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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016-02-23 City Council Summary MinutesCITY OF PALO ALTO CITY COUNCIL TRANSCRIPT Page 1 of 66 Special Meeting February 23, 2016 The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council Chambers at 3:05 P.M. Present: DuBois, Filseth, Kniss, Schmid, Wolbach Absent: Berman, Burt, Holman, Scharff Council Member Kniss: Aren't they (crosstalk)? Beth Minor, City Clerk: They are all recused from this item due to living within that area. Oral Communications Council Member Schmid: First item of business as it is of every meeting of the City Council is Oral Communication. It's an opportunity for anyone in the public to address the Council on an item not on the Agenda. We have two speakers limited to three minutes each. First speaker is Tom Shannon. Welcome. Tom Shannon: Good afternoon, Council Members. I am Tom Shannon, and I live at 256 Kellogg Avenue, directly across the street from Castilleja School. I've lived there for 27 years, and I've been a resident of Palo Alto for 36 years. I come before the Council to talk about traffic and parking issues that plague my Castilleja neighborhood and Castilleja's recent disclosure that they want to increase their enrollment to 540 students. That's 125 more than currently allowed under their Conditional Use Permit (CUP) and 30 percent, the largest ever proposed. We, the neighborhood, bear the brunt of traffic generated by Castilleja students, staff and visitors. We also have recently experienced spillover from Professorville of employees seeking on-street parking that does not require a permit. Note that Castilleja is both a middle school and a high school where juniors and seniors, staff and visitors drive to school and park on neighborhood streets surrounding the school not just five days a week but seven days a week, mornings, afternoons and evenings. We are seeking the Council's help and support to curb these negative impacts. While we appreciate Castilleja's mission to deliver a top-notch, I repeat top-notch, education to young women, we ask the Council to deny approval of an enrollment increase TRANSCRIPT Page 2 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 beyond the current cap of 415 for the following reasons. One, the City's directive in 2000 to limit enrollment. In 2000 traffic and parking congestion were already beyond intolerable. John Lusardi, then Planning Director, was very aware of the unacceptable situation and wrote in his CUP approval letter the following: "[t]he purpose of this letter is to inform Castilleja that the approved Conditional Use Permit does not provide for any increase in students over 415 and that any subsequent request for additional students will not be favorably looked upon by the City." Castilleja chose to violate this cap of 415 immediately after the CUP's approval in 2000. Two, dormitories. When most of us purchased our home, Castilleja was a boarding school with dormitories. In 1995, they closed the dorms and became a day school. No Impact Study was done to show the negative effects the dorm closure had on the neighborhood. Shifting to a day-use school significantly changed the school operations with increased traffic, a monopoly of on-street parking, and diminished quality of life for residents. Three, parcel too small. The enrollment is maxed at 415 given the small, six-acre parcel of land used to house both a middle school and a high school. Four, no longer a Conditional Use. Castilleja's operations and negative impacts on the neighborhood no longer satisfy the City's definition of a conditional use per the Palo Alto Municipal Code. Five, the history. In conclusion, many neighbors including myself cannot find justification to grant Castilleja an enrollment increase given all the negative impacts, traffic, parking and never-ending afterschool and nighttime events that are thrust upon us. Not to mention that the school has exceeded the existing enrollment cap for the last 16 years, and to this day continues to be in violation of its CUP by enrolling more than 415 students. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Mr. Shannon: Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Council Member Schmid: Thanks very much. I would just note that since the item is not on the agenda, the Council cannot respond. Second speaker is Sea Reddy. Good afternoon. Sea Reddy: Good afternoon. Thank you, Vice Mayor. Thank you for the time you've given me. I live in College Terrace, a beautiful community off of Palo Alto. We all like what we see there. There is a Starbucks there, just to give an example, in the corner on 2000 El Camino Real. Invariably every day, seven days of the week, I go pick up trash that people leave over early in the morning, 6:30, 7:00. I use that as an exercise program before I go to Equinox. Why do I need to tolerate that? We don't need to. I think we need to have an Ordinance that second time people that do that stuff— there's a trash can right there. It's visible, but they leave stuff on the floor. TRANSCRIPT Page 3 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 There is cigarettes, there is this. It looks like more the country that I come from. It's improving actually there. We don't need to put up with it. I think we need to punish them with a nice fine ticket for $500, second time offense. I think you need to look into that. I'm going to expand this request to the 24th District Assembly, but I plan to also encourage our sister communities not to allow this trash in this area. The second thing is I go to a chiropractor here on University Avenue. They tell me that the workers do not have a way to park for six hours or seven hours. They have to every two hours go and check their parking permit. For a city like Palo Alto, we are gifted to have all this tax money, this and that. I think we should have free parking for the employees that work their service. There is absolutely no need for them to need to go every two hours and change the parking permits and check on it. It just adds more stress to them, more blood pressure, more medicine. Imagine, they're all working nicely. We all will be benefited. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. I have no other speakers for Oral Communication. Consent Calendar Council Member Schmid: We move to item Number One, Consent Calendar. Tom. Council Member DuBois I'd like to actually propose we switch the Agenda around and consider the Consent Item after Item Two. I think they're tied together, and my support of Item One kind of depends on the conversation in Item Two. Council Member Schmid: I'm willing to second that. I believe we need three members. Council Member Kniss: I don't know what you mean. Council Member Schmid: To pull or to change the Agenda. Council Member Kniss: I think we'd have to ask Molly with five of us. Council Member Schmid: Can the item be switched on the Consent Calendar to later in the Agenda? Molly Stump, City Attorney: I'm pausing because in my five years of working with you, we've never taken the Consent Calendar after the Action Calendar. Your rules and procedures do provide for three to pull an item from Consent and place it on Action. To switch the Agenda order, I think, TRANSCRIPT Page 4 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 could be done on a majority vote of the Council Members present. I think you need three votes to make that switch. Council Member Schmid: There's been a request by one Council Member to put Item One after item Two. Council Member Kniss: Could I speak to it? Council Member Schmid: Yes. Council Member Kniss: Tom, I'm sympathetic to it, and I understand where you're going with it. I'm concerned, though, this has been posted. I'm going to guess everyone in here knows which item is going to come first and which is going to come second. Do you anticipate that Number One is so dependent on Number Two you can switch them easily? Council Member DuBois: Yeah. I don't want to necessarily vote against Item 1. If we switch it, that would allow it to pass later today. Council Member Kniss: All right. Ms. Stump: Council Members, could I perhaps clarify for you? Both items are related to the Residential Parking Program (RPP). The Consent Item is an adjustment to the Citywide ordinance. It adjusts the process. It doesn't provide for any specific outcomes for the Downtown-related RPP. I'm not sure that's clear to everyone. If Council is more comfortable taking all the items up together, calling them essentially together as action and having the full ability to discuss them, I don't think that that's controversial or shouldn't impede you in any way. Council Member Schmid: I guess that might deal with the issue. We can move the items together. Council Members can call (crosstalk). Council Member Kniss: Thank you. I think that makes more sense. Otherwise, I'm concerned that those who have taken all the time to be here today may find that this is somewhat puzzling. Now, what you're saying is these two will be discussed at the same time and spoken to at the same time. Greg, correct? Council Member Schmid: Yes. Council Member Kniss: If you ask to speak, you're going to speak to Items One and Two together. At this time Council heard Agenda Items One and Two concurrently. TRANSCRIPT Page 5 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Action Items 1. Ordinance 5380 Entitled, “Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo Alto to add Section 10.50.085 (Eligibility Areas) and to Amend Section 10.50.090 (Modification or Termination of Districts) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code Relating to Residential Parking Programs (FIRST READING: February 1, 2016 PASSED: 5-0 Berman, Burt, Holman, Scharff absent).” 2. Resolution 9577 Entitled, “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Amending Resolution 9473 to Implement Phase 2 of the Downtown Residential Preferential Parking District Pilot Program (Continued from February 8, 2016).” Following random selection on February 1, 2016, pursuant to California Code of Regulations Section 18705 (Legally Required Participation), Council Member Filseth will participate in this Agenda Item. Council Member Schmid: We have on the Agenda a Staff Report, a number of people of who want to address the two issues, and then Council needs to act in unanimity on any Motion that passed. Shall we start with Staff? My recommendation is we then go to the public, and then come back to Council. Planning Director, do you want to kick it off? Jessica Sullivan, Transportation Planning Manager: Good afternoon, everyone. It's great to be here at 3:00 and not midnight. Staff does have a presentation. This item is a continuation from February 1st. We're going through some details of the implementation of the Phase Two Downtown RPP District, specifically looking closely at the updated boundary we're proposing that would include some newly annexed areas; discussion around the employee permit cap that's being proposed, as well as reducing the number of employee permits that are sold over time; the strategy around the parking zones that we're proposing; and then the prioritization for employee permits and how the daily permits are sold. Before we do that, I did want to just sort of take a quick step back and remind the Council that the RPP program in our Downtown is really foundational to our whole parking management strategy for Downtown. You remember the three-legged stool that we've been talking about for a few years now. All of the programs you see on this slide are really critical to our efforts to improve quality of life in Downtown, reduce single occupant vehicle travel, and make the neighborhoods better places for everyone. In a few weeks, our Transportation Management Association (TMA) Board will be presenting to you some of the first TransitPass Programs that they're going to be proposing as part of their newly formed organizational status. We're also TRANSCRIPT Page 6 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 going to be bringing a hugely expanded shuttle program for your review and consideration. We're about to kick off our paid parking study for the Downtown. Remember that all of these efforts are part of the three-legged stool, the three-pronged approach including parking management, the Transportation Demand Reduction Programs, and parking supply. More specifically, the reminder that what we're really trying to do here is to reduce single occupant vehicle trips. If any of you went to Richard Willson's talk last year, he spoke very specifically about the importance of parking management and specifically RPP as a way to really create the foundation for these programs. Just with that context, we are talking about details today. These details really do matter in making our program effective. I'm going to hand this over now to Sue-Ellen Atkinson who is our parking and Transportation Demand Management (TDM) lead for the City to go through the details of the Staff proposal. Sue-Ellen Atkinson, Parking Operations Lead: Hi, good afternoon. As Jessica mentioned, this is a continuation of our meeting with you in the wee hours on February 1st. I've brought back the Downtown RPP Resolution that, as noted, does only affect the Downtown RPP District. The Resolution includes the updated RPP boundary that has not changed since the February 1st recommendation. It includes the annexed streets. Those are streets that have already submitted full petitions to Staff to be included in the Downtown RPP District. It also includes a recommendation to approve eligibility areas for optional future opting into the Downtown RPP program. Again, the annexed streets have already expressed an interest and submitted full petitions, and they are asking for assistance and relief from parking intrusion. The eligibility areas are optional areas that can opt-in through an administrative process in the future. Per Council direction, we've included a limit of 2,000 annual employee permits in the Downtown Resolution. Per direction on February 1st, we've also included a mechanism to reduce those employee permits annually. We have included a mechanism in there to divide and distribute employee parking throughout the Downtown RPP District by employee parking zones. Those are the ten zones that are mapped through the District. Also, based on direction from Council on February 1st, we've included a limit on the daily employee permits. Those are the $5 what we call scratcher permits. We've included a limit on those and a mechanism for prioritizing employee permits. If you remember, this is the updated Phase Two boundary. None of this information has changed since we were last here. We have the original Downtown RPP District, and then we have about a dozen yellow dotted lines that are those streets that have submitted full petitions to be annexed immediately into the Downtown RPP District, because they're currently experiencing parking intrusion. If approved, signs will be installed on those streets, and those residents will be eligible for RPP permits. The blue areas are those proposed eligibility areas TRANSCRIPT Page 7 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 that would be approved for future inclusion if the residents so desire. That would be done through an administrative petition and survey process. The employee parking zones are also the same as when we were here last. Ten zones, looking more at a horizontal distribution that includes basically both sides of the block face in one zone to avoid confusion and to help with enforcement. The resident permits would be valid throughout the Downtown RPP Zone, and employees would purchase an annual permit for a specific zone. The annual employee permit limit is that cap of 2,000 employee permits directed by Council, distributed throughout those ten Downtown Zones. These numbers were based on the available on-street parking spaces and keep an average occupancy rate throughout all of those zones. In response to Council direction from February 1st, we've included a mechanism proposing employee permit reduction over time in the Downtown RPP District. For this year, starting with the employee permit cap of 2,000 annual employee permits, reducing those long-term permits over time, over about 10 years, and removing approximately 10 percent or roughly 200 permits annually. Staff's proposal is to reduce the permits from the outside of the District inward. The first reduction in permits would occur in the outer zones, and then move inward annually. The Downtown RPP Resolution in providing for that proposed annual permit reduction does specify that it would be approximately 200 permits per year based on data analysis and occupancy counts. I just wanted to take a moment to go through the data collection that Staff is setting up throughout this first year. That would be mirrored in subsequent years, scheduling a data collection firm to be on- street once monthly, roughly five times between now and December. That data will help to inform both the permit allocation by zone and also the annual reduction recommendations. Just remembering through all steps of the process that Phase Two is still part of the pilot, and that we're using both this quantitative and qualitative data and feedback to help us determine if it's working. If it's not, how we can adjust things moving forward. Looking at Phase One permit sales, in terms of total employee annual permit sales, we're at about 1,600 permits right now, roughly equally split between standard price permits and reduced price permits. Starting in August, about 1,000 employee daily permits have been sold. In terms of resident permits, there are about 4,300 permits that have been obtained by residents in Phase One. That's from August through last week essentially. In looking at the total universe of employee parking, I suppose, and in keeping with what Jessica reminded us of in terms of the three-legged stool, RPP is just one program in terms of parking and transportation in Palo Alto. I wanted to present data as of last week regarding the Downtown garage permits. Downtown lots and garages are another option for employees to be parking. There are about 3,000 permits that are available throughout the Downtown lots and garages. As of last week, between available permits, primarily in Cowper-Webster, there is still a number of permits available, a few in the TRANSCRIPT Page 8 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Bryant-Lytton Garage. Also, with the approved valet assist program that's currently operational in the Bryant-Lytton Garage and approved but not yet implemented for Cowper-Webster and Civic Center, we have about 300 spaces for vehicles in the Downtown garages right now. Just keeping in mind that it's not just RPP permits that provide options for employee parking, but that there is capacity in the Downtown garages (inaudible). Part of our ongoing communications efforts to residents and employees include options for parking and transportation in and around Downtown. In terms of employee parking, we plan to include the Downtown lots and garages in the communication to potential permit holders, making sure that they know that their options include the Downtown lots and garages if they're in the Parking Assessment District and eligible for those permits. They may also take advantage of other transportation options like transit, carpool, bike, and walking and then also include any relevant TMA activities that would apply. Just more of a robust communications and outreach strategy to make sure that people are aware of all of their options and to try to get folks parking in the places where they can. Permit types for Phase Two are generally the same as when we were last here. Residents would have an annual decal that is vehicle specific, that would be affixed to their rear window. They'd be limited to four per household. The first is free of charge, and they may purchase up to three additional at $50 each. They may also purchase up to two transferable guest hangtags. Those are meant for frequent visitors or household employees including caretakers, childcare providers, etc. Those are $50 each. Up to 50 daily scratchers per household annually. Employee permits are all zone specific. The annual decal, either standard or reduced price, would look the same and would have a specific zone on it. Employees would purchase their permit for that specific zone. The transferable hangtags are for employer purchase only, mainly aimed at shift workers. Someone in the morning can use it, and then exchange it for someone in the afternoon to use. Alternatively, if an employer has a number of folks who ride their bikes or take the train or carpool who occasionally need to park, they can also share that transferable hangtag. The daily scratcher, the revision based on Council feedback and direction February 1st is that daily scratchers would be available only for employee purchase. Those daily parking permits, the month, the day can be scratched off and hung from the rearview mirror. Only employees can purchase those. Staff is proposing a limit of four per month or an employee may purchase a five day scratcher which allows them to park up to five days in one month. Again, only employees may purchase that, and only one may be purchased per month. Both the daily parking permit and the five day scratcher would also be zone specific and would be assigned randomly. An employee would purchase a daily scratcher from the website, and they would be mailed one at random. They would not be selecting what zone they're purchasing in for the daily and the fiveday scratchers. Scratchers are available to employees TRANSCRIPT Page 9 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 only. Employers would not have access to the daily or the five day scratchers. Employees are limited to four daily scratchers, or they may buy a fiveday scratcher each month. Both are sold randomly and would be mailed a scratcher that is eligible for a specific zone at random. Both daily and five day scratchers would not be available for purchase in Zones 9 and 10 which are the outer zones of the proposed boundary. In conclusion the Staff recommendation is to adopt the Resolution before you; since we've combined these, to adopt the Citywide Ordinance on the second reading. Also just relatedly, there is a late request from Addison Elementary School regarding staff parking permits and a letter both to Staff and to City Council. Staff has provided information regarding Transportation Demand Management or TDM measures to the school. We're more than happy to discuss options for the employee commute including research that shows the best options that are available particularly for elementary school commutes. Given the late nature of that request, we don't have a particular Staff recommendation at this time regarding that request. Thank you very much for your time. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. I think it would be appropriate next to go to the public. I know this is an item of key concern, and key input comes from the public. I have about 50 cards. If anyone has not given a card and wants to speak, if you could get a notice from the Clerk and fill it out. I'd like to limit comments to two minutes. Each one of you is important, and we want to make sure everybody has a chance to address the Council. Council Member Kniss: A point of information, Mr. Chair. The pilot aspect of this, which we have mentioned now several times, is included in which documentation that we got today? Ms. Sullivan: The Resolution. Council Member Kniss: In the Resolution itself? Ms. Sullivan: Yes. Council Member Kniss: As I read it, it says will be evaluated one year from whenever we actually implement it, correct? Ms. Sullivan: That's correct. We will come back. Council Member Kniss: It will be implemented by another Council another year. Yes is the answer. Ms. Sullivan: Yes. TRANSCRIPT Page 10 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Council Member Kniss: Sorry. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: For two minutes, I'm taking first the people who identified Item Number One to speak to. Eric Gordon is first, to be followed by Eileen Skrabutenas. Welcome. Eric Gordon: Good afternoon. I'm not a politician. I didn't know what to put down there. There wasn't anything up front to guide me. I'm 70 years old; I've lived in Palo Alto for 24 years, the same house on Channing Avenue. I don't care what happens when I'm 80 and the 2,000 permits go down to 10 percent. I don't care about that. I care about my grandchildren and my children parking in front of my house. I was under the misguided impression that when I voted for you and your predecessors that they would be respective of my wishes, but I find out I have to defend myself against this body who wants to ruin my neighborhood, the way your predecessors ruined the town. I think the timing of this meeting is beneath contempt to exclude so many of the people who live in the neighborhood that this affects. You think about that. That's all I have to say. I'm sure nobody else will say anything remotely related. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. If we could not demonstrate after the speakers, either approval or disapproval, but to respect what they have to say. Second speaker is Eileen Skrabutenas, to be followed by Roman Kagarlitsky. Eileen Skrabutenas: Hello. Eileen Skrabutenas, I live on Hamilton Avenue. I am just outside the new eligibility areas that are included in this ordinance. Could I ask someone to put the map with the new eligibility areas on the screen? That's the map. I'm here to urge Council to direct transportation and Ms. Atkinson to reexamine the boundary for the eligibility area that I believe is ten, specifically due to some concerns about the methodology and the assumptions that were used to add these two new areas. It excludes Hamilton between 1000 and 1100, and it also excludes 500 Chaucer. I was told that the reason for this had to do with the walkability distance between these new areas and Downtown. If you look on the sheet of paper that I have provided to you which I compiled yesterday by getting on my bike and riding around the outer boundaries of these new proposed eligibility areas noting resident addresses, and then going back to Google maps and mapping the distance between the streets that are included in these new eligibility areas, and specifically four addresses on the Chaucer block and on the Hamilton block that were excluded from being included. If walkability distance is a major factor, you will see that you've included streets that are actually further away than Hamilton and Chaucer, specifically the 500 block TRANSCRIPT Page 11 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 and the 1000 to 1100. Please reconsider including those blocks in this ordinance. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Data is always good. Roman Kagarlitsky to be followed by Michael Hodos. Roman Kagarlitsky: First of all, I submitted two cards and only one item. It might be a good idea from the timing point of view, but I suggest Council reconsider because somebody who is (inaudible) I think may break my support for Item Two. Item One, I probably wouldn't support or may support. I think it's really not a good idea to merge them together. I don't know law very well, but I understand that the City Council is supposed to support their constituency. The way it is, it doesn't look like it does. The next thing is, the way I see it, there is a short-term solution to somehow ease the problem. Short term and the long term. In the long term, I think that we should all work together because it's not simple. It's clearly 300 cars is just a joke for the Downtown, 300 parking spaces. Something has to be done. I support Number Two; I don't support Number One. I think if we separate them and probably allow more time for Item Number 1 right now, then probably there will be a way to improve Number One. That's about it. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Michael Hodos, to be followed by Carmina Littlefield. Michael Hodos: My name's Michael Hodos. My wife and I have lived in Professorville for nearly 40 years. I'm also one of the six original RPP stakeholders who worked diligently for two years with our business stakeholder counterparts and the City's Planning Department to develop the current RPP program. Actually, it's quite encouraging to see the widespread interest in the program as we move forward to roll out a Phase Two in April. I just would like to take this opportunity to remind the City Council and those in the audience that of the various elements of the program, the one component most widely supported by both the residents and the business community was to make certain that the lower-wage workers were accommodated by making their permits available at a greatly reduced cost compared to the salaries they earn. I can also state with great confidence that the vast majority of my Professorville neighbors have universally supported these reduced-rate permits from the outset and will continue to support parking accommodations for merchants and lower-wage workers. In fact, I think it's safe to say that both the residents and the businesses recognize and appreciate the central role the lower-wage workers and the merchants for whom they work contribute to the vitality of the community as a whole. We know that Palo Alto wouldn't be the same without them. Thank you. TRANSCRIPT Page 12 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Council Member Schmid: Next speaker is Carmina Littlefield, to be followed by Christian Pease. Carmina Littlefield: Hi. I'm Carmina, and I'm Mr. Hodos' neighbor. For those who are more familiar with Spanish, this is the Spanish translation of what he just said. [Spanish language translation] Thanks. Council Member Schmid: Muchas gracias. Next speaker is Christian Pease. I have three associates, two associates. Christian Pease: Good afternoon. My name's Christian Pease, and I speak today on behalf of the Evergreen Park Residential Parking Permit Program Committee. We're a group who is both pro retail business and working hard to address a growing commuter problem in our neighborhood. With respect to the Downtown Residential Parking program being discussed today, we think it's likely to say that nobody is completely enamored or delighted with it. However, this may actually speak well to the process and compromise that has driven it to where it is today. After years of collaboration and negotiation including between business and residents, it is time to implement this program inclusive of the 2,000 permit cap and 10-year phase-out and move on. Again, we are a neighborhood group, but we know a healthy and prosperous retail business community is essential and beneficial to our civic society as a whole. There is no question that these businesses and their employees deserve reasonable and affordable means of getting to and from work. Yet, as Palo Alto marches forward with development and increasing density and more and more pressure is put on finite public resources, services, and infrastructure, a long-term solution must be found. Residential Parking Programs in themselves are not the answer. Clearly any such solution will be very difficult to reach and to agree amongst very diverse stakeholders. Nevertheless, implementing the Downtown program provides a decade of certainty for all concerned. It also helps concentrate minds on the real solution. Importantly, it will also keep the question of Residential Parking Permits, how many and where, from dominating the difficult process we must engage to answer the private car commuting dilemma we all now face together. Thank you very much for your time. Council Member Schmid: Thank all of you very much. Next speaker is Mary Anne Baker, to be followed by Chop Keenan. Mary Anne Baker: My name is Mary Anne Baker, and I live on Hamilton Avenue in Crescent Park. We signed the petition to include our street in your proposal. At the time, we and most of our neighbors did not know that you would also be selling parking permits to Downtown workers. We TRANSCRIPT Page 13 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 thought we were going to have a two hour neighborhood time limit. Today, I'm angry, but I'm also sad because of the damage being done to our neighborhood. Until recently, we never had a parking problem from Downtown. Now we do, and it is a fabricated problem caused by rampant development without adequate parking and followed by mishandling of what was supposed to be a solution. I am here today to ask you not to approve the sale of non-permit parking in Crescent Park. We are not a part of the Downtown. As I have said, we never had a previous parking problem. At our expense, the Downtown North neighborhood has been given relief from their longstanding parking problems. This solution has driven Downtown workers to our neighborhood. Also, the College Terrace neighborhood has been given permit parking for residents only. At a minimum, we ask that you give that to Crescent Park. Council Member Schmid: Please, no clapping. You're using your time. Ms. Baker: What gives the Council and the City the right to destroy our neighborhood while improving Downtown North and College Terrace? You are arbitrarily favoring some neighborhoods over others, and you are impacting the quality of life and property values which could lead to litigation, something none of us wants. I encourage you to search for better alternatives and solutions. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Please. Next speaker is Chop Keenan, to be followed by Norman Beamer. Chop Keenan: Good afternoon. Chop Keenan. I was on this RPP Committee for the last two years. I've got the lobotomy scars to show. It has been a collaborative process and an iterative process. We're kind of jumping into the unknown. Parking is a very dark science. The cap that is being proposed by Staff appears to have some headroom over what's been issued to nonresidents in the way of permits, I think 1,600 versus 2,000. The cap in and of itself is probably not an issue. The idea that there is an annual reduction was never, ever, ever broached in the two years I've been associated with that Committee. The idea that we're going to start reducing the neighborhood RPP is just out of whole cloth. I associate myself with Michael Hodos on that issue. It has been a collaborative process. We need supply. You can't reduce the supply on the street without having more parking structures. I think it's part of the three-legged stool that doesn't get talked about too much. The Parking District's been very good about building new parking structures, and the City Council committed themselves to a new parking structure. The idea of reducing the RPP maybe can be started at City Hall. You start reducing your permits to your employees. If it's good for the goose, perhaps it's good for the gander. Heck, you guys have TRANSCRIPT Page 14 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 reserved parking spaces for you as City Council Members. Everybody loves their pony. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Norman Beamer, to be followed by Amanda Boyce. Norman Beamer: Chop is in error; the discussion of annual reduction was very much a part of the process, and it was proposed to Council by Staff at the December meeting as a result of the stakeholder process. As I said at the last meeting at a very late hour, at the time I felt that the current proposal was better than nothing. I'm hearing today and I have heard over the last few weeks a lot of people are very unhappy with it. If you go ahead and don't follow my previous plea for a College Terrace-type of arrangement, if you go ahead and allocate nonresident parking to the Crescent Park area, as I understand it, it would fill up one-third of the available spaces in the neighborhood with nonresident parking which are areas that had essentially zero nonresident parking before. This would be totally unacceptable but for the fact that the current proposal mandates a reduction of 200 nonresident permits per year and requires that the reduction come first from the outer districts including Crescent Park. If you go ahead with this proposal—at this late hour, I'm not suggesting that you start over again. By all means, you've got to keep the 200 per year reduction. Now, the commercial interests are trying to backtrack and block the 200 per year reduction requirement. This is ironic given that they are such great cheerleaders for the Transportation Demand Management Program which has an even more ambitious 400 vehicle per year reduction goal. In other forums, they tout the transportation demand program as a solution that would allow for even further development and office expansion. At the same time, they're coming here and saying it won't work. Indeed, it wouldn't work if you don't have that 200 per year reduction mandate. Thanks. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Amanda Boyce, to be followed by Allen Akin. Amanda Boyce: Good afternoon, City Council. My name is Amanda Boyce, and I'm Principal of Addison Elementary School. Addison is located near Downtown Palo Alto between Middlefield, Webster, Addison and Lincoln. Addison was the only elementary school affected by Phase One of the RPP Program. When the school learned about Phase One of the Program a month before it was implemented, the school inquired about free staff permits as we have approximately 60 staff members at Addison School and a parking lot that only holds 17 spots. We were told that the school had to absorb the cost which cost approximately $15,000. The District agreed to TRANSCRIPT Page 15 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 cover the cost during Phase One as the site did not have the available budget. As a neighborhood public school that supports student learning in the Palo Alto community, I request that the staff is exempt from paying for the parking permits if this program continues. I plan to discuss alternate forms of transportation with my staff and recommended TDM measures, but it will take time to explore these options with the staff. As a public school, we cannot afford the ongoing costs, and I would like to see District funding spent on the education of our students instead of parking permits. Please consider our request to issue free permits to the Addison school staff during Phase Two of the Residential Parking Permit Program if it continues. Furthermore, placing a cap or eliminating employee parking will most certainly have a negative impact on the recruitment and maintenance of qualified staff willing to teach the students at Addison Elementary School. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Allen Akin, to be followed by Deborah Weyler. Allen Akin: Good afternoon. I am Allen Akin; I live at the intersection of Lincoln and Waverley in Professorville. My first comment is about the cap on employee permits. We need to fund the TMA, and we need to implement the driving reduction programs that it will define for us. I don't believe that will happen without incentives. The permit limit should be a very effective incentive. Now, we can negotiate the reduction schedule, but to succeed I believe we'll need to commit to some reduction and start it in a timely fashion. Second, I have heard that some employers have chosen not to subsidize parking permits or other transportation for their employees. Given the transportation systems we have now, Downtown is already too dense. Until that imbalance is fixed, some costs of doing business Downtown are going to go up. The cost of getting employees to work is one of those costs. I think all employers are going to have to step up to the plate on this. Finally, please schedule a progress review more quickly than a year from the initiation of Phase Two. Ninety to 120 days would be great. Once we see how things are going, we'll need to talk more about the occupancy rates, about how employee parking is distributed, and whether we need to do anything about two hour re-parking. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Deborah Weyler, to be followed by Eric Beamesderfer. Female: Deborah had to leave (inaudible). Council Member Schmid: Deborah is gone. Thank you. Next speaker then is Eric Beamesderfer, to be followed by Rob Fischer. TRANSCRIPT Page 16 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Eric Beamesderfer: Hi. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this issue today. My name is Eric Beamesderfer from Director of Operations for a restaurant group here with Reposado, the Palo Alto Creamery, and Gravity restaurants here in Downtown. We as an employer were already challenged with staff shortages. Most of our employees need at least two jobs to live in the Bay Area and to raise their families. Although I'm not insensitive, being a homeowner, to the needs of the residential areas, we as a business and the businesses in Downtown, our revenues directly support this community. We spend our dollars in this community. We live a great deal of our time in these communities. As an employer, we're asking for sensitivity to enable our employees to come and earn a reasonable wage to support their families. In terms of alternatives, we encourage public transportation with our employees. It's an ongoing process and will continue. It is part of a solution; we recognize that. However, to reduce and limit the opportunity of our employees who support your community to earn a living wage in this community by reduction of parking and those opportunities for people who require that vehicle to make it to that second job and that opportunity on a timely manner, we ask for you to consider that as it will cause an undue hardship on a significant number of people who do live and work in this community. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Rob Fischer, to be followed by Belinda Brown. Rob Fischer: Good afternoon. My name is Rob Fischer. I also work with Eric. I agree with him as far as limiting or reducing the number of parking permits will definitely put an undue hardship on our employees. I also sat on the RPP parking committee when it first started, with Chop Keenan, and also agree with him and will concur that there was never any mention of reducing the number of permits that would be supplied to employees. We have to look at this and understand that when we make an agreement that we stick to it. When we don't, it doesn't make any sense for us. I just think that we need to really evaluate what we're doing here and realize that we do live in a vibrant community. It's a very successful community; people want to be here and work here and live here. Somehow we have to come to a happy medium where everybody can be happy. I ask that you reconsider this. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Belinda Brown, to be followed by Alma Villalobos. Belinda Brown: Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I just want to support the points that were talked by Mr. Eric and Mr. Robert about reconsider the point of taking away these parking permits for the TRANSCRIPT Page 17 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 employee. We really need these people to run the restaurants in Downtown. We're trying to have that income (inaudible) the community and have the best impact. We're also trying to advise our employees about other sources of how to come to work, public transportation or pooling, also the train, but it will take time. Just for that matter, just to take the reconsideration of removing these permits for the employees. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Alma Villalobos, to be followed by Arufo [phonetic] Hernandez. Alma Villalobos: Hi, good afternoon. My name is Alma; I do work for restaurants from Scratch as well with Eric, Belinda and Rob Fischer. I am one of the managers here at Reposado. I'm here to ask please not to remove the employee discount parking. We do have many employees that come to work here from different areas. They cannot afford living here, close from work. That's it. Thank you for your attention. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Arufo Hernandez to be followed by Barry Hart. Male: (inaudible) Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Barry Hart, to be followed by Christian (crosstalk). Barry Hart: Good afternoon. I'm a resident of Crescent Park. I am opposed to expansion of the permit process. I think the root of the problem is really our laundromats, our restaurants, toy stores, kitchen stores have all become offices. As we pack all these office workers into our former retail spots, these people now want to become stakeholders when they're cannibalizing our Downtown. I'm for low-wage restaurant and retail workers having a place to park, but every time a new office opens and they pack shoulder to shoulder all these workers, it's impossible to keep up with that demand. I offer that expanding the program is not a solution. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Please. Next speaker Christian Carselena [phonetic], to be followed by Nathan Hanley. Christian? Not here. Nathan Hanley to be followed by Canyon [phonetic] Crosby. Nathan. Nathan Hanley: Thank you. I know this is a contentious issue. Kudos to the Staff and Council for working through a difficult challenge. I work at Watercourse Way in Palo Alto. We've been in business for over 30 years in Downtown. I have a colleague at Watercourse Way, Carla, who is an excellent massage therapist. She has helped thousands of people over the years. She's also a wonderful person. She treats others with respect, TRANSCRIPT Page 18 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 kindness and consideration. Carla lives in Santa Cruz, and public transportation is currently not a realistic method for her to get to work every day. I would ask the Council to strive for compromise, to consider people like Carla, and to not eliminate completely parking permits for hardworking Downtown employees as it continues to seek ways to ease parking congestion in the Downtown area. Goals achieved through teamwork are often the most rewarding. Thank you very much. Council Member Schmid: If I could make a last call, if anyone wants to put a speaker card in, do it now. Next speaker is Canyon Crosby, to be followed by Brad Ehikian. Canyon is ... Male: Canyon had to leave. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Brad Ehikian to be followed by Nisha Gabbi. Brad Ehikian: Good afternoon. My name is Brad Ehikian, and I am a partner at Premier Properties. Our firm transacts roughly around 60 leases a year in Downtown Palo Alto, and that's mixed between retail and office. One of the most common questions that we have to field is where do I park. From now, those are pretty much broken into two tranches. The first being the office worker who can afford a permit but are on a waiting list to obtain a garage. The second is a service worker who's just looking for an affordable, long-term solution. Most employees do not live in Downtown and must commute to work. Up to now, the parking options have been the following. One is you obtain a garage permit. Most service workers cannot afford this option. For the employees that can afford the annual permit, the lots are oversold, so the parking stall is not guaranteed. Most employees know if you leave the garage during the day, you don't come back. As of today, I was leaving the office; one of my employees have now told me that they are not able to even access the valet parking. Now he's parking on the street. The second is public transportation. Most people don't live near public transportation which is a logistical nightmare. For daily commuters without employer participation, this is a very expensive option and could add hours to individual commutes. For many workers, this is not a viable solution. Parking in Caltrain's lots for five dollars a day, unfortunately not only is the space limited, the lot fills up by 9:00, but they're taking a spot from Caltrain's commuters who are now forced to go park in the neighborhood. Four, you can park in the garages, like Cowper and Webster, and pay $17 a day. If you're a service worker making $8 and $10 an hour, two hours of your day goes to parking expenses. Again, not a good solution. Five, move your car every two hours, creating congestion and more traffic. Six, obtain a permit through the RPP zone which, now we're hearing, is TRANSCRIPT Page 19 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 limited and is sold out. Now, we're talking about reducing near zero. Again, we need options for our employees, our businesses. We want them to stay. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Mr. Ehikian: Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Next speaker is Nisha Gabbi, to be followed by Steven Hardy. If you could come, second speaker could be ready to speak. Nisha Gabbi: Hello, Council Members. My name's Nisha Gabbi, and I work at Watercourse Way Spa in Palo Alto. I've been asked to read this on behalf of Dr. Brian Quo, who owns Peninsula Pediatric Dentistry located on 882 Emerson. Dr. Quo and his family lives in Palo Alto, and most of his patients are children who live in Palo Alto. Dr. Quo writes: I would like to tell you how reducing employee parking surrounding our business location will affect us and potentially many of the small businesses in Palo Alto. As a business located within the community, as opposed to being in a dedicated medical complex, we have the luxury of being within walking distance from houses and schools. I would say the majority of our patients come from within the surrounding one mile, often riding their bikes, scootering or walking. Public transportation will not work for most of my Staff. If I do not have the ability to have my Staff park close to our office, I have no choice but to look for a new location for my dental practice. Opening a medical office and starting over is a costly endeavor. Not only does employee parking affect our business, but it will also affect our restaurants, grocery stores, hair salons, and other small businesses. This will be the down fall of many small businesses in Downtown Palo Alto. We provide important services to Palo Alto residents, all the while increasing the property value for the residents of Palo Alto. Significantly reducing the parking availability to employees is a bad decision, and one that will chase away many businesses that serve all the people of Palo Alto. Please respect the parking needs of the Palo Alto small businesses. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Steven Hardy, to be followed by Tyler Hanley. Steven Hardy: Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name's Steven Hardy; I live on Fulton Street. I've been there almost 30 years. The compromise that has been reached with the current proposal is, I think, the best that can be done at the moment. I support everything that Norman Beamer especially has said about let's move forward with a cap, a very generous cap in my opinion, but with a goal to solving the problem in a more fundamental way in 10 years from now. This is no longer a Downtown Parking Program. This is the whole City increasingly, it looks like. The TRANSCRIPT Page 20 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 residents of Palo Alto, your constituents, don't want residential areas to be turned into parking lots. I worked in San Francisco for a number of years. I never imagined that the people of San Francisco would provide me with free or subsidized parking; I took public transport. It can't be done, I've heard several people say. I think we have great public transport here in Palo Alto. Crucially, this town is no longer the small town it was where we could let people park on the streets. We need to face up to the fact that we're a city and put in place big city solutions, which means big parking lots up by 101, not parking lots but parking structures, shuttle buses and, yes, a reduction over time in the number of people who have to park on residential streets. Thank you very much. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speakers is Tyler Hanley, to be followed by Susan Nightingale. Tyler Hanley: Hi. I just wanted to urge wisdom and balance in this issue. I'm sure everybody's saying the same thing. I really feel like Section Two is shortsighted. I feel like it's if I went to a doctor with heartburn, they said, "Let's just cut that heart out of there. You'll be okay." I reckon you'd probably get your license revoked for that. I think you really should just take a much more balanced approach and make sure you have a plan for the employees. You have the power to alleviate the problem for the residents, but you also have the power to completely destroy the business district of this town. I hope you just consider that. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Susan nightingale to be followed by Victor Sanchez. Susan Nightingale: Susan Nightingale. I grew up in Palo Alto and have owned and operated Watercourse Way for 36 years. I was a member of the RPP Stakeholder Group and participated in the TMA Steering Committee. I've tried to remain open to the needs and desires of the community members as well as the needs and desires of my employees. In response to one of the speakers, I do subsidize parking permits in the garage when they come available. I am looking forward to the TMA and supporting that in the same way. I think, as Jessica and Sue-Ellen have mentioned, it's always been a three-legged approach to this issue. I don't know how many of you were on the Council when they made that original proposal and plan for parking, but it always included supply. That's something that I haven't heard mentioned. I think it's a really important part of this. We can encourage people to use alternate ways to getting to work, but I think we do also need to encourage building some supply into the picture. I would like to also thank resident Michael Hodos for his comments. I hope you will TRANSCRIPT Page 21 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 reconsider the plan to reduce the number of permits until Phase Two has had a chance to really work. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Victor Sanchez, to be followed by Harris Barton. Is Victor here? Female: (inaudible) Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Harrison Barton to be followed by Thomas Rindfleisch. Harris Barton: Good afternoon. My name's Harris Barton. My wife and I and four kids live in Professorville. We've lived here for close to 20 years in Palo Alto. One thing I really want to do is I want to thank the Council for its quick and crisply moving from Phase One to Phase Two. We were involved in Phase One, and the quality of life on our street has changed dramatically from a parking lot to really more of a neighborhood again. I want to thank the Staff and the Council for implementing the initial policy. I want to make a statement regarding low-wage workers. We are strong believers that they should have a place to park. It's important to our community to have the restaurants and stores, and people that employ them need places to park. Many of the people that have spoken have said that. I also believe the draw-down is critical. If you look through the statement, there's two tiers of draw-down, high-wage employees and low-wage employees. We firmly believe the drawn-down needs to be from the high-wage employees. Better yet, employees with low wages should get free parking. Downtown Palo Alto has become a parking lot for an office complex. We need to get it back to the City we all love and respect. Thank you very much for listening. Again, thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Thomas Rindfleisch, to be followed by Unmesh Sahasrabuddhe. Thomas Rindfleisch: Good afternoon. I'm Tom Rindfleisch across from Eleanor Pardee Park. I've lived in Palo Alto for over 30 years. I addressed you at the midnight meeting, arguing for a resident-only permit system. We seem to be headed down a different path. I wanted to comment on this new path. We all, I think, agree that Palo Alto is an ideal place to live. We're here for a variety of reasons, professional, personal, business. What we want is an ecosystem in which these various aspects of our community thrive. I fear what has happened through a number of unfortunate development decisions in the past is that the ecosystem has gotten out of balance. Last week, I heard—in the February 1st meeting—comments that the number of streets applying for the RPP program gives an indication of the enthusiasm for the community for that program. I think there's an TRANSCRIPT Page 22 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 alternative explanation which is these people are reacting defensively. As we have watched this program, it has grown in random ways. In fact, I would liken it to inoculating yourself with cancer and watching the lesion grow around the margins and metastasize in unpredictable ways. If we are to go with this path of expanding the program and giving commercial employees the opportunity to park in residential communities which have never had that kind of parking, I think we need to be very careful about how that is designed. If we do this and have the 2,000 permits decreasing 200 per year to zero in 10 years, as a manager we need to... Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Mr. Rindfleisch: ... ensure that that happens. It was said that this is an experimental program. Let me just finish one sentence. That seems to me to be inconsistent with the 10-year horizon. I expect as you folks get turned over that we will hear arguments... Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Mr. Rindfleisch: ... for why this program should be delayed, and we'll never get to that end. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Mr. Rindfleisch: I would ask you to add to the Resolution a strong requirement that this move forward concretely. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Next speaker is Unmesh Sahasrabuddhe. Unmesh Sahasrabuddhe: I've lived in Palo Alto for about 17 years. I've lived in the Downtown as well as Crescent Park. When I moved to Downtown, I knew that there was a parking problem. When I moved to Crescent Park, I knew that there was ample parking. In the last six months, parking on our street is practically impossible during daytime. I live on Lytton Avenue between Guinda and Seneca Streets. The City should not have Crescent Park residents bear the brunt of nonresident parking by granting permits to nonresidents. If the public policy goal is to discourage solo car driving and encourage public transportation or alternate means, then you should find solutions that are not burdensome on employees or residents, work with agencies, work with other governments to find solutions for that. If there is no such goal, then mandate all developers to develop ample parking for all the new development that's occurring in the Downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods. Since employer after employer is facing that issue, that they can't do without parking for employees, then maybe just give up on the public policy goal and provide more parking. TRANSCRIPT Page 23 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Don't do half big solutions and have the residents of Crescent Park bear the parking burden for nonresidents. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Ian Irwin, to be followed by Phil Salsbury. Phil, if you could come up. Ian Irwin: Hi. My name is Ian Irwin. I live at the corner of Cowper and Homer Street. I want to commend the work that's been done on the Downtown parking issue. We could not find places to park until this program was put into effect. I understand the next stage will impact seriously on Crescent Park. One hears that we're vibrant. I hear that word. Whenever you hear that word, you've got to watch out because that means the buildings are moving within four feet of the curb, the sidewalks are disappearing, restaurants now put their tables where you walk down the street. Vibrant is a key word for me. I think that one of the problems is that a period of uncontrolled growth has been allowed, much retail and community-serving businesses turning into offices. They pack people in with Costco tables, elbow to elbow, and a bunch of computers. That's what employers do. We hear much of that was justified based on the fact that proximity to public transportation. A lot of parking for new buildings was let go. They said, "(inaudible) public transportation. This will be great. We don't have to have parking. We can under-park the building." That was done, so we're left with a parking problem. I think that in the Downtown residential area it's been very helpful to have the Parking Program. Extending that to Crescent Park seems like it's not right, unless you want to start extending the development to Crescent Park as well too. I would suggest that you stay with what you have. You probably make that a residential-only parking. You've got to solve this problem. It really is a Council-created problem. We've had a bunch of employees who come and say they need help, but this really falls on the employers. The rents are skyrocketing. The businesses are very dense and not really paying a great deal into the revenue of the City. I don't know if there's a business tax. We hear that there's some overflow that helps the City economically, but I really haven't seen that. I think you have to solve the problem. I think burdening the people of Crescent Park is probably not the way to do it. Thanks. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Phil Salsbury, to be followed by Paul Skokowski. Phil Salsbury: My name is Phil Salsbury, and I live in Crescent Park. We have lived there for 38 years. We've raised four sons, all of whom have gone through the Palo Alto public school system. Long-term resident, we love this community, love the neighborhood. I'm also a Block Preparedness Coordinator under the Emergency Services organization here in Palo Alto. TRANSCRIPT Page 24 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Crescent Park like many of the neighborhoods is unique. We look after each other. We look after the neighborhood. We keep the streets clean. We do neighborhood watch. All those things are going to be impacted by nonresidential parking. Coming and going, congestion, litter, safety, security, quality of life, property values, all those things are going to be impacted. When we moved here 38 years ago, we never signed up for that. I think most residents did not either. What you have before you, I think, is already a compromise. A lot of us don't like it but, as Norman Beamer said, it's better than nothing. A key part of that compromise, I think, is the phase-out reduction. I think that's crucial. It keeps the pressure on all of us to look for a better solution. I urge you to keep that in the Resolution. I urge you to look for a more permanent, long-term solution so that we'd not lose the very values that we all love and the reasons we came here years ago. Thank you very much. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Paul Skokowski to be followed by John Guisein. Paul Skokowski: Thank you. My name is Paul Skokowski. Our family lives on Tasso Street in Professorville. We've been there for 25 years. We are in a residential community. I want to point out and our neighbors have agreed on a petition which was circulated actually a couple of years ago that businesses are the cause of the parking problem. Residents are not the cause of the parking problem. We've been there for 25 years; there hasn't been a parking problem until just the past couple of years. Therefore, businesses should pay all costs of parking enforcement and permits and signs. Council Member Schmid: Please, I would again ask no clapping or demonstrations. It disrupts the flow of the meeting. I'm sorry. Mr. Skokowski: I hope you give me some extra time for that. Thank you. Businesses should pay all costs of parking enforcement, permits and signs. Residents should not have to pay for permits. Residential areas should only have residential parking. How do businesses pay? By employee density per square foot of building footprint. Thus, businesses such as Flipboard which are single-story, high density and Palantir which are multi-story and so very high density for its building's footprint would pay more. Whole Foods and also restaurants would pay less because their employee density is less for their footprint. Palo Alto residents, I want you to know that this is our community. Since we are the ones who vote, we will determine who parks in our residential areas. Thank you. TRANSCRIPT Page 25 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Council Member Schmid: Thank you. John Guisein to be followed by Gabe Layton [phonetic]. John Guisein: Good afternoon. My name is John Guisein; I'm a resident of Crescent Park, and I also served on the RPP Stakeholder Group with Michael and Chop. I will tell you I absolutely remember discussing permit sale reduction at multiple stakeholder meetings. That was always part of the residents' request before the plan was put in place. I joined the stakeholder group because, as a Crescent Park resident, I wanted to prevent the problem in Downtown North from coming into Crescent Park. Clearly, I haven't succeeded the way I would like to have succeeded. The program that you have in front of you now is a result of the expansion of commercial parking into an area that never had commercial parking previously. It results in a complexity of ten micro-zones and a dysfunctional allocation scheme that will unfairly distribute parking within those zones. The result is almost a square mile commercial parking lot camouflaged as a residential neighborhood. The result is businesses trying to paint this as a battle between retail workers and residents when nothing could be further from the truth. I entirely support Michael Hodos' statement that every resident at those meetings always was most concerned about the retail workers and make sure they were taken care of. Phase Twoof RPP is far from perfect, but we need a benchmark and a goal to resolve the commercial parking problem in neighborhoods once and for all. I support RPP Phase Two with both a firm limit of no more than 2,000 permits and an annual reduction of no less than 200 permits per year. To be clear, I also support the ability of any neighborhood to demand a College Terrace resident-only parking model if that is their wish. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Gabe Layton to be followed by Mary Dimmit. Megan Barton: Hi. I'm Megan Barton, and I'm actually speaking for Gab Layton. Is that okay? She sent me a text on what to say. Council Member Schmid: Give a card after you speak. Ms. Barton: Perfect. We are strongly in favor of the draw-down. We think it's essential for Phase Two, but strictly with the high-wage earners. It's actually designated as two tiers, high wage, low wage. We were also looking into the legality of actually high-wage permits even being allowed. In the initial RPP, it says that we can designate certain groups, i.e., teachers or low-wage workers, as receiving permits. I don't know that we even have to allow high-wage employees to receive permits. Zone Eight, we live on Lincoln Avenue between Bryant and Waverley which happens to be the bike TRANSCRIPT Page 26 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 path and one of the most dangerous intersections until this RPP went into effect. We often would see bikers nearly getting hit, cars getting hit because the density was so thick in parked cars all day long that you couldn't see who was coming on Bryant Street. It's much better now. I think without the draw-down it will be again. Zone Eight has a larger area than the other zones. I don't think it will be equally distributed permit-wise, so we will once again become the parking lot for the nonresidential parkers. If we could look at resizing and maybe making equal zones, I think that would be very beneficial, especially being on the bike route like we are. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Mary Dimit, to be followed by Pria [phonetic]. Mary Dimit: Could someone bring up the zone map please? Thank you. My name is Mary Dimit. I'm president of a condo association at University and Guinda which is in Zone 10. I've lived there for 30 years. In fact, I moved to work at the City building here to manage the energy services office. I did walk to work from Zone 10. I had three points. The first one is that when I read the revised Resolution, I did not see anything in Section 5C, the language that followed the Council's directive to keep employee parking out of Zones 9 and 10. I did not see that no daily permits will be made available for Zones 9 and 10, and as the number of nonresident permits reduced each year that the reductions would occur in those zones first. Second, currently there are 1,500 employee permits that have been issued. Starting with 2,000 allowed, and then reducing them, which is an increase of 30 percent, over 30 percent, and decreasing them by 200, at least 200, a year should be doable for now. That links into the request that Council evaluate the impact of this program both on employees and on residents before December. I think that's too long to wait, and then have periodic evaluations that can watch that issue of the 2,000 reduction. The third point is previously I've spoken in favor of this Program and how it applies to the entire district. Today, I'm speaking more of how it applies to Zone 10 and 9 in the outlying areas. As the previous speaker mentioned, there are streets within each of the zones that will be affected more than others. Those are the ones closest to the edge of the zone toward Downtown. If you look at the map, the western side of Zone 10 is much closer to Downtown than some of the zones further south. In addition, a lot of the growth in office buildings are on that side. I can't give you a personal (inaudible), but our street of 30 will have 55 cars that are going to be eligible to park because we're the street closest. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Pria, to be followed by Barbara Gross. Pria? Barbara Gross to be followed by Judy Kleinberg. TRANSCRIPT Page 27 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Barbara Gross: Good afternoon, Council Members. I am Barbara Gross. I live in Crescent Park for over 30 years and have worked in the Downtown for over 35 years. The resolution of this topic requires many disciplines of urban planning, taking into consideration quality of life, sustaining the City's financial stability, and the science of traffic and parking management. As a member of the steering committee to form the Transportation Management Association, I participated in a coalition of residents, business people, City Staff, and traffic experts to focus on a single aspect of traffic and parking management. The focus of the TMA is to reduce the number of single occupied vehicles coming into the Downtown. The TMA officially began in January. As a member of the first RPP formation proposal, the same coalition was in place to thrash through the overcrowded parking in the neighborhoods. This format was continued by the City as it took control of the broader resolution. However, the single focus remained the same; reduce the amount of cars parking on the street. When the previous Councils discussed this problem, they used the analogy of a three-legged stool. One of those components was to increase supply, to update technology, and to use other tools such as the RPP, the TMA and so on. When this Council introduced a plan to reduce employee parking permits to zero over a 10-year period without being vetted by stakeholders, it tilts the planning process. I urge you to abandon this isolated idea and continue along the path of representing all stakeholder interests and not put an undue burden on one segment of the community. Please recognize that the landowners in the Downtown district have built the last two garages and are still paying the bonds for those two garages. Progress will be made, but it's slow. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Judy Kleinberg, to be followed by Russ Cohen. Judy Kleinberg: Thank you. I'm speaking on behalf of the Chamber which asks you to delay any modification to the RPP program related to employee permits. To change the program now is premature. Today I want to address why we want you to slow down the process. The business sector participated as a stakeholder in designing Phase One because it's aim is to collect data that can be used to evaluate how the program is working and any changes that are advised. It was a shared streets approach that would benefit both residents and businesses alike, but Phase One isn't over, and we don't have that data, and we don't have any analysis of the data. Let's talk about some of the data we do have. 80 percent of the Downtown employees who park in the neighborhoods work in retail, restaurants or hospitality. Only 20 percent work in offices. To constantly blame offices for the parking problem will not allow us to find a solution. These are the workforce that provide the services that drive retail and the revenue our City TRANSCRIPT Page 28 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 counts on for its General Fund. Ending employee RPP permits will not move one-third of the neighborhood parkers out of the neighborhoods and into the garages after Phase One ends. Many low-income shift and part-time workers simply can't pay or public transit doesn't work for them. You've had testimony about that today. Their parking behavior now indicates that many of their employers aren't going to pay either. The alternatives to street parking, a new garage and a fully functioning TMA, are still only ideas yet to be implemented. It's really a breach of faith to have brought all stakeholders together to design a program that's being dismantled now without consulting all the stakeholders. There's no data-driven rationale for doing that. The Business Sector is, frankly, confused. The retailers are increasingly distressed. You have a letter in front of you signed by 25 Downtown retailers, not counting the ones who came and spoke to you today, whose concerns stem from a lack of parking for their employees and how that will impact their ability to hire employees. If you do this and you don't allow them to have a place for their employees to park, they will be adversely impacted according to the Vehicle Code. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Russ Cohen, followed by Simon Chintz. Russ Cohen: Russ Cohen with the Downtown Association. Let's play Palo Alto myth busters. Myth number one, the business community has been the cause of Downtown's parking problems. Truth is the business community has always been willing to help solve Downtown's parking problems. We have, in fact, paid for the building of parking garages throughout Downtown. We help maintain those garages at a significant cost each year, and the business community has been a member of every City stakeholder group from RPP to TMA and more. Myth number two, rapid office growth has caused the parking demand issues Downtown. Truth is the City's own studies as part of the Downtown Office Cap Study have proven that a large number of office workers take public transit, walk, bike or carpool and rarely drive to work alone. Myth number three, the goal of the TMA is to reduce the parking demands driven by the business community. Truth is the goal of the TMA is to reduce single occupancy vehicle trips by 30 percent, not 400 vehicles. The TMA, while paid for in large part by the business community, will explore ways to move both employees and anyone else who wants to come to Downtown. Myth number four, a reduction in employee parking permits over a period of the next 10 years will give the City time to consider building a parking garage. The Council has had multiple opportunities to begin this process, and they have yet to seize those opportunities. Myth number five, the RPP stakeholders group reached consensus and decided the number of employee permits should be reduced each year for the next 10 years, eventually to zero. Truth is Norm Beamer is in error. The TRANSCRIPT Page 29 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 stakeholders were equally split and no consensus was reached regarding the reduction in employee permits. Myth number six, the Council rarely hears from the business community, so apparently they have no objection to anything we discuss. Truth is frankly there is no good time for a business person to stop and attend a two or three or four hour meeting. Additionally, many in the business community are disenchanted—I'll wrap up—with local government. They've felt that their concerns have not been taken seriously from their opposition to raising the Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT) and more and more and more. One long-time business emailed me regarding this issue and simply said, "To hell with the Council. They don't listen to us." Please listen to us today. Do not reduce the number of employee parking permits in the RPP Zone. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Simon Cintz, to be followed by Malcolm Beasley. Simon Cintz: I am concerned about reducing the availability of employee permits by approximately 200 per year. My name is Simon Cintz; I served on the original stakeholder group as one of the business representatives. Why are you making the decision now, before any experience with Phase Two? If you pass the Resolution as proposed, the first cuts in employee permits will not take place until April of next year. Section 2D of the Resolution requires that it come back to Council this year for approval. The same section grants you the ability to make any changes at that time. The stakeholder group designed a two-phase trial for a reason. Phase Two is intended to be the prototype for the permanent program, giving us valuable information about how the program works before final implementation. It is premature to hardwire annual reductions into the Resolution now without any Phase Two experience. Unintended consequences have not been properly considered. At some point, the demand for permits will exceed supply. What happens to an employee who attempts to renew their permit but finds to their horror that permits are sold out because they have not gotten online within just the first few hours of permit sales? What is this person to do? Public transportation does not work for everyone. What happens to a business owner who typically buys five hangtag permits for their staff workers and then finds the permits are sold out? Do they fire their workers? Do they shut down their business? This is like the rush to buy online tickets to a popular concert. Too late, sorry, all sold out. This is okay with concerts, but it is not okay to leave employees and businesses out in the cold. You cannot do that. Please let Phase Two start as designed by the stakeholder group and then make an informed decision. For those people that claim that the stakeholder group supported fixed reductions, that's absolutely wrong. I attended every meeting before the December 14, TRANSCRIPT Page 30 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 2014 passage of the Resolution by the Council. There was not one stakeholder straw vote in favor of that. If you don't believe me, ask Jessica. Council Member Schmid: Next speaker is Michael Beasley, to be followed by Jeff Austin. Malcolm Beasley: Actually, Michael Beasley is my son. This is Malcolm. It's all right. Members of the Council, my name is Mac Beasley, and I am a 40- year-plus resident of Downtown North. As you may remember, I have spoken to you several times over the past few years about the need to maintain a balance between development and preservation of the quality of our neighborhoods. I'm sure this principle is appreciated by all of you, and it is a cornerstone of the Comprehensive Plan. However, in the past there was no effective process to ensure that this desired balance was consistently examined. Indeed, I believe this is one of the primary reasons, maybe the primary reason, why we have the parking problem we do today. The proposed Phase Two RPP begins to address this parking. Specifically, it caps the total number of nonresident permits to a generous 2,000, and it directs the number of these permits be reduced approximately 200 per year for the next 10 years. Excuse me. This is surely a step in the right direction as it states what the City perceives is needed now and that in the long run this number should be reduced to preserve neighborhood quality. With proper surveys and periodic reexamination of the parking situation in the neighborhoods, there is hope that this proper balance will be established over time as we go forward. I strongly urge the Council to maintain and possibly even strengthen these provisions. Failure to do so will, in my judgment, sow the seeds of yet another crisis in the not so distant future and undermine the Council's mandate to exercise and practice the principles of balance between development and the quality of our neighborhoods that we all want. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Jeff Austin, to be followed by Ben Cintz. Jeff Austin: Good afternoon. My name's Jeff Austin. I live at the corner of Lytton and Seneca. I want to say that I support issuance or creation of the RPP for residents only. The question becomes what's the solution for the commercial workers. It's been my experience that perhaps some type of economic motivation needs to be given to these businesses to force workers to consider public transport more aggressively. Be that a more aggressive implementation of the TMA or more bus routes, something needs to be done. I think that the employees now are simply taking the path of least resistance. It doesn't cost anything to park in my neighborhood right now. If the nonresident parking permits are issued, I don't think the cost is—in TRANSCRIPT Page 31 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 fact, if I understand it correct, it is very low. What I'm looking for is instead of just a blanket issuance of nonresident parking, perhaps some, as I said, economic motivation to get people on public transport. I think if it makes economic sense, that people will find a way to get there via public transport. For those that say that public transport doesn't work for them, I think it doesn't work for them because it's perhaps a bit harder than driving and then parking right next to my house or my neighbors' houses. Thanks for your time. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Ben Cintz, to be followed by Louise Beattie. Ben Cintz: Good afternoon, Council Members. I have lived in Palo Alto for most of my life. My office is in Palo Alto. I am a member of the stakeholder group for Downtown RPP, and reduction was never a part of what was agreed to by the stakeholder group. Legislating a forced reduction of RPP employee permits at this time is premature for many reasons. I will address two of those reasons. The lack of data to support such a decision and the extreme difficulty in changing such legislation in the future. The Planning Department acknowledged in its presentation to the City Council in December 14, 2015, that the proposed 200 permit per year reduction was a very simplified analysis. Staff hypothesized that decrease in RPP employee permits over time in recognition of the off-street parking supply, both public and private, will be expected to meet the demand for parking in Downtown Palo Alto. Staff proceeded to state again this is simplified. There are other factors that must be taken into account. Council should not require reduction in the Resolution based on anything less than a careful analysis which to date has not occurred. If the Planning Department was directed to analyze a reduction after the December 14th meeting, I am aware of no additional data or analysis to support legislating a 10 percent forced reduction. Also, I am not aware of any data of how the forced reductions would impact SOFA employees who are limited to purchasing parking permits in only three of the City's Downtown garages and none of the lots. The fact that the vote today must be unanimous is another reason that forced reductions should not be legislated today. Once a forced reduction is legislated, any change to that provision in the foreseeable future will require a unanimous vote. In other words, a single Council Member could effectively veto any changes supported by a majority of the Council. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Louise Beattie, followed by Peter Stone. Louise Beattie: Hello. I'm Louise Beattie, and I've lived in Palo Alto on Hamilton in Crescent Park for about 33 years. The parking problem was TRANSCRIPT Page 32 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 created, I feel, by the City Council which was elected by the whole City. You've allowed, not you but the Council has allowed—I guess, the powers that be have allowed over-building and under-facilities for parking. This is a City problem, not a problem to be solved by Professorville and Crescent Park. I think that we are now experiencing cars parked solidly down Hamilton. It's ruining our neighborhood. Children can't ride their bikes; they have to ride their bikes in the street. They can't along the edge because there's no place for them to ride. We can't get out of our driveways easily because you can't see what's coming in either direction because the cars are parked smack up to the driveways. I think that the Residential Parking Permit solution is pretty much underway, but I think that the Council has to think about a solution that is supported and paid for by the entire City. I think you should think outside the box and perhaps find a large parking area. There's one over in Menlo Park where all those car dealerships were. Could you rent that from Menlo Park and then have a shuttle system? We say that our public transportation doesn't solve the problem, but maybe that's our problem. Maybe we should implement some public transportation for these people who need to come here in their cars. If you have a shuttle service, you'll reduce the number of cars on the streets. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Peter Stone, to be followed by Neilson Buchanan. Peter Stone: Vice Mayor Schmid and Council, I'm speaking as current Chair of the Board of the Chamber of Commerce. The business community, as you've heard throughout the day, has supported from the beginning a fair and balanced RPP, recognizing the need to relieve the over-parking in the residential neighborhoods around Downtown. Several of the business representatives here participated in the stakeholder process throughout. Our objection today is to the mandated reduction. Writing into law the 200 permits per year was not part of the initial scope of the RPP. It is not supported by any data as several speakers have noted. There's really no basis for the conclusion that this is needed to achieve the objectives of the RPP. Elimination of employee parking in the residential neighborhoods, complete elimination was not on the agenda and should not be on the agenda. It falls disproportionately onto the small businesses and low-wage workers who currently are using permits in neighborhoods. Hopefully once the permits are distributed more rationally, the neighborhoods will be substantially relieved of the problems that they had before the RPP went into effect. I would just join those who are urging you not to rush into writing this annual reduction into law. There will be continuing opportunities to evaluate the effectiveness of the program. If it appears necessary to reduce the number of permits, I'm not sure that it will, then obviously action can be taken at that time. We have supported the shared streets philosophy, TRANSCRIPT Page 33 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 recognizing that both business and residents have funded the creation of the City infrastructure. We believe that there is capacity to allow some employee parking without unduly burdening the residential parking. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Neilson Buchanan. Nelson has six other people attached, so he will be given seven minutes. Neilson Buchanan, speaking for six persons: Thank you, Council. I am one of the people in the neighborhoods who has worked very, very hard on this problem and tried to dissect it and be analytical about it and be sensible at the same time. There's not a street on that map that I have not driven seven or eight times during the middle of the day. There's not a single street that volunteers and I haven't done at midnight. I know the parking patterns like the hairs on the back of my hand, and I know pretty much the way they're going to be in the next year depending on how you formulate the next solution. Let me try to dissect that, particularly for the people in the audience who don't know all the background. This is a problem; it's been building for 10 years. In about 2011, there was going to be an experiment in Professorville. It fell apart, blew apart by the Council. It probably wasn't a really good idea anyway. During this interim, everyone's been trying to put their oar in the water to come to this point today. Anybody in the business community who said they didn't know what was going on, they had to be sound asleep at the switch. The Permit Parking Program and the stakeholder group has been open to the public. Yes, we've met for hours. If the business community was too busy to come, that's their problem. Let me go back to this. The Council and Staff have embraced their stewardship to embrace the quality of the neighborhoods. I remind you that the Comp Plan very clearly says the City's role is to promote commerce but not at the expense of the residential neighborhoods. That's clear English in the Comp Plan. That stewardship has been violated over and over and over again. I'll explain more later. About five years ago, the Council recognized that there was a problem with the commercial parking intrusion into the neighborhoods. This was such a sensitive subject we couldn't even phrase it as intrusion into the neighborhoods. That was sort of politically incorrect, but it was absolutely the truth. We are now at the point that neighborhoods are going to have to be defined about how much parking they're going to take. I couldn't be in more agreement with the Crescent Park attitude that they're not a commercial parking lot, they have no obligation, and they should be just like College Terrace. My little neighborhood, Downtown North, probably has an obligation to provide X amount of parking. We just need to figure out what X amount is and distribute that parking so that it doesn't fall unequally to myself and my neighbors. That's a detail that can be worked out pretty quickly, quite TRANSCRIPT Page 34 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 frankly. I thank the Staff for nipping one problem. In the stakeholder group for permit parking, there was a period there—in fact, any one time I really lost my temper was when we'd begin to annex areas on "nine" and "10." In fact, in a fit of passion, I called it galloping annexation. I said it was morally wrong, it was politically wrong, it was legally wrong. It took a while, but Staff has indeed looked at ways that we can contain the abuse that could happen in the neighborhoods that are in "nine" and "10" zones. I do think that we can work out some sharing of parking space in perpetuity in the other neighborhoods zoned "one" through "eight." This could be a tedious negotiation, but I think there's a way we can accommodate the low-wage workers. I do not think there's any way in the long run, we have any duty or any obligation to accommodate the high-wage workers. I'll get to the fundamental, root cause of why this problem exists. Before I go on, I'd like to give a shout-out to the TV land where the rest of Council presumably is listening. I think the Council needs to meet very quickly and schedule a meeting to fully fund the TMA. I've attended a handful of the TMA meetings. I'll be honest with you, and this is kind of brutal language. The TMA as it's currently (inaudible) is a dead man walking. I'm not an expert, but I would ask the Council to get an expert on TMA and see if there's any way this TMA can launch itself to meet the problems as they exist today. It is out of sync. It is a very difficult, small (inaudible) TMA, but it can be done. The Council can come up with the money to do that. Finally, I ask you to take a look at the California Avenue business core. Evergreen Park presented earlier today, and they genuinely have a problem just as severe as the neighborhoods around University Avenue. The problem here is lack of quality control. Any business that's making headway in the world today has to have some concept of quality control. When things aren't going right, you have to look for the root causes of why isn't the solution evolving. This is not a new problem. Neighborhoods have been filling up. I've personally spent close to $10,000 on legal fees, appeals. How many projects have the residents been in front of you saying there's no parking associated with this building. The pipeline is going to fill up. The parking lots are filling up. The garages are filling up. Now, we're at the point of saying all the future demand really has to go into the neighborhoods. That's pure physics; it's not opinion. Here's two steps to move forward. One of the root causes is the outdated Parking Assessment District in both Downtowns. I urge the Council and the Council Members out there in TV land to find a way to have a Study Session on exactly what is the Parking Assessment District and what it's entitled to. I think if you get your hands around the amount of parking assessment benefits that are in the pipeline, you'll find out that the parking demand can get so far out of hand it's never going to be met. I've done my best to get that surfaced. If the Council doesn't want to respond to this request in 60 days, I frankly intend to go for a rather abusive way. I think it's time for a grand jury investigation of what's going on. This is the TRANSCRIPT Page 35 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 fundamental flaw in planning. The parking assessment benefits create demand that far exceeds the supply the Parking Assessment District built in two garages. It's out by a factor of 1:10. Let me try to wrap up. I don't know where the statesmanship is going to be coming from. I'm a little embarrassed to hear the business community's position tonight. I'll personalize it. I had a period in my life that I sent a rather outrageous letter to a member of Congress complaining about the Medicare reimbursements. I'll tell that story at another time. I ask you to stay the course, set the limit, and start the cutbacks. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Jeffrey Phillips. I have Laura Burton next, but I think she's already spoken. If the Clerk could check that. Jeffrey Phillips: Hi, good evening. My name is Jeffrey Phillips, and I'm the current General Manager at the Garden Court Hotel. I'm a Palo Alto resident, represent a business of almost 100 employees, and have recently come on board the TMA Board of Directors. We have a lot to do, and we have a lot to accomplish. I certainly as a business do not want to have negative impact on residents. We are a community that should be balanced. Michael Hodos, this is what I'm talking about. We have to work together or else we'll never accomplish anything. The annual reduction plan to go to zero is going to negatively hurt my business. I'm committed as a good corporate citizen to help these changes and find these long-term solutions. I have team members that have been with us for 10, 20 years, and even the thought of it going to zero scares me because I will lose them. My quality of life for my team members is important. The quality of life for everybody in Palo Alto is important. Please don't vote to reduce it to zero. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Laura Burton followed by Adina Levin. Lauren Burton: My name is Lauren Burton. I live on Palo Alto Avenue near Waverley. The section of Palo Alto Avenue that I live on is a quiet street which borders the creek. At the end of the block is a foot bridge which gets frequent bike traffic and pedestrian traffic. The street is very attractive to joggers and walkers and bicyclists. In the 18 years in which I've lived in this house, I have seen the parking congestion go from reasonable to very difficult. At Palo Alto Avenue near Alma, the situation was so bad that bicyclists are in peril if two cars try to drive past each other—in fact, they can't—on Palo Alto Avenue, because the parking is so congested. I feel that the plan as implemented so far has reduced the parking congestion to a much more reasonable level. It makes the street much more livable and has substantially increased our quality of life. I would like to also support the comments that Neilson Buchanan made, especially for a long-term solution TRANSCRIPT Page 36 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 for denser parking or parking garages that would provide a better solution than having all the excess parking from now on in the neighborhoods, and a call for balance as well. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Next speaker is Adina Levin, and our last speaker is Jeff Selzer. Adina Levin: Good afternoon, Council Members and Staff. Adina Levin with Friends of Caltrain supporting sustainable transportation including Transportation Demand Management on the Peninsula Corridor. I want to give some context on my remarks today. Friends of Caltrain has been working with a Stanford class doing a research project with the Transportation Management Association that I was on the advisory group to help get started, looking into how to set up the first years of programs to help low-income service workers not drive for those people for whom it is feasible. As part of their research about what sorts of programs would work for them, the team got some coaching that as you're working on your report, consider options that we might have a reduced budget. That really put my antenna up because, as a number of people have mentioned, in order to address the traffic and parking problem, the City has been working consistently on a three-legged stool approach with Residential Permit Parking, vehicle trip reduction, and supply. In order to make any kind of draw-down successful will require continuous forward motion on the TMA starting effectively. Funding the TMA is possible, but the mechanisms to fund a TMA in an area like Downtown Palo Alto are going to take some time to develop and ramp-up. Therefore, I would encourage you as you set up the next steps for how to make this entire program work to ensure that Staff is giving you enough lead time and preparation to ensure full funding for the TMA in its first year and getting prepared to have mechanisms for stable funding going forward to provide that critical piece of the strategy. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Our last speaker is Jeff Selzer. Jeff Selzer: My name is Jeff Selzer; I am the General Manager of Palo Alto Bicycles. Thanks for giving me the last word; I appreciate it. We've been a business in Downtown since 1930, so 86 years this year. We have contributed to the Downtown community. We've contributed to the families, the homeowners, the City as a whole. I sent all of you--I believe everybody on the panel got it—an email earlier this week that essentially said in the 17 years that I've been managing the business, we have collected more than $4 million worth of Sales Tax for this community. For the folks that think the Downtown businesses don't care about the impact we have on you, we do. We do. To say the solution is to cut us out, part of what makes this a TRANSCRIPT Page 37 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 beautiful, wonderful place to live and to work is the diversity that we have, the fact that small businesses like me can survive for 86 years; it's the same family. By the way, they have been residents. Unfortunately, they passed away. The reality is business cares. If you cut us out, if you literally say the only option is public transportation, I've got people that I'm going to lose. I can't find them now. I just did a national search for a buyer at my business. I had people that are making $25,000 out in the world. To come here, they were asking me for almost 90 because they did the research to see what the equity would be for their quality of life. $90,000 is what they wanted to be— I don't make $90,000 a year running the business. The reality is we're challenged. You add one more nail to that coffin, we may not survive. Thank you for the time; I appreciate it. Council Member Schmid: Thank you, and thank every one of you for coming, sharing with us your concerns. It's what local government is all about. We now are about to turn to Council. There's five of us, and we are a bare minimum. I think it's appropriate that we take a five minute break. Let's hold it to five minutes. I know you've been waiting for Council response, but if you can give us five minutes for a break. Council took a break from 5:06 P.M. to 5:15 P.M. Council Member Schmid: After hearing from the public, we should give Staff a chance to see if there are any questions or comments that you want to make. Hillary Gitelman, Planning and Community Environment Director: Thank you, Chair Schmid and Council Members. I'm Hillary Gitelman, the Planning Director. First, I wanted to start by thanking Jessica and Sue-Ellen. They've been working long and hard on this RPP Program for over a year now. I also wanted to thank the speakers today. It's great to see a huge turnout. I thought we heard a diversity of opinions, which is always nice. There were four questions or comments that came up in the course of the comments that I wanted to address specifically. Sue-Ellen and Jessica will jump in if I need bailing out here. First was the request to reconsider the boundary of Zone 10. We heard that from a couple of speakers at least. From Staff's perspective, there are two ways that the City could address this request. One is obviously you could direct us to amend the boundaries of Zone 10, in which case those streets would fall within the Downtown RPP, and there would be some number of employee permits issued in those areas. The other alternative, which we believe is more consistent with the comments we've heard from Crescent Park generally would be for those streets to petition for their own RPP District that could have no employee permits, what people are calling the College Terrace-like version. Those are two TRANSCRIPT Page 38 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 options. Neither of those could be done today. For the change to the boundaries, we'd have to bring back a revised Resolution and a boundary map. For the separate RPP, the individuals involved would have to submit a petition by the deadline of March 31st to be considered for establishment of a new RPP District next year. Council Member DuBois: Excuse me. Have you told the woman that? Does she show that there's a deadline? I don't know if she's still here; I think she left. Ms. Gitelman: Yes, we've informed the people that we've talked to about that. The next question that we heard—it was a comment really—that the annual reduction in employee permits hadn't been discussed. We don't remember it that way. The adopted Resolution that's already in effect about Downtown RPP talks about adjustments happening in Phase Two. It's not explicit on the number of permits or the reduction, but it says that we have the ability to make adjustments. This was in the thinking when the original Resolution was adopted. Also as some of the speakers pointed out and I think this is an important point, operationally if we're talking about reducing by 200 after the first year, it's at the end of this Phase Two. We're going to have an opportunity to evaluate the data and reconsider that strategy if there's some horrible problem with it and it's just not working. I think that's an important point. The third issue that was raised was again related to Zones 9 and 10. Someone suggested that it had been our intention to not allow any employee parking in these areas. That is not what we understood the Council's direction to be. There would be a limited number of employee permits sold for those districts, and that's what's reflected in the Resolution and the Staff Report. There was a suggestion that somehow the Resolution didn't adequately prioritize those zones for the reductions when they start to occur. We think that is addressed in the Resolution. It's not specific about exactly how that will happen, but it says those outer areas of the district will be prioritized for reductions. The commenter also said that the idea that we would not sell daily permits and weekly scratchers to employees in those Zones 9 and 10 is not adequately addressed in the Resolution. It was our intention to do that in the Administrative Guidelines. If the Council would like to put some language in the Resolution about that, we have some suggested text we could read into the record that we just talked to the City Attorney about. I'm offering that to you if you'd like to make that change. The final issue raised was the Addison Elementary School. As Sue-Ellen mentioned, this request came in late. We don't really have a recommendation for you. I think it's a little bit of a slippery slope starting to make special exceptions for particular uses, particularly because in other RPP Districts we may find that the source of intrusion into residential neighborhoods are from schools. I'm a little anxious about at the dais TRANSCRIPT Page 39 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 writing a special exception here for them. If you would like to consider something, some number of discounted permits or something, we could work with you on text. We found a place in the Resolution where we could add that. That's entirely up to you. Again, I think it's a little bit of a slippery slope. Those are the comments that we wanted to address. If you have any questions for us, we're happy to respond to those now. Council Member Schmid: Just a moment. What I'd like to do for the Council now is to give every Council Member a brief time, say four minutes, to raise questions, comments on what they've heard, anything they want to share with their colleagues in preparation. After that quick go around, we will move to motions. Let me start with Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: Let me see if I can collect my thoughts for the broader stuff. First I just want to make sure—did I hear you correctly? Your next to last comment there was about the daily scratchers. I'd be interested in hearing what that is, when that would be appropriate. One way of framing this discussion, I guess, is like neighborhood protection versus shared streets. Those are kind of the two big arguments we heard from two seemingly diametrically opposed groups. Those who really don't want to see any ramp down of the sales of employee permits sold for the street over time, that we heard from the business community. From a number of the residents, a desire to not see any employee permits sold on the street in the first place, at all to begin with. We also heard from some residents that they're open to a middle ground between that. When you have two groups at the ends so upset, that's either a sign you're doing something really wrong or really right, that you're really looking for a compromise, that nobody's getting everything that they want. I think that's kind of the direction we were admitting we were going to have to go at our last discussion. We were looking for a way to be fair to all the groups involved, the business part of our community, the residents of our community which, of course, are our primary concern. Making sure that when residents have friends or family members come to visit them, whether it's from across the country or just across town, they have a place to park. Also when employees come in regardless of what income level they are, especially if they're lower income, making sure they have a way to get to work. If they are driving, they do have a place to park. Making sure that when people come in to shop at our local businesses, including Palo Altans from other parts of town, that they have a way to get Downtown and if they're driving, to park their car. There's a reason this is tricky. There are a number of important values that we are struggling to balance here. I just wanted to check. We didn't sell all of our 2,000 permits. We're not really even close, right? Yet. That could change over time if the economy continues to improve, etc. That could change. That means that if we reduced by 200 in TRANSCRIPT Page 40 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 the next year or at the end of this year, just in that first 200 reduction that would be focused on making sure we protect Crescent Park first, that wouldn't necessarily have a strongly negative impact on the business community. That's the impression I got. I do want to emphasize that we did hear from some people who have lived in areas where the parking problem has been quite severe. The implementation of RPP in their neighborhoods really helped; it really helped them. They had a really bad parking problem, and having some limitations even with some employee parking in their neighborhood, was still an improvement. Whereas, some other neighborhoods, there's been a growing problem. Right now, there is no restriction. Employees could park in every space in front of your house in most neighborhoods in Palo Alto with no restriction. What we're looking for is a way to restrict it somewhat at first, and then over time to restrict it completely so that you have two-thirds of your street for now guaranteed, and over the next couple of years get back to having no intrusive parking at all. That's what I see as the goal we're working towards, again trying to be fair to everybody involved. It's a tough one, though. Glad we're doing a round of comments, so I don't have to make a motion right now. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I want to go back to the kind of legal basis for all the (inaudible). The State law on parking permits, how does that apply to Palo Alto? Ms. Stump: The State law applies. The Parking Program that is proposed, the first part that was adopted by the Council in 2014 and the recommendations before you today, do comply with the requirements of State law. Council Member DuBois: There's a part in there about giving permits to members of organizations, other groups. It specifically mentions schools. In looking at it, it looks like that's really what that exception was created around primarily, was schools and parking districts. My impression was it was really a school exception, but we're using it as an office worker exception. Ms. Stump: There's quite a bit of discretion in how a local jurisdiction can apply the State law. We're confident that the program that the City's designed is consistent with the law. Council Member DuBois: I certainly heard about Addison quite a while ago, when the signs went up. I think we're going to have to decide. It's another (inaudible) and we're going to have to decide what we're going to do with permits. TRANSCRIPT Page 41 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Ms. Stump: That's a discretionary item for the Council. It certainly is not required to provide no-cost parking for any particular public facility. It's your discretion. Council Member DuBois: Do you think the State law requires us to provide an exception for them? Say it was a residential-only permit area but there was a school there, they would be allowed to purchase permits. Ms. Stump: It's discretionary for the Council to determine how to handle that. Council Member DuBois: The other thing in the State law is the question about adjacency. It says privileges are for residents and merchants adjacent to the streets, their use. Again, when we start to get out to Zone 10 and further, how do we comply with that? Ms. Stump: Again, it's a policy consideration for the Council to determine how that best applies in Palo Alto. There's no specific definition in the State law, and you have discretion to determine what's the space that's appropriate to apply the program. Where there might be programmatic elements that would be different is also something that the Council has discretion to determine. Council Member DuBois: Again, we're randomly distributing permits. If we're giving a permit to somebody that works near a Caltrain and their daily scratcher is out in Zone 10, is there any point where somebody could say that's really not adjacent? Ms. Stump: The Planning Director is reminding me that there is not a proposal currently on the table for dailies in Zone 10 or Zone 9, I think. Council Member DuBois: Let's say a permit, I guess, an employee permit. Ms. Stump: If the Council makes the decision that that is an appropriate program for Palo Alto, we're confident that it complies with State law. It's a legislative determination that you have the discretion to make. Council Member DuBois: There's no implication that any distance is too great? Ms. Stump: I'm sorry, one more time. Council Member DuBois: There's no yardstick of distance that would be too great to claim it was adjacent if we wanted to declare it was adjacent? TRANSCRIPT Page 42 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Ms. Stump: I would say it slightly differently, which is that the options that are before you today are all lawful. Council Member DuBois: I'm going to try to stick to questions. I only have a few seconds left. The data collection process you guys mentioned in your presentation during the year, is that a new thing? It seems onerous. Would that be planned for every RPP that we roll out in the City? Ms. Atkinson: Hi. Data collection is certainly something that has been ongoing. We've done data collection throughout Phase One, both with the data collection firm and with resident stakeholder assistance, volunteer assistance. For any future RPP program, we would also be doing data collection. Council Member DuBois: I'm sorry. It was the data collection for the Downtown District. Throughout this year, you said you were going to go out like every couple of months. Ms. Atkinson: It's one day of collection once a month, I think about every month. We had set five different times. Council Member DuBois: I was asking is that unique for Downtown or if we'd talk about other neighborhoods. Would we always have that data collection? Ms. Atkinson: The data collection schedule would be determined based on program. For the RPP District, we've decided to do that amount of data analysis so that we have a robust amount of data on which to make any future recommendations when we come back. For other future RPP programs, we would do a similar data collection. The schedule would be determined at the time of implementation. Council Member DuBois: Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Council Member Kniss. Council Member Kniss: Every Council at some point goes through their own Gordian knot. I think that this is that Gordian knot problem. Cory, you've referenced it very well. Everyone's mad at us. When everybody's mad at you, probably somebody isn't. This one has been really perplexing. Just a couple of things to walk through in my four minutes here. Many people have reminded us that commercial shouldn't impede on a neighborhood. I have looked at what I think is a neighborhood, and what I can find so far is anything that's not in that yellow spot in the middle—this doesn't include California Avenue. Anything that's not in that yellow zone, that cornflower TRANSCRIPT Page 43 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 yellow zone, is a residential neighborhood. I think one of the problems is that we tend to think all neighborhoods are not equal. Every neighborhood has its own wonderful characteristics, qualities and so forth. I know when we first lived here, different parts of the community—I hate to even mention this to Professorville. That was not considered an area everyone wanted to live in. It was frankly in the '70s full of communes. Hard to believe now, but it actually was. It has changed dramatically. By way of saying residential areas change dramatically through the years, and ours have. Hillary, to make this into a question, a residential community in our fair City is simply one that is not in a commercial district. Am I correct? Ms. Gitelman: That's right. Council Member Kniss: I don't know how much more simply to put it than that. We keep hearing that commercial should not impede on neighborhoods. Our commercial space Downtown is just this very small number of blocks. We all anticipate that this small number of blocks will provide us our coffee when we go Downtown or bagels or whatever else it may be. Hopefully we can walk there pretty easily, to one of our commercial neighborhoods, whether it's Midtown, California (Cal.) Avenue or whatever. I want to ask about the TMA, because many times it's come up today. Where are we—it's not part of our Resolution, but it's part of our solution. Where are we with the TMA as we speak? Is it part of our solution? Ms. Sullivan: Thank you, Council Member Kniss. We definitely believe it's part of our solution. We're going to bring you a full update on the TMA on March 14th. I will say that TMA has been incorporated as a third-party nonprofit, and we'll be presenting its plan for you. Council Member Kniss: I know that the Research Park is really going full speed ahead on it. They also have a lot of motivation to do that at the same time. Looking again at something—how much time have I got left? Council Member Schmid: One minute. Council Member Kniss: One minute, fast. Looking at the number of parking spots that are actually available, looking at this from a variety of different angles, one of the answers I see from—I think it's from you, Hillary—says that actually a 200 permit reduction would really be about 3.8 percent of the total available employee permits. Am I correct? I think I'm reading your answer. Ms. Gitelman: Yes, I think that's correct. TRANSCRIPT Page 44 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Council Member Kniss: I think that if we're talking about 10 percent a year, we're really not talking about that per year. We still have permits available right now as we sit here. Somebody can apply for a permit and get it. Sorry? Ms. Gitelman: There are currently garage permits available, and there are RPP employee permits available. Council Member Kniss: A much harder question. How many of our employers, do you think, are purchasing permits for their employees? Do we have any data on that whatsoever? Is it usually just generous employees who do it or have we gone door to door and encouraged them do it? What has been our process? Do we just hope out of the goodness of their heart they'll buy them? Ms. Gitelman: We do have that data. We don't have it with us today. We'd be happy to get back to you on some estimate of the number of ... Council Member Kniss: It would help, probably not for today's decision. I think long term, it would help to know how much support is there for particularly the low-income worker in that case. Time's up. Thank you. Council Member Schmid: Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: Thank you very much. First a quick question. Did you say that within the structure of the Ordinance there is some flexibility to go back afterwards and sort of massage a little bit whether there are exemptions and ... Council Member Kniss: The word adjustment. Council Member Filseth: ... adjustments and so forth? Did you say that? Council Member Kniss: Yeah, you did. You said it right at the beginning. Ms. Gitelman: The Resolution currently lays out the kinds of permits that we would give. If the Council would want to include a special something to address the Addison school, we could put it in there, but we would affirmatively identify this in the Resolution. Council Member Filseth: That's the kind of thing we should discuss tonight or could it be added after the fact? Ms. Gitelman: Yes. We'd have to bring the Resolution back. We always could. A Resolution doesn't require two readings like an Ordinance, but it would be noticed, agendized. TRANSCRIPT Page 45 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Council Member Kniss: Just one. Council Member Filseth: I have just a couple of comments. Council Member Kniss: Questions. Council Member Filseth: I can make a couple of comments too, right? Council Member Schmid: Yes. Council Member Filseth: I'm sorry. A couple of the speakers brought this up; Ms. Beattie was one of them and so forth. First, I'm going to quote my colleague, Council Member Wolbach, from last week. Residents have waited long enough. I think a couple of people brought up the point that residents didn't cause this problem. In fact, this is a step that the City Hall, we, our predecessors here on Council should have taken a long time ago. This problem has been developing over a long time, exacerbated by a lot of under-parked construction in the Downtown area, pretty much ignoring the growing parking congestion in the neighborhoods. The Professorville neighborhood has been howling for this for almost a decade. I think waiting on this problem to do this—other cities around here did this. Waiting on this allowed it to get worse and worse. There's sort of a sense that at this point maybe it's too big to fix. It isn't too big to fix if we have the will to fix it. I think it can be done. The other thing I wanted to comment on was the point that Council Member Kniss just brought up, which is sort of the magnitude of what we're talking about with the rollback here. In terms of number of permits, you're talking about three, four percent. If you look at physical inventory of parking spaces between the neighborhood spaces, the Downtown spaces, the garage and the lots, there's about 9,600 of those; 200 out of those is a couple percent. If you use the Staff's estimate that not every parking permit gets used every day, you're really talking about between one and two percent. We're talking about a few percent per year. That doesn't include all the private parking spaces Downtown which we haven't talked about at all in this process either. It's hard for me to believe that the commercial sky is going to fall on a couple percent per year reduction in parking capacity for a few years, particularly if we've only sold 1,500 permits so far. We authorized 2,000, so in principle it's going to take a couple of years even to get down to the point we do that. I think we need to do that. There's been some dialog that we need to go out and get some more data, it's premature, we need to do more analysis and so forth. I'm going to go back to my colleague's statement from last week. I think residents have waited long enough. With that, can I make a motion or do we ... You get to talk, of course. TRANSCRIPT Page 46 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Council Member Kniss: Mr. Chair, could I ask one question before you do that? How did we decide on the amount for a parking permit, the cost, for the person who lives there? Not the worker, but for the resident, how did we come up with $50? Ms. Sullivan: The $50 fee for the low-income permit ... Council Member Kniss: No, I'm talking about resident permits, not low- income. Ms. Sullivan: The stakeholder group felt that everybody should have some "skin in the game" so that we shouldn't charge nothing, but it shouldn't be an unreasonably big number. That's the number that ... Council Member Kniss: Thanks, for that reminder. It was the stakeholder group input? Ms. Sullivan: Yes. Council Member Kniss: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Council Member Schmid: A couple of quick comments, questions. I agree with Eric, it's time and we should be very sensitive about meeting the dates that we have committed to. I'm concerned the big question tonight is how many permits, how much need is there for workers Downtown to be out in the neighborhoods. I am very concerned historically with the University Avenue Parking Assessment District. They're claiming 9,148 parking permits. Every time we have a new project come, they say, "We have X number of guaranteed places," but there are no places in the garages or anything. The Parking Assessment District did build 700 spaces in garages, but then they claim 9,150 spaces. That's an imbalance. I guess I would like to have those numbers clear as we move forward. Do they have a right to those or is that in Council discretion? Point number two that's a fuzzy issue is the TMA. We are being asked to put a lot of confidence that the TMA will be effective. I'm concerned that it's a private, not-for-profit with no public oversight, that it could play the role of the Downtown Parking Assessment District with no information available to Council or the public. I think it's essential. You mentioned coming back March 14th. I certainly will look forward to that, to having a discussion of what public participation there should be in setting goals, standards, funding, and penalties. I'm sympathetic to the school that has been there traditionally. It's the only school inside the district. I am concerned about there being a check-in date with the Council before a year from August. I think we should have a period of time where information is available to the Council on the Phase Twoand TRANSCRIPT Page 47 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 any issues that might come up around that. If there are no comments on that, let's then go to motions. Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: Thanks very much. I'd like to move the Staff motion. If there's a second, I'll speak to it. I'll read it. Thank you. Adopt a Resolution amending Resolution 9473 to implement Phase Two of the Downtown Residential Preferential Parking District pilot program, and direct Staff to make corresponding changes to the Council-approved RPP Administrative Guidelines. Council Member DuBois: I second. Council Member Schmid: That's a Motion by Council Member Filseth, seconded by Council Member DuBois. MOTION: Council Member Filseth moved, seconded by Council Member DuBois to: A. Adopt a Resolution amending Resolution 9473 to implement Phase 2 of the Downtown Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) District Pilot Program; and B. Direct Staff to make corresponding changes to the Council approved RPP Administrative Guidelines. Council Member Schmid: Do you want to speak to that? Council Member Filseth: I would like to. First of all, I think we go back to the point of it's time we acted on this. I hope that some of the issues that we've talked about today, which is the final determination of really go to zero, do we have different rates and different treatment of high-income versus low-income permits and so forth. I hope we have some of that discussion and maybe some of it ends up as amendments to the motion here. I think we ought to start with the core of the motion as written by Staff. The other comment I would make is again on the issue of TMA which is material to this. If the TMA can't accommodate a couple percent car trip reduction per year, then we ought to hang it up, declare ourselves to be car city USA and go build a lot of freeways. Thanks. Council Member Schmid: DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I have two potentially friendly amendments. One is that we move the policy on dailies and scratchers into the Resolution itself. The second was that we do a check-in on progress on Phase 2 in 6 months with Council. TRANSCRIPT Page 48 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Council Member Filseth: I'll accept those. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “include dailies and scratchers in the Resolution.” (New Part C) INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “move up Council review to six months.” (New Part D) Council Member DuBois: Staff, do you have any comments on that? Ms. Gitelman: Let me just read what we were thinking in terms of language on the dailies and scratchers. This is in Section Five of the Resolution, in Subsection (c)(2)(g), Paragraph One. Council Member Schmid: What page is that? Council Member DuBois: It's the Appendix A, 2A. Ms. Gitelman: It's Page Five of the Resolution. Council Member Schmid: Of the Resolution. Got it. Packet Page 20. Ms. Gitelman: There's a paragraph in the middle there that's Paragraph One. We would add a phrase kind of in the middle of that paragraph. It would read "distribution of daily and fiveday employee scratchers will be zone specific and will be sold randomly except that no daily or five day scratchers will be sold for Zones 9 and 10." Council Member DuBois: If I could speak to that? Did you accept that? Council Member Filseth: Yes. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to replace Part C of the Motion with, “add to Resolution Section 5(c)(2)(g)(1) ‘no daily or five day scratchers will be sold in Zones 9 and 10’ after ‘be sold randomly.’” Council Member DuBois: A couple of things. Again, I think whether everybody's mad at us or not, I think, depends on where we end up at the end here. Not that that is how we make decisions. Again, I appreciate some of the comments from people in Crescent Park saying they support our retailers and our businesses. Accepting some small amount of parking there for a year or two before the reductions start, I want to thank you for that. Not selling the dailies and permits in those zones will, again, help preserve TRANSCRIPT Page 49 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 those neighborhoods that are further away. The idea about coming back to Council sooner, again, is to see how we're doing, how our TMA is doing, see if we're on course. This is a pilot for this year. There would be no reduction for 12 months. We have quite a bit of data; we collected a lot of data in Phase 1, and we'll get even more data as we go along. I just think this is a prudent way to move forward. Again, I think one of the more important things here is that we need to put some teeth into our TMA. By spelling out that there's going to be a reduction over time, even if that's 10 years, it's giving the community 10-year notice that we need to get started. I actually think it would be less responsible to do Phase Two and then 12 months from now say we're going to do a reduction with much less notice. I think we're giving as much notice as possible. We're really encouraging the business community to help fund the TMA. It's a nonprofit funded by business. I think Adina Levin said that we may need to take measures to ensure that it's funded. I hope this community will get involved now and help fund it. Again, I think Mountain View's going through this process right now. They actually published a very useful comparison of parking programs in a bunch of cities around us. Most cities have resident-only parking permit. They do it when the intrusion level reaches about 70 percent, 50-70 percent. We are well beyond that, so I don't think we're doing anything out of bounds or out of the ordinary. I'd like to see us move forward with this as fast as we can. Council Member Schmid: Council Member Kniss, did you have ... Council Member Kniss: Several questions. I'm on the Packet Page 17. I want to go over some of these things. I don't think we need to put them in, because they're in already. One of the areas that I want to talk about is— Hillary, you spoke about an adjustment. Where did the word adjustment come in? Is it under Section Two? Ms. Gitelman: The word adjustment that I was referring to is in the existing Resolution. Council Member Kniss: Can you tell me where? I'm on Section Two, I'm on "C," duration. What I'm seeing here is the second phase shall commence on April 1 and last for at least 12 months. Is what you're speaking to there, Tom, six months? Is that your intent? Council Member DuBois: No. Council Member Kniss: You want to review ... Council Member DuBois: We'll have a check-in during the 12 months. Council Member Kniss: You want a check-in, right? TRANSCRIPT Page 50 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Council Member DuBois: Yes, right. Council Member Kniss: I thought there was also a check-in at six—after 60 days. I thought we were doing 60 and 120, and now you're suggesting six months. Right? Six months would take us what? To the end of September? Council Member Schmid: Hillary? Ms. Gitelman: Our plan is to do data collection regularly. I think the request is to come back to Council with that data for a check-in after six months from adoption. Council Member Kniss: Nothing to do with the duration of the RPP. Correct? Ms. Gitelman: That's right. This next phase is to last a year. Council Member Kniss: Back then to the word adjustment. Ms. Gitelman: The word adjustment is from the Resolution that's currently in effect. It's in a paragraph—Section Two, Paragraph Two. It says during the second phase the City will regulate the number of employee permits issued based on parking occupancy data collected in the first phase. It is expected this distribution of permits will be iterative and adjusted during the course of Phase Two. Council Member Kniss: Do we need to make that any more specific to know that we need to look at whatever the wording is, 200 permits which, by the way, I don't think is 10 percent, at the end of that first year? Since we're in a pilot, we need some way to assess and adjust. You've used the word adjustment, I think, in such a way that the Resolution would allow us to do that. Ms. Gitelman: I think the Resolution that's before you tonight—I was reading from the original Resolution. The Resolution that's before you tonight has sufficient clarity in that Paragraph D in Section 5(c)(2). It says ... Council Member Kniss: Section 5(c)? Ms. Gitelman: This is on Page Four of the Resolution. There's a Paragraph D called Employee Permit Reduction Strategy. It says that following the first year of Phase Two—this first year—the City will begin decreasing annual employee permits by approximately 200 permits per year based on parking occupancy reduction, and it goes on. Our thought is we'll collect data, we'll come back for the check-in that you've requested after six months, and then TRANSCRIPT Page 51 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 presumably we would come back at the end of the year as well. We could make adjustments if this just was wrong, wrong, wrong at that point. Council Member Kniss: I want to make sure that that is in the record, that we have that ability. Two hundred permits, I don't see is 10 percent. I can see that it's 200 permits, but we're talking about far more permits than that that could be available. Ms. Gitelman: That's right. Council Member Kniss: That 200 permits was based on 2,000 permits. Ms. Gitelman: That's right. If you look at all of the permits issued in Downtown, it's less than ... Council Member Kniss: Then we are not talking about 10 percent. We're simply talking about 200 permits. I think that's the end of what the clarity is. At this point, we have gotten the review moved up. You got rid of the scratchers which is something you wanted to do before. Without adding it in, I think we have indicated that the adjustment could be made given the Resolution that's before us. I think this is the time, Mr. Chair, when you want us to speak to whether we'll support the motion or not. I'm supporting it, again, knowing that we're probably making friends as well as enemies tonight. I am very concerned about how we function as a community. I will again reference the word vital. Somebody mentioned it tonight. I like vital. I like our vitality. I didn't like us and where we were heading in 2009 and '10 and '11. It was a community that was really in some difficulty financially. We were cutting back on Staff. We are now in a good spot. I think the hard part of this is to share our largesse and to be able to share at least for now where we live. I anticipate that within the next 6-8 months we're going to see the same kind of changes that Downtown North reported to us, and then the fellow who came in earlier from Professorville who said they feel like a neighborhood again. I think as soon as this goes into place, as uncomfortable as it may seem right now, that some relief will come. I think it was interesting that one group came tonight, and I realize they probably should apply, Hillary, to be honest. I'm concerned that they have asked to be included, not to be excluded. We need to find a way for them to do that. The decision we're making tonight, where we're adding in Sections Nine and 10, were in good part because several of those streets came to us, and that's indicated in the—I don't know where we've got the—are these yellow up there and we can't see them? The people who have asked to be included, several blocks have asked to be included. They want to be part of this. I think we've made it very clear, as Hillary as said, that fewer and fewer permits will be sold on a long-term basis in Numbers Nine and 10, TRANSCRIPT Page 52 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 until I would guess at some point that there will be no more permits issued in those areas. Am I correct? Ms. Gitelman: That's right. Council Member Kniss: This is a very hard motion to support. I live very close to this neighborhood. Most of you probably know I am just barely outside of the range. I am here by virtue of about 150 feet. It's kind of an unusual situation. I couldn't move fast enough to not have to make the decision, so here I am. I am the only one, I think, other than you, Eric, who lives north of Embarcadero. Everyone else lives to the South. Eric is only here by virtue of drawing either the short straw or the long straw, depending on how he looks at it. I urge you all to have some patience with this. Some of this is going to be uncomfortable. I know some of you feel really troubled by this decision that we're making. I urge at least stay with us for six months or so. Let me not say totally flippantly, but there will be a new Council sitting here next year. When this evaporates, you will get back and be speaking to nine new people or maybe some of the old people. You don't know what will happen, but there will be a different configuration at the time that this permit runs out. With that, I will be supporting the motion. Mr. Chair, thank you. Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Let me ask a couple of questions. We have a six month check-in. I guess given the fact there are new elements being introduced and some dramatic changes going on, I would be in favor of a four month check-in. Is that possible? Council Member Kniss: For data only? Council Member Schmid: For data and what are the issues. You pointed out that a number of people, once they're involved, find issues and an opportunity to raise those issues. Ms. Sullivan: Can I respond to that Council Member Schmid? Council Member Schmid: Yeah. Ms. Sullivan: I think Staff is supportive of your desire to want to do a quick check-in. Having experienced the Phase One roll out, we know that these— hopefully we're going to plan this without a hitch. There are significant changes being made. It takes a month or two just to sort of find our bearings with selling these permits and zones. I'm a little concerned that four months only gives us really three months from April 1, because we've got to have a Staff Report done in advance of the four months. I would TRANSCRIPT Page 53 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 prefer six months. Obviously, if you tell us four months, then we'll do four months. Council Member Schmid: I guess my feeling is that it would not be the six month review and looking ahead at Phase Three, but are there issues that people are concerned about that we need to look at. I guess I would make that motion to add a four month check-in. Council Member Kniss: I (inaudible). Does it have to be, Mr. Chair, a formal one or could it come in written form? Council Member Schmid: It could be an Informational Report, but it might be a chance for the public to participate. Council Member Kniss: Let's keep it live then. Council Member DuBois: Are you guys suggesting there are two check-ins or could we have one in just, say—I think it's either July or September since we're not here in August. That makes sense. Council Member Kniss: You don't want to come in August? Council Member DuBois: We have a check-in either in July or in August, but we don't have two check-ins. Council Member Kniss: We're not here in July. Council Member Schmid: Yeah, July is when we're out. Four months would be end of July, beginning of August when we come back. Ms. Gitelman: Could we change the six to a four instead of adding another paragraph? Council Member Schmid: Yeah, good. Ms. Gitelman: Just so the Council knows, we'll do everything we can to accommodate that request. It's going to be dependent on your Agendas and other stuff that's going on, but we'll give it a good try. Council Member Filseth: Before I accept the change, I don't want to micromanage Staff. I want to make sure that Staff's in consensus with this and thinks this is reasonable. Are you guys okay with it? Ms. Gitelman: We would prefer some flexibility, so four to six months would be terrific. TRANSCRIPT Page 54 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Council Member Filseth: Greg, what do you think? Council Member Schmid: I guess I'm impressed that a Tuesday afternoon meeting drew 105 people and 50 speakers. There's concern. I think being on top of that, sensitive to it. Council Member Filseth: I'll accept it. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to replace in the Motion Part D, “six” with “four.” Council Member Schmid: Thank you. Thank you to Staff. You mentioned daily scratchers and other things. The number jumps out, 1,000 of them, but only like ten a day or something. It's not a big deal. There's no limit on there, is there? Should we put some kind of cap on how ... Ms. Gitelman: At the Council's request, we did put a limit on the number of daily permits that would be available per employee. That is in the Resolution. It's in Paragraph G of that same section, Section (5)(c). Council Member Schmid: Per employee at 3.2 million square feet, that's 9,000 employees. Ms. Atkinson: If I can also comment. We also put the restriction that only employees have access to the daily permits. Right now, employers do still have access for visitors, interviewees, meetings, etc. Part of the limit has already been recommended by removing employer access to daily scratchers and just having them for employees who have RPP accounts. Council Member Schmid: Suppose one day the word gets out the only way to park is buy these, and you have 500 applications in a day. Is there any control over monitoring how many? Ms. Gitelman: We haven't experienced real problems associated with these permits in Phase One. We can continue to monitor that. When we come back in four months, if there's a problem, we can do an adjustment. Council Member Schmid: That would be a good check-in in four months. I guess we haven't done anything about the school exemption. Do we need to include that? Council Member DuBois: Are you going to come back with a proposal? Ms. Gitelman: If we want to do something for them in Phase Two, we really have to do it now. I think it's a tough call. TRANSCRIPT Page 55 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Council Member DuBois: Can I just ask a question? The math that the principal cited, I think she said they have 70 teachers. Do we sell them the lower-wage permit? Ms. Sullivan: Our understanding is that the teachers at Addison do not qualify for low-wage permits. Council Member DuBois: She said it was $15,000. Ms. Sullivan: I believe they purchased 60 or 70—yeah, 60 permits total. Council Member DuBois: For a year? Ms. Atkinson: For Phase One, which was the six months that we're just wrapping up now. The School District purchased them as an employer, and employers only had access to the standard price permit. They did not have access to a reduced price permit which was only for eligible employee purchase. Council Member Schmid: How many parking spaces are there on the Addison block? Ms. Sullivan: I believe they have about 17. Off street? Council Member Schmid: The block. Ms. Atkinson: We would have to get back to you. Ms. Sullivan: On the block, I don't know. Council Member Schmid: There's no residences on that block, so the whole block is parking. Ms. Gitelman: We'd have to get back to you with a count. Council Member Kniss: You mean on the school site, Greg? Council Member Schmid: Yeah. Seventeen. The square block that Addison is on doesn't have any houses. Ms. Gitelman: One thing we could do, if you're inclined to consider their request, we're could add something to make the Addison Elementary School eligible for a certain number of low-income permits regardless of what their income is. TRANSCRIPT Page 56 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Council Member Schmid: I think that would be helpful for class aides and substitute teachers and the variety of people who are working ... Ms. Gitelman: Knowing that they purchased 60 in Phase One and they have 17 onsite spaces, what would you like to do in terms of accommodating them? Council Member DuBois: I would suggest a friendly amendment that we just let the School District permits under the low-wage program. Council Member Schmid: That is possible for us to do that? Council Member DuBois: Basically, we'd just offer them the low-wage rate. Ms. Gitelman: We would propose to add that as a new Item Three under Section Six, Item D. It says employee permits; Number 1 is about the standard permits. Number Two is about the reduced rate for qualifying employees. Number Three would offer a reduced rate for Addison Elementary School employees. Unlimited number? Council Member Schmid: Yeah. Council Member DuBois: Up to 2,000. Council Member Schmid: Are there other comments on the motion? Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Filseth: I'll accept the amendment. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add to Resolution Section 6.D., a Number 3, ‘reduced rate for Addison Elementary School employees - $100/year.’” (New Part E) Council Member Schmid: Thank you, sir. Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: Obviously this is a tricky one. I feel it's more tricky since some of these amendments have been added. A couple of things that are worrying me. One, I want to talk about the TMA for a second. I know that it's not a primary topic tonight, but it's obviously intertwined, so I think it's fair to discuss it a little bit, and it has been brought up a number of times. I think we need to be honest with ourselves that we can't just talk about putting teeth into the TMA. We need to put skin ourselves into the TMA. It is important that we expect that the business community will contribute, and they have assured us they're going to do that. I think it's important, especially if we want to make sure that we TRANSCRIPT Page 57 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 don't lose track of it. I'll be honest; I share some of the concerns we've heard about the future of the TMA. I'm looking forward to hearing the feedback about that in three weeks. I am really concerned; I think it's a serious priority for the City. In order for us to make sure it gets on track, stays on track, and make sure that we have a strong seat at the table, I think we need to at least be open to the possibility that we might need to be playing a role in finding or even directly providing some of the funding for— yes, I'm talking about money—potentially for the TMA. I think we need to be really honest with ourselves. I appreciate everything the business community has done to talk about wanting to contribute to that, but I think we need to prepare ourselves for thinking about how we are going to make sure that doesn't go off track. That means energy, and it also might mean money. Council Member DuBois: (inaudible) Council Member Wolbach: As Council Member DuBois just pointed out, we are a larger employer Downtown, certainly. We certainly need to continue with efforts that we've already started with in the City to reduce our own drive-alone rate. I do think that that's important to point out. It's not just the business community doing it on their own. I want to make sure we keep a seat at that table. That means we've got to have maybe some skin in the game too. I also am not sure we're doing enough or have enough clarity about what our options are regarding low-wage workers. I think that's something that as we do at our next check-in about this and as we revisit this in the next year, especially as we start to ramp down over time the number of spaces for employees. I want to get greater clarity in the future about what our options are to ramp down spaces for high-income employees before low-income employees. I really want to get clear about that and spend some more time talking about that, thinking about that. I want to make sure we're including the business community, including the retailers and the restaurants, etc., and the Chamber, including them in that conversation. I know they've been at the table, and I want to make sure that we don't lose that important communication that is critical to making this work. They say they want to help. They've come here and said they want to help. Let's give them a chance; let's make sure we don't lose that. Another area of concern that I'm not sure whether it goes in this motion. I don't think it does, but I just want it put out there for consideration. I do want to acknowledge the challenges that kind of combine to create a sense that the City's really going after retailers. We always talk about we love retailers and restaurants, but at the same time there are a lot of challenges that restaurants and retailers face with changes to the waste policy, changes to minimum wage, changes to parking. I'm in favor of all these policy changes, but I want to make sure that, again, we're including them in the TRANSCRIPT Page 58 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 discussion and that we're thinking about how to make these changes in a way that is really fair, judicious, and predictable so that people aren't really caught off guard. Regarding the schools, I'm not so excited about that. Council Member DuBois, you and I are on the City/School Liaison Committee. I don't want to poison that relationship. I wonder if that's really necessary. I'm surprised that they're buying 60—was it 60 parking passes for one elementary school? That's a lot. I don't know how many classrooms they have there, but that is a lot of parking permits for one school. Council Member Kniss: Could we interrupt to know what a low-income worker is? What is a low-income worker? Ms. Sullivan: A low-income worker is classified two ways. Either it's someone who makes $50,000 annually or less or someone at an hourly wage who makes two times the minimum wage, which is $9 an hour. Right now, if you make $17 an hour, you're minimum wage or low income. Is it higher than that? Council Member Wolbach: Our minimum wage is 11. Ms. Sullivan: It's 11 now. Anyway, it's two times whatever it is now. Council Member Kniss: Maybe a number of the teachers as those we might think of as aides or janitors. Pardon? Council Member Wolbach: The thing is we're talking about giving a discount to—are we giving it to the School District or to the employees? I guess what I'm reading here is different from what I heard you saying. I'm realizing there's a disconnect. Council Member DuBois: What they said was the School District bought permits for everyone. Council Member Wolbach: Are we offering a discount for the employer or for the employees? What this says is for employees, not to the employer. I feel differently about—if it's a relationship between the City and somebody who is going into work at the school, whether they're a janitor or somebody working in the cafeteria or a teacher, I feel differently about that than I do about Palo Alto Unified. I'd like some clarity from the guys who are talking about this. What do you guys (crosstalk). Ms. Stump: The answer to that question lies between the School District and its employees. The District as an employer could provide parking for its employees or could decline to do that. I'm sure they have labor procedural TRANSCRIPT Page 59 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 requirements with respect to either answer. I don't know what their agreements or commitments are with their employees. Thinking out loud, I think the City could provide that if individual employees are purchasing the permits, they would be eligible for a low-wage worker rate, and if the District as an employer purchased them, that the standard rate would apply. I think you could make that rule in terms of pricing the permits. Whether it's one or the other is not something that's subject to the City's regulation. It's between the District and its employees. Council Member Wolbach: Just looking at what this says, this seems to address only an employee coming to the City saying, "I work at Addison, and I want to get a low-income worker." I'm okay with that. I'm not so ready to jump to the level of Palo Alto Unified comes to us and says, "We want to buy an unlimited number of passes, and they're all going to be discounted." Council Member Schmid: Do you want to make a Motion? Council Member Wolbach: I just want to make sure that we're really clear about that. Reading the text here, it seems clear, but it's different from what I heard people discussing earlier. Ms. Stump: My understanding is from the—the Planning Director had to step out. We have another concurrent meeting. My supposition is that she was taking the Council's direction to mean that permits for those employees regardless of who purchased them would be at the low-income rate. Now I'm hearing a different direction from Council which is also fine. We'll just have to be clear so that we draft it correctly. Council Member Kniss: I think that your point is (inaudible). Council Member Wolbach: Do we need to add something here to provide (crosstalk)? Ms. Stump: If you all nod and give us the direction that that's how you wish the rule to be, we'll draft it that way. Council Member Schmid: Council Member Filseth is the maker of the motion. Where are you? Council Member Filseth: I think you're bringing up a rather interesting point from a number of aspects. Are we giving a discount to the School District because the School District buys the permits or are we giving a discount to classroom aides who make $35,000 a year or something like that and can't afford these permits? The larger thing you want to worry about, I think this TRANSCRIPT Page 60 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 group should worry about, is—we all look at PAUSD and say obviously schools. That's at the top of everybody's priority list in Palo Alto, is raising kids. If we start making exceptions for one group, there's a lot of deserving groups around. Are we going down a slope that we don't want to go down? Council Member Kniss: This is part of State law, you said. Council Member Filseth: I think that from a practical perspective if we say it can only be bought by the employees but not by the School District, then the unintended consequence is likely to be that sort of the School District contorts itself to make sure that the employees buy the permits or something like that. I would be a little bit worried about that. Are you guys thinking about that? Council Member Schmid: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: Again, I guess I view the public school system as a different entity than almost any other entity. I don't think we should prefer whether the employee buys it or the School District buys it for the employee. I think if they want to buy it for the employees, that's a nice benefit. Again, whether it's for the teacher or for the aide, I'm not sure that's really for us. I think it's really just a question of do we view our public schools as a different entity than anything else? Council Member Wolbach: In that case ... Council Member Filseth: I think that's a good description. Council Member Wolbach: In that case, if we're going to leave it open to be either way as was presumed previously, then I guess we've got some good news the next time you and I go to the City/School Liaison Committee. I guess we can leave it. Council Member DuBois: Should we clarify it? Council Member Wolbach: It sounds like you guys want to leave it open to whether it's the School District or the employee directly and not make that differentiation at this point. I'll just say that's something I'm going to want to revisit just for budgetary reasons and fairness reasons. I might be convinced that's a great idea in the long term, but I'm willing to go with it for now (crosstalk). Council Member Filseth: I think I lean a little bit towards Tom's interpretation and the worry that if we say it's one but not the other, then the School District will just reorganize itself to game the system. I think I TRANSCRIPT Page 61 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 lean a little bit that way. If you guys want to continue this discussion and flesh it out some more, I think that's useful. I think you raise a very good point. Council Member Wolbach: I think I've raised my concerns. I think that when we do our next check-in and we come back to this next year, I think this will be one of the things that we look at again. I put it in the record. Council Member Schmid: Any other additions, comments, changes? Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: I'm sorry, I know we want to go home. Just a couple of things. I think it's really on us as Council for new projects, particularly Downtown, that they come with very strong TDMs, that we're not contributing more to this unparked problem. Again, I think that we need to make sure that businesses in new buildings with strong TDMs, maybe they aren't allowed to purchase permits. If they commit to being fully parked, maybe they need to show that they stay that way. I also think we need to work with our business community to really look at private parking spots and see if those could be rented, if they're not being used. I think we're going to need to leverage all the spots we have. The last point, I do hope we make the purchasing process for permits easier and perhaps get to a point where we have vending machines or things where we don't always need to go to City Hall, but that's down the road. Council Member Schmid: Let me ask a follow-up question, a legal question. City Attorney, when we had 429 University come to us, they came and said they had a credit for 37 parking spaces because of their payments into the Parking Assessment District. That number, 37, comes from the final report that actually had 9,150 parking spaces. Does that mean in the future, the next time a projects comes in the Downtown and they claim a credit that they are automatically given those credits? Since they're not available in the garages or the Downtown, push it out into the neighborhood. Are we in control of future requests from Downtown businesses? Ms. Stump: Thank you, Council Member Schmid. Not speaking specifically to the 429 but to the City's development standards and the parking requirements as expressed in the Zoning Code. The spaces that each property has allocated to it as having been paid for in the Assessment District do run with the land and run with that property. That future development on the property then builds on that base of spaces, and additional square footage then is required to be parking is either required to be built onsite, provided adjacent, or In-lieu Fees paid according to the schedule that we have in our Zoning Code. The answer to your question in TRANSCRIPT Page 62 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 terms of our current law is yes. I think you're asking perhaps a more complex question about understanding the history and development of the Assessment District. That might be an item where we do need to come back with a longer briefing for the Council. It's fairly complex. Council Member Schmid: I guess it's complex, but it deals with the issue of how many spaces are requested now and might be requested in the future. As we have a dynamic Downtown, there will be future requests for these "parking rights" that are well beyond the boundaries of space available. Ms. Stump: I'm sorry. Was there a question there? Council Member Schmid: I'm concerned with next year and the year after when we're trying to reduce the number of parking spaces, will we be confronted with the issue of having to approve a series of "parking spaces" by right? Ms. Stump: As I understand your question, it arises when there's a new development that is larger or more dense than the existing. These are not new requests. These are a continuation of allocations that have been made going back many years. Your concern is that, as I understand it, the total does not match up with the actual built spaces. That's not a new problem, if you will; it's a structural issue that results from the way that the bonds were sold (crosstalk). Council Member Schmid: I assume it's one of the reasons we're here tonight. Over the last decade, that growth has taken place and pushed more cars into the neighborhood. Does our current legal code structure mean that we will be pushing more into the neighborhood in coming years? Ms. Stump: I think what makes sense at this point, because this item is noticed for Downtown RPP, is for us to note this issue. You've raised it a number of times. We've provided a variety of information. It might be that we need to do a more complete briefing for the Council on the Downtown Assessment District, but we're not prepared to do that tonight, and it also isn't appropriate in terms of what's been noticed. Council Member Schmid: I understanding that. I'm just concerned as we move to Phase Two, are we creating a bigger problem while (crosstalk). Ms. Stump: Phase Two certainly does not create that problem. The issue is related to additional commercial development in the Downtown. Council Member Schmid: Any other comments? Council Member Filseth. TRANSCRIPT Page 63 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Council Member Filseth: I'm at risk of opening a can of worms here. I don't want to, but I want to go back to this issue of neighborhood protection versus shared streets that you mentioned and that we discussed a little bit. That is the issue of whether in 10 years we actually go all the way to zero. I'm not persuaded that in order to restore neighborhood protection we need to go all the way to zero. If 10 years from now we sell one permit on my street, I don't have a problem with that. There were always employee cars on my street even 24 years ago, just not very many. I wonder about when do we take up the issue of do we go all the way to zero in 10 years. I don't think we ought to revisit and fight it out every year. At some point, we should have that discussion. When do we have that discussion? Ms. Stump: Thank you, Council Member Filseth. I think that's a great question. It's important from a governance standpoint for the Council to understand what this Council has the authority to do and what future Councils have the authority to do. This is a Legislative Item. As someone pointed out, there's an election this fall. There certainly will be some changes on the Council, some number of two, three, four. With or without personnel changes on the Council, the Council is a legislative body that always retains the ability to legislate and amend ordinances. You can certainly express your intention tonight that your legislative policy that you're setting will go forward over a period of time, but there is not a binding way that this Council by ordinance can prevent a future Council from readdressing the issue. Council Member Filseth: And rightly not. We could express some kind of intent to provide some guidance for sort of how we felt about it. I don't know if this is a good idea or not, but suppose for the sake of argument we said, "When we get out seven years or right years, and now we've gone 200 a year, so now we're down to 600 or 400 spaces or something like, let's take a look again at it and decide whether we want to go all the way to zero." Is that the kind of thing that you mean when we talk about guidance? Ms. Stump: You certainly could do that. I think what you're thinking about is that there's a period of time at which it would make sense. However, I would point out to the Council that there are business cycles, there are changes that are hard to foresee as we sit here today. It may be that the Council decides in two years or in three years or four years that really it's important to look at the program again. Council Member Filseth: Anybody else have any thoughts on this? I'd love to hear other ... TRANSCRIPT Page 64 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Council Member Kniss: I just don't want to tie the hands of future Councils, and you can't. It just can't be done. Council Member Filseth: We shouldn't. On the other hand, we don't want to be in the situation where we fight this out every year. Council Member Kniss: No, but Councils to come will do that. Council Member Schmid: Council Member Kniss. Council Member Kniss: I want to say as we close this down, we are still in an experimental stage. That's why I would say no to that. We cannot make decisions for the Council even of next year. The next year's Council may come in and say we don't agree with this at all, in which case they can change it. Many Councils have. I would say over the past year, we've changed a lot of things when the Council changed. That's the nature of the beast. That is our job; we get to make decisions. If you can find four members who agree with you on a regular basis—tonight it's slightly different. If you can four other people that agree with you, you can change almost anything you'd like to unless it's a State law or the speed limit or something like that. We can override almost anything that was done before. I'm looking at Former Mayor Kleinberg who sat here 10 years ago. Am I right? Ten, 11, 12, and who made a lot of very different decisions at that point in time. We will look back and say, "We can't even recall what all the reasons were that we made that." That will actually happen. I want us to stay in the flexible zone with this and not completely tie ourselves down. We really are an experiment, and other towns around us are an experiment. We're not like Menlo Park where they shut it down at night, I think, between 2:00 and 5:00 in the morning. It really sets a tone. You do not park on the street in Menlo Park. Here you get to park on the street as you see in the morning if you're out walking early. I think as we've said, we didn't make everyone happy, but I hope that the public in general will know that this is something movable. We are in that flexible stage. I think as the Chair has suggested, when you have a Chamber full and you have all those people who want to talk, it also turns out 3:00 is a good time to meet even though I got a lot of nasty letters saying, "Why would you meet at 3:00?" I had equally nasty ones saying, "Why did you make decisions at 12:30?" Sometimes it's hard to win this game. I think 3:00 in the afternoon is terrific for Staff by the way. It probably makes a lot more sense for Gianotti [phonetic] who won't have to file his story at 2:00 A.M. All lightness aside, we've made a serious decision we're moving in a very different direction. I think we really have given a lot of the neighborhoods a great deal of relief that they didn't have before. Done. TRANSCRIPT Page 65 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 Council Member Schmid: Council Member Wolbach. I guess it's not 3:00 any more. We're moving on. MOTION RESTATED: Council Member Filseth moved, seconded by Council Member DuBois to: A. Adopt a Resolution amending Resolution 9473 to implement Phase 2 of the Downtown Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) District Pilot Program; and B. Direct Staff to make corresponding changes to the Council approved RPP Administrative Guidelines; and C. Add to Resolution Section 5(C)(2)(g)(1) “no daily or five day scratchers will be sold in Zones 9 and 10” after “be sold randomly;” and D. Move up Council review to four months; and E. Add to Resolution Section 6.D., a Number 3, “Reduced rate for Addison Elementary School employees - $100/year.” Council Member Schmid: If there are no other comments, let me call the question. All in favor of the Resolution. Council Member Kniss: Do we just want to raise our hand? We're not on the board are we? Council Member Schmid: Yes, just raise our hand. That passes unanimously. MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 5-0 Berman, Burt, Holman, Scharff absent Council Member Kniss: I might add, if it hadn't passed unanimously, we would have had a problem. Council Member Schmid: Right. We passed the Resolution. Do we need to pass the ordinance? Council Member DuBois: We need to pass Item One. I move that we pass Item One, the Ordinance. Council Member Filseth: Second. Council Member Wolbach: Second. TRANSCRIPT Page 66 of 66 City Council Meeting Transcript: 2/23/16 MOTION: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member Kniss to adopt an Ordinance of the Council of the City of Palo Alto to add Section 10.50.085 (Eligibility Areas) and to Amend Section 10.50.090 (Modification or Termination of Districts) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code Relating to Residential Parking Programs. Council Member Schmid: Do you want to say anything ... Council Member Kniss: Do you want to raise your hands again? Council Member Schmid: Do you want to say anything to that? All in favor then of the Ordinance, raise your hands. That passes unanimously as well. MOTION PASSED: 5-0 Berman, Burt, Holman, Scharff absent Council Member Schmid: Thank you very much. Thank you, Staff, for all the data and information. Thank you, public, for sitting along. Meeting is adjourned. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 6:31 P.M.