zoning Ordinance. To the extent that there are,
that Staff similarly pursue an exploration of appropriate amortization for
those facilities. This is based on the fact that we are at least possibly
considering that there is another facility. Now, it may not in fact be
captured by this regulation. If it is, then we should proceed with respect to
that facility in a similar manner and explore appropriate amortization.
Mayor Holman: The board did light up. Council Member Berman.
Council Member Berman: Thank you, Madam Mayor. I want to agree with a
lot of the comments that my colleagues have made, and especially just
initially kind of call out and emphasize the comments last made by Council
Member DuBois and also alluded to by Council Member Burt. CPI is a good
company; they make important products. While they haven't been a perfect
neighbor necessarily to the community, I think on the whole they've done a
good job of addressing concerns that the City has brought up. Maybe not
communicated that as well to the community. I do support the Motion. I
think we're moving in a right direction now that we've taken a kind of
deliberate look at this situation, which obviously isn't ideal of having this
type of operation across the fence from a residential neighborhood. Ideally, this would have been evaluated a decade ago when the operations were
consolidated at this site or longer before that, but that isn't the case. Now,
it's important for us to take a responsible, legally appropriate approach. I
think we're doing this. For me personally—one of the reasons I especially
appreciate the second part of the Motion—I think in an ideal world we get two things. One is certainty for the neighborhood and for the company. If I
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had my preference, the plating shop would not be moved 300 feet on the
site; it would be moved offsite. It's clear by the rules and even these new
rules that CPI would have the ability to just move it 300 feet onsite until
2052. That's why I think it's important to have this longer discussion
between the community members and CPI and the City to see if we can
come up with a compromise and a solution, kind of a win-win for everybody,
where the plating shop is relocated offsite. The community gets the
certainty it needs, and we kind of alleviate that just psychological fear that
currently exists in that neighborhood. CPI gets the certainty that it needs to
operate as a business. During the interim—there's going to be an interim
period. I won't guess as to how long that's going to be. I think it's
important for there to be increased communication between CPI and the
community. We've heard some concerns tonight and possibilities of how to
improve that communication. I'm sure Staff has been doing a good job of compiling those concerns from the community and will talk with CPI to see
what's feasible and what isn't so that we can increase communication so
that, for whatever period of time exists, both CPI and the residents have
open lines of communication and everybody feels better with the situation. I
was reading one of the emails that we got from a resident that gave a great
historical kind of narrative of the history of CPI and the history of Barron
Park and the history of Chimalus an everything. The email alludes to the
fact that Mr. Varian back in the '40s, '50s, '60s and '70s had a good
relationship with the residents. I think maybe that kind of alleviated some
of the concerns that might have otherwise existed. I hope we get back to
that, because that was a kind of relationship that everybody felt good about.
Obviously the people who work at CPI feel very passionately about it. I was
very impressed by the duration of employment of some of the folks that
came up and spoke today. You just don't hear that often these days of folks
working at a company for 30, 35, 37 years. I think everyone wants to do
the right thing. Hopefully at the end of this process when we get everybody
to the table, we can come up with a solution that everybody feels good
about.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Wolbach.
Council Member Wolbach: I think I'm going to be supporting this Motion. I
think it strikes the right notes and the right balance. My thinking about this
is that in policy discussions—a couple of big points. First, in policy
discussions, a particular case can elevate an issue in the eyes of the public
and in the eyes of the City. It's important that we don't remain solely fixed just on a particular case when we realize that the issue is actually broader. I
think it's important to acknowledge that that's what we've done here. This
isn't just about CPI. The amortization part obviously is. As far as protecting
residents in Palo Alto, this is a broader issue. Barron Park residents
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identified and have shined a light on this particular perceived risk. In
studying and considering this risk, we've realized that it's not just Barron
Park residents, but all Palo Alto residents that should enjoy greater certainty
of their safety in their neighborhood. That's what this is really about. Also,
just as far as how we move forward and why. I think this is a well crafted
Motion. In policy discussions, we really must recognize all of the values that
are at stake and thoughtfully weigh them. The ideal of course is to not only
weigh them, but find ways to coordinate them. When we look at this
situation, what are some of the values at play? Community safety, property
rights, investment, good jobs. These are all important values. I really do
hope that our friends and some of the residents of Palo Alto at CPI along
with the residents in Barron Park and City Staff will seize this opportunity to
work with sincerity to identify a win-win, to identify the best solution for
everybody moving forward where everybody, both for residents' safety and for planning the future of your business and for helping us be clear about
our future zoning and planning, can have the predictability that's so
important for making long-term decisions. I think that's what's going to be
most important for all parties at play here. I also just wanted to offer
gratitude to those three groups. First, to the residents for having really
focused on this issue and helping us realize what more we needed to do to
improve safety throughout the City of Palo Alto. To CPI for having very
evidently learned through these experiences over the last few years,
improving their safety and improving their community outreach, for inviting
us within the walls of their organization. I do commend you for that. That is
a good lesson for all corporate citizens. For the City Staff especially the
Planning and the Legal Departments for thinking very creatively and offering
to continue to do that so we can find the best solution. Thank you.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Kniss.
Council Member Kniss: I will be supporting the Motion as well. My concern
remains with the communication piece of this. We primarily tonight are
voting for an all purpose ordinance. This is not just directed at CPI. The
reason that we've been here tonight talking about CPI is that is going to be
the most quickly effected business by this particular ordinance. Before this comes back to us, I would like to hear three things. How CPI is going to
reach out into the community; who the person will be who is responsible at
CPI for doing that. I think that's really important to have somebody
identified. Lastly, for CPI to consider whether or not they would allow others
in their neighborhood to do what they have invited us to do as a Council. I think that would make a substantial difference long term. As I've said, as
much as we're dealing with an ordinance and we're dealing with how this will
affect others in our community, this also is one of those times when there
really needs to be far more communication and a far more comfortable
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feeling as long as CPI is in the backyard and, as Pat has described it, over
the fence.
Mayor Holman: Vice Mayor Schmid.
Vice Mayor Schmid: Just a simple question. I recall hearing early in the
process that there was some activity going on in the medical center that
were excluded because they had special safety requirements. Would this
ordinance have any impact on either research or medical procedures that
either are or might be going on in the medical center?
Mr. Worobel: After we went through the inventories and we looked more
closely at the specific chemicals that were identified as possibly making
them eligible for Tier 2, those were all ruled out as either toxic, highly toxic
or extremely hazardous substances. They all fell below the various
thresholds we were concerned about. The VA or the Stanford University
Medical Center? In both cases, they fell off the list. And they're in public facility zones.
Vice Mayor Schmid: The amounts they need, they use, fit within the
requirements?
Mr. Worobel: Right.
Vice Mayor Schmid: Thank you.
Mayor Holman: City Attorney.
Ms. Stump: On further reflection, I would like to actually recommend that
the Council add that last housekeeping item. I guess that's a
recommendation to the maker and the seconder that the Motion include a
last sentence along the lines of "direct Staff to evaluate whether any
additional facilities would be legal and nonconforming under the proposed
regulation. If so, explore appropriate amortization."
Council Member Scharff: Is the language that's written there, is that what
you just said?
Ms. Stump: Yes, that will do. Thank you.
Council Member Scharff: That's fine with me.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Scharff, are you okay with that?
Council Member Scharff: Yes.
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Mayor Holman: Council Member Burt?
Council Member Burt: Yes.
INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE
MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “direct Staff to evaluate any
additional facilities that may fall under the Ordinance and direct Staff to
explore amortization for those facilities.”
Mayor Holman: Thank you for that City Attorney. I'll certainly be
supporting the Motion. I also support the comments made by Council
Member Kniss and encourage Staff to pursue that. Also I think before this
comes back, too I think any information that we could have about the
seismic capability of the building would be really, I think, information that
we should know. With that, we will be voting here for Staff to prepare two
ordinances, substantially in the form of the draft ordinances, regulating
hazardous materials users and establishing a schedule for amortizing a nonconforming use to be reviewed by the Planning and Transportation
Commission and consideration by the City Council at a noticed public hearing
before the end of February 2016 with the exception that Staff is to be
directed to prohibit Tier 3 uses; and also direct Staff to work with the
neighborhood stakeholders and CPI to explore whether there is a resolution
that could add substantial neighborhood protections such as better
communication tools and/or a shorter period to eliminate the plating shop
from the site while considering CPI's concerns about the 2026 date. Also
added to the Motion with the acceptance of the maker and seconder, direct
Staff to evaluate any additional facility that may fall under the ordinance and
direct Staff to explore amortization for that facility. (inaudible) for that or
those facilities. With that, vote on the board please. That passes
unanimously. Thank you, colleagues. Thank you to the Staff, public and
CPI.
MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 9-0
15. Resolution 9560 Entitled, “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo
Alto Establishing Interim Minimum Standards and Leasing Policies for
the Palo Alto Airport” and Resolution 9561 Entitled, “Resolution of the
Council of the City of Palo Alto Revising the Airport Schedule of Fees and Charges.”
Mayor Holman: With that, colleagues, we go to Item Number 15 which is
adoption of a Resolution establishing interim minimum standards and leasing
policies for the Palo Alto Airport and adoption of a Resolution revising the
airport schedule of fees and charges. Staff, are you ready for your presentation?
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Mike Sartor, Public Works Director: Yes. Good evening ...
Mayor Holman: Thank you.
Mr. Sartor: ... Mayor Holman and Members of the City Council.
Mayor Holman: Excuse me just for a second. Could members of the public
please move to the lobby for your conversation, so that we can conduct
business? That would be really appreciated. Thank you. There you go,
Mike.
Mr. Sartor: All right. Again, good evening, Mayor Holman and Members of
the City Council. I'm Mike Sartor, Public Works Director. We're here to
present to you tonight a recommendation to establish interim minimum
standards and fees for the Palo Alto Airport operations. Just as a quick
introduction. When Palo Alto took over the airport last August, there were
no minimum standards in place as the County of Santa Clara had not done
this. Although Staff is recommending interim minimum standards at this time, we fully intend to conduct an open stakeholder-involved process to put
into place permanent minimum standards for airport operations. We'll start
that process early next year. Next slide, Andy. Real quickly, interim
minimum standards are needed at Palo Alto Airport to preserve the airport
as a community facility that serves the City and neighboring communities.
It would also ensure a minimum level of aeronautical services and facilities
for airport users. Next slide. It would promote safety in all airport activities,
maintain a higher quality of service for airport users, protect airport users
from unlicensed and unauthorized products and services, and provide a clear
and objective distinction between service providers and will provide
satisfactory level of service (inaudible) knows it will not. In relation to the
fees that we have modified, there are no increases or decreases in fees at
this point. If you look at the redlined copy that's attached to your Staff
Report, you'll see that we've removed services that are not applicable to
Palo Alto Airport, recognizing that these fees were put in place by the County
of Santa Clara at that time. We've removed the monthly and annual fee for
aircraft charter companies and kept the per operation rate structure for
landing fees. Lastly, we've removed monthly parking permits for RVs,
trailers and other oversized vehicles as we no longer provide permits for those types of vehicles. With that, I'm open to any questions that you may
have. Thank you.
Mayor Holman: Thank you. We do have four members of the public who'd
care to speak to this item. Amy Christel to be followed by Mark Shull.
Again, if the second speaker would come to the front, that would be helpful.
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Amy Christel: Here I am again. Thank you for giving me this opportunity
yet again. I'm struck—I have a whole script written, but I'm struck by the
relationship of the last topic you considered to the one that is before you
right now. My basic question is why are we having this discussion now after
the airport has been in your hands for a year without such minimum
standards, and who is not providing the kind of services that these standards
seek to provide, and what is inadequate about the situation right now that
we are rushing to accept minimum standards on an interim basis that will
essentially allow leases to be granted for whatever period of time,
grandfathered, and put us in the same situation that the residents of Barron
Park have been in, where you cannot extract yourself from an arrangement,
a lease, a contract for a service provider that is not in the best interest of
the rest of the community. Maybe I'm borrowing trouble, but I think not.
One of the City's stated goals of establishing minimum standards includes minimizing impacts on the surrounding residents. Yet, nothing, not one
word, in these interim standards addresses impacts on residents. Not the
possibility of increasing congestion in air traffic. Not the possibility of low
flying helicopters and more helicopter training services, parachuting,
skydiving, the list goes on, taxi services, something such as Surf Air which is
a quasi non-commercial enterprise. I just wonder if perhaps we need a
citizens advisory group to work on establishing long-term standards and skip
the whole interim process and be a little bit patient and get something
installed that really considers the entire community's desires for what should
be and what shouldn't be out at that airport. I realize we have FAA
guidelines to work within, but I think we can still come up with something
better than what is before you tonight. Thank you.
Mayor Holman: Thank you. Mark Shull to be followed by Rachel Kellerman.
Mark Situll: Thank you. My concern is similar. This just seems like at the
eleventh hour, just before where the City Council is asked to vote on a
measure, an agreement, we find out indirectly as citizens. It reminds me of
something that's happened to Palo Alto over the last couple of years, over
the last year. In April of 2014, the City received a letter, Jim Keene, from
the FAA that said we're establishing updated arrival routes and/or fixes to the EA, which is environmental assessment airports. Aircraft bound for
those airports would use optimized procedures to transition from high
altitude route to an existing route. The implementation is not anticipated to
increase the number of aircraft operations. Guess what happened? Over 54
percent of all flights now go over Palo Alto. They didn't. They now fly 4,000 feet. They established a new arrival route. They said no new routes, but
they did. We're now—the way the FAA has basically designed this is they
have said that there's less noise. The way they get to less noise is they
concentrated all the routes, all the noise into one location. Guess what?
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Palo Alto is that sacrificial noise corridor. It does concern me that being
burned once, we're going to rush into something at the Palo Alto Airport
without notice to citizens. Perhaps you know all the details of what's going
on. I read the agreement. I have a lot of questions about details. Are we
going to get another Surf Air? What can come in under this agreement? We
need to know that. I'd like to encourage the City Council to pay a lot more
attention to air noise, what the FAA is doing, what air operators are doing.
Cities in San Mateo County have done this for a long term. They've created
a roundtable and, over the years, basically—the data shows this—traffic has
migrated from those locations. They have a net reduction in traffic. We
have a dramatic net increase. The City needs to basically take this on, do
what the cities of San Mateo County have done, basically focus more on the
serious implications of what can happen. That's not only what's happening
with the new routes into San Francisco Airport that are overhead, but the potential for what could happen in the Palo Alto Airport if basically
agreements are rushed into. Lastly, I'd like to ask the City to give us as
citizens more notice and information early in terms of what is being
considered. Thank you very much.
Mayor Holman: Thank you. Rachel Kellerman to be followed by our final
speaker on this item, Stewart Carl.
Rachel Kellerman: Mayor Holman, Council, City Staff. On a positive notice,
I'm going to veer a minute off topic to give my great thanks to City Staff and
Council, especially Khash and Council Member Filseth, for working with
citizens to engage an intractable FAA and demand that they redesign our
airspace so that it is safe, efficient, and does not concentrate noise and
pollution in unhealthy ways. There was an exciting new development today.
The FAA finally responded, but there is much more work to be done before
we have healthier skies. Some good news. However, this ongoing next gen
FAA wicked problem should teach us how important transparency and
engaging stakeholders is in planning for aviation change. I'm very
concerned that by adopting these minimum airport standards without full
environmental and stakeholder review, that the airport may take on an
operator that will add pollution and noise to our already toxic airspace. Once an airport vendor is allowed access, it will be very difficult to evict them.
You have only to look north to the San Carlos Airport to see evidence of
communities struggling with airport noise due to the air taxi, Surf Air. So
far, these communities have been unable to find any relief from the constant
noise and air pollution caused by this commercial enterprise. What is the rush? The airport has been working for a year now with no minimum
standards. Why not wait until this gentleman says there's going to be
comprehensive standards with stakeholders? Why not do that now?
Because there was little community input aside from airport stakeholders
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when the City took over the airport, I am wary of these minimum standards
also put forward without citizen review and request that if they are adopted,
they are adopted along with a firm timeline for forming an inclusive citizen
airport advisory committee to create standards that comply with FAA rules
but also comply with the Palo Alto Master Plan. The Palo Alto Master Plan
should specifically guard our citizens and our natural resources from the
noise and pollution caused by increases in aviation traffic. We know the FAA
is a powerful Federal agency, but our City has power too. The City should
employ legal counsel that are foremost experts in this complicated field of
law on all levels, local, State and Federal. It should demand that its
lobbyists weigh in on these matters on a regular basis. It should model
what a regional aviation stakeholder body looks like and form such a body
for its own airport as soon as possible. We can leave a legacy of balancing
progress with peace and health on this issue, but it will take a lot of teamwork and perseverance. Thank you for your time.
Mayor Holman: Thank you for coming. Our final speaker this evening on
this item is Stewart Carl.
Stewart Carl: Good evening, Council. It seems like we're always talking
about airports really late at night. I checked my iPhone earlier today, and
it's exactly—not exactly—three years and one month since I first came to
the Council and warned them of a dramatic increase in aircraft noise over
Palo Alto. In those three years, one thing that I've learned is that airport
improvement grants are one of the kind of strings holding this fragile,
dysfunctional, broken FAA airport aviation industry complex together. How
do they work? The FAA has access to Federal money that comes from our
Federal taxes that we all pay. The FAA uses those tax money that we pay to
essentially buy control of airports from local governments using contract law
to supersede local governance of the airport. How does that work? When
Palo Alto signs an airport improvement grant with the FAA, it turns over a lot
of its responsibility for managing the airport to the FAA in a lot of important
areas. It doesn't just turn over its ability to regulate and manage the airport
for this Council. Because the airport improvement grants tend to have
anywhere from a 20 to a 25-year life, it actually precludes any future Council for the next 20 years from being able to effectively regulate the airport. I
would encourage—it also undermines the Council's ability and the City's
ability to negotiate with the FAA when essentially the City is cooperating and
participating in this kind of broken system. It undermines your credibility
when the City petitions the FAA for changes. Sorry, I wasn't able to prepare; I'm just speaking extemporaneously tonight. I think that's all I
have to say. Thank you for considering my thoughts.
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Mayor Holman: Thank you. Does City Staff or City Attorney have any
comments to make in response to speakers? City Attorney, you have your
light on.
Molly Stump, City Attorney: Maybe I will say a few things. First of all, the
Staff certainly agrees and we hope it was clear in the Staff Report that a full
stakeholder-involved process is appropriate and needed. It’s a priority to
begin that in 2016. If Council as part of its Motion tonight wants to direct
the Staff to specifically include a process that would structure the
involvement of community stakeholders as well as be an open process that
everyone can participate in, we're completely comfortable with that. That's
totally appropriate. Just to respond briefly. The minimum standards that
are before you tonight do not enable or promote any leasing or commercial
activity that would not otherwise occur. The fact is that right now there are
not minimum standards or a threshold or a floor of requirements in place. That doesn't mean that leasing and commercial activity can't go forward. It
could go forward. It would go forward in an appropriate case without those
uniform protective standards in place. We think it's advantageous to all to
put those in place on an interim basis subject to a community-involved
process that will take place next year. Happy to answer any further
questions.
James Keene, City Manager: I would just add obviously the item that we're
dealing with tonight pertains to the Palo Alto Airport. Although, it gets
aligned with and nested within, in many ways, the larger regional difficulty
and challenge we have mostly with air traffic going into SFO but also coming
out, and San Jose also. Not the subject for tonight exactly.
Mayor Holman: Understood. Council Member Kniss. I think on this item we
can entertain questions, comments and Motions. Council Member Kniss.
Council Member Kniss: I'm going to start with a Motion which recommends
the Staff recommendation which is "1" and "2," which I'm glad to read out
loud, but should include a "3" that includes the stakeholders as we move
toward a permanent standard to be in place at the airport.
Council Member DuBois: Second.
Mayor Holman: Seconded by Council Member Filseth.
MOTION: Council Member Kniss moved, seconded by Council Member
Filseth to:
A. Adopt a Resolution approving and adopting the Interim Minimum
Standards and Leasing Policies for the Palo Alto Airport; and
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B. Adopt a Resolution amending the Airport Fee Schedule to update the
fees to reflect the transfer of Palo Alto Airport operations to the City of
Palo Alto; and
C. Include discussions with stakeholders as we move towards permanent
Minimum Standards.
Mayor Holman: Would you care to speak to your Motion?
Council Member Kniss: Several seconds I think. First of all, let me just say
that it's troubling to hear that the County didn't do what they were supposed
to do. However, having served there for 12 years, I guarantee you for 12
years we tried to give the airport back to Palo Alto. It took a long time to do
it. You sounded enthused initially, but you kind of lost your ardor along the
way. I remember the first time I voted on it was '05 or '06. I think airports
and air has become far more of a pressing issue now, especially that we
have the new next gen in place that is so distressing. We hear from the neighbors all the time. We hear from any number of stakeholders. Thank
you, Eric, for following this and going to the airport and observing what
actually is happening. We're not seeing any easy answer right away. I think
as we get into this, we need to think really carefully about the stakeholders,
about what this may open up as the airport begins to expand. I know I've
heard in particular from people—somebody mentioned it tonight—that Surf
Air can be an issue. I think we need to be cautious as we move forward, but
I'm very mindful of our County Council urging us to at least move toward the
interim minimum standards. That's it. Pardon?
Male: (inaudible).
Council Member Kniss: Is that the Motion?
Male: (inaudible).
Council Member Kniss: Sorry, Molly. Clearly I was a bit surprised by the
County seemingly dismissing you.
Mayor Holman: A question for the maker of the Motion. I sort of think "C"
was to create a stakeholder group. It says to include discussions with
stakeholders. I think it was to create a stakeholder group, was what I wrote
down.
Council Member Kniss: It can be either way, to be honest. We can establish the stakeholder group. What I had said was include the stakeholders.
Either way.
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Ms. Stump: Madam Mayor, we might appreciate the more general
statement, because there will be a consultant coming onboard to assist the
airport. We should probably hear from those experts about exactly how to
structure it. We fully understand that the Council wants full participation by
neighbors and interested stakeholders.
Mayor Holman: Very good. Council Member Filseth, speak to your second.
Council Member Filseth: I thought it was pretty clear that Council Member
Kniss made a Motion, not a "D" Motion. I just had one question. If we
proceed and adopt this, when does the interim ordinance go into effect?
Mr. Sartor: Please ask your question again, Council Member.
Council Member Filseth: When would the ordinance go into effect?
Mr. Keene: The resolution.
Council Member Filseth: As a resolution. Then the City would come back
with an ordinance.
Ms. Stump: You would adopt the minimum standards by resolution.
Resolutions generally go into effect right away; however, this is a fine point
of municipal law. In the event that some citizen group or a number of
citizens were interested in circulating a referendum petition, we would
advise to allow that same 30-day period that applies to an ordinance.
Council Member Filseth: I'm surprised the County hadn't done this already.
I think it's high time we did it. We should do it.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Wolbach.
Council Member Wolbach: I actually just wanted to mention a couple of
things in recognition of the comments that we heard from the public.
Actually I think one of the speakers referenced it, but I want to make sure
it's really clear. Regarding the airport noise issue that we already suffer in
Palo Alto, Council Member Filseth and City Staff have been working very
diligently on this. We are very focused on that. I appreciate you're also
paying attention to it. Thanks for continuing to not just to keep working on
that. I know that Council Member Filseth and Staff are doing their best on
that issue. As far as the concerns that these standards might be too low,
something is better than nothing. I definitely want to make sure we're
careful not to overshoot when it's an interim ordinance. Because we haven't had the opportunity to go through that extensive stakeholder input process,
I don't think that now is the time to be adopting very, very stringent
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standards. Having something in place, some interim standards in place,
actually provides some level of protection for our community, for our airport.
As was acknowledged, I think, before, the County should have done a long
time ago. Part of the fun of getting to run an airport is we're still figuring
out what do we need to do, what can we do better. I think this is yet
another example of how having the Palo Alto Airport under the management
of the City of Palo Alto is a benefit and will have long-term beneficial impacts
for the community. I appreciate all of the input from the community that we
heard tonight. I think the purpose of this interim measure is to pursue those
goals that the community has. I'll be supporting the Motion.
Mayor Holman: I don't see any other lights. I hope that—first, thanks to
the members of the public. Appreciate the concerns and hope it's clear that
this actually raises the floor. We'll be having a further discussion about this
item in the upcoming period. With that, the Motion on the floor is to adopt a resolution approving and adopting the interim minimum standards and
leasing policies for the Palo Alto Airport; and (b) adopt a resolution
amending the airport fee schedule to update the fees to reflect the transfer
of Palo Alto Airport operations to the City of Palo Alto; and (c) to include
discussions with stakeholders as we move towards permanent minimum
standards. Vote on the board please. That passes unanimously. Thank
you, Council Members.
MOTION PASSED: 9-0
Council Member Kniss: Mayor Holman, could I ask one question of Mike?
Mayor Holman: Council Member Kniss.
Council Member Kniss: Mike, before you go, may I ask you one question?
Mr. Sartor?
Mayor Holman: Mike? Mike? Mike?
Council Member Kniss: Could you give us a report at some point about
whether or not the airport is actually self-sustaining?
Mr. Sartor: Yes. We plan to bring an update back to Council early next year
on the status of the airport, including revenues and expenditures and where
we're heading.
Council Member Kniss: Thank you.
Inter-Governmental Legislative Affairs
None.
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Council Member Questions, Comments and Announcements
Mayor Holman: That takes us to—unless there's any Legislative Affairs to be
reported—Council Member Questions, Comments and Announcements.
Council Members? Council Member DuBois.
Council Member DuBois: I was attending a conference on municipal
broadband today and tomorrow. It's very interesting. It's also on
telemedicine, telelearning and library support. The former governor of
Illinois spoke today. He was very interesting; he's a big supporter of public
broadband.
Mayor Holman: Council Member Kniss.
Council Member Kniss: I'll go to Sacramento part of Wednesday and
Thursday to be part of their orientation for new presidents of the Peninsula
Division of the League of California Cities. I'll bring you a direct report.
Mayor Holman: Any other Council Members before we go to Council Member
Wolbach?
Council Member Wolbach: Two things on looking at the regional jobs-
housing imbalance. Mountain View is proposing, I think, over 7,000 housing
units for the North Bayshore area, which is an important development
towards addressing our regional jobs-housing imbalance. Unfortunately, on
the flip side, the City of Santa Clara is looking to redevelop their golf course
to be—I wish I could remember the numbers. I want to say it's about
30,000 jobs and only a handful of thousands of housing units. Far, far more
jobs than housing, if that moves forward. That was being discussed at the
VTA Policy Advisory Board recently.
Mayor Holman: I think your number of jobs is quite low, what's being
proposed. We can come back to that another time.
Council Member Wolbach: I think it was in the tens of thousands and
started with at least a two or a three.
Mayor Holman: You had another—you wanted to adjourn the meeting in
recognition of ...
Council Member Wolbach: I would ask that the Mayor, that we adjourn the
meeting in recognition of people around the world who have died as the
result of terrorism recently in a number of countries notably, but certainly not limited to, Paris, France.
Mayor Holman: With that, meeting adjourned.
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Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned in recognition of people around
the world who have died as the result of terrorism, particularly, but not
limited to those in Paris, France at 11:04 P.M.