HomeMy WebLinkAbout2016-09-06 City Council Summary MinutesCITY OF PALO ALTO CITY COUNCIL
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Special Meeting
September 6, 2016
The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council
Chambers at 5:07 P.M.
Present: Berman, Burt, DuBois arrived at 5:30 P.M., Filseth, Holman,
Kniss, Scharff, Schmid, Wolbach arrived at 5:26 P.M.
Absent:
Study Session
1. Study Session on the Parks, Trails, Natural Open Space and Recreation
Master Plan.
Mayor Burt: Our first item tonight is a Study Session on the Parks, Trails,
Natural Open Space and Recreation Master Plan. Mr. de Geus.
Rob de Geus, Community Services Department Director: Good evening,
Mayor Burt, Council Members. Pleased to be back here to discuss the
progress we've made on the Parks, Trails, Natural Open Space and
Recreation Facilities Master Plan. Quite a mouth full. Let me introduce
members of our team here. We have members of the Parks and Rec
Commission here. They've been terrific. I think a few of them are here. I
see Ed Lauing and Anne Cribbs and Keith Reckdahl, maybe some others. We
discussed the Master Plan at every meeting. They've just done an
outstanding job in helping Staff through this process. From Community
Services Department (CSD), we have Assistant Director Kristen O'Kane to
my right. We have Division Manager of Parks, Open Space and Golf Daren
Anderson on the far right. From Public Works, Peter Jensen has been
outstanding in keeping us on track. We also have Senior Engineer Elizabeth
Ames and Assistant Director Brad Eggleston, who deserve recognition. From
our consultant, MIG, we have Lauren Schmitt in the center here, who's a
principal of MIG and helping us with the presentation today. Just to get us
started, a reminder of the purpose of the plan, to guide decision-making for
the future development of parks, trails, open space and the recreation
system. The elements of the Plan are broken down into three sections.
Parks, trails, natural open space is one. Recreation facilities is two, and then
recreation programs as the third element. In your packet, you received a
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Staff Report that shares the progress we've made since we were last with
you in January. We had hoped to come to Council before the break, but just
too many pressing items had us push off a little ways. We've continue on
and are happy to be here today. We have a working draft of the Plan in the
packet. It still needs a lot of work. I'm sure you saw that. I hope today we
can focus mostly on Chapter 4 there, the goals, policies and programs which
was really the focus of the discussion. There's a memo from the Parks and Rec Commission on dog parks and an outline of the final chapter yet to be
written, which is titled "Implementation." The process of the plan was three
phases. We're currently heading toward the end of Phase 2 and hope to
have a draft plan for review to the Council by the end of the calendar year.
At this time, I think I will pass it on to Lauren Schmitt to carry on with the
presentation. Thank you.
Lauren Schmitt, MIG, Inc.: If you cast your mind back to the beginning of
the year, that's when we were last here filling you in on what we had
learned in the first phase. Just a quick refresher on that. The first phase
had a very robust community engagement and technical analysis process
that ran concurrently, a huge amount of really great data generated. We
are at the cusp of looking at what do we do with all of that. That material really forms what will be in Chapters 1, 2 and 3 of the draft Master Plan.
We're still refining what belongs in the Master Plan, what belongs in
appendices, and what will live on in that three inch binder that we showed
you a picture of back in January. A couple of key takeaways of what we
learned out of all of that are some key opportunities we've been focusing the
policies and programs on. One of those is the park search areas. You'll see
that referenced, and that relates to the geographic analysis that we did. The
blue highlighted areas show areas where we really want to focus attention
on enhancing the park system for a variety of reasons. We've looked in
detail at some of the characteristics in those areas. You'll see some
particular programs focused on those areas. The other opportunity is
connecting up the park systems. There's been a lot of great planning on
bicycle and pedestrian routes. What this opportunity looks at is how to knit
that together further into the park system and really connect up all of the
parks. A third opportunity that we heard loud and clear from the public was
the importance of natural systems and incorporating those further into the
park system, incorporating them throughout Palo Alto. This map shows
some ways of looking at opportunities to increase pollinators, to link up
some of the preserves that you have and other methods that again you'll see
policies and programs that relate to those. Really how that came together is
we had the engagement process and the technical analysis and the needs
and opportunities process. We brought those together. What we learned
are, in addition to these opportunities, particular areas of focus for the
Master Plan. Those areas of focus—we identified a dozen of those. We took
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those back out to the community. We were in the process of doing that
when we met with you in January through the community prioritization
challenge, to make sure we had gotten the right areas to focus on and to
understand whether certain areas people wanted to see more or less
attention on. We used all of that information to really help shape the
framework of the Plan, the principles, the goals and so on.
Kristen O’Kane, Community Services Department Assistant Director: Good evening. Kristen O'Kane, Community Services. I'm going to talk about
Phase 2 which, as Rob said, is where we are right now. We're at the end of
Phase 2. In Phase 2, we took what we learned through the community
engagement process and the data analysis process and, working closely with
the Parks and Rec Commission, we developed the goals, policies and
programs that are included in Chapter 4. To develop those goals, which
guide the overall direction of the Master Plan, we refined the areas of focus
and reflected back on these eight principles, which were developed early on
in the process. The principles are really the vision for the overall system.
Together the areas of focus and the principles helped define what our goals
would be. We have six goals overall included in the Master Plan. The first
goal focuses on ensuring that facilities are accessible, inclusive and equally distributed across the City. The second goal focuses on the existing system.
How can we enhance the existing system that we already have, that we
know is a great parks, recreation, open space and trails system in the City
and how can we enhance that? The third goal is related to health and
wellness. This is not just physical health but also mental and emotional
health. Focusing on health but also social connections and how can we
foster those social connections within our community. The fourth goal,
which we heard a lot about from the community, is focused on nature and
integrating nature and ecological principles throughout the City through our
facilities as well as our programming. The fifth goal is related to expanding
the system. When we talk about expanding the system, one thing that we
are trying to address is how can we do that strategically by leveraging
partnerships and other ways to collaborate with others to expand the
system. An example would be the Stanford-Palo Alto soccer fields. That's a
great example of how we worked with Stanford to provide something for the
community. The last goal is really about how we're going to manage the
system. We're going to do that efficiently, effectively and sustainably. This
goal also recognizes the importance of measuring what we're doing. How do
we know when we succeed? How do we report back to the Commission and
Council on what we've accomplished through the Master Plan? The structure
of the Master Plan, this chapter in particular, mirrors the Comprehensive
Plan (Comp Plan). There's goals, policies and programs. There were several
policies that we really needed some assistance from the Parks and Rec
Commission with. We really went down into the details with the Parks and
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Rec Commission on defining what those policies are going to be. Examples
of those are the policies related to dog parks and restrooms. At this time,
I'm going to turn it over to Daren Anderson, who's going to provide a little
bit more information on that.
Daren Anderson, Open Space and Parks Division Manager: Good evening.
One of the gaps in our park system that we've known about for many years
is dog parks. We only have three dog parks. They're all located in the south, and two of them are too small. Several years ago, the Parks and
Recreation Commission adopted a policy directing Staff to look to add a dog
park any time we did a park renovation Capital Improvement Program (CIP)
project. Unfortunately, that policy didn't result in any new dog parks. The
Commission and Staff continued to look at alternatives to provide these off-
leash opportunities. One that we looked at very closely was this shared-use
model. The idea being you could take a fenced-off baseball field and for
certain, limited hours of the day it could serve as a dog park, and then back
for the baseball users. When we reached out to the community and started
discussing this, we found that it didn't satisfy the needs of the dog users nor
did it meet the needs and desires of the athletic field users. During the
Parks Master Plan, Staff and the Commission took a different approach, a far more comprehensive look at every single park in Palo Alto including our
green spaces, non-parkland, to say could these serve as a viable dog park
that would meet our needs. The goal was to identify multiple locations at
least a quarter acre in size and equitably distributed in north and south Palo
Alto. We came up with a list of 11 possible locations. It's important to note
that these 11 sites aren't recommendations that we build dog parks at all of
them. Rather, the policy calls for pursuing at least six dedicated dog parks.
These are potential sites that could be used to address these gaps. There
are still funding questions, and there's still quite a bit of community outreach
that would be necessary before we proceeded with any of these projects. I
should also note that the Parks and Recreation Commission, as referenced in
your Commission memo in your Staff Report, is particularly interested in
pursuing a dog park in the nearer term in advance of completing the Master
Plan. The other policy I'd like to share with you is about the restrooms.
Much like dog parks, park restrooms have been and continue to be a highly
desired amenity. For several years, we had an ongoing capital improvement
project to add a park restroom every other year. It was defunded when we
started our work on the Parks Master Plan, with the thought being this is our
time to do all this outreach and analysis on our system. We can really fine
tune and learn exactly where these restrooms are desired and should be
placed. The criteria we used in discerning which is the best locations for
these restrooms included whether the size of the park was appropriate for a
restroom—we went off the example of being approximately two acres or
larger for the size—whether it had the amenities that encouraged people to
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stay in a park; whether it has a high level of use; and whether or not there
are nearby public restrooms available. Palo Alto currently has 14 parks that
have restrooms. There are seven parks without restrooms that meet the
criteria I just mentioned in this policy. Much like dog parks, these restroom
ideas are not shovel-ready. They would still need to go through funding
analysis and conduct again that same necessary outreach to see if the
neighborhoods supported these projects.
Ms. Schmitt: Another aspect of the Plan are the site concept plans. Early
on, the idea was let's bring this down to the ground and show how some of
these ideas would play out across the existing park system. What we did is
we looked at each and every site and looked at how might we fit new
amenities, new facilities into the existing sites and how would that lay out on
the ground. Then, we took all of that out to the community, because that's
what really makes it real to people. When you are doing a 20-year plan, it
seems out there in the future, not really very related to your everyday life.
Starting back in May through the summer, through a couple of in-person
events as well as online, people were able to interact with these ideas for
the parts they cared about the most and provide feedback. We heard a lot
of really great feedback about some of the issues like restrooms and dog parks as well as some of the new ideas that we're still processing. A couple
of examples of those. Eleanor Pardee Park, this one took a look at could we
put a dog park here. How might we up the value of the sports field? How
might we fit a few new amenities in there? We took that out to the public.
Another example is Peers Park. You can see Peers Park, based on our
existing analysis of that site, really had a lot of opportunity to bring new
ideas into it, including some kind of active use, also potentially a dog park,
another picnic area, looking at a different level of sports field. As I
mentioned, we're still sorting out the feedback from the public. Over all, I
looked at all of the comments, very positive and a lot of refinements, could
you consider this. One of the things, though, that you'll see moving forward
is we've looked more carefully at what does it mean to have a concept in the
Master Plan. What we're going to do with those is make them be a
companion piece for the Master Plan. The document that you adopt will
contain the policy guidance. These ideas will become a companion reference
that we'll use as we go forward with the capital improvement processes
because of the timing. Some of these projects may be five years down the
road. Some of the ideas may change about what constitutes an active use
desired facility. The other thing that we're thinking very carefully about are
what we've termed unique opportunity sites. These are some really unique
opportunities—land that you already own—to expand the system. They are
really once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Every single one of them is a great
opportunity and is also a really long-term project. We're thinking very
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carefully about how we discuss these sites in the plan and how we sequence
and think about what happens in the long term for these big, big projects.
Mr. de Geus: As we conclude the Staff presentation, we could share a lot
more, but we think we want to get into the Q&A with the Council. We are
thinking about the last chapter of the Plan and the drafting of the final
document. The final chapter we're titling "Implementation." The outline
includes an action plan template; a discussion and a section on funding; sources of funding that exist today and potential new funding sources in the
future; evaluating future projects—we know that interests are going to
change over time, and we'll need to adapt and fold them into the Master
Plan in some way—progress on reporting the methodology of how we're
succeeding in achieving what's laid out in the Master Plan; and finally, a call
of action, something that inspires action. Regarding the Action Plan
specifically, we used the same criteria that we used to develop the goals,
policies and programs. These are the criteria that developed over the
process of the Plan and that the public and the Parks and Recreation
Commission really helped refine and define. We shared these with you last
time. They've been very helpful as we think about the tradeoffs of one set
of policies and programs versus another. We'll continue to use those. Chapter 6 will also have a template action plan that we envision will be an
annual plan that will align with the budget process, the Capital Budget
process and the Operating Budget process. The idea is not to have a full
action plan that lays out every action that we might take over 20 years in
the Master Plan, but rather it lays out an approach and a process for how we
will use the Master Plan to inform the preparing of our Capital Budget
annually and the five year plan and the Operating Budget. We have an
example of what that will likely look like for Capital. The next slide is an
Operating example. The action plan will be aligned with the City's budget.
The Master Plan goals and policies and programs will be used to guide and
inform the preparation of the annual budget as Council considers the many
interests and needs that the community has. A lot of choices and tradeoffs
need to be made, not only within Parks and Recreation but of course across
the City. Next steps for the Plan, have this discussion this evening and hear
your feedback, refine the concept plans, draft the Master Plan and hopefully
back to Council after Parks and Recreation Commission review before the
end of the calendar year. The last thing I'll mention is regarding the
environmental review. The Staff Report says that we initially thought this
planning study would be exempt from California Environmental Quality Act
(CEQA). In discussing further with Molly and Hillary from Planning, we think
that it would be prudent to do an Initial Study and Mitigated Negative
Declaration for the Plan. We're exploring moving forward on that. That's
the end of the Staff presentation. I did want to give an opportunity to the
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Chair of the Parks and Rec Commission, Ed Lauing, if he would like to say
something. Here he is.
Ed Lauing, Parks and Recreation Commission Chair: Thank you, Rob. It's
been quite a collaborative venture and adventure so far, and it will continue
to be so. It's been very intense particularly on the chapter that you're going
to study most tonight. There's a lot of content there that's gone through
months and months and months and months. That's in pretty good shape. The other stuff, as stated, is still in draft format. I don't want to repeat
things that Rob said. I just want to call out a couple of points. One is that
we really want to have as much as possible a data-driven Plan. As you
know, all data is not created equal, but it comes from different sources and
you can make different conclusions from it. To do that overall, we think that
to set the priorities correctly, we have to be able to make a distinction, as
was put up there, between needs and opportunities. The needs are really
the gaps that Rob referenced in services and facilities. Also, the growth
trends are really important for us to consider. When we have good hard
data like that and we see that, as in page 35 of your document that you got,
population is going to grow by 27 percent in three years, that means 18,000
more people are coming to our parks in the next two decades. We need to respond to that. If we see that seniors are already 17 percent of our
population and growing and they don't want to move, then that's good hard
data that says we have to address that. Those are gaps and needs. The
opportunities are—Staff did an amazing job of doing reach out to public
using a lot of different input tools on what community preferences were and
are. If you put it all together, we got up to about a percentage of people
answering or giving input. Don't have a calculation if there's overlap there
and it was really only ten people, but we don't think it was. Of course, that's
a small sample size, but we got great, terrific input that is very usable, but
it's a different kind of data. It's qualitative data from a number of people as
it's detailed in your packet, that's just not the same as quantitative data but
still actionable. The idea is we have to keep these differences in mind
between what's really a need and an opportunity as you go forward,
particularly anticipating the next phase of this and the prioritization. Very
briefly, as you noticed we say we have enough data now on dog parks. It's
an actual need. By doing surveys, we know that. It's a community
preference, and there's population growth. We can move on that now; we
don't have to wait another four months. Something else, like the 10 1/2
acres, as Vice Mayor Scharff said when the golf course was approved, we've
just created 10 1/2 new acres of property in Palo Alto. We have, and it's
fragile and it's limited. We want to proceed a little bit more cautiously on
that to make sure we get it right. We don't want to just unload the backhoe
out there and get going on something. Those are my two overall comments.
The only other one is that there will be expensive things that you should still
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prioritize high, because they have to be done. One of those we think is
parkland, and it's not cheap. Precisely because it's going to take some time
to get a process in place and to get funding in place, then it has to start now
in some sort of incarnation, so that over the years we can really address that
need. Thanks much. Thanks to all of my colleagues, most of whom are
here tonight. We're going to keep cranking. Our goal is to be here on New
Year's Eve and get it approved, as it says right up there, December 16th.
Mayor Burt: Thank you, Ed. Thanks to all of the Commissioners and the
Staff for continued great work on this very important project. Normally at
Study Sessions we have discussion with Council before hearing from
members of the public, but I think I'd like to invite the members of the
public to speak first. At this time, we have two cards. If anyone else wishes
to speak, they need to bring a card forward at this time. Our first speaker is
Howard Hoffman, to be followed by Shani Kleinhaus. Welcome. You have
up to three minutes to speak.
Howard Hoffman: Members of the Council, thank you. My name is Howard
Hoffman. I'm the founder and president of Palo Alto Dog Owners. We
represent nearly 400 dog owners in Palo Alto and their supporters. First of
all, I'd like to thank the City Staff, the Master Plan consultant and the members of the Commission for the fine job they did on the overall Master
Plan. As a longtime resident of Palo Alto, my interests go beyond dogs. Like
many other members of our group, I was a coach for AYSO soccer, so I
appreciate the playing fields here. I've been a member of the Sierra Club for
45 years, so I appreciate the open space and all of those values. The thing
that has really been lacking in Palo Alto has been dog parks. Dog parks are
not just for dogs. They're for people, and they're not just for people that
have dogs. We have a rule in Palo Alto, a law, that says you can't have your
dog off leash. In order for people to exercise their dogs adequately, they
need to have some off-leash time. We can only do that either in our own
yards, which tend to be pretty small in Palo Alto, or otherwise in a dog park.
Again, we'd like to thank the members of the Commission and the Staff and
hope that we can look forward to coming before you in the future as you
approve a number of dog park improvements. Thank you very much.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Our final speaker is Shani Kleinhaus. Welcome.
Shani Kleinhaus: Thank you, Mayor Burt and Council. Thank you, Staff, for
all the outreach and everything you've been doing. It's been quite an
experience and very good outreach. I sent you two letters for the Sierra
Club and Audubon. I hope you had a chance to look at them. There are
several overall, general recommendations and some specific ones. One of
the issues is dog parks. I'm totally supportive; I have two dogs myself. I
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think I'm a member of the organization. Dog park is not compatible with
native oaks, and Canopy's working on Eleanor Pardee Park to preserve and
even plant more oaks. That oak grove is not a good place for a dog park.
I'm not saying don't put it anywhere else, but in the oak grove is not
compatible. One of the letters I sent you—I'm trying to go fast—is about the
10 acres of the golf course. We hope to have a birding and nature park
there. I don't think there needs to be a lot more done at this point, a fence from the golf course and a trail and maybe a sign. It doesn't even have to
be paved. I took all the information that was provided by the different
surveys that were done and summarized them in a table for you. There
were a lot of other things, but the two leading things that people voted for
was—one was nature hiking and bird watching together, and the other was
sports fields. There was about equal support for both, and hopefully you can
start at least, if there's no money yet for the sports fields, a nature and
hiking and bird park. The infrastructure, meaning the trees, is already
there. There's the pond; maybe put a little bit of water back in there. Enid
Pearson provided an amazing list of things to look into in her letter. I hope
Staff looks into those. There's a lot of really interesting things there. The
ITT property—that's just coming online—is really ecologically sensitive. We've got to be very, very careful what happens there. I'm sure you guys
will be looking into that, the Staff, and coming up with some ideas. Going
through my list. I think comprehensive resource plans are needed for
Foothill Park and Pearson-Arastradero. That way instead of saying, "We
need a trail. Let's see how we mitigate that," the comprehensive resource
plan says how we're going to put trails, where do they belong, so we don't
even need to mitigate it. It all falls naturally into one big picture. It's a
much better way to deal with natural areas. That is why I included that in
my letter. I think that's what I have to say. Thank you all, and thank you
for all this good work.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. We'll now return to the Council for questions and
discussion. It's a Study Session, so no formal action tonight. Who would
like to go first? Council Member Kniss.
Council Member Kniss: I remember in the past there has always been a lot
of discussion about restrooms in particular. Maybe you could share a little
more about—you've presented it as this is the number of restrooms and
what parks they would go in. I haven't heard total enthusiasm for some of
the parks from people who live close by for a variety of reasons. You might
go into that a little further. I see that you have laid that out. I'm going to
presume that you must have had a fair amount of support for it, but it's one
of the areas where I've heard "We'd just as soon not have one."
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Ms. Schmitt: Yes, that's an area that the Staff was really interested in
hearing about. Through many of the different outreach opportunities, there
were actually questions that asked specifically about restrooms and then
also generally about things that would enhance the use of the site. There's
a pretty overwhelming pattern when you look across the City and the topic
of restrooms in general. There's overall support for them on the site-by-site
basis. That's what Daren is getting at with the policies that there needs to be more work. We now know that overall you can pull data points from the
survey that was done through your Vovici system, through actually the
recent concept plan feedback. Very few negative comments at specific sites.
A lot of very positive comments and even on some of the sites that didn't
meet the criteria of being two acres. There were requests like, "Can you
please add a restroom here?" There are a lot of data points from the
Citywide audience that, I think, would support the policy that Daren has. I
don't know if you want to add anything else to that, Daren.
Mr. Anderson: The only additional item I'd bring up is in several public
meetings, whether it was dog parks or park restrooms, residents would say,
"There's 35 people here, and we really are telling you how bad we want,"
let's say, a park restroom. What happens when just a few people come out and say, "We don't want it. Are you guys going to kill it to stop this?" We
say that's a very good question. We realize that's a nuance that happens
during the public process. It's important to hear all voices. At the same
time, we want to represent the enormity of some of this outreach, where we
maybe have 700 people responding to a survey, and a very large majority
say, "We want restrooms," that that voice gets heard in the context relative
to maybe a very small vocal minority. That's we intend to do when it comes
time to do one of these. Let's say it's a park restroom at Eleanor Pardee.
There once had been a park restroom CIP, and it was shot down by the local
residents just before it was supposed to start. What I talked to the group
about at those public meetings was we're coming to the table with a greater
degree of outreach than we'd ever done before. Prior to that, it was one
public meeting where 15 people showed up. Now we have 700 people who
have weighed in on this concept to say, "We support the idea of having a
restroom in this park." It's necessary for people of all ages and abilities to
fully enjoy and utilize this space. Maybe a vocal minority shouldn't
necessarily outweigh that. That's a decision for the Commission and
Council, of course. We're going to come to you fully weighted with that
information.
Council Member Kniss: I think some of the people who are of the small
majority happened to find me. I did hear a different story from time to
time. I will share some of what they said, because that's our job, to let you
know what we've heard. I think, especially at some of the smaller parks
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which are heavily used, people are concerned that a restroom brings more
people and allows them to stay longer. Maybe that's un-neighborly, but I'm
just sharing the kinds of things that I've heard. I won't call out particular
parks tonight, but I will let you know later of the four parks in particular who
said that while they knew it wasn't neighborly, it wasn't something that they
were looking forward to. I think I wouldn't be giving you feedback at a
Study Session if I didn't share that. I know it makes—as I said, it sounds un-neighborly, but several people sought me out to tell me that. A couple of
people wrote us notes. I see Rob nodding, which means that he might
remember the times that we've run into this before. Those are my
comments for the moment. Thanks.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Schmid.
Council Member Schmid: Let me keep my comments strategic in nature.
What are the goals of our parks? How should they be used and what issues
might flow from that? The first is really a preface comment that comes
before we get to the policies and programs. The demographics, a clear
statement upfront that population is growing 1.1 percent per year. We need
parks for this population and the kids that come along. School District
comes and says their population is going to grow 0.2 percent per year. That's a 5:1 difference. It's a critical assumption as we look at parklands.
Is it for kids or is kids going to be a shrinking share of our population? It's
in your preface. You should be clear on what you mean and what you
expect. As we get to the issues like Cubberley, do we need schools that are
not—do we need places for kids to play, more spaces? Those are critical
issues, and we should be talking to the School District one-on-one abut
realistic assumptions. Brings me to Point Number 2. What are parks? On, I
think, Page 60 of your report, you give the one general map. In your
presentation tonight, you gave four or five different ones that give a
different perspective. On this map, clearly anyone reading it looks and says,
"There are areas that have parks within walking and distance, and others
that do not." Raises the issue of what about school grounds. My
understanding of Palo Alto history is that in 1988, '89, there was an accord
made between the School District and the City that the City would help the
School District out financially. In exchange, one of the things the City would
do was care for the grounds of the park. In exchange, those grounds that
used to be locked up after school would be open to the community. I read
through this and kept saying, "Where's that accord?" Why isn't it clearly
stated somewhere how the community—what rights the community has to
the school grounds? You think of the endless rounds of activities, I know I'm
closer to a school yard than to a park. I know my kids and my grandkids
tend to use the school grounds to shoot a basket, throw a ball, kick a ball,
do the swings. After 3:30 P.M., they're open on the weekends. After
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evening walks, people are walking there. I don't think I've ever gone on a
weekend day where there weren't 20 people in a given school parkland. I'd
like to see a clear statement, are these part of our open space park system.
I know there are constraints on it, but do we have some legal right, are we
paying for the upkeep of those grounds and, therefore, does a community
member at 6:00 P.M. at night have the right to walk through and enjoy the
quiet and the comfort that exists? Your map on Page 60, I know when you get to the park search areas, you then identify schools. Are we searching
for something we already have and what are the legal rights of people to
wonder through, throw a ball, play basketball, whatever it be?
Mayor Burt: I'm sorry. Is that a question?
Council Member Schmid: No. It's a statement. If you want to answer it,
that's fine. That's what I would look for, reading through this. A second
sort of strategic issue. I've been in the City a long time, and I can
remember back in the '60s and '70s how parks and activities took place. My
feeling has been a profound change in the use of outdoors, especially among
kids. You no longer hear at a steady stream after 3:00 P.M. on an afternoon
kids playing in the street. When you go by a park, you see organized sports,
but very seldom are kids wandering out into a field to play a pick-up game. What has happened is we have organized youth activities. There might be a
profound reason behind that. We have a lot of kids with both parents
working. Parents want to know where they are. Organized activities give
them a place for that. It seems to me there are still kids who are inside.
There was an incentive to go outside, maybe a different use. I'm surprised
sometimes driving by our parks and fields at 3:00 P.M. on a Sunday
afternoon, even a Saturday afternoon, they're empty. There used to be kids
playing ball out there with themselves, with small groups. Now, unless
there's an organized team on the field, these fields are empty. It raises the
question—we need those fields for the organized activities, but we need
them at given times. Is there a way of thinking about them—I think you
have on Page 93 and Page 82 described we need to think multiple uses of
some of these fields, how can we use them differently. One notion I think of
is what would get a young kid of 10 or 11 to go on his own to a school yard
or to a field if there's not necessarily an organized team, but rather a high
school kid who's on a basketball court. Anyone who comes, they say, "I'll
help you out. Let's play." If two people come, "Here's a game we can play."
Four people came, "We can set up a little two-on-two, and others can join
in." Maybe there's some informal way of getting disorganized activities
started. I think we need a little push from the Staff to have someone there
to help out, to not step in say, "Here's what we're going to do," but "What
would you like to do? Let's set it up so everyone can join." A 10-year-old
kid can walk out of the house and say, "I'm going to the school yard.
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There's something going on over there." The third strategic issue I think
about is places. Let me just make comments on certain places. I've said
before we have a big decision about Foothill Park. I think you make the
point on Page 95 that it's a big, important decision and you'd like to get
some input. We're waiting for a hydrology study. For the public, that is an
absolute and complete mystery. What is it? How can anyone think about
how do you use it and what activities might be appropriate, natural uses versus more engaged activity, if they don't see it. I think as part of this
Master Plan there should be a way of getting community engaged in this gift
of 7.7 acres out there, of at least seeing and knowing and starting to think
about it. Cubberley is mentioned on Packet Page 84. That is a critical part
of our community field activity. Unfortunately, it's not part of Cubberley that
the City owns. It's the school's part. If the school needs something out
there, those fields make up about half of what's left. The fields and gym
might make up two-thirds of the space they have. We have to work with
them closely. How do we make sure that those fields remain in the Parks
Master Plan? The Baylands 10 acres is nice. If you've ever tried to cross the
freeway, especially from south Palo Alto, between 4:00 P.M. and 6:30 P.M.,
you need to add on a good 15 or 20 extra minutes onto your trip. That's a constraint. Is there a mitigation we can take to get those fields used in
some appropriate way that can deal with the traffic? There's "a preserve
called Esther Clark." I don't know why it isn't a park; it's a preserve. It's
listed up there with Arastradero and the Baylands and Foothill. There's just
one problem, how do you get to it? There are zero parking places available.
It's a park off the mainstream. If you want people to use it, you've got to
have access of some kind to it or let's take it off the list. Let's use it for
something else. It's a beautiful Foothill spot. It's closer than Arastradero,
but it's virtually unused. Finally, I'd put in a word for the Matadero Creek.
On Packet Page 102, there's a statement that there's a lot of different uses
that could be made of that creek. I think that is very appropriate to get the
whole community on the creek side there. Those are my thoughts. Thank
you very much for what you've done and what you're doing. I'm a heavy
user of the park on weekends and weekdays and hope they are maintained
into the future.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Berman.
Council Member Berman: Thank you, guys, very much for all the work
you've done so far and the work that you all do before—what was it?
Midnight on New Year's Eve—to get this back to us and for the presentation
today. From a macro level, I love the creation of both dog park and park
restroom policies, that use quantitative metrics to determine where it could
possibly make sense to have a dog park or a public restroom. In my time on
Council, I feel like our quest for a dog park has just been kind of
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opportunistic and maybe we can do it here or maybe we can do it there.
This creates a metric that we evaluate our parks through and say here are
the finalists. Then, let's go out into the community and have those
conversations and see what we haven't thought of and what's impossible,
what negative consequences could be. I guess my first question is along
those lines. To what extent will there be outreach to groups like Audubon
Society or Canopy or others as we kind of pursue different facilities at different parks that might impact our trees or our bird life or whatever the
case may be? Is there a plan to kind of keep them plugged in and get them
to weigh in as we go along?
Mr. de Geus: Absolutely. This is just a starting point and the start of a
conversation in some ways, what's listed here. It gets us further along, I
think, than not having feedback from the public and the kind of outreach
we've done. I think you're exactly right about the policy question about dog
parks and which parks seem more suitable than others to maybe have a dog
park and why and what we've heard from the public. When we talk to the
local community, we at least have that information. That doesn't mean that
it's going to happen there, but at least it gets us further along to have the
conversation, and maybe the local neighborhood can understand a little more why we're taking a look at that site in particular. We may be able to
get to a decision of putting a restroom or a dog park at a few places.
Council Member Berman: That's great. Council Member Kniss and I run in
different circles, but I get a lot of emails from friends who are apoplectic
about the fact that we don't have restrooms in some of these parks. These
are friends who have kids. If folks in the neighborhood don't think that a
little boy is going to find a place to use the bathroom, even if there's a
restroom or not, they're kidding themselves. We might as well just put a
bathroom there and make it as family-friendly as we possibly can for people
to really be able to use the park in a relaxed way, where they don't have to
worry about having to rush off if their son or daughter needs to use the
restroom. Undoubtedly, there will be opposition to it because it's a change,
and there's opposition to all change. I'd be surprised if the vast majority of
people, as your feedback has shown, think that's a good idea.
Mr. de Geus: It's interesting with bathrooms in particular. Almost
everybody that you ask, if you're not talking specifically about a park near
their house, they say, "Yes, bathrooms are a good idea. Put them in parks."
It changes when they start thinking about it in their neighborhood park.
Council Member Berman: We have bathrooms in parks already, and we
know that it doesn't lead to the total degradation of the park or their
experience there or their quality of life in their neighborhood. We're not
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reinventing the wheel. I think we're really just kind of making our parks
that much more user-friendly and family-friendly. To Council Member
Schmid's point of there aren't enough kids in the parks, the clear solution is
putting up a Pokémon Go stop at a playground, and they'll flood there.
Sorry to steal your joke, Council Member DuBois. I think this is great.
There will be difficult decisions as we kind of narrow it down to exactly which
park to put them in and then where in the park to put them. People have been clamoring for dog parks in Palo Alto for a long time. I know we have a
lot of dog owners that'll come out in support as soon as we find a suitable
site. We have to make sure that we do it delicately, but let's do it.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Filseth.
Council Member Filseth: Thanks. I actually had a couple of questions. The
first thing I wanted to say is I think you guys did a really good job of
generally having the policies at the right level. This is going to be a long-
term document and programs. We may get to all of them or not. We may
add new ones. I thought that was good. We might have a program in here
for Pokémon Go stops, but 10 years from now we might decide we don't
want to do it, but we still want to keep the Master Plan. I thought that was
good. I'm assuming that to the extent you want feedback from us, it's more centric to the policies rather than going through individual programs. Is that
an accurate statement?
Mr. de Geus: Yeah, that's correct, Council Member.
Council Member Filseth: I had two questions actually. One was I was a little
confused about the schedule. When do you anticipate the public feedback
period to be for the draft Master Plan?
Mr. de Geus: The public feedback never ends. As soon as we began, we
started with the public, and we've kept them informed all the way through.
It's been great. It's taken some time because of that. At the same time as
the Parks and Recreation Commission is reviewing in the fall, we'll also have
some community meetings to allow the stakeholder group and the
community generally to come forward and have a look at the draft before we
get to Council for a request to approve.
Council Member Filseth: That's like October?
Mr. de Geus: October, November, right.
Council Member Filseth: A second one is I saw a reference on the 10 1/2
acres out by the golf course that given X many feet of sea level rise, then it
might be under water at high tide. You guys have thought about this. How
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should we think about this? Is that something we really ought to worry
about or it's not going to be a big deal? What do you think? How should we
think about that?
Mr. de Geus: We have a great new levee system. We're getting (inaudible)
I understand, so that should protect the golf course and the athletic center
for most of the potential flooding.
Council Member Filseth: You think it's a non-issue.
Mr. de Geus: I don't think it's an issue.
Council Member Filseth: Good. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Holman.
Council Member Holman: Thank you and good work. I've stated before
that—I'll just state it again—I don't think 20 years is a long-range plan. I
don't think it's likely that we're going to update this again in 20 years.
We're going to have development outliving, out-persisting our Parks Master
Plan. I still suggest that whatever we determine in terms of policies here,
that it's a 50-year plan. We can always amend it. We can always update
and revise it, but this needs to be a 50-year plan. I couldn't be more serious
about that. Thank you, Council Member Filseth, for nodding in
acknowledgement of that. As to how to get more kids in parks, I say plant trees, add donkeys, add kids and mix thoroughly. It works very well at Bol
Park. Everybody seems to benefit and is happy about that. I absolutely
support keeping our current ratio of parks to residents. I think it's critical
that we do that. If we lower that ratio, we're just lowering our standards. I
really appreciate Council Member Schmid's comments about structured play
versus pick-up time. I grew up in a small town, and it was also a different
time. A lot of the recreation was pick-up time. You know what? It was
creative time. It was healthy, creative, stimulating. It's when kids learned
how to solve problems. It's how kids learned how to get along with each
other. It wasn't so structured. It was hit the ball, go chase it. It was
whatever it was. Whatever it was, I could go on and on, and I don't need to
do that. I think it's really important that we just have space where people,
including and maybe especially kids, can just be kids, learn, experience,
grow, nurture each other and be the creative beings that they are. I've
heard a lot of people say this, and it's my thinking too. I think five years old
is probably my favorite age for kids. I love five years old and younger. Five
is kind of the crest, and then kids start getting beat into shape. I don't
mean literally beat. They get formed and kind of conforming. If we don't
have space where kids can just be kids without structured play, we're going
to as a culture and a society be much less and a lesser community and
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culture for it. That's my advocacy for that. I mention and raise the question
about park funding. When the item for moving GreenWaste from the current
location over to the Los Altos Treatment Plant (LATP) site came up, I didn't
get a dollar amount, and I don't know if you happen to have a dollar amount
off the top of your head. I should have asked this earlier. I'm really
interested and hope there would be some Council Member support of taking
this space that's rented out to non-GreenWaste contractors and such, taking that money that's rental income there, transferring it from going into the
General Fund to—that is right at the edge of the Baylands. It could be
parkland. Transfer that money into the parks fund and not into the General
Fund, where it goes for non-specific purposes. I know fees are coming to
us. I'm not sure if our parks fees are up to date. I look forward to learning
about that. Dog park you've heard a lot about. One comment in addition to
what Audubon or Sierra Club or Canopy—I think we've maybe heard from all
three of those groups about appropriate locations for dog parks. I
mentioned two to Rob also. I have a dog that's like Velcro. If you put him
on a dog park or a run where there's a lot of dropping from trees, I'm going
to have a dog that weighs five more pounds when I take him home because
of everything he's carrying with him. From the ecological standpoint but also from the practical standpoint, I think dog runs more out in the open are
more appropriate. I don't remember seeing anything about—some people
will know that I've almost harped on this at points in time. Sterling Canal,
what's the status of Sterling Canal? That's actually a question. How could
we put that into some kind of open space, maybe not community gardens?
That seemed to have not worked out. How could we put that into some kind
of community garden space? I think we ought to increase our requirements
for public open space for mixed use and multifamily projects. That space
should be maintained by the developer. It's going to be used maybe the
most by the people how live there, and that's fine. It's going to be used by
others as well. It should be the developer who pays for that. The reason I
mention this is because of a project that I don't need to name. There was
some open space there, planted and deeded to the City, but no maintenance
funds. It just became a burden on the City to try to pay for and maintain.
You probably know where I'm talking about, Rob, from nodding your head.
It just became a burden on the City to maintain that once they got it. Why
not have the developer pay for that, because it benefits the people living
there too? Data driven, absolutely, I agree with Ed. Thank you to the Parks
and Rec Commissioners. I hope everyone of you reapplies because you're a
fantastic Commission. You're just really fantastic, dedicated, smart,
intelligent, you name it. Please, all of you reapply. Agree with the listing of
the sites that Enid Pearson sent along. I think a lot of those are vulnerable
to being taken over by something else over time. Again, this is why it needs
to be a 50-year Plan. Somebody might say nothing's going to happen to
those in the next 10 years, but what about 50 years? I think a referral back
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to Parks and Rec to initiate dedicating these is appropriate. I guess that's
the last thing, except I do think—just for general purposes, whether it's part
of the 10.5 acres or the 7.7 acres or wherever we do that—we do need to
have space that is certainly just put into natural use for people to be able to
chill. The community garden where I have a place, people have planted
butterfly gardens. To see the delight that people express when they see
monarchs that have come there is just great. I need to hush here. Thank you all.
Mayor Burt: Council Member DuBois.
Council Member DuBois: It feels like we're getting really close to wrapping
up the Master Plan. Thank you, guys, for all the hard work. I was also
pleased to see reference to the National Rec and Park Association standard
of four acres per resident. A lot of cities meet that requirement. San
Francisco is at four acres per resident. We really haven't identified a
strategy for catching up. I'd really like to see that maybe emphasized a little
more. We have a lot of spaces that are basically being effective parks.
There's a park at the Ventura Community Center, which we don't really
consider a park because it's owned by the School District and subject to a
lease. It's actually the best park in Ventura. The Boulware Park there we get a lot of emails about, that it needs some help. I'm really interested in
seeing some concept plans for that park. I did see the program about
dedicating a lot of facilities as parks. I really hope you can come back with
some of those very quickly. Winter Lodge, Gamble Garden, all those
facilities would be great to dedicate as parks. Just to echo Council Member
Holman. I don't know if you guys have this letter from Enid Pearson. I'd
really love you guys to go through this and just look at a lot of these places
as potentially dedicated parks. I think one that was mentioned in an email
we got as well was Strawberry Hill, which is this little triangle of land
trapped behind Gunn High School and Bol Park. There's no way to reach it
by road. It would be great to just turn that into a park. The other one that
I didn't see on any of the lists was the switching station that we briefly
considered for the police station on Bayshore. I believe it's not being used
as a switching station anymore, and it's a fairly big chunk of land, I believe,
right next to the creek. On the Baylands, again that seems like a really big
opportunity, the Baylands Athletic Center. I'd love to see a detailed plan for
that and potentially including some creative fundraising. We do have a lot of
adult sports leagues. That seems like a place where concentrated adult
activities might free up some of the ones that are easier to get to for kids. I
understand we've had different definitions over time of what a neighborhood
park is versus a regional park. It seemed like you were kind of blurring that
distinction in the Plan, which I think was okay. When it comes to public
feedback, I think we should be sensitive to which parks have been used
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primarily as neighborhood parks versus regional parks. In those cases,
weigh the neighborhood feedback probably more. I'm thinking about parks
that really aren't on main roads; there's really no parking; most of the users
are actually people who live nearby. There did seem to be a lot of text
dedicated to transportation, particularly bike paths. Is there anything in
here—we have a separate Bike and Pedestrian Plan. Is there anything in
here that's different from that Plan?
Ms. Schmitt: This is intended to layer on top of that and to maybe provide
reasons for prioritizing certain routes or improvements because they also
benefit the park system. There's been quite a bit of coordination between
that. Also, a lot of interest from the community in being able to get around
by bike and by foot.
Council Member DuBois: We have a separate Plan, and I just wanted to
make sure they were aligned. There were a few on the map—I think it was
in your presentation on Page 10—that was calling out a path on Cowper, on
Clara, and then this segment on El Camino, which I actually had seen on our
major bike plan before, particularly the one on El Camino. We have a pretty
major bike path along Park Boulevard, along the tracks. My perspective
would be to emphasize that one to go into Menlo Park by El Palo Alto rather than diverting people onto El Camino.
Mr. de Geus: Council Member DuBois, I think that's a really good point.
We'll sit down again with Josh and Hillary just to make sure that the Plans
are in sync and that we're building upon what's in the Bike/Ped Plan. We've
tried to be very careful about that, because there are lots of different
planning documents. We don't want them to be all independent, and we
don't want them to repeat one another either, but really complement one
another from the Public Art Master Plan to the Urban Forest Master Plan to
even the Comprehensive Plan. I'm not sure we've got it quite right just yet,
but that's a good point on the transportation. I think there's maybe a little
more we can do on that one to sync up the two.
Council Member DuBois: I understand the emphasis was different. If you're
just highlighting the ones that would connect to parks ...
Mr. de Geus: A safe routes to parks theme is what we're trying to have in
here, but we're getting transportation.
Council Member DuBois: Just real quickly on some of the programs and
policies. There was a policy about community gardens, but no programs
underneath it. I think we do have some private community gardens that we
should maybe see what we could do to convert those to public or protect
them. Again, Ventura is a good example. There's a community garden on
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that site as well. There was a program about signage in the parks. I just
hope that will be done tastefully. Program 2A1 about Cubberley, I think
that's a huge one. There's a lot of playing fields, a lot of heavy use at
Cubberley. It's there. I just wanted to emphasize it. The last thing is this is
also our recreation plan. I've been hearing recently from parents and from
Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) people about an interest in a team rec
league for sports. I don't know if that's something we've ever explored. I think it could be a good place to cooperate with the School District and see if
we could have somewhere between pick-up sports and organized sports,
almost like an intramural high school league, where we mix students from
both high schools. It could be more casual. If you're busy, you don't have
to show up. I've heard a lot of interest from parents in some kind of
program like that. Particularly when they get to high school, they have to
cut sports like soccer.
Mr. de Geus: Is that at the high school level?
Council Member DuBois: Yeah. Soccer and basketball in particular where
the kids get cut and they just stop playing. That's it. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Vice Mayor Scharff.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Thank you. First of all, I'd like to say I thought this was really well done when I went through and looked at the programs and how it
was put together. Kudos to the Parks Commission for working on this, and
Staff. On Packet Page 54, we talk about the community engagement
results. I wanted to say I agreed with all of those. I would implement
basically what we have in there. I thought they were all basically right. I
particularly like the idea of more fun in the parks. I thought that was sort of
captured with having movies in the park, and Council's strong support for
Pokémon Go in the parks. I liked all of that. I wanted to basically comment
one thing. It talks about current policies that prioritize facility availability for
Palo Alto residents are widely supported and stakeholders generally agree
that Palo Alto (inaudible) should be focused on providing services to local
residents rather than providing regional attractions. I totally agree with
that. If you turn to Packet Page 98, I wanted to point out that 6C2 in my
view is overly restrictive. I would caution people against being so restrictive
that we say use of parks for locally focused events where more than 50
percent of participants—this is Packet Page 98, 6C2—are expected to be Palo
Alto residents, basically indicating that if you don't have an event of which
more than 50 percent are Palo Alto residents, we wouldn't support doing
this. I think the answer is there might be lots of reasons why you would,
and you wouldn't want to limit it like this. What would happen, for instance,
if we found out that 52 percent of people who run the Moonlight Run are not
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Palo Alto residents? Are we going to cancel it? Are we going to decide we
don't do that anymore? I really caution against things that don't give Staff
discretion where I think most people in Palo Alto would say—I don't know
what the thing in the Moonlight Run is; I'm just using it as an example—we
should go ahead and do that anyway. What happens if we decided we
wanted to have a marathon that ran from Mountain View through Palo Alto
through East Palo Alto as a demonstration of friendship between our cities? That would be a regional event. I think there's a lot of possibility of why you
might want to do a regional event in our parks. I think the idea that we
would be so prescriptive is a real negative. Moving on to Packet Page 54, I
did that. Packet Page 66. I want to talk a little bit about the unique
opportunity sites. I am actually troubled a little bit by the Cubberley
Community Center being a unique opportunity site. I don't understand how
that relates to ...
Mayor Burt: You said Packet Page 66?
Vice Mayor Scharff: Sixty-six, yes, Packet Page 66, under unique
opportunity sites. I don't understand how the Cubberley Community Center
is an opportunity site while at the same time—and how that relates to the
notion of doing a Master Plan in context with the School District on that. There may be buildings there that would not be park uses. There could all
be a bunch of stuff. I don't really see this as the purview of the Parks and
Rec Commission. I see this as the purview of the master planning of the
Cubberley site. There may be park aspects to it, but it's not the Parks
Commission that should be driving that. It should be the master planning
process that we're working with the School District. On the Baylands
Athletic Center, I just think that might be a typo. Is it 10.25 or 10.5? I just
noticed it.
Mr. de Geus: (inaudible)
Vice Mayor Scharff: That's what I thought. I just thought someone should
note that and fix it when they get a chance. When we talked about creating
that 10 1/2 acres, we talked about playing fields. That's always been what
we've talked about. I strongly think there is a shortage of playing fields in
Palo Alto, and we need to build playing fields over there. I worry that we're
getting distracted on this notion of possibly not doing playing fields, keeping
it as open space, that kind of stuff. I think we need to focus on getting
playing fields out there and getting them built. Now Packet Page 80. On
Packet Page 80, there are two things I noticed. One is this notion of two
acre minimum parks. I was really unclear how that relates to—if we see a
half acre that could be a great park, we should buy the half acre and turn it
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into a park. I'm not sure why two acres is (inaudible). Rob, maybe you
could answer that for me.
Mr. de Geus: Can you—we didn't get the Packet Pages.
Vice Mayor Scharff: On Packet Page—I don't think the two acres—I just
wrote two acres on Packet Page 80. When I read through this, it talked
about a minimum of two acres.
James Keene, City Manager: They don't get the packet numbers. Can you see the ...
Vice Mayor Scharff: I'll use something else besides the Packet Pages. In
general, in this book, in our thing, it talks about two acres as a minimum
where we're looking for parks, size of parks. Did I misunderstand that
somewhere?
Mr. de Geus: We'll take a look at that. It's certainly not the intent. You can
have a small quarter acre actually. It can be a great little park for respite if
it's in the right location, that can (crosstalk).
Vice Mayor Scharff: That's what I thought. If you're in agreement, it's not
an issue. The problem I have—on Page 59 then—if you don't have Packet
Page 80, do you have Page 59 of your Staff Report? Where it says 1B12,
identify and dedicate as parkland City-controlled spaces, services capable of serving park-like or recreational facility uses, where you say Winter Lodge,
Gamble Gardens, Rinconada Community Center, GreenWaste facility, etc.
First of all, I think we should say identify and dedicate as parkland City-
controlled spaces that are appropriate for dedication and leave it at that. I
don't think we should go through these unless we are actually interested in
dedicating those. I don't see that. Some Council Members have spoken that
we should look at dedicating Winter Lodge or Gamble Gardens. I don't want
to dedicate things unless I understand why we're dedicating them and what
that achieves. I'm going to pick on Gamble House because I understand it
better, because it's right near my house. I like the fact that we do weddings
there. I like the fact that when I drive by, there are often people having
weddings, or when I bike or walk or whatever, there's stuff going on there.
I like all the community events that occur there. I'm glad that it's a polling
place. I wonder what we would lose there if we dedicate it as parkland,
because there are different rules for parkland. I don't remember what all
those rules are; I just know there's a bunch of rules around parkland. I
think before we decide to go out and dedicate a bunch of stuff, we need to
understand what that means for that particular location. There's nothing
broken about Gamble House. I don't think there's anything broken about
the Winter Lodge. I don't think anyone's planning on developing the Winter
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Lodge or the Gamble House Gardens. In fact, do you know, Rob—there was
that deal that was cut on the Winter Lodge. What was the deal?
Mr. de Geus: This goes many years back, so I'm not sure I have it all
straight. At one point, it was potentially going to be sold, I believe. The
City stepped in and bought the property. I don't think they dedicated it as
parkland.
Mayor Burt: We traded.
Mr. de Geus: They traded the property—that's right—for ...
Mayor Burt: By a vote of the people.
Mr. de Geus: That's right. Now it's tennis courts and a Winter Lodge now.
How safe is it to be that for all time I don't know. I think that's what we
hear from members of the public, dedicating land as parkland if it's being
used as parkland essentially. That creates a security that it's going to
remain parkland and it's not going to be developed sometime in the future.
Vice Mayor Scharff: I think that might be a way—what we need to do is
address that underlying concern without necessarily having these facilities
like Gamble Garden or the Winter Lodge be under the same park rules. I
think that's an important point we should make. Are you allowed to do
commercial—I thought we weren't allowed to do commercial activities like sell stuff in parks. I think we have a rule against that. If we dedicate the
Winter Lodge, does that mean I can no longer buy hot chocolate there?
Those are the kinds of things that I worry about if we just decide—let's not
think this through and just start dedicating stuff. I think we need to
understand how you maintain it the way it is. If people are concerned about
maintaining it in perpetuity, maybe we come up with a regulatory structure
that does that where these unique facilities don't have the same rules as
parks. Let's see. If I went to Page 98—I'll go to Packet Page 98 and then
tell you what it is. On Packet Page 98, that's your Page 77, Rob. It says no
exclusive use of parks by private parties is permitted. There's a lot of
exclusive use of the Winter Lodge that's private parties. You can rent them
out for your kid's birthday party. You can rent out the Winter Lodge, for
instance. You can rent out Gamble Garden for wedding after wedding.
That's what I'm talking about when I say if we dedicated that and you had
these programs in here, you would then be saying you couldn't do that stuff.
I think we need to think really carefully, as we do that, how that works and
what we do. That's why I was thinking we probably need a separate
category of in perpetuity that is not dedicated parkland. The other thing I
noticed is we talked about somewhere in here—I'll probably run into it when
I look at the rest of these packet pages—creating parks on rooftops or on
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garages. I think that's a really great idea; however, I don't think you should
then dedicate that as parkland because you may need to tear that building
down, you may need to change it. There are all these restrictions on how
you change dedicated parkland. Frankly, I've got to say we looked at that
issue when we did the library expansion. There was the road issue, and
there's the gardens right behind it, the connection. If that was dedicated
parkland, we would have had a lot less flexibility on how you do that. Council at the time thought that was a better way to go. Some could people
could agree or disagree, but you wouldn't have had the flexibility to make
those decision if that had have been dedicated parkland. There's the
perpetuity issue which I think is really important. On some of these, the
community may decide, for instance, they do want to actually expand in the
next 50 years, if this was a 50-year Plan, the Arts Center or the library or
those kind of things. To foreclosure those opportunities, I think we do the
disservice to the community if we do it without thought. I also wanted you
to look at Packet Page 90, which is your Page 69. This is maybe just a little
nitpicky. On 4A.1 under programs, it says prioritize development of
Comprehensive Conservation Plans for the Baylands Preserve, Foothills Park,
Esther Clark Park and Pearson-Arastradero to identify strategies. My only question here was—to me prioritize means that you choose which is the
priority. It seems to me that what we said here was we want to do it for all
of them. That's fine, but then I don't think it's prioritized, because what are
we prioritizing it against. If we're saying let's develop comprehensive plans
for all of them, that's fine, but we're not prioritizing anything unless we're
saying this is over and important of all the other things we're doing in this
Plan, which I don't read it that read. If we are reading it that way, that may
not be the highest priority of stuff we do in the Plan.
Mayor Burt: (inaudible)
Vice Mayor Scharff: I think it is, and I think it's open to interpretation, and I
think we should be careful about how we use the word prioritize.
Mr. de Geus: I think what we meant there is make it a priority, that we
develop these Comprehensive Conservation Plans for our open space
preserves.
Vice Mayor Scharff: I'm just saying we should change it so it's better that
way. I don't understand on 3C on the same page, where it says require that
proposed privately owned public space that are provided through the
parkland dedication ordinance must meet Palo Alto design guidelines and
standards for publicly owned parks, allow public access and design to
support recreation. I can read the words obviously, but I'm not sure I
understand what the effect of that is and what that looks like in a
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development. Is it a big change? Do we not require that? What effect does
that have? Is that even possible? Maybe you want to comment on that. I
wasn't sure what it meant. Can you find it? It's 3C.
Ms. Schmitt: This is starting to get at the multifamily issue that Council
Member Holman brought up. These spaces kind of look like a public park.
They might even be credited in some ways, but they're not necessarily built
to the same standards as your parks. This is trying to get at that issue.
Vice Mayor Scharff: I think that needs more thought and more
understanding as to what that actually means. What are the practical
implications of doing that? What does it mean—what standards would be
applied? I think that's a fairly broad statement without a lot of meat there.
I think you could have a lot of unintended consequences that people don't
understand. Maybe it's great, but maybe it's not. I'm not sure what exactly
that requires.
Mr. Anderson: I can just chime in and say one example of what they don't
currently have to do is come to the Parks and Recreation Commission and
say, "This is what we'd like to do," and have the community weigh in on it.
That's something we're beholden to do on every other project. We've got
this effort we've put into this Master Plan that guides, but right now this is totally separate from that. It doesn't have to go through any of that
filtering. It doesn't have to be guided by all the research we just did and all
the community input. That's a piece of this. Can it be beholden to the City
process a little more closely and go through our Parks and Recreation
Commission and be guided?
Vice Mayor Scharff: That might be a really good process to go through. I
would be supportive of that in concept. That reminds more of when you
have to give money for art, you're a developer and 1 percent goes for art. I
believe that now goes to the Public Art Commission; they make decisions
like that. I could see the same thing. Moving on, I'm almost done. On
Packet Page 97, I guess I can skip that. Page 98. Just on Policy 6C on
Packet Page 97, which is Page 76. Again, if we were going to dedicate other
facilities, I think we have to think about how Policy 6C would relate to those.
I'm thinking of the Winter Lodge and the Gamble House and Gardens. There
may be other places where we currently do that. I think in concept it's a
good idea. You don't want to take over the parks for other uses, but there
may be times when you do. That's why it says limit. Thanks a lot.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Wolbach.
Council Member Wolbach: Thank you very much for bringing this to us. A
very good discussion. Several things I just want to add my two cents on
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during this Study Session. First on bathrooms, as Council Member Berman
pointed out, of course we each have different circles that we run into. That's
why it's great to have so many people on Council. Certainly for most of the
feedback I get, we could use more bathrooms rather than fewer not just in
general but specifically. I'll just speak to my neighborhood. I'm not too far
from Seale Park and not too far from Ramos Park. One of the reasons why
it's a lot easier, whether I'm by myself or I have friends visiting, friends visiting with their kids, whatever, it's a lot more attractive to go to Seale
than to Ramos because Seale has a bathroom. It's a more pleasant place
for us to go as residents or with friends who are visiting, rather than say,
"We're going to walk over there or bike over there, and then we're going to
get stuck there without a bathroom so we're going to have to come home
pretty soon." It just makes for a more pleasant day at the park or afternoon
at the park if you have facilities to do whatever needs to do. I'm fully
supportive of continuing to move forward on dog parks and to increasing
opportunities there. I'll ask the question that Council Member Schmid
alluded to. It seemed like Staff might be prepared to offer a response to the
question of can you clarify for us what public access rules are for the school
recreation space after hours. Is there anything you can weigh in about that or come back to us at a future date after checking on that?
Mr. de Geus: Thank you, Council Member Wolbach. It's a good question.
We may have to come back with the legality of this issue. What I can tell
you is we have an agreement with the School District where we do share in
the cost of maintenance of the fields for all of the elementary schools and
the three middle schools. The City brokers that use for the community and
allows community members and organized sports to be on there after school
hours and on weekends. What is unclear to me—I've looked into this before
and was not able to get a specific answer—is as a public school, are they
required anyway to open up their open space, their fields to the public as
part of being a public school. I've heard that maybe that is the case, but
I've not found the legal answer on that. Molly, I look at you to maybe help
me find out if that's the case. In other words, can the School District choose
to lock up their gates and not allow the public on their fields after school
hours when the school is not in use. I'd be very curious what that legal
opinion is.
Council Member Wolbach: Speaking just as one member of the Council, I
would be very interested. I think it would be very useful to clarify the rules
and our relationship with the School District about that. I do appreciate
Council Member Schmid raising that point. Thank you, Staff, for telling us
where we're at in trying to get clarity about that question. On this question
of parkland acquisition strategy and how we look for opportunities to expand
parkland, expand recreational facilities, I do appreciate that there is a call
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here—is it 1B6 on Page 59 of the Report? I think Vice Mayor Scharff had
referred to it, looking for usable park space. I would say usable park space
or other recreational opportunities essentially in mixed-use developments. I
think that's an important thing to move forward with. I'm really excited to
see the partnership between Community Services and Planning Department
on things like safe routes and continuing to develop that partnership with
Planning, with the Planning and Transportation Commission, with the Architectural Review Board (ARB) in looking for park and recreational
opportunities as part of development that happens in the town. I think it's
important. I'll also point that, I guess, it was only a week ago or eight days
ago on the 29th when we said we want to make the use—we're exploring
making use of specific or coordinated area plans or precise plans a more
regular part of the planning process in Palo Alto. Looking back at what we
did that was so great with South of Forest Area (SOFA) and SOFA II and
having Heritage Park as a real opportunity and a real wonderful addition to
the University South area, because we were thinking we have an opportunity
to do a redesign. Let's make sure park space is a big part of that. As we
look to the future of making specific or precise plans a more regular tool, as
those are used, I'll look to see the park and recreation opportunities to be a big part of that, whether it's at potentially Fry's or any other location where
we might do one of those in coming years. Having the policy in place to say
we're going to make it a point to look for those opportunities and to push for
them will be important so when they arise we're ready to jump on them. I
actually really agree with Vice Mayor Scharff on a couple of the points he
raised. I do think we want to be careful when looking at, for instance, Policy
6C2 not to regulate ourselves out of the opportunity to do fun things and to
do things we're proud of as a community. I can think of a lot of things that
we're proud of, that we do in Palo Alto, that are a lot of fun, that Palo Alto
residents love doing, that also attract people from around the region.
Whether it's art festivals and (inaudible) festivals and World Music Day, we
don't check people's papers for where they're from when they come to those
events. We're happy to open up our City for those things. I want to make
sure we don't lose those opportunities. On the point about whether we
dedicate a recreational facility or recreational service as parkland, I think it's
a separate question. I just want to continue what Vice Mayor Scharff was
saying, that we want to silo what the question is at play. I think it's very
important that we make very clear and solidify in some way that we want to
maintain having an ice rink in Palo Alto. There are some quite contentious
battles around preserving ice rinks in a number of other cities quite close to
us, including in San Mateo and Belmont. The community members and
Council Members I've spoken to over the last couple of years and especially
the last few months in those communities can tell you it's not a fun position
to be in, to have the risk or reality of losing an important recreational facility
like an ice rink. Making sure that we secure for decades to come an ice rink
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in Palo Alto is the priority, whether it's always going to be at that site,
whether it's always going to be only that use at that site. Those are
separate questions. We may move forward with confirming those as well,
but they are separate questions. Something that I have heard discussion of
in the recent and more distant past—I just want to make sure it's on the
table, speaking to something that is not a community consensus at this
point. It's my view but it's certainly not a consensus view at this point, but I think it's worth discussing. The future of access by non-Palo Alto residents
to Foothills Park for, I would suggest, a fee. I think the future of Foothills
Park as a place that non-Palo Alto residents can visit through the main
entrance for which we would collect a fee is an appropriate future for
Foothills Park. I would be very open to having that discussion and also
looking at, whether on weekends or holidays, the fee for non-Palo Alto
residents—especially if they're driving, coming through the main entrance at
Foothills Park—would be a higher fee. We currently do allow non-Palo Alto
residents to enter Foothills Park as long as they go in through one of the
back entrances. I think we may as well start having that conversation about
what would be an appropriate fee structure. We as Palo Alto residents and
those who contribute to the Palo Alto tax base contribute the funds necessary to maintain that treasure for our community just like our
Baylands, which is open to non-Palo Alto residents, and just like Arastradero,
which is open to non-Palo Alto residents. I think even if there is a fee
structure associated with it, having essentially a private club that is
exclusive only to Palo Alto residents or their accompanied guests sends the
wrong message and doesn't really speak to the inclusive values of our
community. I look forward to continuing that conversation.
Mayor Burt: I'd like to just hit a few topics that some of my colleagues have
already touched upon. One is on the restrooms. We really haven't spoken
very much about where those tensions have historically been focused
between the desire for additional restrooms and the pushback. I think if we
look at those and try to reduce them, then we move forward a lot more
readily. One has been after-hours security. We don't want restrooms in
neighborhood parks to basically become homeless camps. That's been the
intention. I haven't heard anything about whether we simply today can use
remote electronic security systems and largely address that. Is that the
case? Is that the thinking?
Mr. de Geus: Mayor Burt, that's exactly right. We have automatic locking
doors that we can program at any time. Also design of the restroom and
where it's located and lighting can alleviate a lot of those concerns.
Mayor Burt: Even maybe some opportunities for some automation in the
cleaning and things like that. Has that been shared with the neighborhoods
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and some of the neighbors who have apprehensions, that these days we can
address some of those issues in ways that we couldn't a decade or so ago
when this was last discussed?
Mr. de Geus: We haven't added restrooms for a while, because they've been
taken out of the Capital Budget. That would be the intent. As we go
forward and discuss the possibility of adding a restroom, we would share all
of that data.
Mayor Burt: Frankly, some of the restrooms we have are full-scale
restrooms. Maybe we have more limited size to address that. Frankly,
there's also a consideration of little Johnny may pee in the bushes, but
elderly folks who also have a real need for restrooms cannot. In the
absence of restrooms, is it arguably discrimination against elderly access to
our parks? I'm not saying that's necessarily a legal threshold, but it
certainly is something for us to be thinking about when we weigh these
issues. On the school ground policy, I do think that whatever we determine,
whether it is our negotiated policy with the School District or legal
opportunities that we have public access to those grounds depending on
what you determine, that should be in the Parks Master Plan. Within that
context, we should really look at—we have a gradually growing number of private schools. Are there opportunities to make private school playgrounds
also open to the public as part of a conditional use that we have when we
grant those schools? Is this a way to essentially expand our park grounds?
Not all locations are going to be equally appropriate for that. It certainly
would be a consideration that we could look at. There was a question about
Strawberry Hill. It's my understanding that's on Palo Alto Unified School
District (PAUSD) land. Is that correct?
Mr. de Geus: That's my understanding as well. We'll take a look at that.
Mayor Burt: We don't have authority over that, but it may be something
that we can once again negotiate with the District. Gunn's been there for 50
years, and they've never done anything with that land. They have moved
out into what was previously undeveloped land at that end of Gunn. This is
kind of a remote wedge. Maybe there's some way we can negotiate some
kind of shared use there. I don't see it as necessarily part of the Parks Plan,
but I do want to say that I like Council Member DuBois' concept of less
structured intramural sports. I heard several of my colleagues bemoan that
we don't have less structured playing, but I didn't hear any solutions until
that concept. That was an interesting one. Under the category of the
unique opportunities or some of the new lands, I think we should be having
a deliberate process that identifies underutilized public or private lands that
are candidates for future expansion or inclusion in park systems in the City.
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Time and again over the years, I have heard there just isn't any land. When
we really look either at people's anecdotes and say, "What about that plot
land?" Everybody says, "That's sitting there, and the public owns it." We
actually have two pocket parks that we've done over the last 15 years or so
on land that was already public land for neighborhoods that didn't even have
a pocket park without kids crossing a major thoroughfare. I think we need
to step back and look at Google maps and identify spaces that are candidates for dedicated parkland or park-like functions. That brings up this
other question of do we need another category of park-like functions. I'm
using that as a placeholder descriptor. There are certain things that fall
within our dedicated parklands, that are prescriptive, and others that are
similar to parks in nature. We face this dilemma that we only have two
choices. I mention this available public land or private. It can be private
schools. It can be areas where—you think about the donkey care area at Bol
Park. That's on private land. I don't know whether the property owner
would be open to the City acquiring some of that land and incorporating it
within Bol Park. That kind of thing to look at opportunities especially where
it's low-intensity land that is lower cost per acre and that we have within our
park mitigation fees. When we've had the feedback on how we'll use them, it's usually by Staff saying we're going to use them for park improvements,
because there is no land. I just think again that are some opportunities that
we need to look at again. I also wanted to mention some degree in which
we can have some reconciliation between what might be active sports uses
on parklands and more pastoral types of uses. Where we have playing
fields, we tend to think they're playing fields. They're turf fence to fence line
or they're artificial turf fence to fence. We really segregate those functions.
If you take, for instance, the 10-1/2 acres down by the Baylands, I don't see
any reason why we can't look to incorporate peripheral paths that might
even go around the existing baseball fields there. That's a whole potential
path system that could be landscaped with native vegetation, and it could be
opportunities for people to have really extensive walking space that would
expand the Bayland area. When I was hearing Council Member Schmid talk
about the 20 minute to get to the Baylands at rush hour, I was going, "I
don't understand that." I realized he was talking about driving a car. It
doesn't take that long by bike, especially when we have our overpass over
101 and future access. It does beg the question—you alluded to it—about
the integration of our Bike Master Plan. For instance. In those areas, I
seem to remember that we have some upgrades intended for connectivity on
that Baylands trail system to get out to the Geng area. This just kind of
emphasizes it that much more as well as completing those loops. I really
encourage us to integrate those different elements. I think that covers my
main points. I want to echo what others have said, that this Plan is really
looking at things comprehensively and on a horizon greater than what we've
looked at in the past. Whether it should be a longer horizon yet is a good
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question. I want to say thank you very much to the work of the Commission
and Staff and the members of the community who have participated in this.
It's really something that's going to accrue to the benefit of everyone.
Thank you.
Mr. de Geus: Thank you very much.
Mayor Burt: That concludes our Study Session. Our next item is ...
Council Member Kniss: (inaudible)
Mayor Burt: Rob, can you just remind us when this would return?
Mr. de Geus: We hope to be back with a draft Plan by the end of the
calendar year, likely in December.
Mayor Burt: Thanks.
Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions
Mayor Burt: We have Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions. One thing
is that we now have Item Number 5 will precede Item 4. Just so everybody
knows, that's the animal shelter discussion will precede the Residential
Permit Parking. The animal shelter discussion was tentatively scheduled
shortly, and then the Residential Preferential Parking District (RPP) at around
8:30 P.M. or so, depending on how long the animal shelter item takes.
City Manager Comments
Mayor Burt: Our next item is City Manager Comments. Mr. Keene.
James Keene, City Manager: Thank you, Mayor Burt, Council Members.
Last Friday night marked not only the kickoff of the Stanford football season,
but it was also the debut of the City's brand new post-football traffic signal
timing plan along Embarcadero Road. The new signal timing ran between
8:00 P.M. and 10:00 P.M. and is aimed at increasing the through-put of
driving fans to U.S. 101 more efficiently when the game is over. The post-
game timing appeared to work well. We will know a little more when
Stanford students are back in session and the football crowd may be a little
bit larger. The timing plan will be used again at the next home game on
Saturday, September 17 and is part of the overall traffic signal coordination
that started earlier this summer, aimed at alleviating some weekday peak
traffic and school-specific time periods. Again, this is all part of the now
completely connected and integrated traffic timing system that the City has
and that marks us as one of the first, if not the first, cities in the United
States to have 100 percent of its traffic monitoring system both in the cloud
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and accessible to custom changes directly by our transportation officials with
potentially as much as a laptop. More to come on that, a larger discussion.
The Net Energy Metering successor program. On August 22nd, the City
Council approved the Solar Net Energy Metering successor program, often
called NEM, and directed Staff to develop alternatives for the NEM transition
policy. Council also voted to change the method used to calculate the NEM
cap. Using the new method, the new NEM cap will increase from 9.5 megawatts to 10.8 megawatts, a 13 percent increase. The increase will
allow more people to install solar under the existing NEM program and will
allow our Staff more time to inform the community about the successive
program. We're developing communication materials to inform customer
and industry affiliates about the new cap and transition to the NEM
successor program. Some good news there, as a result of your session a
couple of weeks ago. In the same general area, I wanted to share with
Council and the community that Palo Alto is participating in the Bay Area
SunShares Program, which is a limited time program that aims to make it
simpler and more affordable to go solar or purchase a zero emission vehicle.
SunShares pools the buying power of homeowners and vehicle buyers,
provides vetted contractors and offers free third-party technical advice that helps inform customer decision-making. The cities and companies involved
in SunShares see it as a way to provide a benefit to our residents and
employees while moving towards regional climate goals. Please join us on
September 17th at the Mitchell Park Community Center for a workshop to
learn more about the program. Details are provided at
bayareasunshares.org, their website. Workshop registration is available at
the City's website, cityofpaloalto.org/workshops. In another example of the
City's strong financial management, Moody's Investor Services has upgraded
to AA1 from AA2 the $30.7 million in outstanding 2009 Series A water
revenue bonds for the City's water enterprise. The rating upgrade reflects
the system's very broad, wealthy and economically diverse service area
which provides a strong and reliable customer base. The AA1 rating also
incorporates the system's sound financial position characterized by strong
and stable debt service coverage that is projected to continue at similar
levels, a very robust liquidity position, and a strong management team that
is committed to implementing annual rate increases when necessary and
below average debt burden. Again, congratulations and thanks to our
staffing in Administrative Services Department (ASD) and the support folks
in utilities and obviously the Council's overall guidance. Another reminder
from the Clerk's Office, the City is looking for engaged members of the
community to serve on the Historic Resources Board, the Parks and
Recreation Commission, the Planning and Transportation Commission, and
the Storm Drain Oversight Committee. Applications are available on the City
Clerk's webpage at cityofpaloalto.org/clerk. The application deadline is next
week, September 14th at 5:30 P.M. Lastly, once again just a reminder that
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this Saturday, September 10th, from 10:00 A.M. to 2:00 P.M. at Mitchell
Park the City will be partnering with the Palo Alto YMCA to co-host the
second annual health fair as part of the Council's Healthy City/Healthy
Community initiative. It is again an entirely free event sponsored by the
City of Palo Alto, the Y, Kaiser Permanent, Palo Alto Medical Foundation,
Sutter Health, Stanford Children's Health, and Stanford Medicine. For more
information, go to the City's webpage, cityofpaloalto.org, or ymcasv.org. That's all I have to report.
Mayor Burt: Thank you.
Oral Communications
Mayor Burt: Our next item is Oral Communications. This is a chance for
members of the public to speak on items that are not otherwise agendized.
We have two speakers. If anyone else wishes to speak, they need to come
forward to submit a card at this time. Our first speaker is Sea Reddy, to be
followed by Joseph Duran. Each speaker has up to three minutes to speak.
Welcome.
Sea Reddy: Good evening, City Council and Palo Alto citizens. I just
returned from my six day trip to Singapore and India. I have to say Palo
Alto is truly heaven on earth. There's no doubt. There couldn't be any better place in my view. Taking that for all the goodness, I ran into an
article on Sunday in the San Francisco Chronicle about Palo Alto's prosperity.
It says "pangs," and I'm not familiar with the word. I read it line by line
about six times. There are some things I think we want to think through
more carefully. We don't want to make some decision or let the world think
that we are anti-business in the Downtown area. I want to share some of
my experience. Boeing looked for a corporate office all over the country,
and they went to Chicago. They wanted to get away from Washington,
liberal and all that. They wanted to be next to their customer, so they put in
400 people in downtown Chicago on Riverside Drive. We don't want to come
across here like we don't like corporations and we only want startups. It's a
changing world. We've done well in the last 70 years. I don't think we want
to set back. I'm not saying we want more cars, more this, more that.
Please reconsider, say the right things so we come across the right away.
Innovation changes every five years as we know. We have new leadership
with Stanford. A lot more high tech, a lot more biotech. We want to take
advantage of that. I think it's a (inaudible) type joke when they say we
cannot have people coding Downtown. That is not enforceable. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Our next speaker is Joseph Duran.
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Joseph Duran: Hello. My name is Joseph Duran. I'm a facilities technician
with the City. I've been here for about five years. I wanted to take a little
time here to thank you, guys, for approving the contract. I was part of the
negotiation team. I believe this to be a fair contract, and I really appreciate
you guys approving that for us. That's something that I wanted to make
sure you guys knew. Some of us feel that it is a pretty good contract. I was
given an opportunity to become vice chair of our chapter. During my time as vice chair, I've learned that not only am I steward for my members, but
I'm a steward for the City. I feel, as a steward, I want to help preserve
what I think is unique about Palo Alto. Some of what I believe is unique
about Palo Alto is that all of our services here are in-house. We keep
everything in-house, from our utilities, arts and theatre to our animals.
Everything here is done, and the employees here do an exceptional job of
this. Palo Alto has been committed to these services and giving the best of
these services to the community. City employees have been dedicated to
providing these exceptional services to the residents and guests of Palo Alto.
I believe the employees are genuinely concerned about the well-being of our
City. I hope that the City sees this, and the Council sees that we definitely
have some shining paws throughout the City. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. That concludes our Oral Communications.
Minutes Approval
2. Approval of Action Minutes for the August 22, 2016 Council Meeting.
Mayor Burt: Our next item is Approval of Minutes. We have Minutes from
the meeting of August 22, 2016. Do we have a Motion to approve?
Council Member Berman: So moved.
Mayor Burt: Second.
MOTION: Council Member Berman moved, seconded by Mayor Burt to
approve the Action Minutes for the August 22, 2016 Council Meeting.
Mayor Burt: Motion by Council Member Berman, second by myself. Please
vote. That passes unanimously.
MOTION PASSED: 9-0
Consent Calendar
Mayor Burt: We will now move on to the Consent Calendar, one item. Do
we have a Motion to approve?
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Council Member DuBois: So moved.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Second that.
MOTION: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Scharff
to approve Agenda Item Number 3.
3. Vote to Endorse the Slate of Candidates for the Division’s Executive
Committee for 2016-17 and Direct the City Clerk to Forward to Seth
Miller, the Regional Public Affairs Manager for the Peninsula Division, League of California Cities the Completed Ballot for the City of Palo
Alto.
Mayor Burt: Motion by Council Member DuBois, second by Vice Mayor
Scharff. I see no lights. Please vote. That passes unanimously, and we
have just made up lost time. A rare occurrence here.
MOTION PASSED: 9-0
Action Items
5. Direct Staff to Proceed With Discussions With Pets In Need Regarding
Animal Care Services and the Construction or Rehabilitation of the
Animal Shelter Facility.
Mayor Burt: We are now ready to continue to what was formerly Item 5,
which is a direction to Staff to proceed with discussions with Pets in Need regarding animal care services and the construction or rehabilitation of the
animal shelter facility. Mr. Shikada.
Ed Shikada, Assistant City Manager: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the
City Council. Ed Shikada, Assistant City Manager. I'll just introduce the
topic this evening and ask Cash Alaee to do the primary report for Staff. I
joined the City midway in the evolution of the work that Cash will describe.
I'll just note that a little more than a year ago, in the spring of last year, I
was here where Staff received direction from the City Council to proceed
with the Request for Proposals (RFP) for a new service model for animal care
services. I would just note that, as someone who's been involved with a
number of public-private partnership endeavors in different contexts, the
approach Staff has taken here in working with both the market generally as
well as prospective partners is really representative of best practices. What
we have undertaken over the course of the last year was to test the market.
We did an RFP, worked with stakeholders in order to identify the scope of
services that was being sought, tested the market, found there was not a
very strong market, at the same time found that we had a very strong
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prospective partner. That said, we then proceeded with a series of due
diligence reviews, both evaluating the proposals that had been received as
well as working with Pets in Need. Cash will describe the financial due
diligence that was done as well as the operational review. In both cases,
coming back with strong recommendation for our Staff and our pro bono
consultant to proceed. Recognizing that this is a prospective public-private
partnership with our nonprofit partner, we engaged in a dialog recognizing that what we are embarking on is attempting to achieve a number of goals
for the City. Recognizing that our nonprofit partner also has its own mission
and its own series of priorities to ensure are in alignment with the proposed
agreement could meet both of our needs. The direction that we're seeking
tonight really also reflects best practices as a key step in the decision-
making process. We've brought forward a term sheet that reflects the basic
outlines of a transaction that we believe will serve the City's interests and
also Pets in Need. We will have the opportunity to discuss that in more
detail. In addition, what we are recommending is direction to proceed with
the exclusive negotiation that allows us to proceed with the consultation that
we'd like to do in parallel with our employee bargaining unit, that will allow
those issues to be addressed as well. With that, let me ask Cash to walk through the particulars.
Khashayar Alaee, Senior Management Analyst: Thank you very much, Ed.
Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council Members. My name is Cash; I'm a
Senior Management Analyst in the City Manager's Office. Just a brief
background. In Fiscal Year 2012 due to the withdrawal of a partner agency,
the City of Mountain View, the City Council's Policy and Services Committee
on May 10, 2012 and the Finance Committee on May 15th, 2012 discussed
this item and sought to retain the animal shelter services in Palo Alto and
directed Staff to take immediate steps to reduce the cost and increase
revenue in an effort to become more self-sufficient, to reduce the reliance on
the General Fund. On July 23rd of 2012, the City Council approved changes
to the Municipal Fee Schedule as well as expenditure reductions to reduce
costs for Fiscal Year 2013. As Fiscal Year 2013 ended, Animal Services
remained dependent on the General Fund even though donations were
received and operating hours and clinic services were expanded. Even by
the end of Fiscal Year 2014, the goal of decreasing reliance on the General
Fund was not achieved. On June 16, 2014, the City Council referred a
Colleagues Memo regarding the Palo Alto Humane Society's interest in
partnering with the City to the Finance Committee. On December 2nd,
2014, the Finance Committee reviewed the Colleagues Memo and postponed
substantive discussion of the item until the City Auditor completed an audit
of the services. On April 22, 2015, the City Auditor presented the audit of
Animal Services to the Finance Committee. On June 8th, 2015, the City
Council approved the Fiscal Year 2016 budget and directed Staff to conduct
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a review of alternate service models and allocated $250,000 to assist with
the assessment or possible transition costs. As we began Fiscal Year 2016,
the City Manager's Office continued outreach and engagement with the
community and various department stakeholders. We conducted two
Requests for Proposals to assess the market for alternative service
providers. The first RFP was issued on October 15th. The second RFP was
issued on January 27th. On March 22nd, 2016 the Policy and Services Committee received an update on the audit and RFP proposals. The Staff
informed the Committee that the City had received one proposal from Pets
in Need, a letter from the County of Santa Clara and a letter from the
Humane Society of Silicon Valley, all of which are in your packet. Staff
concluded that the most advantageous proposal was the one received by
Pets in Need. That's presented to you tonight through the term sheet. Our
recommendation tonight is to direct Staff to proceed with exclusive
negotiations with Pets in need to provide animal care services in Palo Alto
and develop a plan for the animal shelter construction or rehabilitation and
to return to the City Council by the end of this calendar year with a
recommended agreement. In a moment what I'd like to do is introduce Al
Mollica, who's the Executive Director of Pets in Need. Al will provide you with a brief introduction of Pets in Need and verify their financial solvency.
Before Al speaks, I'd like to give you a brief overview of our financial review.
During the RFP process, the City requested the following documents: a 2-
year financial plan with quarterly financial targets which includes earned
income, fundraising and other revenue; direct labor rates for proposed staff;
overhead rate and a breakdown of overhead elements; sub-consultant billing
rates; any markup percentage for other direct costs; all reimbursable
expenses; any other cost and price information and a not-to-exceed
amount; and finally bank and audit statements. Pets in Need was the only
responsible bidder that provided the requested data. In addition to City
Staff reviewing all the financial documents, the City hired an outside
consultant. His name is Vince Forte. Unfortunately he couldn't be here
tonight; he got sick over the weekend. He would have loved to be here to
verify Pets in Need's financial solvency. Vince was recommended to the City
through the Stanford Business School's alumni consulting program. He's a
former bank executive who retired from banking and went on to work in the
nonprofit community and worked with the Oakland Zoo. We do take his
recommendations seriously. With that, what I'll do is turn it over to Al.
James Keene, City Manager: There was a lot of detail in that. If I just
might hit it again at a higher level. I don't have all the numbers in front of
me, but I have a pretty good memory about the journey we've been on as a
community ever since Mountain View's departure as a major partner in 2012
or whenever, driven by their sense that the cost/benefit wasn't in their best
interest. They left the partnership to have the services delivered elsewhere.
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As you recall, there was some discussion by the Staff of looking at maybe
doing the same thing. There was a lot of understandable outcry from the
community about the potential for losing a shelter operation in Palo Alto and
the need to keep that. We kept it here. The first year, we did as Cash
mentioned, had a lot of good community support and donation and
fundraising and support to keep the costs down. The Council had essentially
said you wanted us to drive towards cost neutrality for the operation. At that time, we were losing $300,000 or $400,000 a year. Unfortunately, in
the subsequent years for a whole host of reasons, that deficit has continued
to grow to where it's almost doubled as far as a loss, with the potential to
see us continue to be in a deficit situation. Quite some time ago, we made
the decision that clearly we would keep the animal control functions in-house
in the Police Department to pick up and patrol in the City. A lot of the ability
to make the shelter not only financially healthy but really provide high
quality, sustainable services was linked to the condition of the shelter itself
and the need to enter into a partnership that could potentially yield the
ability to do additional fundraising that could lead to either a new shelter or
significant improvements in the shelter to make the shelter higher
functioning, more attractive and more cost-effective. There's a lot of necessity both on the service quality we want to achieve and doing so at a
reasonable subsidy from the City, obviously moving back in the direction of
the Council's original action that has brought us to this point. Ed kept
talking about best practices. This idea of just bringing a term sheet long
before we have an actual contract to the Council is just indicative of the very
careful, engaged process that the City has been following all along on this
item. With that, I'll turn it back over to your team.
Al Mollica, Pets in Need Executive Director: Thank you. Thank you, Cash
and Ed. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council Members, for inviting us to speak
with you tonight. I want to comment on what Jim said. I agree and
wholeheartedly endorse what he said about the terrific job that Ed and Cash
in particular has done with this process. They've done something that's very
important throughout the process, and that is they've listened as much as
they've talked and spoken to us. That has meant a lot to me personally and
our Board. What I'd like to do is extol the virtues of Pets in Need for a few
minutes. I could take an hour, but I'll only take a couple of minutes. Then,
I'd like to turn the podium over to our Treasurer and Finance Committee
Chair, Mr. Frank Espina. He'll talk to you about the financial aspects of Pets
in Need. Pets in Need was established in 1965 as Northern California's first
no-kill animal shelter; that's before no-kill was even a term. We are a
501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, and we generate our resources through
private gifts, adoption fees and fees from things like our humane education
program. We receive no money from any government entities. We have a
beautiful facility in Redwood City that was refurbished in 2008 at a cost of
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about $6 million. We know something about taking a warehouse, which this
building was, and turning it into a silver-level Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design (LEED) certified building that houses about 160
animals and is operated with a staff of about 20 people. We are governed
by a Board of Directors that takes their fiduciary responsibilities very
seriously, 13 Board Members and volunteer community leaders and animal
lovers. We're very proud of the fact that we offer free spaying and neutering services. We believe that the most effective way to address the
pet homelessness issue is to spay and neuter. We take that responsibility
seriously. The organization has committed hundreds of thousands of dollars
over the years toward this effort. In Fiscal Year 2016, we did 1,687 free
spaying and neutering procedures at our Redwood City facility and through
our mobile van in communities far and wide, Modesto, Vallejo, Martinez, Los
Banos, Hollister. We travel all over the Northern California area to do free
spaying and neutering. We've rescued animals from Los Banos, Vallejo,
Hollister, Milpitas, San Jose. Our medical operation is certified or accredited
by the American Animal Hospital Association. Only 15 percent of animal
shelters in the United States have achieved this distinction. We're very
proud of that achievement. We have a vibrant volunteer program and what I would consider to be a growing, developing humane education program.
We have a very cost-effective fundraising program that has grown from
about $600,000 in 2013 to just under $1 million this past Fiscal Year. We
are a member of the We Care Alliance, and we already have relationships
with our friends from Friends of Palo Alto Animal Shelter and Palo Alto
Humane Society. That's my part. I'm going to ask Frank Espina, our
Treasurer, to come up and talk a little bit about our financial situation.
Frank Espina, Pets in Need Treasurer: Mr. Mayor, Councilmen, thank you for
letting us speak today about Pets in Need. A little background. I'm a
Certified Public Accountant (CPA), have been a CPA for over 40 years. I've
been associated with this organization for approximately 20 years, five years
as its auditor. I decided that I'd rather be on the Board than audit them, so
I joined the Board. I've been on the Board about 15 years. I've watched
this organization grow from a situation where we were in a little warehouse
in Redwood City to where we built, as Al has already said, a $6 million
facility, which we literally own right now. Our footings on our balance sheet
are approximately $12 million. We carry over a $2 million endowment, and
our unrestricted fund balance is over $8 million. We've done this through
hard work, through providing good services for individuals in the community,
taking care of animals, making sure that they don't kill. We've kept animals
for as long as seven years in the facility, where we couldn't adopt them out.
We also from the standpoint of a 501(c)(3) received the highest rating in
Charity Navigator because we spend very little on overhead and
administration compared to what we raise and what we do, our services. I
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could just tell you that we are looking forward to trying to help and work
with the City of Palo Alto in a partnership, and we feel that not only do we
have the experience to do it from the standpoint of building a shelter, taking
care of animals, seeing that they get adopted, but also the financial
wherewithal to hang in there and do the job. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Cash.
Mr. Alaee: That concludes the Staff's presentation.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. We can now go to the Council for any technical
questions before hearing from members of the public. Does anyone have
any questions they wish to ask? Council Member DuBois.
Council Member DuBois: We didn't get any of the operational or the budget
and the proposal. I guess it wasn't included in the packet. What would the
relationship be between the Redwood City facility of Pets in Need and the
Palo Alto facility and how would those be operated financially?
Mr. Alaee: They would be operated as two separate facilities and two
separate operations.
Council Member DuBois: Separate financial controls and budgets and
fundraising?
Mr. Shikada: To my knowledge—Cash and Al perhaps can weigh in—it's essentially a fee for service model. The proposal did not require the
establishment of a separate organizational structure. Given that, we would
expect Pets in Need would operate this as a second facility.
Council Member DuBois: Do you care to respond for Pets in Need? If you
could maybe explain how you see running the two facilities.
Mr. Mollica: We see, as was indicated, two separate facilities but operating
under the same structure that we currently operate Pets in Need.
Essentially Pets in Need Redwood City, Pets in Need Palo Alto. The same
systems, protocols, procedures that we have, ranging from intake of animals
all the way to how we do our marketing, would be done essentially the
same.
Council Member DuBois: If there was a fundraising effort for a new building,
as an example, would people be able to donate money for the Palo Alto
facility?
Mr. Mollica: Yes. The donations would come in, and they would be
earmarked for a Palo Alto facility as a designated gift.
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Council Member DuBois: Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Schmid.
Council Member Schmid: I've heard there was a detailed financial
statement. As Tom pointed out, we didn't get that. The one number that
shows up is $520,000 per year, an estimate of how high we might find the
bill. Is that correct?
Mr. Alaee: Yes, that is correct. Tonight's purpose is to get direction from Council to proceed with detailed discussions with Pets in Need around the
remaining elements of the finances, the services and the facility. We
intentionally did not provide those financial details, because there are still
conversations to be had. The three elements I just mentioned, services,
finances and the facility—there's a spectrum. There are different views on
each side of the spectrum. We still need to have conversations about each
of those elements and find the commonalities and ultimately put that in a
final contract that will come before the City Council before the end of the
year. Our intention is at that meeting the detailed financial plans will be
brought to you so you can look at the financial details.
Council Member Schmid: I just wondered if in those details there was any
notion of revenue streams that might be generated, that are not current activities.
Mr. Alaee: There are revenue streams that are identified as the existing
standard revenue streams for an Animal Services operation. We're
discussing which ones the City retains and which ones Pets in Need would
retain. Keep in mind that we're going to continue to operate animal control.
There are certain revenues associated with the animal control function the
City would like to retain. There are no necessarily new revenue streams that
have been identified.
Council Member Schmid: There's nothing to induce householders to go
there for services, whether it be spay and neuter or a sick animal or care or
hoteling.
Mr. Alaee: Correct. The services conversation is continuing. All the
services you have mentioned have been discussed. As far as the specific
rate structure that Pets in Need would charge for services provided in Palo
Alto, we haven't dove into those specific details. Those are the
conversations we'll continue to have.
Council Member Schmid: Thank you.
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Mayor Burt: Vice Mayor Scharff.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Following up on that a little bit. What are
we currently spending from the General Fund?
Mr. Alaee: That's a very timely question, because the City Manager was
asking that to me. Why don't I defer to my colleague, Ian Hagerman, who
has joined us all the way from Tennessee.
Ian Hagerman, Management Analyst: Good evening, Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. Ian Hagerman with the Police Department. Our current
expenses in the Fiscal Year that just closed were about $1.5 million, $1.6
million. The net on that after revenue was a little over $1 million, just shy of
$1.1 million last year.
Mr. Keene: (inaudible)
Mr. Hagerman: That's correct.
Vice Mayor Scharff: At five and 20, we're saving $600,000 roughly, right?
Mr. Hagerman: That number includes animal control costs, which are
roughly $400,000 or $500,000 a year for those Staff. We would retain that
cost but the associated revenue from things that they provide.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Just to be clear, if we went with the $520,000 roughly,
the average cost, we're saving roughly $100,000 less and anything we save off that $520,000. Is that fair?
Mr. Alaee: Repeat the question for me one more time.
Vice Mayor Scharff: What I heard is that—in the Staff Report it says the
threeyear average cost was $520,000, and the City's subsidy will stay below
$520,000. That's what I heard from that. The numbers I just heard from
you guys was it's $1.1 million, but $400,000, I think you said—$500,000 or
$400,000 was for the current animal control which will not go there. I was
just trying to do the math as you spoke. The numbers look like a savings of
about $100,000.
Mr. Alaee: For Fiscal Year '16, the animal shelter cost $515,997. For Fiscal
Year '15, it cost $523,702. For Fiscal Year '14, it cost $515,404. Those are
the exact costs for just the animal shelter services for the last three Fiscal
Years. Again, we're in discussions and negotiations with Pets in Need.
We're not there yet on a final amount. What we wanted to do tonight was
provide Council with the target which we're aiming for. Really trying to stay
under is our goal. There are other elements to the annual subsidy or the fee
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for services alongside these negotiations. We have an interest in a new
facility. We have an interest in potentially expanded services. As we
continue our conversations with Pets in Need around these three elements,
our aim and our target is to stay underneath that three year average cost.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Thanks. One other question I had on this. I guess this
is supposed to be the Motion, direct Staff to proceed with exclusive
negotiations with Pets in Need, etc. Are what you're really saying is that you want us to agree that you move in negotiations based on this term sheet?
That's what we'd assume. Is that what we're approving, what's in this term
sheet, and that's what you'd move forward on?
Mr. Alaee: Correct. The term sheet would set the parameters for the
negotiations.
Mr. Keene: Can I just add—let me just interrupt. The term sheet—this is
really just in the spirit of reporting to the Council the results of an RFP
process that clearly indicated only one really competitive vendor and service
provider. While this is representative, this is like any negotiation. We're not
going to be completely bound by these parameters also. If Pets in Need
presents an alternative or some pricing or whatever it is that we haven't
quite heard and it's in the City's interests, we'd certainly be bringing those back to the Council.
Vice Mayor Scharff: That's why the Motion shouldn't refer to the term sheet.
I was going to ask has Pets in Need agreed to this term sheet already? Is it
a framework for negotiations or not?
Mr. Mollica: Yes.
Vice Mayor Scharff: I just wanted to understand the no-kill concept just a
little bit, the way it works. If I'm getting it wrong—animals are brought into
the shelter. The basic concept in the Staff Report was they would stay up to
30 days. Palo Alto would pay a per animal fee up to that point. After 30
days, Pets in Need would be responsible for that with the notion they would
be able to find homes for these animals. I guess I wanted to know what
happens to the animal. I'm assuming not every animal can be found a
home, but maybe it can. I was curious in Redwood City how this works.
Maybe someone could address that.
Mr. Alaee: I'll defer that to Al.
Mr. Mollica: Our definition of no-kill is we will not euthanize an animal
unless it's suffering. Euthanasia means ending suffering. We probably
euthanize four animals per year. As Frank mentioned, we've had animals at
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the Redwood City facility for six, seven, eight years. Once we rescue an
animal, the animal becomes our responsibility. Whether it's through
fostering or adoption promotions, marketing, we do everything we can to
make sure that animal finds a forever home. We will not ever euthanize for
space. Some shelters will do that; that's how they get around a very small
facility and a lot of intake. We will not do that, and we propose to obviously
not do that at Palo Alto as well.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Mr. Mayor, may I just ask a couple of follow-up
questions of the speaker? In Redwood City, you mentioned there might be
some animals that have been there six or seven years. I think you have 160
animals roughly?
Mr. Mollica: Give or take.
Vice Mayor Scharff: What percentage of the animals have been there over a
year at any one time?
Mr. Mollica: I'd say 25, 30 percent of our animals are there over a year or
so. The majority of the animals get adopted within, I'll say, six months.
Then, there are those more challenging or they have physical problems, and
it takes a while to find a home for them.
Vice Mayor Scharff: You've been in business a long time in Redwood City. I can't remember. Like from the '60s.
Mr. Mollica: Fifty-one years.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Fifty-one years. Has that number been increasing or
has it just basically leveled out at that 20 or 30 percent?
Mr. Mollica: That's hard to say. I'm not sure what they—the facilities they
had in 1970, it's a little hard to. I would say in the last 10 years that
percentage has stayed about the same. My hope is that through some
additional, more aggressive and creative, innovative marketing efforts to try
to make the more challenging animals we have more appealing to people the
percentage will decrease.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Thank you very much.
Mr. Mollica: You're welcome.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Holman.
Council Member Holman: Thank you. I appreciate your interest and your
no-kill policies. Good for you and potentially good for us. A couple or three
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things that caught my eye. One is on Packet Page 372. It talks about Staff
expects that a contract with Pets in Need can be finalized before beginning
discussions with partner agencies about service changes. What kind of
service changes would you anticipate? That's in the Staff Report, not the
term sheet. I don't know what that means.
Mr. Alaee: This is in relation to our contracts with the City of Los Altos and
City of Los Altos Hills. At this stage, we don't anticipate any changes to those contracts. What we'd like to do is provide Pets in Need an opportunity
once they've begun as well as our partner agencies to have conversations
about potential changes that either party would like to see. We wouldn't
want to prohibit any changes. We have been keeping them informed, and
they've been part of the process.
Council Member Holman: I got that. When you're talking about potential
service changes or level of service changes, you mean those other entities
might enjoy or entreat upon Pets in Need to provide, not that we would be
diminishing services or anything of that nature.
Mr. Alaee: Yes, yes.
Council Member Holman: This has to do with the site itself. As
programming is being developed, there's land there that is on the site, but it isn't being afforded to the animal shelter. I'm wondering where we are the
parking that another department uses along the side. Is that going to be
afforded to Pets in Need? There's some parking of another vehicle behind.
Is that going to be afforded the animal shelter and Pets in Need? The
reason I ask is because those are locations and opportunities for more
income-producing activities. For no other reason, I would say that's why the
question is coming forward.
Mr. Alaee: Everything's on the table. The facility is such a key part of the
service model and delivering the needs that the community expects. It's so
important that we've been working with Pets in Need. They've even had
architects already come and look at the site and evaluate the site. It's one
of the three remaining discussion points that we need to have. The parking
lot in front and potentially other space around that site is all on the table,
depending on the service model and the size of the facility.
Council Member Holman: I think my only other question is—there's nothing
referenced in the term sheet. I appreciate the term sheet. Help me out
with why a term sheet as opposed to a letter of intent.
Mr. Alaee: What is not referenced in the term sheet?
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Council Member Holman: I understand what a term sheet is. Why is it a
term sheet as opposed to a letter of intention that might include some of
these? I'm just curious. I don't have a criticism one way or the other.
Mr. Keene: Number 1, these could effectively be the same thing. The real
point of this coming to the Council is to inform the Council and the
community about the status of where we are. We wouldn't come to the
Council to enter into a letter of intent with the Council. We're coming here to get the Council's midstream direction to continue on the path where we
are. We're laying out the sort of things that will ultimately be in the
contract. This a little bit of a departure for us. Given the intense interest in
the project, we thought it would be good to come and share where we were
with the Council.
Council Member Holman: Don't disagree with that. I was thinking a letter
of intention with Pets in Need, of course not the City with the City.
Mr. Keene: I know that, yeah.
Council Member Holman: Last question. There's nothing mentioned in the
term sheet about the expectation of what hours and days. I don't mean to
get into the weeds on this, but that's been such a huge issue with the
community, with access, that the shelter hasn't been open on weekends. What's been discussed about that or is there anything you can offer on that?
Maybe the Pets in Need spokesperson would like to respond to that.
Through the Mayor, if that's okay?
Mr. Alaee: Would you like to respond, Al?
Mr. Mollica: Sure. We're open seven days a week for adoptions. We would
envision having the same kind of structure eventually, maybe not right
away. We did envision having the same kind of structure in Palo Alto. Right
now we're open 12:00 P.M.-5:00 P.M., 12:00 P.M.-6:00 P.M., seven days a
week. That's the kind of structure we would have in Palo Alto as well.
Council Member Holman: Thank you.
Mayor Burt: I just have two follow-up questions, really probably for Al. In
this case, whoever can answer it best. Are the rates that are currently
charged at the Redwood City facility roughly similar to what we have been
charging at our animal shelter?
Mr. Mollica: In terms of adoption fees or ...
Mayor Burt: Just for services, various services that are provided.
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Mr. Mollica: I believe so. We offer free spaying and neutering. You offer
low cost. That's a little bit of a difference. I think there's a slight difference
on the adoption fees for cats and dogs and such, but we're in the ballpark.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Finally, on your capital program for the Redwood
Facility, can you share with us a little bit about how that occurred? Was that
a public-private partnership or all private or all public?
Mr. Mollica: All private fundraising. I wasn't around when the fundraising was done, but the Board made the commitment to refurbish the facility and
to do it through private-sector fundraising. For the most part, we did.
There was a small amount that had to be taken out as a bank loan. The
majority of the $6 million was private-sector fundraising.
Mayor Burt: Approximately how long did it take to raise those funds?
Mr. Mollica: About three years.
Mayor Burt: Thank you very much. Council Member Kniss.
Council Member Kniss: Sorry to get you back to the mike, if you don't mind.
I'm intrigued by your no-kill philosophy. Obviously it's your policy. You did
indicate some of the animals stayed with you for up to a year.
Mr. Mollica: Many years, yes.
Council Member Kniss: Many years?
Mr. Mollica: Yes.
Council Member Kniss: Could you give us sort of a picture of where they are
during that period of time?
Mr. Mollica: Have you been to our facility?
Council Member Kniss: No. I wish I had.
Mr. Mollica: You're all invited to visit our facility in Redwood City. I came
from an open-access facility in Delaware that was very similar to the facility
you have in Palo Alto. The facility we have in Redwood City is on the
opposite end of the spectrum. I don't mean to be critical of Palo Alto. We
have a beautiful facility, and the animals are—I will say if you're going to be
in a shelter, we're the kind of shelter you want to be in. We have lots of TLC
in addition to the basic care through our volunteer force. The dogs are
walked twice, sometimes three or four times a day. They're taken out on
field trips.
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Council Member Kniss: That was just what I wanted to hear.
Mr. Keene: They have proposed bringing them to City Council meetings
actually as part of (crosstalk).
Mayor Burt: We have a rough crowd here.
Council Member Kniss: You probably know in Los Angeles, they have now
indicated that one should only adopt a rescue dog. That's an Ordinance of
their City Council. My daughter has recently done that. There are some challenges with adopting a dog who has been in a situation for a couple of
years. I am delighted to hear—it sounds as though yours have plenty of, as
you said, outdoor time and TLC and so forth. I find that very reassuring.
Mr. Mollica: I think we do a fantastic job of rehabilitating. We go around to
public shelters and rescue dogs that have been neglected, abused. Your
daughter probably realizes this by now. Sometimes they come with some
baggage. We're very upfront with people that adopt from us. These are not
purebred animals. We also state as part of our policy if an animal has a
physical problem, if an animal is over seven years old, we have what we call
a Save our Seniors program. We'll provide basic medical care for the life of
the animal. We do whatever we can to make sure there's a nice match and
these animals end up finding forever homes. As nice as our facility is, we still recognize that they're better off in somebody's home.
Council Member Kniss: I'd certainly agree with what Karen said. We're glad
you found us or vice versa. It is something we have been very concerned
about for some period of time. I will look forward to visiting your facility.
Mr. Mollica: Please do.
Council Member Kniss: thank you.
Mr. Mollica: You're welcome. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: I will say that we've had a rescue dog for eight years. She's
great, but we haven't known how to break it to her that she's not purebred.
Our first speaker is William Warrior, to be followed by Joseph Duran.
Welcome. Each speaker has up to three minutes to speak.
William Warrior: Thank you, Honorable Members of Council, gentlemen from
Pets in Need. I've been your Animal Control Officer for 37 years now,
counting my volunteer time 42. I first arrived at the animal shelter at 15
years old in 1974, when the only way I could get in was hopping over the
redwood fence. I think that was a test to see how much I wanted to work
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there, and I'm still there. I'm a little bit emotionally compromised on this
issue, a little bit biased. I'm coming in support of my unionized office
workers who are at risk of losing their livelihoods on their five-figure
incomes, doing work that they love. They've been told they can relocate to
other jobs in the City, but I don't think that's the motivation for their
paychecks. If this is all about money, I think you're probably going to need
to vote the way you want to vote for Pets in Need. I want to remind you that when I was this 15-year-old kid climbing the fence to get in there, the
site was state of the art. It was and is still operating under a no-kill policy,
the same of which has been illustrated to you by the Pets in Need
gentleman. The one big difference I remember from now to then is those
open fields that had burrowing owls and pheasants and killdeer flying around
them and was dedicated land for expansion of the shelter, and was created
into a parking lot for City vehicles behind us. In front of us, a site that
slated for a dog exercise area is being leased out to a private automobile
dealership. I'd just ask if you're going to take this further and get this
funding, however it comes, either by continuing to fund us—we're somewhat
of a cash cow, I understand. We're kind of, as I understand from the
manager's office, bleeding you white, something like we're Captain Ahab to the budget's Moby Dick, continually harpooning you for funds. I hope we're
giving you something back in return of value. The department issues coins
to all of us. They're called (inaudible) coins. I've been flipping this as this
evening progresses. On the coin, it talks about accountability, team work
and integrity and community. The only thing I'd ask in all of this is when
you make your vote think about the history, think of what we've given you
over 122 years of service. Before you vote, where is the venerable spirit of
(inaudible) and where is the intrinsic value? Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Joseph Duran to be followed by Joanne Dixon.
Welcome.
Joseph Duran: Council, Mayor, long time no see. My name is Joe. It has
come to the attention of many Palo Alto City employees that the Animal
Services Division proposed transition is unwise and unlikely to be executed
in an effective manner. While honorable and well-intentioned, the proposal
from the local nonprofit Pets in Need falls short of the necessary operating
capacity currently in place at the animal shelter services. Pets in Need runs
a fine shelter, but they are not prepared to take over the Animal Services
shelter. Through the proposed transition, the City plans to budget for its
four Animal Control Officers while the remaining Animal Services employees
have been encouraged to look for employment elsewhere. I'll just leave that
right there. This proposal presents obvious execution issues, but the less
obvious effects pose an even greater issue. On the behalf of all employees
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of the City of Palo Alto, I request that you apply your best judgment and you
give this transition the full attention and care that it deserves. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Our next speaker is Joanne Dixon, to be followed
by Sachi Hwangbo.
Joanne Dixon: Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. Thank you for
hearing us out. My name's Joanne Dixon. I am the registered veterinary
technician at Palo Alto Animal Services Division. The proposal to transfer control of our Animal Service Division has been poorly planned and will be
poorly executed. I can tell you firsthand the local nonprofit Pets in Need
organization does not possess the expertise to offer the same services that
the Animal Services employees currently provide. Palo Alto Animal Services
handles all types of animals beyond cats and dogs, such as pocket pets like
guinea pigs, rats, exotic animals which include reptiles and amphibians,
livestock on occasion such as horses, cows, goats, avian species of all
varieties. We cannot forget the bunny rabbits. Pets in Need lacks the
experience to handle and control unsocialized, fractious animals which we
handle on a regular basis. They also do not maintain accurate and legal
recordkeeping for rabies vaccines, microchipping and medical records, which
our facility has tried to obtain on several occasions. In addition, Pets in Need has the luxury to pick and choose their animals. They choose the most
adoptable animals, and they also do not take back animals who were
previously adopted from their shelter. At Palo Alto, we have an open door.
We take in any animal regardless of age, temperament or medical problems
and whether they've been previously adopted or not from us and no longer
have a home. They come back to us. On the financial aspect, we feel if Palo
Alto can afford and maintain five beautiful, state of the art libraries, we're
asking the City to find a way to maintain and run one City-run animal shelter
that would prove to be profitable. Palo Alto is a creative and resourceful
community, and many community members plan to fundraise, volunteer and
suggest unique and interesting ways to make the shelter sustainable. I just
ask that when you make your vote, you think about all the other animals
besides cats and dogs, all the old animals and feral animals that aren't
adoptable. Please take that into consideration for your decision. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Sachi Hwangbo to be followed by Townsend Brady.
Sachi Hwangbo: Hello Council Members and Mayor. I'm a proud resident of
Palo Alto of 19 years and worked for City of Palo Alto's Animal Services for
the past five years, part-time. Three years now, I'm the volunteer
coordinator and witnessed firsthand the dedication and determination of our
powerful team of volunteers standing behind me. As the volunteer
coordinator, I recruit, train, supervise, coordinate and evaluate all active
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volunteers. Our volunteers serve the shelter as animal socializers, assisting
potential adopters, and they serve as the face of the shelter as they help the
public at the front desk. With the help of our dog volunteers, our shelter
dogs take special training classes where they learn the concepts of good
behavior and thus increase their adoptability. The animals we have know
and trust these 40 amazing volunteers, and they are invaluable. Since
Animals Services started facing this budget issue in 2012, our volunteers have stepped up to help. We've seen an unprecedented support over the
last four years. In addition to helping with the day-to-day functions of the
shelter, many community members have engaged in strategic programs to
help the shelter. We've had many photographers, (inaudible), social media
assistance, some silent auction fundraisers, the Girl Scouts' many donation
drives, cost-saving, craft-building projects and middle school service events.
The list goes on and on. Some of them may not make lots of money, but
they are all very valuable to me and to our Staff. We appreciate Pets in
Need for demonstrating a commitment to retain the shelter in Palo Alto and
lead a fundraising campaign to remodel or build a new shelter and work
closely with Friends of Palo Alto animal shelter and Palo Alto Humane Society
to provide services in a cost-effective manner. As I have shown, we at Palo Alto Animal Services are already committed to retaining the shelter. We
work closely with Faux Paws and Humane Society already and are already
committed to providing services in cost-effective manners. We have
outreach programs in place. A devoted community already leading
fundraisers on our behalf. I request that the City Council keep and work
with our dedicated community of employees and volunteers and fully explore
and improve upon the fundraising practices that are already in place. It
would be a disservice to our community to ignore and abandon the hard
work of our devoted volunteers. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Townsend Brady to be followed by Scottie
Zimmerman. Welcome.
Townsend Brady: Good evening. I want to thank you for this opportunity to
address you. I want to thank Greg Scharff for pointing out that the savings
of this change is roughly nine percent of the current budget. I think that
could easily disappear in future cost increases. It really brings things into
perspective. I've been a resident of Palo Alto for 20 years. I have been
working as a volunteer at Palo Alto Animal Services, training their large dogs
since the beginning of March. In their March 18th letter to Palo Alto, Pets in
Need describes no-kill as a philosophy that reserves euthanasia only for
animals that are terminally ill and dangerous to the public. They go on to
explain that Palo Alto should join the ranks of other cities that successfully
operate no-kill shelters. From comments I've seen in the news, from
comments I've heard here tonight from some of you, I think you may be
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under the impression that we are running a kill shelter. Am I correct? Let
me explain. The only problem with this statement is that Palo Alto already
operates a no-kill shelter. If you have any questions on that, the Lead
Animal Control Officer is right behind me. He can verify that. Unfortunately,
the City Manager's Office does not seem to recognize that fact. The bulk of
this proposal that's before you deals with turning Palo Alto Animal Services
into a no-kill shelter, which it already is. I believe that if you approve this proposal as it's currently written, there will be actually an increase in the
death of Palo Alto animals. On Page 6, Paragraph 2, Section C of the
proposal is a troubling paragraph. It states that Pets in Need and the City
Staff will mutually draft policies and procedures that may limit the intake of
animals for the purposes of improving animal care and to achieve a no-kill
shelter. That's scary to me. There are three significant differences in the
way Pets in Need operates its Redwood City facility versus the way Palo Alto
Animal Services currently operates. It is these three differences that will
probably give us the best insight as to what future limits of animal intakes
will likely be. Palo Alto accepts surrendered animals; Pets in Need does not.
It's actually on their phone. The minute you call them if you have an animal
to surrender, take it to a local Humane Society. If Pets in Need negotiates a no-surrender policy in their Palo Alto facility, it will result in an increase in
abandoned animals ...
Mayor Burt: I'm sorry. Can you wrap up?
Mr. Brady: ... some of which will be killed on our streets and highways. I'm
sorry. Was somebody interrupting?
Mayor Burt: Yes. I'm sorry. Your three minutes are up. If you can wrap
up.
Mr. Brady: I'll make it as quick as I can, but I have just a little bit longer.
Palo Alto also takes in a broad range of animals. Pets in Need takes in cats
and small dogs. If Pets in Need refuses to take in for instance rabbits,
they'll likely be dumped in the Baylands and become food for the wild gray
fox community that lives here. Palo Alto currently takes in and holds for
adoption any size or breed of dog. Pets in Need, as has been pointed out,
almost exclusively takes in Chihuahuas and small toy breeds. Out of the 31
dogs available for adoption this weekend at Pets in Need, only one was
larger than a Chihuahua.
Mayor Burt: Thank you.
Mr. Brady: If Pets in Need negotiates a limit on the intake of large dogs in
Palo Alto, large Palo Alto dogs that are picked up by our Animal Control
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Officers will have to be transferred to another shelter, probably one that's
actually a kill shelter.
Mayor Burt: I'm sorry. We have to be respectful of each speaker having
comparable time.
Mr. Brady: I actually think that you gave much, much more time to Pets in
Need. This is an important issue. I'm almost done.
Mayor Burt: I'll allow it.
Mr. Brady: Thank you very much. I appreciate it. All three of these Pets in
Need operating principles would result in increased deaths of Palo Alto
animals if the City allows Pets in Need to operate the Palo Alto facility as
they currently operate their Redwood City facility. I recommend you reject
this proposal or minimally send it back to be rewritten by the City Manager's
Office with three irrevocable guidelines for Pets in Need if they're to operate
this shelter. One, they must accept surrenders of all Palo Alto animals
without regard to species, breed or size. Two, they must not transfer any
animal to another shelter or euthanize any animal without the permission of
Palo Alto's Lead Animal Control Officer. Three, Palo Alto's Animal Control
Officers and their equipment should be housed onsite at the Pets in Need
Palo Alto facility so they can assist Pets in Need staff, as Joe pointed out, in the event of an animal emergency and monitor Pets in Need's operation to
make sure they're done in accordance with Palo Alto guidelines. We have
four excellent Animal Control Officers with 122 years of experience dealing
with all animal species and breeds that Pets in Need has very little
experience with. Gandhi once famously said ..
Mayor Burt: I'm sorry. We ...
Mr. Brady: You're going to cut me off.
Mayor Burt: We really have to respect this. Thank you very much. Scottie
Zimmerman to be followed by Denise Salles.
Scottie Zimmerman: Hi. I've lived in Palo Alto 44 years. Thank you for
letting me speak. I'm here as a representative of Friends of the Palo Alto
Animal Shelter but also just as a person who loves animals. Palo Alto's
shelter is not now a no-kill shelter. Nobody can pretend that it doesn't kill
more than four animals a year or fewer than four for that matter. Four
animals a month maybe. I don't want to get into that. What I want to talk
about is a seminar I took online with the manager of the animal shelter in
Austin, Texas. She's talking a new thing in the world—the shelter world is
talking about how do you get animals adopted. What is the magic trick?
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How do you get people to see them and fall in love with them? Great
photographs and great videos is one. They allow volunteers to take the
animals home overnight, over the weekend, take them downtown and walk
them around, take them to the beach in groups, and foster them, foster
them, foster them, foster them. A lot of the volunteers are also fosters. A
lot of the fosters become volunteers at this great big shelter in Austin. It's
the way you keep the animals sane and you keep them happy and you keep them energetic, so they look cute when people come to adopt them. You
can have them out on the streets on a Sunday, walking down University
Avenue with an "adopt me" vest. I know Pets in Need does that sort of
thing. I know they have a volunteer who took a dog home overnight and
over the weekends. He would come to the farmers market where we have a
booth and show us his dog. That was just great. That's routine for them. It
is so far from routine. This year for the first time I've ever heard of, Palo
Alto allowed a pit bull to walk in the May Fete Parade, which was just great.
The dog was adopted shortly after that. We tried to get them to let dogs
come to the May Fete for years our group of volunteers, and no, no, no.
Volunteers there do a fabulous job. I've been one and I work with Sally
taking pictures. I want more volunteers. I want three times; I want 120 instead of 40. We should have two volunteers walking dogs at the same
time together, working together, training together and so on. There's no
reason to keep it so tiny. I think Pets in Need knows what it's doing as far
as making the dogs and cats happy while they're waiting to be adopted.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Denise Salles to be followed by Herb Borock.
Welcome.
Denise Salles: Hi. I'm Denise Salles, and I don't work for the City of Palo
Alto. I'd like to speak to you as a private citizen who has used Palo Alto
Animal Services for 17 years to spay and neuter over 700 cats, both feral
and tame, and adopted through two 501(c)(3)s that I have worked with. I
have used them for spay and neuter, vaccinations, animal control issues,
calls to dispatch after hours. The most recent being a bat that ended up
being rabid when Jeannette Washington came. I took it home for the night.
Anyway, my point is that I believe that Palo Alto Animal Services needs to
stay in Palo Alto and provide the precise, same services that they do now.
With the influx of the population in this area and in Los Altos and Mountain
View, which is now gone, Los Altos Hills, there are more animals to be taken
in and certainly not to be rejected if one has to be returned. I don't want to
seem disrespectful, but I believe that the City of Palo Alto has architected
the decline of Palo Alto Animal Services over the last four years in the
following ways: unwillingness to renegotiate the Mountain View contract;
unwillingness to allow for San Mateo county licensing fees; reduction of a vet
technician which subsequently halved the spay and neuter. I feel like the
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top management at the shelter, that's finally gone—now you want to dump
it. You finally have an opportunity to have great leadership. They're great
Animal Control Officers. The front office people who aren't customer friendly
need to be gone. The management is finally gone. I just finally want to say
a building does not make the soul of an organization nor do architectural
plans. I'm very, very happy and proud to be associated with all of them.
Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Herb Borock to be followed by our final speaker,
Faith Brigel.
Herb Borock: Good evening, Mayor Burt and Council Members. I thought I
heard Staff say that they didn't have an obligation to bring the Staff Report
to you on your Agenda, that they could just wait to bring a contract. They
choose not to provide you with the financial information that they had. If
you approve their recommendation, whatever's negotiated doesn't have to
comply with the terms in this term sheet. Wondering what you would do. I
was surprised that none of the Council Members had asked for that financial
information prior to the meeting, so we could all see it. There's been some
question about whether Pets in Need has an open-door policy or whether
they really have limited admission and only admit rescues that they feel can be adopted, which is different from the current Palo Alto shelter. I had
provided you with a letter by email, but it came so close to tonight's starting
time that Staff didn't have an opportunity to copy printed copies. I hope you
had an opportunity to read it. I'll try to summarize it briefly. Palo Alto
currently has four Staff people in addition to the Animal Control Officers.
Pets in Need has 11 in its proposal. Palo Alto currently handles—its region is
Palo Alto, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills. Pets in Need does rescues from
various cities through Northern California. Palo Alto's budget indicates what
the Palo Alto shelter is for. It provides animal control, pet recovery,
adoption services, animal care, animal health and welfare and regional, that
is Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Animal Services. You have from Pets in Need
that it sees its objective as a no-kill access facility will validate the no-kill
movement. That's really what it wants to be doing. There's a question in
terms of facility size and Staff. To what extent is that determined by the
geographical area that they have for rescues. There was also something in
the Staff Report that you might have to negotiate with Pets in Need as to
how much they would be doing that Palo Alto is currently doing. That seems
to be a question of what priority is given to the current shelter population of
animals. Finally, I didn't see anything in the term sheet about licensing of
pets or vaccination of pets.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Our final speaker is Faith Brigel.
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Faith Brigel: Hello. I'm Faith Brigel. Good evening. I want to recommend
that you vote this down. In hearing what everyone's said that—by voting it
down, I mean to not agree to go along with Pets in Need in Redwood City.
It seems to me that there has not been enough work done to try to keep it
in Palo Alto, run by Palo Altans. When I first came in—no offense meant—
the Pets in Need people seemed to be talking—it sounds like they're talking
negotiations. They're talking business. We're talking about constituents who have animals, who care about their animals. There are a lot of retired
people in Palo Alto, many more than have kids in schools. Probably about
75 percent of Palo Alto are retired people who have animals. They do not
only have cats and dogs, which seems to be the only animals that Pets in
Need really know about. I think if you let Pets in Need in Redwood City take
over, you're going to lower the morale of the workers. They sound like very
fine workers who really care about the animals. You lower the morale, and I
think a lot of them will leave. Then, you're going to have other people
coming in who don't have the experience. The City of Palo Alto has been
administering the Animal Services in Palo Alto since 1903. The building's
been there for 40 years. If you need to renegotiate to get better
administrators, then do that. I think get them from Palo Alto. I don't know why we're reaching out to Redwood City. No offence meant; it’s a wonderful
city. We're in Palo Alto; we should use all the structure and facilities that we
have. I believe that you can do it. We have found money for all sorts of
things, the tunnel near Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) that I don't
think is used that much. I think that you can find the money to do this. I
think it needs to be advertised more. I don't think a lot of people know that
there is a struggle going on. I think the Animal Services in Palo Alto do a
marvelous job. Any time I've needed them, they've been available. They're
short on Staff, and they're short on money. They could increase their Staff
with more money. I believe that you can find the money for this very
important purpose that helps older people and also helps families, children.
Animals, as you know, are very good for children. Please keep the Animal
Services run by people in Palo Alto. Don't give it out to another city.
Thanks.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Can Staff respond to any issues that were raised
by members of the public for which you may have answers available? I
don't know if you were keeping track. I can run off a few of the ones that
were raised, if that's helpful.
Mr. Alaee: What I can do is speak at a little bit of a high level. As I
mentioned before, there are three elements that we need to discuss with
Pets in Need and have detailed discussions with them. It's about the
services. It's about the finances, and it's about the facility. They're all
intertwined. As the City Manager said, we're here to do a check-in with the
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Council, let you know our intent for the next steps. What I can tell you is
that many of the issues the community has brought up, we still need to flush
out the detail of with Pets in Need, even specifically down to the rates. Are
we going to have the same rates, different rates that we charge? How do
we deal with the intake of our Animal Control Officers dropping animals off
at Pets in Need? Are they located at the shelter? Are they not located at
the shelter? All the points the community brings up are good points. We have different views on those even internally in the City. As we've noted in
our Staff department, should we go through with a public-private
partnership with Pets in Need, that we would transfer the function to our
Community Services Department? Our Community Services Department
works with a variety of different Friends groups and nonprofit groups and
has a variety of different service models with different nonprofit
organizations. Their perspective is a little bit different. They're asking
different question than the Police Department. There's a series of things
that we still need to work through, and that's our intent to do that in the
coming weeks and return to Council.
Mayor Burt: I look for whether colleagues concur with this general
sentiment. One of the things that we're interested in, in order to authorize this next step tonight, is whether the services and the fees are similar to
what we provide today. I think we're assuming they're not going to be
identical. There were a number of questions about services. Does Pets in
Need accept other types of animals? Do they cover licensing and
vaccination? How do they contend with surrounded animals? Do they
transfer for euthanasia? I think those are questions that we probably could
get some answers on this evening. If our Staff doesn't have them, maybe
Pets in Need can answer certain of those. Speaking for myself, I'm not
looking for all these things to be resolved in great detail in order for us to go
the next step, but to have a sense are we looking at something that is pretty
comparable.
Mr. Keene: Mr. Mayor, if I might initially respond. I think that can have
some value if you can manage the questions and answers and dialog to give
you an initial sense of these things. Number 1, if we are ultimately to be
able to bring a contract back with Pets in Need, we're going to want to,
during the process of the continuing negotiations, try to address the kinds of
concerns that you've heard tonight or additional direction that the Council
would ask. Even if Staff were to negotiate a contract and bring it back here,
the Council is under no obligation, even if we've had this term sheet
discussion, to adopt the contract as we would bring it back. You could still
ask for additional modification. It also strikes me that on—let's call it the
City operation of the shelter as a status quo operation, there have already
been hints that there could be dynamic aspects or changes to how we do
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that. That's why I'm saying you need to contain it, because this could be a
moving target kind of dialog. The real purpose of this was for us to bring a
check-in in response to your initial request to pursue a not-for-profit
provider for the shelter services for a number of reasons. The potential for a
new shelter was a big purpose, because there were descriptions to you that
there is an interconnection between the shelter itself and the ability to
provide the level of services we would want to see provided over the City. It's not just a building issue versus people. There's an integration there.
We did not come in here with a bias to say we're going in one direction or
another. We came in here with a responsibility to respond to the Council's
initial direction, and that's what we have been doing here. We can put a
little more definition to it tonight, and then put you in a position to give us
more input as to, assuming you want us to continue this exploration with
Pets in Need, some of the kinds of things you want to do. I would just
caution us that this is not to design every possible detail of a contract.
Thanks.
Mayor Burt: I was appreciating that it was not. I'm still hung up on the
high-level issue of is Pets in Need proposing similar services to what we've
been receiving. If their current model has significant dissimilarities, are they open to negotiating those services or do they have the set of services that
they offer in Redwood City and that's their model with only minor variations?
I don't have a sense of that. When we had the earlier presentation and
Council question, I certainly was under an impression that they were very
similar services. Members of the public have raised a number of specific
questions and concerns about the services. I don't know the answer. Those
are things certainly that would give me a general sense of whether I want to
go in that direction without trying to resolve every one of these tonight.
Mr. Alaee: Pets in Need right now is a rescue operation. They're very
cognizant that the operation that we expect them to run is a different
operation. We have full confidence that they're able to run an animal shelter
service with the same services we provide now. Let me give you an
example. The example of a horse comes up. We've had this conversation
with Al, and Al can chime in.
Mayor Burt: Call it a donkey.
Mr. Alaee: Donkey, okay. We've had this conversation with Al, and Al can
chime in. What I'm sure he's already doing or will do very shortly once we
have Council direction is find a list of different barns and horse stables in the
local area. They'll have that. They'll contact them. They'll have
agreements with those places that, if a horse does come to the shelter, we
would find an immediate way to get the horse to a barn that could maybe be
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an immediate holding place, and then on to a horse rescue or a horse
adoption place. None of this in our eyes is very complicated problems that
we have to solve. They're in essence subcontracts or contracts with different
providers. For example, with wildlife right now, our animal shelter—if
wildlife is brought in, it goes to the Peninsula Humane Society. I would
assume that the same contract would continue with Pets in Need. That's
kind of the high-level view of the service conversation.
Mayor Burt: That's helpful for me. I hope it is for colleagues as well. Thank
you. Let's proceed on discussion and potential Motion on the Action. Who
would like to proceed first? Vice Mayor Scharff.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Thank you for all the hard Staff work. I know, Cash,
you spent huge amounts of time working with stakeholders and the
community on this and moving forward on it. I think what the Mayor said
was really pertinent. It's going to be important to judge when we get the
contract. This notion—I'm rambling a little bit. What I wanted to say was
that obviously we can't nail everything down tonight. I at least for one am
interested in moving forward to see where you guys get. Pets in Need,
when they listen to the discussion tonight, we as a Council are probably
fairly interested in maintaining similar services, not necessarily identical, but very similar, for the residents of Palo Alto. I think that's part of the
negotiating framework. Obviously if you can't come to a deal, you'll come
back to us and tell us you can't come to a deal. If the deal you come to is
not really within what looks like similar services to us, it may not pass
Council muster. I've been impressed with the sincerity you exude when you
come up and talk about things and the passion you have for animals. That
really comes through. I for one am going to support taking the next step
and will move the Staff recommendation.
Council Member Holman: Second.
MOTION: Vice Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Holman
to direct Staff to proceed with exclusive negotiations with Pets In Need, a
501(c)3 nonprofit organization, to provide animal care services and develop
a plan for animal shelter facility construction or rehabilitation, and to return
to City Council by December 2016 with a recommended agreement.
Mayor Burt: That's a Motion by Vice Mayor Scharff, second by Council
Member Holman. Would you like to speak further to your Motion?
Vice Mayor Scharff: Just briefly. I also wanted to say I really appreciate the
employees coming. I thought the comments you made were very good and
pertinent, a lot of it. I just wanted to say I really appreciate it. I appreciate
all the members of the public speaking. Again, I do know that Staff spent
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huge amounts of time, especially Cash, on this. Really wanted to recognize
that effort.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Holman.
Council Member Holman: Do appreciate Staff members coming and
representing their point of view. I think it is time that we look at similar
services but a different model. These chambers, for those who weren't part
of the Council at the time, were full and overflowing when there were discussions about closing the shelter, both at Policy and Services and then in
a smaller room Finance, and then when it came to the chambers. There is
certain strong interest in this community about retaining Animal Services in
this community. Given that, I would imagine that the climate for fundraising
would be a pretty healthy one here in Palo Alto. It's easier to raise money
for children and animals than it is some other things. I think the climate in
Palo Alto would be a healthy one for fundraising for a new shelter. Austin
actually passed a bond, so Austin residents taxed themselves essentially to
build their new shelter, which I visited. It's a pretty phenomenal shelter. I
have one question still for Staff. What's the likelihood or possibility in the
future of Palo Alto being able to enter into contracts or go under other
contracts with other cities? Could we ever get Mountain View back? What about East Palo Alto, Redwood City, Menlo Park? I've heard different stories
about what the possibilities and potentialities are there.
Mr. Alaee: Since we're retaining the animal control functions, if those cities
approached us and stated that they would like to have our Animal Control
Officers service their cities, we would be open to that. If we go into a
contract with Pets in Need, certainly we can take this as a point to discuss
with them through negotiations about the process of prospective cities using
the shelter services. I think our preference would be to let Pets in Need
negotiate that with future agencies as far as providing shelter services.
Mr. Keene: If I just might add. I'm as far away from being an expert in any
way in this area even though I've been working with shelters also in
different jurisdictions for almost 40 years now and certainly appreciate the
passion that everybody in the animal care area has, the deep feelings that
folks feel for animals in this area. I certainly know in a number of the
preliminary community stakeholder meetings, when we were exploring this
idea, the fact would come up as we could look at doing that, but this is a
two-way street. The other entities need to want to partner with us. In
some cases, is the shelter the sort of place where we are out of necessity
appealing? No. The point is to the extent that we enhance the shelter
and/or services, that probably opens up more opportunities to explore how
we do that. I would suggest that's something that the Council pay attention
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to. When we come back, we should have some comparisons for you on
existing services and costs and comparison with what we're getting from
Pets in Need, so you can see what's what. We also may need to think about
even our existing practices, regardless of who provides them and how we do
them. I know Mr. Borock commented that we'd service Los Altos Hills and
Los Altos. My understanding is we don't restrict intake to just our partner
agencies. Animals from other places can come into the shelter. We had this discussion a little bit years ago when we were dealing with the spay/neuter
fees that we had. Folks were coming from—these are extreme examples—
Modesto to the Palo Alto shelter to have an animal spayed or neutered at
times. It's a legitimate question to ask, how is it that we provide the highest
quality service to our community and our partner communities. If it is being
diluted in some ways by the quality we can have by having other folks
bringing by animals—I could say, "Why don't we just drive around and pick
up animals all over the region?" That doesn't make sense either for us
running the shelter. Our first responsibility is to our own community. We
ought to ensure that we provide the best value to our community and any
partner agencies we have. These are all things we can lay out in some
comparisons. There may be choices you would say even when we come back with a contract. You could say, "I almost like all these pieces, but I
don't think you struck the emphasis in this one area." You can still tell us to
go back and do a final renegotiation with Pets in Need. In the end, you may
say, "This all looked really good, but I changed my mind. I want to direct
you to stay where we are in some way." Thanks.
Council Member Holman: I agree with what you're saying. At the same
time, we don't want somebody who comes from "pick a town near us" and
has a cat that they want to surrender. We don't want that cat turned away,
because it could end up just being dumped somewhere. It's striking that
balance. When this comes back, I absolutely want to see that the site
includes the area now that is rented out for other uses. I think it's a car
dealership that's parking there. I want to see that, and I want to see the
area behind the building returned to the shelter property. It's a way to
maximize—part of the land was either not used or it was used by the shelter
before. I want to see the opportunities maximized for this facility to be the
most successful and providing other services, additional services with that
extra space. I absolutely want to see that, and I hope other colleagues will
support that in their comments. I guess since Council Member Burt
mentioned that his dog is a rescue, so is mine. I hope my dog loves me as
much as I love him.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Holman, I just want to say that those other
comments on what you'd like to see on space considerations can only carry
weight with Staff if the Council gives direction to that effect.
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Council Member Holman: Thank you. Sometimes we add things as
comments and sometimes as part of the Motion. I ask the maker if he
would accept as an amendment to include in an agreement that comes back
the space that is currently used for other uses behind the building and the
space that is leased out to vehicle storage as a part of the space to be
utilized by Pets in Need.
Vice Mayor Scharff: Let's have Staff respond to that.
Mr. Keene: Number 1, I think the Mayor's point was a good one. In the
sense that you're concerned about this, the best direction is to put it in a
Motion. That being said, we don't know what a design or whatever for the
future facility is going to be. I would certainly say that if absolutely need the
space to expand programming or to accommodate a redesigned facility, I
can't imagine—I'm certainly not going to recommend we keep parking cars
there instead of doing that. It doesn't make any sense at all. On the other
hand, there may be other configurations that we would use in that area
rather than just where the parking lot is. I wouldn't want to get hemmed in
by our thinking, saying just do this that will allow it. The intention of
acknowledging that there will need to be changes at the site on its existing
and maybe even adjacent properties, and we need to stay open to that. That needs to be a first level of importance. I wouldn't get down to the
nitty-gritty of spelling it out right now.
Council Member Holman: The reason that I wanted to put this in here is
because whether it's a new or amended facility or whether it's for dog
training, I've heard current shelter users. I've heard volunteers for the
shelter. I've heard from the Friends. I've heard from the Humane Society
that there's not a place there even with this size facility for training. If this
would be accepted by the Vice Mayor and maker of the Motion, that's great.
If not, I'll offer it as a separate amendment.
Vice Mayor Scharff: I think it's premature after the City Manager's
comments.
Council Member Holman: I'll offer it as a separate amendment.
Mayor Burt: That doesn't have a second, but I would support something
that's less prescriptive, which is that when Staff evaluates the long-term
capital program for the shelter, it include consideration of surrounding
spaces and the needs for related services.
AMENDMENT: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council
Member XX to add to the Motion, “including the space that is currently used
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for other uses and the space rented for vehicle storage be used for Animal
Services.”
AMENDMENT FAILED DUE TO THE LACK OF A SECOND
Vice Mayor Scharff: That's acceptable to me.
INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE
MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “and direct Staff to consider
the long term capital program for the animal shelter and that this consideration includes the surrounding land and related services.”
Mayor Burt: Council Member Holman.
Council Member Holman: Can I ask a clarification? Is your intention that as
the long-term capital program is being considered, use of these lands would
be considered or is it as a long-term capital program is being implemented?
That could be a long delay.
Mayor Burt: It would be as it's being considered.
Council Member Holman: Can we make sure that's clarified in here?
Mayor Burt: Council Member Berman.
Council Member Berman: Thank you. I'm going to support the Motion with
pretty significant reservations. Those reservations didn't exist until I heard
from the public and from our employees, who brought up a lot of interesting questions that weren't in the Staff Report and that weren't in the Staff
presentation. I'm glad that they raised those issues, and I'm glad that Staff
will be coming back to us with—it won't be all the I's dotted and T's crossed
guaranty that it will be exact same services we provide. Council Member
Holman does bring up a good point. Four and a half years ago, in the middle
of my first run for City Council, this issue erupted. It really took our
community by storm because they love so much the services that are
currently provided by the Palo Alto Animal Services. It's important that we
not fix one problem, which is the significant budget gap that exists under our
current operating, and create another problem, which is dramatically reduce
the services that our community has come to know and love over the past
114 years or however long it's been. I don't know what the timing is on
this. In all likelihood, I won't be on Council anymore when it does come
back, but I hope whoever is sitting in my chair seriously looks at the
different services...
Vice Mayor Scharff: Are you leaving in December? It says December 16.
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Council Member Berman: Maybe. That's a whole other conversation. It's
important that we do make sure that we're providing the same services to
our community. I'd also like there to be—getting a better understanding of
how big of a budget gap currently exists, how big of a General Fund subsidy
we currently provide versus what we'll be saving if we move forward with
Pets in Need is critically important. Vice Mayor Scharff, I didn't totally follow
the Q&A that you had with Staff. Was the end result that it's about $100,000 right now, the projected savings which might change based on
what this term sheet is actually turned into?
Mr. Keene: We'll definitely bring that back as part of this process. We'll do
our best to figure out are there ways to do any projections for the future
with different variables and factors. Those things could grow or they could
shrink.
Council Member Berman: I guess what I'm trying to say is there's a lot of
unknowns that'll impact the decision I make if I'm here. Nobody in the
audience should take this as a done deal one way or the other. Thanks.
Mr. Keene: We don't take it as a done deal, the Staff either.
Council Member Berman: You've been here a time or two.
Mayor Burt: Council Member DuBois.
Council Member DuBois: Just real quick, I definitely see this as a path to
keep Animal Services in Palo Alto. Some of the public was concerned about
that. We're talking about a partnership between the City and Pets in Need
that would keep services here. I do want to go back to the idea of scale.
The Humane Society of Silicon Valley had some interesting arguments about
how our scale was perhaps too small to be viable. I heard what the City
Manager said about we need to enhance our services first. If it can be
worked into the agreement that the partnership would have a structure to
allow it to scale and to grown and potentially solicit other cities to leverage
the animal shelter, I think that would be an important part of the future. I'd
also like to make sure that we see clarity on financial controls, both
operational and capital, when it comes back. I assume that'll be part of the
agreement, but I just wanted to call that out. I'll be supporting the Motion.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Wolbach.
Council Member Wolbach: I'd like to significantly associate my thoughts and
sentiments about this with those of Council Members Berman and DuBois. I
do have some concerns and appreciate those who have come this evening to
raise those concerns. I definitely heard divided views, and I'm glad this is
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not a done deal. I certainly would not feel comfortable signing off on this as
a done deal this evening. I look forward to continuing the discussion when it
comes back and we have some clarity about some of these concerns. I do
think that there is always when we think about outsourcing—I'm glad we're
looking at potentially outsourcing it to a nonprofit rather than a for-profit.
When we look at outsourcing City employees and the institutional memory
that we have with City Staff, there's always a risk of being penny-wise and pound-foolish. There is a risk of losing institutional memory. There is the
question of we might save or are guaranteed to save some significant money
and perhaps have an increase in quality of service in the next several years.
By moving something more outside of the City's operations, it does always
raise that concern of 20 years, 40 years, 50 years. Council Member Holman
earlier tonight, when we were talking about the Parks Plan, said we need a
50-year Plan for parks. I'm not saying we need to have a 50-year Plan, but
I'm just expressing that I do have some concerns and some reservations
and again look forward to maybe tying those up when this comes back. I
will be supporting the Motion (crosstalk).
Mayor Burt: At least 50 dog years. Council Member Schmid.
Council Member Schmid: Just to follow up Council Member DuBois' questions. I'm concerned a little bit that with the loss of Mountain View the
costs that we have given have doubled over two or three years and that we
are maintaining 32 percent of animals are returned to their owners. That
seems to be relatively small numbers keeping the shelter in the community.
It raises a question for me about the exclusive negotiations. That means
we're tying our hands around the response that we already have with a
single party. I wonder if the maker of the Motion would accept inviting
comments from the Humane Society about the cost structure of the
negotiated outcome.
Vice Mayor Scharff: No.
Mr. Keene: There's nothing that precludes the Humane Society or anybody
else commenting on the proposal we bring forward. That's actually one of
the fundamental purposes of the public comment period and the ability of
people to submit in advance very detailed analyses. I've never seen a
Council not interested in receiving those things automatically.
Vice Mayor Scharff: That's different than asking a particular organization to
come forward and scrutinize another organization's agreement and comment
on it.
Mr. Alaee: Council Member Schmid, which Humane Society?
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Mayor Burt: It doesn't matter. It hasn't been accepted by the maker.
Unless there's a second to that—if it's offered as an amendment, it would
need a second. Are you offering it as an amendment?
Council Member Schmid: Yeah.
AMENDMENT: Council Member Schmid moved, seconded by Council
Member XX to add to the Motion, “inviting comments from the Humane
Society regarding the cost structure of the potential agreement.”
AMENDMENT FAILED DUE TO THE LACK OF A SECOND
Mayor Burt: I do not hear a second. Council Member Kniss.
Council Member Kniss: Thank you all for being here tonight. I know some
of you have left. It was very good to hear both sides of the issue. I want to
go back. At the very beginning, it mentions on Page 1 that following the
Great Recession and the withdrawal of an agency, then Mountain View, that
it really changed both the budget and the facility after that. I remember,
Karen, you and I sitting in Policy and Services and discussing this at great
length, and tried to figure out how we could continue this. Just before I left
the County, one of my last contributions was to the animal shelter. There
was talk actually at that point of shutting it down. This has been an issue
for quite some time. When we're looking at this tonight, I think we need to look at it in the history and the context of it. I support going forward as we
are. I think it's a very thoughtful motion. It doesn't commit us in the
future. It starts us down a path hopefully that will put us in a more stable
budget situation. That, as I recall, is why we first went out with an RFP,
looking for partners. As I recall, this is the only organization that
responded. Am I correct?
Mr. Alaee: Yes.
Council Member Kniss: I think it's important. As we know, people often
care more for their animals than they do for their relatives, quite truthfully.
When Council Member Holman earlier mentioned an entire chambers filled
with people how were so concerned about the animal shelter, we realized
how important it was that it stay open. This has taken us to the place we
need to be tonight. Staff has had a lot of direction about where we're going
to go. Thank you for all you've done. Thank you to everyone who came
tonight. I'm supporting the Motion.
MOTION AS AMENDED RESTATED: Vice Mayor Scharff moved, seconded
by Council Member Holman to direct Staff to proceed with exclusive
negotiations with Pets In Need, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, to provide
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animal care services and develop a plan for animal shelter facility
construction or rehabilitation, and to return to City Council by December
2016 with a recommended agreement; and direct Staff to consider the long
term capital program for the animal shelter and that this consideration
includes the surrounding land and related services.
Mayor Burt: Please vote on the board. That passes unanimously. Thank
you to everyone for attending and participating tonight. We'll look forward to a next meeting on this, hopefully in December. That concludes—we'll
take a quick five minute break.
MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 9-0
Council took a break from 8:50 P.M. to 8:58 P.M.
4. Acceptance of the Downtown Residential Preferential Parking (RPP)
Program Phase 2 Status Update and Resolution 9625 Entitled,
“Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Amending the
Eligibility Area for the Program as Directed by the City Council
(Continued From August 15, 2016).”
Mayor Burt: Our next item is acceptance of the Downtown Residential
Preferential Parking Program (RPP) Phase 2 status update and adoption of a
Resolution amending the eligibility area for the program as directed by the City Council. This is continued from August 15, 2016. Welcome, Mr. Mello.
I'm sorry. Vice Mayor Scharff, you need to ...
Vice Mayor Scharff: I'm recusing myself because I own commercial property
in the Downtown.
Vice Mayor Scharff left the meeting at 8:59 P.M.
Mayor Burt: Mr. Mello.
Josh Mello, Chief Transportation Official: Thank you, Mayor, members of
Council. I'm Josh Mello. I'm the City's Chief Transportation Official. With
me this evening is our newly appointed Transportation Programs Manager,
Sue-Ellen Atkinson. Back when you approved Phase 2 of the Downtown
Residential Preferential Parking Program in February of this year, you
directed us to come back four months into the program and provide you an
update on the performance of Phase 2. July would have been the close of
that four month period, and that's when this Staff Report was prepared, at
the end of that four month period. We're going to provide you with an
update on that program and also introduce a Resolution supporting an action
that you took a little bit later this year in order to add a couple of streets to
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the eligibility area. Sue-Ellen's going to give you a brief presentation, and
then we'll follow that up with an opportunity to provide any additional
information that you may need.
Sue-Ellen Atkinson, Transportation Manager: Hi. Thanks for having us
tonight. We have a few Council Members here who are slightly new to the
Downtown RPP, so we'll do a brief overview of how we got to this point. RPP
is one of several programs that we have in the Transportation Division that are all aimed at reducing single occupancy vehicle trips to the Downtown.
Other programs include the free Palo Alto shuttle, the valet assist program,
the Palo Alto Transportation Management Association, parking wayfinding,
parking technology and RPP, all part of utilizing parking as a way to reduce
single occupancy vehicle trips. RPP is just one of many programs that are
going on in a comprehensive strategy towards reducing those trips. A quick
summary of Phase 1 and Phase 2 implementation. In January 2014, Council
first directed Staff to develop an RPP Ordinance and a Downtown RPP
program via Resolution. In December 2014, the Citywide RPP Ordinance
and the initial Downtown RPP Resolution were adopted. That directly led
into the start of the Downtown RPP formation. January 2015 through August
of that year, consultants were brought under contract and began work. In August 2015, Phase 1 permits for the Downtown RPP program went on sale
via website. In September Phase 1 of the program officially began. That
lasted six months. On April 1, 2016, Phase 2 began. Keeping in mind Phase
1 and Phase 2 are all part of a pilot Downtown RPP program. We're about 6
months into Phase 2 at this point. Coming into Downtown RPP Phase 2
when we were here earlier this year, it included an updated Downtown RPP
boundary. Certain streets were annexed into the Downtown RPP District.
An area that was adjacent to the Downtown RPP District was approved as an
eligibility area, meaning that those streets were not part of the program at
the time, but residents had the opportunity to opt in if they wanted to. In
Phase 2, there was a limit of 2,000 annual employee permits, and that's a
combination of employee-purchased permits and employer-purchased
permits. That's a max of 2,000 this year. There is also a plan approved to
reduce employee permits annually from that 2,000 number. Employee
parking zones were approved as a part of Phase 2, so that divides the
Downtown RPP District into ten parking zones where employee permits are
valid. There are limitations placed on daily employee permits and a
prioritization of permits for low-wage employees. Just an overview of the
full Phase 2 program. In the Phase 2 boundary, you'll see in green is
basically the initial Phase 1 boundary. The blue areas to the south and to
the east are the approved eligibility areas. When the new streets were
annexed into the Downtown District, the signs were installed and residents
there were eligible to purchase permits. The blue eligibility areas were
essentially preapproved for inclusion in the program through a petition and
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survey process. They are approved administratively within the Planning
Department. As I mentioned before, the Downtown District was broken up
into ten employee parking zones in Phase 2. Permits in each were sold to
employees on first-come-first-serve basis. The zones include the north and
south faces of streets where possible to try to avoid crowding. Resident
permits are valid anywhere in the Downtown District. Employees purchase a
permit for a certain zone; residents purchase a permit that's valid anywhere. As I mentioned, in Phase 2 there's a cap of 2,000 employee permits total.
In the initial Phase 2 decision, those permits were distributed throughout the
ten employee parking zones. As of right now, most of those zones are sold
out. Obviously the outer zones are still where the permits are available.
The inner zones, as one may understand, sold out fairly quickly. The
numbers here indicate the number of available permits. As we've learned
throughout years of selling permits throughout the City, the number of
permits that are distributed are not the number of employees that are
parking on any given day. People take the train. People don't work every
day. People bike. People walk. That all totals up for a total of 2,000
permits. You'll note that in the outer zones, Zone 9 and Zone 10, a portion
of the permits are held in reserve because not all of those streets are part of the program at this point. Those residents need to decide that they want to
be part of the program and opt in through a petition and a survey process.
In Phase 2, there are resident permits and there are employee permits.
Residents are eligible for up to four annual decals. Those are stickers that
are adhered to the vehicle. They're also eligible for up to two transferrable
guest permits. The decals, again up to four per household, the first one is
free of charge. The additional three are $50 each. The visitor hangtags are
also $50. Those are the green permits that you'll see on the vehicles
throughout the Downtown. Employee permits are all blue. They're also all
zone specific. Every single employee permit has a zone number on it.
Employees can purchase an annual decal that’s adhered to their vehicle.
Employers are able to purchase a transferrable hangtag that several
employees can share. Coming into Phase 2, we put daily permit controls in
place. There are daily permits that employees can purchase, and that
supports the use of alternative modes to driving alone. If somebody
typically takes the train but has to drive occasionally, they can buy a daily
permit. Only employees are able to buy those permits. They're not
available to employers. They are zone specific, and the zones are assigned
randomly. You'll buy a daily permit online, and it's luck of the draw as to
what's sent to you essentially. There are no daily permits issued for Zones 9
or 10. The Resolution before you tonight addresses three streets in the
Crescent Park neighborhood. Residents of those three streets submitted a
petition to be added to the Downtown RPP District. Those petitions were
received after the deadline for filing. In May 2016 when we were evaluating
petitions for future RPP programs, City Council directed Staff to revise the
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Downtown RPP Resolution to include those additional streets as part of the
eligibility area. The Resolution before you is essentially following that
Council direction to add those three streets to the approved eligibility area.
Those streets can then complete a mail survey to opt into the Downtown
RPP program. For a Phase 2 status update, this is as of the end of July when
the four month time period came up. The vast majority of permits that are
on the street right now are resident decals. Those are the vehicle-specific permits. Residents get one free and can purchase up to three additional.
There's about 1,000, 1,100 annual visitor hangtags. A total of about 4,500
resident annual permits have been sold as of the end of July in the
Downtown RPP program. As of that time, almost 900 employee decals had
been sold and about 460 of the employer hangtags, for a total of about
1,350 employee annual permits were issued as of the end of July. We've
conducted data collection efforts roughly every two months. We have data
right now as of March, May and June. We have an additional data collection
effort this coming Thursday, and then we'll likely have data collected again
in November. In March 2016, that was pre-Phase 2. What we were seeing
was the pattern that was prevalent during Phase 1, where employee permits
were valid anywhere within the District. Employees were naturally parking as close to the Downtown as they could. Moving into May, this is about
three weeks, four weeks into the Phase 2 program. There was definitely a
settling-in phase moving into the Phase 2 and moving into the use of the
employee parking zones. Our enforcement Staff did an outstanding job of
providing education on the streets and really helping people right at the
scene to figure out where they were able to park and where their permits
were valid. In May we were still seeing some confusion about where to
park, still seeing clustering in the Downtown North and the areas directly
south of the Downtown core. Also some of that is the focus was on
education and providing information to permit holders. There were quite a
few vehicles that were using the two hour parking limit in the areas closest
to Downtown. Going into June, it seems the permit holders had settled into
the program. We were able to focus on enforcement of the two hour limit
and re-parking within the same zone, which is not allowed. The clustering
improved closer to Downtown. The vehicles did seem to spread out a bit.
That said, June is still part of Phase 2. It's still part of a pilot. What we're
seeing is not perfect and wasn't expected to be perfect. We have areas
where we can improve from the lessons that we've learned. As I mentioned,
additional data collection will occur this fall, including Zones 9 and 10. That
first effort will be this Thursday. In terms of the eligibility area and streets
opting in, the 500 block of Hale Street and the 800 block of Palo Alto Avenue
have successfully petitioned into the Downtown District. We're scheduling
signage installation within the next couple of weeks. The 600 block of Hale
is going to be completing another mail survey in the next few weeks. As I
said, we're in a pilot program. We're learning as we go. We learned great
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lessons from Phase 1 that we're able to utilize to make some changes going
into Phase 2. We're still learning throughout the program. Some potential
changes that Staff has identified moving into a permanent program as of
April 2017. Obviously looking at the reduction in employee permits.
Redistributing permits among the zones based on occupancy data. Through
the data collection we've been able to identify where employees are parking
and also where residents are parking, which can help us better allocate permits for each zone. Evaluating the policy for re-parking in the District.
Right now, there's no re-parking in each zone, but you can move to a
different zone and re-park. Evaluating that policy may be something to
consider. Recommendations tonight from Staff are to accept the status
report on the Downtown RPP program and to adopt the Resolution before
you to expand the boundary of the Downtown RPP District and eligibility area
as requested with a note that Staff intends to return with additional
occupancy data and a draft Resolution to make the program permanent with
the desired adjustments in early 2017. Phase 2 permits all expire at this
point on March 31, 2017. That concludes the Staff presentation.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. We can now have Council ask any technical
questions that they may have at this time. Council Member Filseth.
Council Member Filseth: Thank you very much for this. I have a question
for the City Attorney actually. How far ranging can the discussion go around
this? Are we limited to these issues or can we talk about Evergreen Park
and Southgate, for example? To discuss tonight.
Molly Stump, City Attorney: No, Evergreen Park and Southgate are not on
the Agenda, except to the extent that coordinating and scheduling any work
you'd like to direct the Staff to do on this item may prompt the Staff to tell
you about some of their projects and some of those impacts. Evergreen
Park and Southgate are not on your agenda, so we're going to need to be
careful and mindful that we have not noticed the public and folks in those
neighborhoods have not been made aware. We need to be a little sensitive
to that.
Council Member Filseth: Thanks.
Mayor Burt: Council Member DuBois.
Council Member DuBois: I have several questions here. How are we making
residents in the whole area aware that they can opt in? I've had residents
say that they didn't know that they could petition to get added in. I
wondered if there was any marketing going on.
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Ms. Atkinson: The information on the eligibility areas and what it means to
be part of an eligibility area is available on the parking website,
cityofpaloalto.org/parking. We haven't done specific marketing, but we
could ...
Council Member DuBois: Have we done a mailing to people in the affected
...
Ms. Atkinson: ... certainly consider that. We've been approached each time that streets are interested.
Council Member DuBois: I'm a little concerned it's just word of mouth.
Maybe some outreach would be good. I wanted to ask a little bit about the
method of measurement. When we see these charts with parking utilization,
and it says a time. Does that mean each block was measured once within
those two hours?
Ms. Atkinson: Yes. With the size of the area, for example, if the time period
is 12:00 P.M. to 2:00 P.M., it's at one point during that time period.
Council Member DuBois: How are we picking those time zones? Some of
them, like 8:00 A.M. to 10:00 A.M., obviously 8:00 A.M. is probably a lot
less busy than 10:00 A.M.. The same thing with 5:00 P.M. to 7:00 P.M.
They seem like they're a little bit outside the peak times.
Ms. Atkinson: Understood. Capturing the morning, midday and evening
peak hours is industry standard. It's consistent with parking occupancy
counts that we've done in previous years throughout the City.
Council Member DuBois: Just another thought would be work hours have
shifted a little where people come in a little bit later. Maybe 9:00 A.M. to
11:00 A.M. instead of 8:00 A.M. to 10:00 A.M.. You pulled out the charts I
had questions on, the May and June, except you faded out the Downtown
core. In May, the Downtown core was green. In June, it seemed to fill back
up again. I just wondered if you had any idea what that behavior was. I'm
actually talking about the two hour parking Downtown, the middle section.
That's Slides ...
Ms. Atkinson: Are you referencing the area in May that's grayed out?
Council Member DuBois: Yeah. In May and June in our packets, in May it
was almost all green like the Downtown parking cleared out pretty well. In
June it was red again.
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Ms. Atkinson: In May we did not have data collection in the Downtown core
at the same time as the Downtown RPP District. As of June, we started
collecting data on the same dates in the Downtown core as part of the
Downtown parking management study. We've been able to have more
comprehensive data moving forward.
Council Member DuBois: You're saying this may not be correct?
Ms. Atkinson: Yeah. It's grayed out, so it's not the focus of that map.
Council Member DuBois: Thank you. That's definitely helpful. In Zone 8,
we sold 365 employee permits. That seemed like a lot. How do we
determine how many to sell per zone?
Ms. Atkinson: In Zone 8, 365 permits are available. There are still quite a
few available in Zone 8.
Council Member DuBois: We didn't get any information on how many have
been sold per zone.
Ms. Atkinson: We can get that to Council. I don't have it offhand, but we
can certainly provide that. The methodology for determining how the
permits were distributed, 75 in Zone 1, 120 in Zone 2, was based on the
total number of spaces that are available on each street face and looking to
maintain about 30-40 percent of those spaces as employee permit availability, again understanding that employees don't always park each day.
Council Member DuBois: Can I just say that 30 percent of the spots in that
zone, that's where the number came from?
Ms. Atkinson: Essentially.
Council Member DuBois: You said that permits were sold out in many zones.
Do you have any sense what the demand is for additional permits?
Mr. Mello: If we could just go back to that last point, just for a point of
clarity. We assume that, based on the studies that we had done during
Phase 1, only about half of the permit holders show up on a given day. 30
percent times two is the number of permits that are allocated by each zone.
Typically only 50 percent of the permit holders show up at one point in time.
Council Member DuBois: That's been very consistent?
Ms. Atkinson: The 30-40 percent total in each zone?
Council Member DuBois: The 50 percent utilization, I guess.
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Mr. Mello: Sue-Ellen just corrected me. It's 30 percent of permit holders
show up at any given point in time, not 50.
Council Member DuBois: (crosstalk)
Mr. Mello: It's a factor of 30 times 30.
Council Member DuBois: Are you selling twice as many or three times as
many as you'd expect to show up?
Ms. Atkinson: Let me see if I can clear that up a little bit. When we're looking at the total in each zone, we calculated the total number of available
spaces on-street. That is anything that's not driveway, red curb, existing
parking restriction. Of that total, say there were 100 available spaces; 30
percent was applied to that, 30-40 percent roughly. That's the number of
employee permits that are available in that zone. Having to get a total of
2,000, it did vary between 30-40 percent of available spaces to determine
the number of employee permits per zone. That said, say in Zone 1 for
example there are 75 permits. Seventy-five employees are not necessarily
parking there each day. From data collection in Downtown garages, etc.,
and data from elsewhere in the City and outside, about 50 percent of permit
holders tend to park on any given day.
Council Member DuBois: We oversell. We sell twice as many because we only expect half of them to show up. Is that ...
Ms. Atkinson: Roughly.
Council Member DuBois: Is that not correct? What Josh said was correct.
With 100 spots, we would sell 60 permits and expect 30 people to show up
on any given day?
Ms. Atkinson: If there are 100 spaces on-street, we allocated between 30
and 40 of those as employee permits. There would be 30-40 employee
permits sold in that zone. Of those, we expect about half of those people
would park on any given day.
Mr. Mello: Fifteen to 20 would park on any given day.
Council Member DuBois: It's the other way. That's useful clarification. My
last question was do we have any idea what the demand is. Is there
demand for additional permits? You said we're sold out in some zones, but
then other zones you said we have permits left. Have we basically met
demand right now?
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Ms. Atkinson: Of a total 2,000 permits that was the cap for the overall
program, about 1,350 employee permits have been sold so far. In that
sense, there are permits available. However, people want a permit as close
to their place of work as possible. We have gotten feedback from people
who are annoyed that when they went in to get a permit in, say Zone 4, it
was sold out.
Council Member DuBois: Do you have any idea if they went ahead and purchased one?
Ms. Atkinson: They typically do, but we've also seen the Downtown garages
filling up as a result. We have a waitlist at the Cowper-Webster garage for
the first time. We're implementing a valet parking program there in
response. People will say, "I could buy a permit in Zone 8 or I could buy a
permit in the Downtown garages." The Downtown garages are closer, which
is great.
Council Member DuBois: Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Berman.
Council Member Berman: Council Member DuBois asked a couple of
questions that I had. I'm still actually confused. Maybe I'm just not getting
this. In District 1 say you have 100 parking spaces. We want, let's say, 35 percent to be available for employees who buy permits. Are you then selling
35 permits or are you selling 70 permits?
Ms. Atkinson: Going back to this ideal zone where there's 100 spaces
available, about 30-40 permits would be sold. We're not overselling. On
this map where we've stated 75 permits are available in Zone 1, we're not
overselling. That is the cap in the permit website.
Council Member Berman: Let's say you sell all 75, but you only expect—is it
50 percent or 30 percent of people to park?
Ms. Atkinson: It's about half of people. Half of permit holders park on any
given day. That's not hard and fast, but it's a rough estimate.
Council Member Berman: I just want to make sure (crosstalk).
Mr. Mello: At the end of the day, about 15-20 percent of the spaces are
occupied by employees.
Council Member Berman: I noticed on Packet Page 140, where you say in
June 2016 the permit data indicates that of a total vehicle count of over
3,000 vehicles in the Downtown RPP Program District, approximately 13
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percent of vehicles parked displayed a long-term employee parking permit.
That's about 400, I think, quick math. That's really low. This is my first
time sitting in on one of these discussions. Maybe everyone's used to that.
That seems like a pretty low number in comparison to the overall number of
cars parked in the RPP.
Ms. Atkinson: Yes, it is a little low.
Council Member Berman: It's low, but that's normal. The number of parking permits for Zone 8 also jumped out at me, but that's been
answered. Those were the only questions I had. Thanks.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Kniss.
Council Member Kniss: Picking up on somebody's previous question. Could
you go through where valets are available as of today?
Ms. Atkinson: Sure. As of today, there's valet programs in operation at the
High Street garage, Lot 4 as we call High Street and Alma. There's also
valet operational at the Bryant-Lytton garage.
Council Member Kniss: Is it operational right now, today?
Ms. Atkinson: It is operational. It's not as well utilized as we'd like. We're
increasing the number of permits there. That's something that we have to
evaluate each time that the waitlists are updated. We are working on better utilizing that program.
Council Member Kniss: If I try to use it today, it would be open?
Ms. Atkinson: If the permit spaces are full, it's operational. The valet
program only kicks into action when the permit spaces are full.
Council Member Kniss: How do you know that?
Ms. Atkinson: We have Staff there monitoring the permit spaces. They
place the signs for the valet program when the permitted spaces are near
capacity. That directs permit holders to (crosstalk).
Council Member Kniss: (crosstalk) has to be direct observation until we get
some sensor system.
Ms. Atkinson: Exactly.
Council Member Kniss: One more garage?
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Ms. Atkinson: We are working on implementing it at Cowper-Webster and
should have that available within the month.
Council Member Kniss: In a month or so?
Ms. Atkinson: Within a month.
Council Member Kniss: One other thing. Molly, you can weigh in if this isn't
appropriate at this time. Have we continued to look for a satellite parking
area? We have some concerns that there may be ad hoc satellite areas, where people are parking and then carpooling in. In fact, we've heard pretty
definitively that exists.
James Keene, City Manager: Council Member Kniss and members of the
Council, as you recall or maybe as I recall and hopefully we're in agreement
on this. The only specific site we had identified was down in the Baylands as
a satellite parking area. We did the analysis on that, and we ultimately took
it off. There was a volume question. There were impact issues. Even some
of the thought—we were looking at the larger parking lot at the golf course.
We just ran into issues about capacity as it relates to our Park Ordinance
and those things. As I understand it, we're not actively looking at any
satellite sites.
Council Member Kniss: Yes, I do remember that. It's regrettable that we don't have some other site we could use. I think that would relieve more of
this in the Downtown than it currently does.
Council Member Kniss: Pardon? Karen wants to use Menlo Park. Great
idea. This is not my first time sitting here. Thank you for answering those
questions. I know it's a complicated program. You've really hung in there
on it. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Schmid.
Council Member Schmid: On the May 2016 midday map, it has some
striking outliers. Zone 1 and part of 2 seem filled, but then in 4 and 5 and
even 6, which are well away from the Downtown, there's very heavy
parking. Is there a reason why certain blocks like that are pulled off? It's
east of Middlefield or south of Homer. There seem to be concentrations of
parking. How do you interpret that?
Ms. Atkinson: If you're referencing May, that's roughly about a month into
the program. People were still settling into the employee parking zone
approach. We did see improvement moving into June. As I said, it's still a
pilot. It's not perfect. In Zones 1 and 2, we expected to see clustering of
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cars because Zones 1, 2, 4 and 5 are closest to the Downtown. People tend
to want to park as close as they can and walk as little as they can.
Council Member Schmid: I was asking about those that are not close to the
Downtown.
Ms. Atkinson: Along Middlefield, there are a high number of employers,
dental offices, medical offices, etc. When asked if we were meeting demand
in terms of permits, that's an area where permits sold out, and we did hear from a number of employees and employers. That's an area that we may
want to focus on in allocating permits in the future. Other streets, there
may be a high number of driveways or a higher number of multifamily
residential units, where there are a lot of residents that need to park on the
street, and then employees that have permits to park in that area. As part
of this data collection, we collected information on types of permits on the
street. We do have information that helps us understand where employees,
in particular, are parking and where residents are parking. That can also
help moving into changes in permit allocation for employees in the future of
the program.
Mr. Mello: Another potential variable in that area is Middlefield Road north
of Channing. There's no parking permitted on Middlefield itself. The properties on Middlefield, any spillover parking would have to go onto
adjacent blocks, not Middlefield itself.
Council Member Schmid: I'm just surprised that all the spillover seems to
have gone to the east rather than the west in that situation. That's just a
note. You're asking tonight for a change in date. The original Resolution
said come back no later than December 31st for an assessment discussion.
That's being changed to March 31st. March 31st is the date that the current
Resolution expires, Phase 2 expires. Realistically, if you're going to sell
permits for Phase 3, you'd have to start 6-8 weeks ahead of time. Wouldn't
it make sense to have that date kept at December 31st?
Mr. Mello: We're actually proposing to come back in January 2017 with a
draft Resolution. The reason we thought that was a little bit more
appropriate was because we wanted to have as much data as possible when
we come back to you. If we were to come in December with the holidays
and a lot of time off, there's always difficulties collecting data around holiday
periods. We probably won't have as much performance data on Phase 2
that we would if we were to come back in January. That was our reasoning
behind proposing January. We would have enough time to implement the
program before that April 1st start date
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Council Member Schmid: I would prefer to see January 31st rather than
March 31st. That allows you at the last minute to come in and say, "We
need this tomorrow."
Mr. Mello: There's quite a bit of lead time required to structure the permit
sales and all of that. That wouldn't work from a logistical standpoint. We'd
need a couple of months to get the program up and running.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Filseth.
Council Member Filseth: Thanks again. Just briefly, just a couple of things.
This is actually very interesting. Thank you for doing it. I live on the outer
fringes of Zone 3. My experience over this period has been pretty consistent
with what it says here, with what your charts show, except that there are
some days that it's really full again. It's really full again some days. Mostly
it's like this, but every once in a while it's like the whole place is packed
again. I think more than half show up with their permit or something. The
other thing I was looking at is it's most congested in the 12:00 P.M. to 2:00
P.M. timeframe nearer town, as you might expect. I assume a lot of that's
the two hour folks. I'll bet it varies if you pick at 12:00 P.M. versus at 2:00
P.M., within that window, because you get the lunch crowd. I wonder if
you're looking at this stuff as you stagger when you're going to take the windows. You might think about that.
Mayor Burt: I'll follow up. We have 12:00 P.M. to 2:00 P.M. as the time
range. If we have some of these areas that are being monitored at 12:30
P.M. and others that are being monitored at 1:30 P.M., are we getting
different data sets for what really would be comparable? Are we skewing
the data sets by having a portion during the lunch hour and a portion
outside the lunch hour?
Mr. Mello: I'm going to answer yes, but I'm going to say the amount of
resources it would take to simultaneously count all of the blocks at the exact
same time would be pretty costly. I don't think it'd be an effective use of
our resources.
Mayor Burt: An alternative might be to select a different two hour block of
time, say 10:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M. At 10:00 A.M., everybody's arrived at
work. At 12:00 P.M., people haven't really arrived at lunch. Something like
that, 9:30 A.M. to 11:30 A.M., whatever it is. I'm not looking for an answer,
but it's something I think I'd put out there as a consideration. Just a
technical request going forward. When we get these maps, we're all
scrambling to figure out how do we superimpose these maps. Can you use
some solid lines to show those zones? Especially since we need magnifiers
to be able to see what Forest and Bryant are on those. I wanted to go back
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to this question that Council Member DuBois was burrowing on. If we have
100 street-face spots, and you're selling—you said how many permits?
Thirty. You're getting—I'm sorry?
Council Member DuBois: Thirty to 40.
Mayor Burt: Thirty to 40, and you're getting a utilization rate of one-third?
Mr. Mello: We would sell 30-40 employee permits, and then about half
would show up at a given point in time. There'd be about 15-20 employees parked on a block with 100 spaces.
Mayor Burt: I thought you said it was even lower than half.
Mr. Mello: I think the total inventory was 13 percent for the whole area at
one point in time.
Mayor Burt: How do we explain then that we get such high impacts of
intrusion in these areas? Is it a good portion of these are not from permits,
but in fact employees who are moving their cars every two hours? That
number of employees with permits parking in these areas wouldn't explain
the difference as to why in an outlying area—if you have a baseline that you
say residents use approximately X percent of the street face for their own
parking, then the differences as we approach the Downtown areas
presumably are mostly because of the employees being added on top of that. That amount that appears to be added on top is a lot more than this
15 percent of the spaces being occupied by employees. Is there an
explanation as to what's going on there?
Mr. Mello: The wild card in all of this is the two hour parkers. We did make
an effort to account for that. The zones that are closer to Downtown, where
we expected to see more two hour parkers, actually have a smaller
percentage of permits available than the zones that are further out. Zone 8,
for example, has a higher percentage of employee permits available as a
percent of the total spaces than Zone 1. We assumed there would be more
two hour parkers in Zone 1, because its closer to Downtown. I think one of
the things that we need to do, when we come back to you, is look a little
more closely at what the impact of the two hour parkers is and maybe tweak
that percentage a little bit, so that we don't see the clustering that we see
closer to Downtown, even after Phase 2 was implemented.
Mayor Burt: We have numbers on two hour parkers or we think we do?
Mr. Mello: We know how many cars are parked without permits, yes, during
the noon-time hour.
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Mayor Burt: Ballpark, what portion of the parkers is that?
Ms. Atkinson: I'd have to look that up and get back to you on that.
Mayor Burt: A similar question for the Downtown color zone area. Do we
have a good sense of how many employees are still moving their cars for
one zone to another throughout the day?
Ms. Atkinson: Within the Downtown color zone? We have very preliminary
data on that from the initial data collection for the Downtown parking management study. It looks to be in the 7-8 percent range of all vehicles.
Again, that was one day—one set of data, very preliminary information.
Mayor Burt: We have these workers who are making a calculation that it's
better to move their cars, especially in the neighborhoods where we give this
discount for low-income workers. I did a rough calculation. We charge a
little over $100 a year? If they got a little over 200 workdays a year, it's
about 50 cents a day, and they have to move the car three, four times in a
day. They're saving maybe 10-15 cents per moving a car, and it takes them
easily 10 minutes out of their break time. They're making maybe 60 cents
an hour or something by moving their car. It's a bad economic calculation
for them and of their employer, because these are employees who are
missing their break time and their rest, and they're in theory less productive as a result. Although, maybe some would argue, "I get exercise. I get to
walk to my car and back." That's the counter-argument, and that's
legitimate. Are we doing anything to provide education that shows why
that's not a smart thing to do from an economic basis?
Mr. Mello: We haven't taken that tack in our promotion, but I think that
would be a good way to frame the situation.
Mayor Burt: I would suggest we provide it to business owners who insist
that they're thinking about their interests in an objective economic manner.
We know that not only don't individuals necessarily make rational economic
decisions, business owners don't necessarily make rational economic
decisions despite what they may tell you. I know that from having been in
business for a long while. Do we prohibit private valets from parking in the
neighborhood zones? If I get a permit and I got an on-street valet parking,
is there any restriction on where I can park those cars?
Ms. Atkinson: We haven't been approached by valet parkers to park in the
Downtown District. If they're not ...
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Mayor Burt: I mean if they've got customers and they're only going to park
them for two hours or less, they could choose to park them on the streets
either in the color zone or in the neighborhood.
Ms. Atkinson: We haven't run into that situation. When a valet program is
proposed—for example, a hotel or a restaurant proposes valet, they need to
provide information on where those cars will be valeted as part of the plan.
Mayor Burt: They provide an affirmative plan on where they'd park them. Do we have anything in our approval that says you cannot park them
elsewhere?
Mr. Mello: We can check on that. I've conferred with the City Attorney, and
we're going to look into that. I used to be a valet in college, and I would
park in residential neighborhoods, so it's not far-fetched.
Mayor Burt: Let me just say that valet parkers are real clever guys. Josh, it
doesn't surprise me. Just like drivers, valet parkers are resourceful to our
detriment. Thanks for affirming that. Finally, out of the—this is kind of the
big question. When we started this, we had a certain number of Downtown
workers who were parking in the neighborhoods, principally in the Phase 1
area. Do we know what portion of those employees are no longer parking in
the Downtown area and are instead not taking single occupancy vehicles to work?
Ms. Atkinson: We know that as of implementation of Phase 1 a total of 300-
400 fewer vehicles parked in the Downtown RPP District. Those were
assumed to be vehicles that were not eligible for permits. In terms of those
who are not parking because of a mode shift, I don't believe that we have
information that we can draw on for that yet.
Mayor Burt: Basically, the question is did they move to outlying areas or did
they shift modes or what percentage did which. If we're just shoving the
problem outward, we're not solving it. If we don't know whether we're
shoving it outward or solving it, we're not getting to the bottom.
Mr. Mello: We should be getting the results of the Downtown employee
commute survey that was recently done by the Transportation Management
Association (TMA). Those might give us a little insight into what the shift
has been.
Mayor Burt: When would we get that approximately?
Mr. Mello: In a month or so.
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Mayor Burt: Thanks. Finally, do we have a set of objectives that were
adopted when we initiated this program?
Mr. Mello: No. It's been quite a work in progress throughout Phase 1 and 2.
There's no kind of overarching goals that have been driving us.
Mayor Burt: I'll have something to talk about later. Council Member
DuBois.
Council Member DuBois: One quick follow-up. Back to this question of where are some of these cars coming from. That 13 percent was just for
permanent employee stickers, not hangtags or dailies, right?
Ms. Atkinson: That would be a total of annual permits that were on the
street. That would be a decal or a hangtag.
Council Member DuBois: Are the hangtags and dailies limited by zone?
Ms. Atkinson: Yes. All employee permits are zone specific.
Council Member DuBois: I was thinking there were more dailies in a certain
zone on certain days. Those are limited to that 30, 40 percent?
Ms. Atkinson: Yeah. For daily permits, I don't recall offhand how many we
had printed, but they were evenly distributed between Zones 1-8.
Essentially when someone buys one, they get whatever is on the top of the
stack. They're not able to buy a Zone 1 daily scratcher. They have to buy just a daily scratcher, and they get whatever is mailed to them.
Council Member DuBois: Is that in addition to the 30-40 percent annual
permits?
Ms. Atkinson: Yes.
Council Member DuBois: It is. That could overload a zone potentially.
You're distributing on the eight, right?
Ms. Atkinson: They're distributed randomly. Daily scratchers were not
included in the total number of permits allocated to each zone or the total
2,000 permits. It's nearly impossible to ascertain how many people would
be parking with a daily permit on any given day. That said, employees can
only purchase up to four per month. It's meant to be a way to encourage
other modes and to park occasionally.
Council Member DuBois: Thank you.
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Mayor Burt: Council Member Berman.
Council Member Berman: Following up on that. On the chart on Packet
Page 139, it says there are 72 employee daily permits issued. That's over
how long of a time?
Ms. Atkinson: I don't think we have the page numbers in here. Could you
be more specific?
Council Member Berman: Page 4 of the Staff Report. It's the 72 employee daily.
Ms. Atkinson: That's since the beginning of Phase 2. They're not used
widely.
Council Member Berman: Which is like a couple a day at most.
Ms. Atkinson: Yes.
Council Member Berman: Thanks.
Ms. Atkinson: The five day permit that was introduced hasn't been utilized
at all. Food for thought for moving into the permit program.
Council Member Berman: It doesn't show up on the bar graph.
Ms. Atkinson: It's zero.
Council Member Berman: Thanks.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Schmid, did you have a final follow-up?
Council Member Schmid: Yeah, just a follow-up. The question was raised
where is the two hour parking. On the supplemental Packet Page 314, isn't
that what that is? Those are the two hour parking, and it shows very
concentrated.
Mr. Mello: Could you reference an exhibit number or an attachment? We
don't have page numbers in our Packet.
Council Member Schmid: It's the supplemental Packet that was given this
Thursday. The only Page I have on it is 314, Attachment F.
Ms. Atkinson: That is the total occupancy of those who are parking with no
permit. Yes, that does represent the people who are parking with no permit.
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They're able to park for up to two hours during the noon-time frame in the
June data collection.
Council Member Schmid: Those would all disappear twp hours later. Do the
permits expire at 5:00 P.M.?
Ms. Atkinson: I'm sorry?
Council Member Schmid: Do the permits expire at 5:00 P.M.?
Ms. Atkinson: There's no enforcement after 5:00 P.M.
Council Member Schmid: You can park at 3:00 P.M. and stay as long as you
want.
Ms. Atkinson: Correct.
Mayor Burt: Just a clarification there. Would this capture not only
employees Downtown who are parking the two hours but any guests of
residents as well as residents who parked a car but didn't have a residential
permit for that car?
Ms. Atkinson: That data collection is any car that's parked without a permit.
There's no way to tell who owns the vehicle or who it is that's parking.
Mayor Burt: Thanks. We will now move on to members of the public. We
have—our first is Irene Au for 10 minutes speaking on behalf of seven
members of the public, Christian Pease, Chi-kwan Au, Bradley Horowitz, Marilyn Mayo, Wolfgang Dueregger and Patrick Slattery. Welcome.
Irene Au, speaking for seven people (Christian Pease, Chi-kwan Au, Bradley
Horowitz, Marilyn Mayo, Wolfgang Dueregger, Patrick Slattery): Hi, good
evening. I live in Evergreen Park as do my neighbors that are here.
Because we saw that the documents regarding Evergreen Park's RPP were
included in the agenda, we thought we could come here and express our
support for Downtown's efforts to implement and improve their RPP. We
feel a similar pain in our neighborhood, and we thought this would be an
opportunity for us to share our perspectives and observations on how things
are going. When we met with Sue-Ellen Atkinson, we first learned that for
Downtown's program the baseline for determining the number of spaces
available for employees was based on demand by counting how many
employees would want to park there. We strongly disagree with this
approach for Evergreen Park. The demand will only increase, and it's
limitless. In Evergreen Park, we have gotten killed on the parking issue
because of an increase in ridership on Caltrain, parking issues at Stanford,
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and more startups on California Avenue. New developments surrounding
the area along with increased Caltrain ridership promise to result in a steep
increase of people commuting in and out of the business district and the
neighborhood. The laws of physics just don't allow for an infinite number of
people who wish to park in the neighborhood. We feel that a more
reasonable approach to establish the baseline is to start with the supply,
which is a finite resource. We can calculate the amount of lineal feet of parking available in the neighborhood minus driveways and clearances for
corners and fire hydrants, and divide that by what the length of a parallel
parking space should be. As a guideline, the parallel parking spaces along
Stanford Avenue by the Dish are a healthy 22 feet 8 inches. I went out
there and measured it with my own measuring tape. Let's start by
calculating the supply, figure out how many residents need to park their cars
on the streets, which can be estimated by looking at the number of cars
parked during off-peak business hours, reserve enough parking for
residents, and then calculate what percentage of available curbside parking
should go to employees. This approach is not only a data-driven approach,
but also one that is more practical because it deals with the reality of a
limited resource. The second point I want to bring up is that we dispute the notion that the timing of the RPP implement and phase-out of employee
parking in the neighborhood should be tied to the construction of a new
garage in a business district. It's unclear whether and when this garage will
actually happen. If it does happen, our neighborhood will suffer from the
inevitable fate of serving as spillover parking during construction.
Irrespective of what happens with this garage, we want phase out of
employee parking in the neighborhood to begin within a year with employee
permits decreasing yearly by 20 percent of the original number. We need a
certain date for phase-out that is not dependent on an uncertain
construction project. Third, we learned that the RPP would be enforced by a
contractor who could not enforce any parking laws except the RPP because
of the police union's contract with the City. We object to this expensive and
piecemeal approach to parking enforcement. Evergreen Park is a focal point
for the forces of high-density housing, startups, bike corridor and mass
transit, all converging on a small geographic area. We need one entity, the
Police Department, to offer a comprehensive enforcement plan for traffic and
rules. This is an opportunity for innovative, intentional, thoughtful planning
for Palo Alto. To be complete frank, the residents of Evergreen Park are
losing confidence in some of the members of the City Council and the
process here. You could have annexed us into the College Terrace RPP in
May, which would have been the best thing for us as residents. Instead, this
stakeholder process further delays addressing the issues we face. We
gathered the signatures required to bring the issue to you, and now we're
told by City Manager Keene's team that an RPP would still need approval
through a neighborhood survey, which further delays implementation. This
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process is painfully drawn out; although, some Council Members asked for
this program to be implemented sooner than later. We encourage you to
direct the Staff to rapidly implement the RPP for Evergreen Park. On a
personal note, in the four months passed since the City Council approved the
pursuit of an RPP in Evergreen Park, a UPS truck ran into my car parked on
the street and rendered it inoperable. Negotiating around the parked cars
on the street proved to be too challenging for the truck. This headache would have been far less likely to have occurred if an RPP had been in place.
To be clear, the RPP program is not about railing against a certain class of
people. We have asked the City to make provisions for low-income workers
around the business district. The RPP is not about discriminating against
employees or tech workers. Employees don't want to park in the
neighborhoods either. My friends who work on California Avenue are
mystified by how broken this situation is. While other cities have easily
addressed parking problems by building parking garages and preserved
neighborhood parking for resident sonly, Palo Alto has failed to do so. Palo
Alto is the epicenter of Silicon Valley and home to some of the most brilliant
minds, and yet the City fails to meet the needs of residents and workers.
You might wonder why people can't park in their own driveways and leave the streets to the public. It is true that one does not own the curbside in
front of one's house, but we have narrow lots that are only 50-feet wide, too
narrow for a double driveway. Where there are multiple drivers in a the
household as is often the case, at least one car usually needs street parking.
It's a matter of practicality and livability to be able to park one's car in front
of one's home. For senior citizens, this means the difference between going
to a fitness class midday or not. For a parent bringing children home from
school with all their gear or the resident who hosts daytime visitors or leaves
midday to return errands and returns with bags of groceries, there is simply
nowhere for people to go. Employees going to work can have options if the
City provides options, but residents have nowhere to go when they come
and cannot find parking. A livable neighborhood preserves good will to
others and creates a cohesive community. By drawing this process out and
failing to address neighborhood parking, the City is destroying our
communities and discriminating against residents. Instead of visionary
leadership, we get tepid responses from the City. We ask you to please
accelerate the implementation of an RPP program in Evergreen Park and
commit to a phase-out where there is no employee parking permitted in the
neighborhood within five years. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Our next—let me just clear this. Our next speaker
is Michael Hodos, to be followed by John Guislin. Welcome.
Michael Hodos: Members of the Council, good evening. My name's Michael
Hodos. My family's lived on Bryant Street in Professorville for nearly 40
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years. Four weeks ago, we requested that the Downtown RPP Phase 2
update be pulled from the Consent Calendar in order to make you aware of
the fact that the update published by the City Staff on August 15th
presented an incomplete picture of how RPP is actually functioning in the
residential neighborhoods adjacent to the Downtown core, a point several of
you have made note of. Needless to say, we were and we are quite gratified
that you responded unanimously to our request. While there is no question that Phase 2 significantly improved the quality of life for many of the
residents in Downtown North and Downtown South, it did not do so in an
equitable and fair manner. As a result and somewhat ironically I might add,
the very groups of residents who initiated the RPP program several years
ago in an effort to restore the quality of life in our over-parked residential
neighborhoods are now the ones suffering the most thanks to continuing
poor distribution of nonresident parking closest to the Downtown business
core. On September 1st, Neilson Buchanan provided you via email maps
and a nonresident permit parking data worksheet that clearly show how
inequitably nonresident vehicles loads are currently distributed throughout
the ten RPP zones. As a result, we're here this evening to present you with
a list of eight actions that we believe would significantly improve the shortcomings we have been experiencing since Phase 2 began in April.
Please keep in mind these actions represent the unanimous consensus of the
five original RPP residential stakeholders who have continued to work to
improve the Downtown RPP program, even after the Staff officially
disbanded the stakeholder working group several months ago. We would
like you to know that our informal discussions with City Staff have convinced
us that no further significant action to improve the Downtown RPP program
will happen unless you as a City Council specifically direct City Staff to do so
by addressing each of the eight actions the next speaker on this topic will
present to you in just a moment. In short, improving the quality of
residential neighborhood life throughout Palo Alto is at stake. Improving the
Downtown RPP program is a major component of that. It's dependent on
your actions here this evening. We hope for the best. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Our next speaker is John Guislin, to be followed by
Richard Brand.
John Guislin: Council Members, my name is John Guislin, and I'm a member
of the gang of five, the RPP residents' stakeholder group. We have spent
considerable time working on ways we think the RPP program can be better.
Here are eight suggestions for you. Number 1, immediately reduce the
number of available nonresidents permits from the arbitrarily set 2,000
number to 1,500 in order to prevent additional intrusion into residential
neighborhoods. We've only sold 1,350. It seems a good time to start the
reduction now because the demand is not there. Number 2, reduce the
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number of nonresident permits by 200 per year, initially prioritizing the
outermost zones of the RPP District as previously committed in the
February 23, 2016 meeting. Number 3, establish that the total maximum
vehicle load quantity, that means residents, nonresidents and 2-hour
parkers, for all block faces should not exceed 80 percent in Downtown North
and 60 percent in the other zones. Number 4, cease issuing nonresident
permits in Zones 9 and 10, since there clearly is no demand at this time. Number 5, recognize that to facilitate the more equal distribution of
nonresident permit parking across all zones as originally intended, no more
than 33 percent of the total space capacity in any one zone will be allocated
to nonresident permits. Number 6, reduce the number of permits
businesses can purchase in blocks for any one zone from the current blocks
of ten to no more than five blocks. Number 7, give priority to lower-wage
employees when issuing nonresident permits as required by California State
Vehicle Code Section 22507. Number 8, scheduled a City Council review no
later than September 2017 for the next phase of the RPP. On a personal
note, I want to say that Mayor Burt hit it on the head when he talked about
shoving the problem somewhere else. The people on the 800 block of Palo
Alto Avenue are petitioning to join the RPP District now, because the cars are all parking just outside the current border and blocking Palo Alto Avenue.
What we've done is push these parkers to streets that have never had a
parking problem in the past. The Staff has not been able to do a survey of
those areas as yet to see that happening. I also commend Councilwoman
Kniss on saying this is a complicated program. I think much too
complicated. You have issues that you're trying to address like housing and
traffic and infrastructure. You make this complicated program which takes a
tremendous strain on Staff time to make this work. I think you need to free
them up to work on the bigger, more difficult challenges coming. Thank
you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Our next speaker is Richard Brand, to be followed
by Mary Dimit.
Richard Brand: Good evening, Council Members and Staff. I appreciate the
chance to be here. I live at 281 Addison. This is my street. This is the
bicycle boulevard, the 900 block of the street. What I'd like to talk to you
tonight—I'm really speaking to you in—thank you by the way for scheduling
this review. I think we've found out that it's been needed. A lot of the
things have changed. In fact, in some areas the parking situation—in my
area, Professorville—has improved. In other areas, it stays the same. This
is an example of how it stays the same. I'll come back to this in another
picture. Apologies for reading. I don't normally do this, but I really want to
speak to the need for improved administration of the RPP permit issuance
and also to transparency. In your packet tonight on Page 231, you will have
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found a spreadsheet which lists the number of permits sold per zone as of
August 1st. Here we are five months into the year-long program and the
maximum number of permits which we set up in the stakeholder program
has been already exceeded. They're sold out, but they're also oversold.
We're suffering from that as I show in this picture. I'm in Zone 7, and that
excess has created the problem you see here. Again, this is Ellen Fletcher
Bicycle Boulevard looking towards University Avenue. What we're finding is that vehicles have to double park on Bryant with the bicycles having to
swing around the cars parked because there's no place for the delivery
vehicles, ambulances, construction workers to park. This is part of the
problem. This is in front of the PA Recovery residence. They have a lot of
people who work there. They have parking lot in the back, and they do not
allow their employees to work there. Also, I think we should look into that.
The other thing I want to point out is in the February 1st summary meeting
that Staff presented, there was a disbanding of the stakeholder group. In
fact, there would be a commitment to hold quarterly meetings—you can look
in the Minutes—with neighbors to give updates and discuss issues in terms
of the program. No meetings have been scheduled, and I've seen no notice
of any meetings to be done. I would ask the Council to request Staff reestablish these meetings. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Our next ...
Mr. Brand: The other picture was a weekend with nobody parked on the
street. This is the difference. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Mary Dimit to be followed by Norm Beamer. If
anyone else has a card, they need to bring it forward at this time. Welcome.
Mary Dimit: Good evening. Our family has lived in Palo Alto in the Crescent
Park area for over 25 years. About three years ago, we noticed that the
parking was coming across Middlefield Road and that Downtown employees
were parking on our street and filling up our block, which is when I got
involved with helping Neilson survey. We're very familiar with the parking
situation. The first comment I'd like to make is that Crescent Park is not
adjacent to the Downtown core. The preference would be that it be a
residents only parking. In the meantime, I support the eight actions that
the residential stakeholder members listed earlier, including that no more
permits be issued in Zones 9 and 10. I also support that the employee
permits be limited to 1,500 annually. That, as they said, accommodates the
current demand of about 1,350. That the number of employee permits then
be reduced each year by at least 10 percent. Also, I heard that there was a
potential of pricing incentives for the employee permits that would
encourage them to park further out. I don't think that they should be
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encouraged to go out to Zones 8, 9 and 10. Again, they're not adjacent to
the Downtown commercial core. My final comment is regarding the data and
the request that the City improve the accuracy of the data collection and
reporting to increase its value to making decisions for the City and for you
guys. There's several errors in the most recent report, such as a block on
the City map that was posted up there. It shows that there's 11 parking
spaces, and it shows as green and that it's available for parking. Yet, 24/7 no parking is allowed on that block because it's where we live. There's also
several other issues. When there's errors in the Report, that can also call
into question what else there might be a problem with. One point I wanted
to make about the surveying that's been done. When Neilson puts together
his surveyors and we go out in the field, we were doing that about twice a
month. We'd go out on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday around the same
time, and we'd have more consistent data. If you just have one or two
points of parking information during the next few months, that's really not
enough to base the decision to make a permanent program, I think. Thank
you very much for all your time and work on our programs for the
community.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Norman Beamer to be followed by Mel Matsumoto.
Norm Beamer: Thank you. I would urge you to go ahead and pass the
Resolution that adds these three additional blocks to the eligibility area. It's
too bad they have to join. I'm sure they're not excited about joining, but
they have to because of this spillover effect. As I said in March, I don't think
it's fair to just keep pushing this out further and further. I would certainly
support the idea of not issuing any more nonresident permits to these outer
areas. They traditionally never had this problem before, and why should we
push it on them. In the meantime, as I said in March, it's better than
nothing to be in the zone so that at least these spillover parkers aren't
jamming up just beyond the edge. Of course, once they join and once the
signs are up, the nonresidents are just going to move another block out, and
so they'll be knocking on your door. I would urge you to modify the
Resolution to prospectively allow additional blocks to join the eligibility area
by petition without having to come back for another Resolution, which is
another multi-month delay process. I have personally observed this
phenomenon of people clustering just over the edge. Some people park and
just walk to work. As Mayor Burt said, it's good exercise. Others get their
bicycles out of the trunk or skateboards or whatever. Recently I've observed
what I call hybrid carpooling, where several cars will park just beyond the
edge and they'll all pile into one car and commute/carpool that remaining
distance. People are clever, and they're getting around it. I predict it's just
going to extend further out and further out. I think it should have a very
smooth mechanism for allowing the additional blocks to join in.
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Mayor Burt: Thank you. Mel Matsumoto to be followed by our final speaker,
Neilson Buchanan. Welcome.
Mel Matsumoto: Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to address the
Council. I'm Executive Director of Channing House at 850 Webster Street.
Our concern with RPP is with employee parking. No surprise. We ask that
we be allowed to continue to do what we did in Phase 2 of RPP, which is to
get the employee permits we need spread evenly into the four adjacent zones to our facility. We consider ourselves an ethical organization. We're
not trying to game the system. We bought all the employee permits that we
needed. We are an unusual business in another way in Palo Alto in that our
product is not a product at all, but care and service to older people. We
depend on our employees to provide that care and service. We will not pick
up and leave Palo Alto if the environment gets difficult for employers. We're
here to stay. We ask your help for us to continue to do the good work we've
done since 1964. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. Our final speaker is Neilson Buchanan.
Neilson Buchanan: We're passing out some maps. Let me start while the
maps ...
Mayor Burt: Because we don't have many maps.
Mr. Buchanan: We're giving you what the auditors do; we're giving you
restated financials. These are hardly perfect maps by any standard. A few
moments ago, there was a comment of what are the objectives of this
program. Let me just reiterate what's been said for the last two or three
years. There are just some really simple objectives that can get us launched
pretty well into the next year. First of all, the limit of nonresident permits
can be easily at 1,600. Two thousand was a Kentucky windage; it was fair
enough. We know full well 1,600 should be a very fair objective. Those
should be pared back 200 per year as currently stated. We have repeatedly
asked for distribution quality standards, and we've suggested those very
clearly tonight. Zones 9 and 10, zero nonresident permits sold. That results
in a quality neighborhood for those street faces. For Downtown South,
Professorville, the quality standard there is no street face should ever be
more than 60 percent full. That's residents, two hour and nonresidents. For
Downtown North, Zones 1, 2, 3, I think we can tolerate up to 80 percent full.
That creates a distribution that at least we can get through the next
reassessment in 2018. That's a good compromise, but it says every
neighborhood is not equal. It's a way to get started and distribute cars
evenly. I do think there's a mistake in saying you're going to kick this all off
and bring it back to Council at the end of January. I have no confidence that
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we'll be able to resolve these issues in that timeframe. I think it has to
come back to you somewhere between December 15 and January 15. If it's
not okay with the residents, we won't have a chance to comment on it at the
end of January and then have it go operational. Finally, the mitigations were
presented very early in this presentation as sort of a starburst. Those
mitigation efforts are useless if you don't have funding and timelines for
them. Those are still "pie in the sky" objectives. The TMA is totally uncertain, paid parking. If you're going to present those as solutions,
present them as funded objectives with timelines. Otherwise, they're pie in
the sky. Thank you.
Mayor Burt: Thank you. We'll now return to the Council for discussion and
a prospective motion. There are two of us who weren't active in this
discussion previously. I wouldn't mind an opportunity after—who was the
other one?
Council Member Berman: I wasn't.
Mayor Burt: Three of us. If it's all right, why don't we let those of us who
weren't able to participate in the last discussion offer up a few comments?
Then, we can move forward on where we go as a group.
Council Member Kniss: (inaudible)
Mayor Burt: You may have new ones, but let us catch up a little bit and
share some of our thoughts on this. Council Member Holman.
Council Member Holman: I appreciate that, because it's a lot of numbers
and a lot of things that have happened since I was able to participate as for
the other Council Members the Mayor mentioned. I have a question that
have to do specifically with RPP. I'm around the area quite a bit, and I've
heard Richard Brand mention it several times. Can we require the care
facility on Bryant to do their deliveries in their rear parking lot as opposed to
doing them on a residential street? Can we require that?
Mr. Mello: I think it would have to be done through some type of permit
approval process. They can be ticketed for double parking or parking
illegally if they're doing it on-street.
Council Member Holman: I don't know what their current permit dictates, so
it might already be required of them. I don't know.
Mr. Mello: We can look into that certainly.
Mr. Keene: We could ask them.
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Council Member Holman: When it comes time for a Motion, I'm going to ask
for that to be included. Ask the City Attorney, can I do that? It's not
specifically RPP, but it's certainly related. Could I do that?
Ms. Stump: In general this evening, you could direct the Staff to come back
with additional analysis or information, just the way that you could do that in
a general Council meeting even on a topic that wasn't on the agenda. Is
that your question, if you ask for ...
Council Member Holman: I'm asking could we direct tonight for Staff to
either resolve this issue and/or come back to us with information about
(crosstalk).
Mayor Burt: What she said is we can request that they come back to us with
that.
Ms. Stump: Yes. We would need to look at what the situation is with the
facility and what the rules are. We could come back to you with that
information and some kind of proposal for additional action or options.
Council Member Holman: Or maybe get it resolved in the meantime.
Ms. Stump: Yes.
Council Member Holman: That's what I was trying to get to, get it resolved
in the meantime. Say this again please, I'm sorry. How many total employee parking permits have been sold?
Ms. Atkinson: Just about 1,350.
Council Member Holman: Why wouldn't we reduce the number of employee
permits that we would sell? Instead of starting with the 2,000, leaving it
there, and then reducing it by 10 percent every year, why wouldn't we just
reduce it to—let's be generous and say 1,500 and reduce it by 10 percent
every year?
Mr. Mello: We're fully intending on making changes to the program when we
come back to you in January with a Resolution. All of those types of
changes to the program need to be incorporated into a Resolution. The last
Resolution that was adopted by Council was back in February. Our intent
was to come back at the conclusion of Phase 2 with some specific
recommendations to move forward into the permanent program. That would
certainly be one of the recommendations.
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Council Member Holman: Staff would come forward with that
recommendation to reduce the 2,000 to a different number, maybe in the
range of 1,300 or 1,500?
Mr. Mello: That's very likely, yes.
Council Member Holman: About not selling employee permits in—I would
say Zones 8, 9 and 10. I don't live in any of those, just to be clear. Zones
8, 9 and 10 because I don't remember there being Downtown employee parking issues on Kingsley or for that matter on Lincoln prior to the RPP
Downtown. What would Staff's opinion about that be? With 10, the same
thing would be applying to the expanded District there too.
Mr. Mello: A large portion of Zones 8, 9 and 10 are in what is called the
eligibility area. The only streets that are currently in the RPP program are
shown in white on the map within the eligibility area. Most of that area is
not currently in the program. The only permits that are being sold for 8, 9
and 10 are a proportion of the total permits that we calculate using for the
number of streets that are currently in the program. We're holding a vast
majority of the permits in reserve, and they're actually not available for sale
because only a small percentage of those zones are actually participating in
the program today.
Council Member Holman: If I'm looking at, for instance, this slide on—
there's no page number on here, no slide number. It's the one that has the
numbers on it that indicate the zones. Those streets that are white, how
was it determined that Seneca and Hamilton and Forest would have permits
sold on them, if I'm understanding your comment correctly? Why those
streets? This is Zone 10.
Mr. Mello: If you look at the slide that's titled "Phase 2 Boundary" ...
Council Member Holman: That's titled what? I'm sorry.
Mr. Mello: The slide that's titled "Phase 2 Boundary."
Council Member Holman: For future reference, it's so much easier if these
have page numbers on them. I'm not finding it, sorry. Here we go.
Looking at that.
Mr. Mello: The streets that are shown in white within the blue eligibility
area, those are the streets that have asked to participate in the RPP
program and actually have signage and are required—folks parking between
8:00 A.M. and 5:00 P.M. on those streets longer than two hours need to
have permits. The only employee permits that have been sold are 30
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percent of those streets, 30-40 percent of those streets that are actually in
the program. The remainder of the streets in the eligibility area are not
participating in the program today; therefore, we have not sold any permits
for those spaces on those streets.
Council Member Holman: I understand. That's not exactly my question. My
question is why—I guess I didn't state it very well. My question is if you're
Seneca, Hamilton, Forest—I see what you're responding to. My question is why are we selling employee permits on those streets that have opted in.
That's probably a decision that was made earlier here. What would we be
putting back into the other section if we didn't sell there and Waverley and
Kingsley and Bryant?
Ms. Atkinson: You're correct that that's a decision that was made
previously, when Phase 2 was first implemented. To the question of what
would happen if—to be clear, only annual permits are sold for those streets.
There are no daily permits sold for Zones 9 and 10. That was also a decision
made previously. To the question of what would the effect be if there were
no employee permits sold in those zones, the overall occupancies in other
zones would increase, and we would see more crowding.
Council Member Holman: By what kind of numbers? Obviously they'd have to go somewhere. What kind of numbers would we be talking about? Do
you have any notion?
Mr. Mello: Eight, 9 and 10 are still undersold. They're not very popular with
employees because of the distance from the Downtown core. It would be a
pretty small number of permits that would be rescinded.
Council Member Holman: If it's a small number of permits—I will wait until
other Council Members have a chance to comment—I'd say let's not sell
commercial permits in those streets.
Mr. Mello: That would also be a change to the Resolution that was passed in
February.
Council Member Holman: That would be coming back in December, correct?
January now.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Berman.
Council Member Berman: I appreciate the opportunity to kind of wrap my
head around everything. We have 2,000 permits available technically for
sale to employees. The table we have on Page 4 of the Staff Report shows
us that allocation per zone. There are 2,000 total. One proposal tonight is
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to lower it to 1,500 permits sold. There's also been a suggestion that we—
1,500 or 1,600 or 1,300, I've heard numerous different numbers. We
should eliminate the employee permits in Zones 9 and 10 or 8, 9 and 10. In
9 and 10, if we eliminate the possible employee permits in 9 and 10, we're
eliminating 615, so that gets us to 1,385, I think. I'm doing mental math
that I shouldn't do at 10:30 at night. If we add Zone 8 to that, we're
eliminating another 365, so we're now down to 1,020 employee permits available. At the same time, we should decrease the number of permits sold
in Zones 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and 7, so that there are fewer per
block face. We should make sure it doesn't expand out to surrounding
neighborhoods, because we don't want that. We should do it taking up less
Staff time but have quarterly meetings. Did I get all this right? It's going to
be a super fast night. I'm looking forward to this conversation.
Mayor Burt: First I'll say that I think it was a bad idea to sell permits into
what I'll call the annexed areas. I'm open as to whether we simply sell any
more or whether we rescind them. I think probably by the maps I can live
with just not selling more. I also have thought that in those annexed areas
we're probably unnecessarily inconveniencing the residents by only allowing
two hour parking without a permit. If you're adjacent to the Downtown, then employees may run out there and move the car every two hours.
When you're a half mile away, I don't think that's very likely. I'd want to
hear neighborhood input on that. If they think this through and think
they're open to three hour parking without a permit, I'd certainly be
receptive to it. I think it makes more sense. This whole issue of where we
get kind of stacking of cars right on the edge of the zones, I've thought from
the get-go two years ago that this would happen. I don't see a solution
other than a block face restriction where the employee permits can only park
on one block face. Once again, I'd want to hear from the neighborhoods on
how they feel about that. In terms of distributing that parking, that seems
like it would be logically the way to go. Finally, I am really concerned that
we're not achieving the real objective of reducing the number of both cars
parking in neighborhoods adequately and the number of trips Downtown.
The Council has adopted a policy objective of a 30-percent reduction in
single occupancy vehicles Downtown. We heard from our Downtown
Transportation Management Association that they could actually achieve that
within three years. It would cost for the Downtown core area $1.4 million a
year. We don't have those funds, and we don't even have funds to make a
significant dent on it other than really what the City launched on this pilot
program with the Scoop app, which is the rideshare app. It's a good
indication that there are some real cost-effective ways to actually reduce the
number of car trips and parked cars. As of a month and a half ago, that
program had been increasing participation at 70 percent month-over-month.
I assume that'll level off but continue to grow in absolute numbers, level off
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on a percentage basis. They had already after three full months of operation
participants of 400 car trips per day, which is 200 roundtrips, but not
everyone of those is a reduction because now two or three people are
sharing a car instead of one. Ballpark, it's probably 125 roundtrip car trips
that it's reducing per day as of a month and a half ago. Within a couple of
months, it'll probably be up to a couple of hundred. Those are real numbers
at low cost to the City. Those are the kinds of program that we can roll out if we had the funding. The reason I bring up that example and the various
things that we could do, that we have, our Downtown TMA has a plan at the
Council request, and it's an unfunded plan. We had a lot of pushback from
the business community against moving forward for a business license tax
that would be able to achieve those outcomes in short order and solve their
problem and solve our problem. There's an alternative that can get some of
this going. It was in one of the recommendations that Neilson Buchanan
had made back, I think, in February and again more recently. In order to be
eligible to buy an employee permit, your employer must either have a
Transportation Demand Management program or be a full paying participant
in our Downtown TMA. This could really kick start the actual getting people
to use other means to get to Downtown, carpooling or transit or biking or all the other means that we have. I'm really interested in pursuing that. I
don't think the community wants to wait another 2-3 years to see about
launching those programs through the business license tax, which may very
well happen in that timeframe. We really want to get going on solving these
problems sooner rather than later. I'm going to be real interested in
colleagues' thoughts on that. Finally, on this question of objectives, I heard
Neilson Buchanan state a number of things that sound to me like their
strategies, not objectives. Those are valid. What I meant by objectives are
at a higher level. The ones that come to my mind—I think when this comes
back we should really be looking at establishing some clarity on what is it
we're trying to achieve through these programs. The first objective to me
would be to significantly reduce the impacts of employee parking on
neighborhoods. Objective Number 1. Number 2 would be to not transfer
those impacts to outlying neighborhoods. Number 3 would be to allow for
reasonable transitions for those employees who would be restricted from
parking in the neighborhoods. Fourth, to mitigate the impacts of our
restrictions on low-income employees. Finally, through all of these
measures, to reduce the congestion resulting from those same trips of
parkers to Downtown who are creating car trips. I'd be really interested in
whether we want to give guidance to the Staff to return with some set of
objectives along those lines when they come back in December in January.
Otherwise, I think we hear people, "No, this thing's all about one goal. No,
it's about this goal." It goes around in circles. Why don't we just put out
there with reasonable clarity what we're trying to accomplish here? Those
are my main comments. Let's see. I'm interested in Staff comment on
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whether additional blocks can be added to the annexed areas by petition and
not require Resolution. Also, on the loading at the ambulatory facility or
elsewhere, I'd be interested in whether we should be having more loading
zones designated so that we aren't driving folks to double park in the street;
although, Ms. Au had mentioned her recent circumstance with a common
carrier hitting her car. I'm sorry to hear that, but I'm not sure that the RPP
program would effect that. My observation is that the common carriers are double parking when there is parking on the curbs throughout the City, and
that's a separate problem that we have to tackle in a different way. I think
where we have regular, necessary loading, we should have more spaces
designated for loading zones. If there are circumstances where they have
loading on private space and that works well, I'm fine with that too. Those
are my comments. Council Member DuBois.
Council Member DuBois: I think I agreed with a lot of what you just said,
Mayor Burt. I think we've learned that there are some people who just don't
want to pay for parking ever. They'll walk a pretty far distance. I'm not if
we'll ever get rid of all those. I think the goal is just to push it far enough
out that the number is relatively small. Just a couple of random thoughts. I
think we should kill the five day pass. We have no takers. It seems like an easy simplification. I have a couple of questions. Do we require employers
to be in the Business Registry before they can purchase permits?
Ms. Atkinson: Yes, that's a requirement.
Council Member DuBois: Have we considered participation in the TMA as a
requirement?
Ms. Atkinson: That's not previously been mentioned.
Council Member DuBois: The other thing which we haven't really talked
about was a focus on making passes trackable to the purchaser. I know the
permanent ones, I think, have identification numbers. Could we make all
the passes have some identification number or a bar code that would let us
at least know who purchased the hangtag?
Ms. Atkinson: All permits have a permit number on them.
Council Member DuBois: They are traceable?
Ms. Atkinson: Yes. We have had some that have been lost, that we've been
able to return through that.
Council Member DuBois: I said in March we needed to define what the limit
to the Downtown parking district is rather than continue to expand it. What
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we're hearing tonight is maybe a way to do that, because we have not sold
these 2,000 permits. Last time we had fewer Council Members; we needed
a unanimous vote. I think we perhaps were interested in getting agreement
among all of us, and that led to maybe a weaker motion. My preference
would be to freeze Zones 9 and 10, I think, where they are now, and do that
immediately and allow additional streets in Zones 9 and 10 to petition to be
added as resident-only parking. I do think we should try to set objectives when we come back in March for the next phase. I think we should give
priority to lower-wage employees. I think that's a good idea. As people
have talked about, we need this to come back in time for feedback from the
community and Council. If it's okay, I actually attempted to capture most of
that in a motion, which I'll make at this point in time. The first part would
be to accept the status report. The second part would be to accept the
petitions for the incorporation. The third part is the new stuff, which would
be to immediately freeze the sale of employee permits in 9 and 10, and to
allow additional streets in those zones to be added as resident-only parking.
I'm open to amendments on "D." I was trying to capture a lot of what I
heard from people. It would be to direct Staff to return by January 15th
with proposals for changes to implement at the end of Phase 2, that would include elimination of the five day pass. You could delete two; it sounds like
we already have that. Propose some quantitative objectives to reduce the
impact on neighborhoods, to not create spillover and to reduce congestion.
Three, to give priority to lower-wage employees and, four, to require
registration in the Business Registry and in the Downtown TMA for permits
purchased by employers.
Council Member Berman: Second.
MOTION: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member
Berman to:
A. Accept the status report on the Downtown Residential Preferential
Parking (RPP) Program; and
B. Adopt a Resolution, expanding the boundary of the Downtown RPP
Program Phase 2 eligibility area originally established by Resolution
number 9577 to incorporate streets in the Crescent Park neighborhood
identified for inclusion by the City Council in response to a
neighborhood petition; and
C. Immediately freeze the sale of employee permits in Zones 9 and 10
and allow additional streets to petition to be added as resident only
parking in Zones 9 and 10; and
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D. Direct Staff to return to Council by Jan 15, 2017 with proposals for
changes to implement at end of Phase 2 that include:
i. Elimination of 5 day passes; and
ii. Propose quantitative objectives to reduce the impact on
neighborhoods, to eliminate spillover, and to reduce congestion;
and
iii. Give priority to lower wage employees; and
iv. Require registration in the Business Registry Certificate Program
and participation in Downtown Transportation Management
Association (TMA) to buy employee permits.
Council Member DuBois: I'll just speak to this quickly. I was just trying to
capture a lot of the good ideas I heard from my fellow Council Members as
well as citizens. I think these are improvements to the Downtown Parking
District overall.
Ms. Stump: Mr. Mayor, at the appropriate time I have a couple of
comments.
Mayor Burt: Why don't you speak right away, and then we'll hear from the
seconder.
Ms. Stump: Just procedurally, just to remind the maker of the Motion and any other Council Members that the item tonight is agendized for action in a
couple of specific areas. The Council is able to discuss more broadly the
working of the program and ask Staff to come back. We will be limited in
taking additional actions that are not agendized for potential action tonight.
There actually is—to take as an example, Item Number C appears to fall into
that category and probably needs to come back as a future agenda item.
The second thing I'd just like to mention to everyone is there have been a
couple of ideas mentioned for perhaps some innovative distinctions that
might be made within the RPP program about who would be eligible,
particularly tonight was mentioned businesses to buy permits. Those are
issues that we will need to look at. The RPP program as the neighborhood
advocates have pointed out to the Council—they're correct—is authorized by
State law. There are some parameters in State law. We will need to look
and give you some advice about what type of distinctions we are able to
make under the State law and perhaps other distinctions that are not
authorized by that Code. We won't be doing that this evening, but I do want
to let you know that any kind of innovative idea like that really is a request
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to us to go back and to look at it operationally and to give you some policy
advice as well as potentially some legal advice. Thank you.
Council Member DuBois: Hearing that, I would modify "C" to request Staff
to come back as soon as possible with a change to immediately freeze sale
of employee permits in Zones 9 and 10.
INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE
MAKER AND SECONDER to replace in the Motion Part C, “immediately freeze the” with “direct Staff to return as soon as possible to implement a
freeze on the.”
Council Member Berman: Let me know when it's my turn, and I'll talk for a
minute.
Mayor Burt: Are you done, Tom?
Council Member DuBois: Yeah.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Berman.
Council Member Berman: Thank you, Council Member DuBois, for the good
motion. I think one additional edit we might have to make is to D.iv. I'll
defer to the City Attorney on this. Do we need to say for iv "if legally
permissible require registration in the Business Registry Certificate"? If I
was hearing you correctly, you said you need to look into whether or not that's ...
Ms. Stump: Yes, thank you. The Business Registry is not controversial.
Saying that you have to be registered in the Business Registry as a business
is just saying comply with existing law. The Registry requires all qualifying
businesses—there are a few exceptions—to register. There's no problem
with that. That's an existing requirement that we've already vetted. The
TMA is different. Thank you for adding that language, Council Member
Berman.
Council Member Berman: Maybe before the word participation, add "if
legally permissible."
INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE
MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion Part D.iv., “if legally
permissible” after “Certificate Program and.”
Council Member Berman: It seems like I've been watching from the outside
because I've been conflicted out of participating up until now. Thank you to
the City Attorney's Office for keeping on the FPPC to get us approval to
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participate. Is it perfect? No. Is it moving in the right direction? Yes. Will
it take some time? Yes. Will we make all of our residents happy? No. I'm
getting some noes from some residents right now. I think for those who
remember what the City tried to accomplish 6, 7 years ago, when they tried
to create a pilot program in Downtown South. It might have been
Professorville. That was supposed to be a simple solution, a simple RPP. It
went down in flames, because unfortunately RPP isn't simple. Every action has a reaction that often isn't anticipated. All we can do is have different
phases; make sure that we're getting accurate data; hear from the
community about how that data can be even better; make sure that we
implement those changes so that the data is better; and continue to iterate
and make it better. If you think about it, it's kind of Silicon Valley. You
throw out an idea. You throw out a product. You get user feedback. You
make it better, and you roll out a iPhone 7 tomorrow if you're Apple. That's
what this is. At the same time, we recognize that this is part of the three-
legged stool. We need to make sure that we're moving forward on those
other things that Mayor Burt mentioned, that maybe we don't have currently
the resources that we wish we did to really get the benefits and lower the
single occupancy vehicle trips that we'd like to. Staff has been listening to the community a lot. It sounds like they were planning on doing some of
the things that the community has requested tonight. I'm glad to hear that.
I agree with as soon as possible freezing the sale of employee permits in
Zones 9 and 10. That was never part of the intention, and that seems to
make sense. I would just plead with our community to be as understanding
as possible as we try to get this as right as we can. We are listening. I was
having a conversation with a colleague a couple of minutes ago about how
Staff has gotten a lot better at their answers and how sophisticated this
program has become over the last year and a half. I think it's promising;
it's not perfect. This is another step in the right direction.
Council Member DuBois: I'm sorry. Could I just clarify something I meant
in the motion?
Council Member Berman: Now I'm going to have to take back everything I
just said.
Council Member DuBois: When I was talking about "C" there, that was
really implying that we would reduce the total number of permits by that
unsold amount in Zones 9 and 10. I don't know if we need to be explicit
about that. It was basically stopping at what we've sold and taking the
remaining inventory off the market.
Mr. Mello: I think that's a very reasonable approach when we come back in
January. I just want to note to the Council that we currently have one Staff
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member working on parking programs. We're about to add another one on
Monday, a parking staff specialist. Our current attention is focused on
delivering the Evergreen Park and Southgate RPPs. We're planning to bring
a Resolution for Evergreen Park to Planning and Transportation Commission
(PTC) in October and Council in November. Our plan moving forward was to
come back to you in January with some substantive changes to the
Resolution for the Downtown program. If we were to need to come back before then in order to freeze the permit sales in Zones 9 and 10, I don't
know that we have the Staff resources to do that simultaneously with
moving forward with Evergreen Park and Southgate.
Council Member DuBois: Can you explain what would be the effort to not
selling any more permits?
Mr. Mello: You would need to adopt a new Resolution that specified that.
We would need to prepare the Resolution. We would need to work with the
permit sales vendor to freeze the permits in the online system. We would
probably need to provide some notification to employees that those are no
longer available in that area. I would also like to note that there's very little
demand for Zone 9 and 10; we've sold very few permits over the last six
months that Phase 2 has been in operation. I don't think we're going to see a mass rush to buy additional permits in those zones between now and the
end of the program in March.
Council Member DuBois: Did you also accept or understand that I was
saying that we would reduce the total amount of business permits available
from the 2,000, minus the ones that were in 9 and 10?
Mr. Mello: Yeah. Another important point is that there's actually only 1,465
permits available right now, because there's a significant number in 9 and
10 that are held in reserve right now. The cap is actually 1,465 right now
until additional streets in Zone 9 and 10 opt into the program, and then that
cap will go up.
Council Member DuBois: I just wanted to make that explicit, not that we
would then sell 2,000 permits in Zones 1-8.
Mr. Keene: Just a quick clarification since we're wordsmithing here. Under
"C," the second sentence where we talk about "allow additional City streets"
is subject to the same "direct Staff to return" with that. We would not be
able to do that without coming back.
INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE
MAKER AND SECONDER to replace in the Motion Part C, “allow” with
“direct Staff to return with options to allow.”
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Council Member Berman: Let's put some numbers to the idea that Council
Member DuBois is saying. What would that mean in terms of the number of
overall permits that would be available? That almost seems to exceed what
has been requested from the community. Is Staff comfortable that we're
still making sure that we have the permits available for our business
community, our people who work at Channing House, our people who make
our sandwiches?
Mr. Mello: The total permits available today is 1,465. If we eliminated
Zones 9 and 10, it would be 1,385, the cap. Plus the small handful of
permits that have already been sold in 9 and 10, which is a very small
amount.
Council Member Berman: When Staff said that they were going to come
back with a proposal in mid-January, was that proposal going to go that low?
Can we leave this up to having that conversation in mid-January of what the
right number is?
Council Member DuBois: My Motion again is specifically about Zones 9 and
10, which are pretty far out.
Council Member Berman: Sure, but you're also taking all of those permits
off the table without us really having a conversation as to whether or not that's the ...
Council Member Schmid: (inaudible)
Council Member DuBois: There's 70 sold today. It would be taking 535 off,
I think, the 2,000.
Council Member Berman: I'm confused from the number Staff just gave.
Let me get out my little calculator.
Mayor Burt: If you're speaking to your second ...
Council Member Berman: It'll be 1,465. That's fine.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Holman.
Council Member Holman: Council Member DuBois, I'm not sure that your
motion does clarify that you want the number of permits to go down, such
as the most conversation just implied and prior comments implied. I see "C"
as saying that it's only applying to Zones 9 and 10.
Council Member DuBois: I guess at the end of that first sentence in "C" ...
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Council Member Holman: Maybe it needs to be a separate sentence
(crosstalk).
Council Member DuBois: I would say "and reduce the total available by."
Council Member Holman: Can I suggest not reducing it by a total number,
but setting a target number? It's a lot easier to manage, I think.
Council Member DuBois: Sure.
Council Member Holman: If you want to reduce the total number of employee parking permits that are available, I'd say set it at 1,385 because
that's really where we are, rather than reducing it by a certain amount.
Mayor Burt: Can I clarify? It's actually 1,385 plus the limited number that
have been sold in 9 and 10 already. Correct?
Mr. Mello: Yes.
Mayor Burt: It'd be 1,465.
Council Member Holman: That's right. Without 9 and 10, it would be 1,385.
Okay, 1,465.
AMENDMENT: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council
Member XX to add to the Motion Part C, “and reduce the total number of
available employee permits to 1,465” after “permits in Zones 9 and 10.”
Mr. Keene: My understanding is that the direction of these more specific comments are all the things that would be coming back in January.
Council Member Holman: Correct.
Mr. Keene: Is there a great value to try to identify that number right now
versus letting us come back after we've done some math and whatever?
Then, if you didn't like it, you can change it.
Council Member Holman: It seems to me there is an advantage to doing
that if we cannot spend hours doing it, because it gives you direction on
what to come back in January with, instead of waiting for you to come back
in January and then saying, "We brought this instead."
Mr. Keene: It would also give the Staff the chance to make sure that we're
kind of doing our due diligence on the number. It's much easier for you to
change it after we've sort of made recommendations.
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Mayor Burt: I think we were okay with going about it either way, but the
language that was in here wasn't clear. Either taking this number or other
language that would be clear on the intent may accomplish the same thing.
Mr. Mello: At the last discussion we had about ratcheting down the number
of permits back in February, if you remember we proposed 200 per year
consistently in order to give the employees time to shift modes and carpool
and find other means. That's the limited amount of discussion we've had to date with you about a reduction. That was our intent, to come back in
January with a more firm proposal on how the reduction would be tied to our
TMA efforts and other efforts.
Mayor Burt: Josh, with that concept of the 200 reduction, is that 200 per
year reduction from the theoretical 2,000 or the actual 1,465?
Mr. Mello: I think what we discussed in February was 2,000. Again, that
was just kind of a high level proposal based on what we calculated the mode
switch could potentially be.
Mayor Burt: I think that goes out the window, given that we're not selling
anywhere near 2,000. We have to figure out if 1,465 is the number that
we're selling now, how many should be sold in 2017.
Council Member DuBois: (inaudible)
Mayor Burt: No, we haven't.
Council Member DuBois: We haven't sold all of those.
Mr. Atkinson: No, we've sold about 1,350. The issue of a proposal for a
number of permits to reduce to is something that we internally have not
begun to discuss. That's something that we are intending to bring back in
January after we've had time to evaluate permit sales and allocation.
Mr. Keene: Can I just say ...
Mayor Burt: Yeah.
Mr. Keene: Clearly there's new direction. The concept of a theoretical 2,000
reduced by 200 in 2017, the Council's saying the evidence already sort of
belies whether or not that's the right pacing. It's got to somewhere down.
Mayor Burt: I would offer also that the 200 per year was a 10 percent.
That's 10 percent of 2,000, but we're not selling 2,000. If we say for round
numbers we have a 2016 number of 1,500 and we ratchet that down to
1,350 in 2017, that's the kind of progress that may be substantive.
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Mr. Keene: Just as a practice, I'd rather the Council direction be in that
realm than jumping and doing the math here, even if it's to say we'd like
when you come back in January you to bring a 10 percent reduction over the
actual experience clearly as you see it and forecast it. Do you know what I
mean?
Council Member DuBois: I think we're mixing two things here. The intent of
the motion was to explicitly change Zones 9 and 10 to resident-only parking.
Mayor Burt: Can I add? You wanted to make clear that what is currently
allowable to be sold in 9 and 10 doesn't get shifted.
Council Member DuBois: Right. That's where that number was coming
from, but we could say "freeze employee permits in Zones 9 and 10 and
reduce the total number of available permits by the amount of spots in
Zones 9 and 10." That's all we were trying to do. Separate from that would
be this annual reduction of 10 percent or 150 or whatever the number is.
Council Member Holman: I think I still had the floor when other question
started popping up.
Mayor Burt: I think we want to resolve this one thing. If we go to language
along the lines of what Council Member DuBois had just described, which is
to freeze the sale of permits in 9 and 10 and that the remainder of permits would have been eligible to have been sold in 9 and 10 are not to be sold in
the other zones. Does that capture it?
Council Member DuBois: Reduce the total number of available permits by
the amount in Zones 9 and 10, by this amount. That's good.
AMENDMENT RESTATED AND INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION
WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the
Motion Part C, “and reduce the total number of available employee permits
in all zones by this amount” after “permits in Zones 9 and 10.”
Mayor Burt: Council Member Holman.
Council Member Holman: I'll have to think on that for a second. I'd like to
offer as an amendment to add Zone 8 to 9 and 10. There also are not many
permits sold in that area, and it was not impacted previously. I think it's of
the same characterization as 9 and 10.
Mayor Burt: Is that correct? I thought I saw that half of 8 was in the
original and half was not. Is that correct? Yes? Is that right, Josh?
Mr. Mello: The area north of Lincoln Avenue was in the original District.
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Council Member Holman: But Waverley ...
Mayor Burt: West of Bryant or whatever it is.
Mr. Mello: Yes, that's correct.
Mayor Burt: Out of the blocks—only five blocks of eight were not in the
original.
Council Member Holman: Is that accurate? Is that so?
Mayor Burt: You see this map (inaudible). If you look at the lines drawn—the shaded, the bluish hue is the annexed area. The solid line is the 8 zone.
Council Member Holman: I'm sorry if I'm overlooking some or (inaudible)
understanding this. If I look at 9 and 10, the shaded/not white streets are
being sold commercial permits. They're not white streets.
Mayor Burt: There's two shadings.
Council Member Holman: They're not white streets as Josh was referring to
them.
Mayor Burt: I'm not sure what you're referring to by shaded. Are you
looking at this map?
Council Member Holman: Yes, I'm looking at that map.
Mayor Burt: I would call it a blue shade and a gray.
Council Member Holman: Gray shade, yeah. Josh was calling it white streets.
Mayor Burt: There's two shades. There's a light gray.
Council Member Holman: Let's just say in 10, the only streets that are being
sold commercial permits are Hamilton, Seneca, Guinda and part of Forest.
Those are being sold commercial permits. As I look at 8, if I apply that
same principle, there's part of Kingsley and part of Waverley and it looks like
part of Lincoln that are being sold commercial permits. Correct? I guess my
question is why wouldn't we not sell any more commercial permits in 8.
Mr. Mello: I think we've made an effort to kind of distribute the employees
in a systematic fashion across the entire District in order to spread the
burden across the District and not impact one particular zone over another.
When we start to limit the zones to resident parking only, we're going to
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start to constrict those employee parkers back into the original RPP District.
If we don't simultaneously reduce the total number of permits, we're going
to go back to where we were in Phase 1, which is where we had clustering
closer to Downtown.
Mr. Keene: If I might just—I think this is an important point. I think it's
symbolic of a lot of items that we're dealing with these days. First of all, "C"
essentially by what Josh said about the timing on this really needs to be made maybe Number i under "D." We're going to come back with proposals
to implement a freeze on the sale of employee permits, etc., not as soon as
possible. Secondly, the Council rightfully asks us often when we've done a
Staff presentation to explain the implications of recommendations that we're
making. You expect us to be able to do this. Right now, we're setting new
numbers. They might be very good numbers; they might be exactly spot-
on. I can tell you right now the Staff can't with confidence say they can fully
report to you the implications of those decisions. We're making a policy, but
to be honest with you—a word we like to throw around—it's not particularly
transparent what the implications are. Since we're asking to be directed to
come back in January, if there's some way to signal the intent clearly you
want to—you'd like to accelerate the decline in the number of employee permits that are sold to match as closely as possible the on-the-ground
experience that we're seeing. Something like that. We already know some
of the numbers you'd like to get at. I would just feel a lot more
professionally comfortable if we could go back and be able to present it to
you in a way that you would know the whack-a-mole implications of what
happens. We all know that this is not the end of things moving somewhere.
You're not going to get anything more accomplished tonight other than
putting your own mark on it right now, but you're going to have to do that
anyway with more finality when we come back. I really would ask you to—
it's put a lot of pressure on the Staff to be feeling they're getting directives
and they can't really say fully that they understand the implications. There's
really no point to doing it this way. You're not enacting a change right now;
you're giving us direction. If you could signal the direction—honestly it will
be much easier for you to tweak it after we've told you we know what it is
than for us to figure out how do we identify the impacts of this right now. It
will make everything be faster. This actually slows us down.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Kniss.
Council Member Kniss: Having sat here since the beginning, this is very
interesting. Let me see if I have this right at this point. This is really a
stop-gap. I don't think anyone would argue with that. This is a stop-gap
that we're trying to use on our way to having a whole TMA or TDM or
whatever we may call it in the Downtown. We're working diligently toward
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that. The question would be if we pass this tonight, does that make that
happen any faster. It will be another whack-a-mole. If you start to move
this all around again, you're going to get all the pressure right back down in
1, 2, 3 and 4 and so forth, which is really troubling. I would remind all of
you who weren't here that at 12:45 A.M. in the morning some time in—did
we do it in March or was it May? When was it? Norm Beamer and I had a
discussion at 12:45 A.M., and I said, "This is the only option we have right now for that particular neighborhood. What's your answer?" He said, "If we
have to do it, we'll do it," because the cars were spilling into that
neighborhood. This has been just hammered out before. We have gone
over and over and over this. I know we want to reduce the number of
permits that we're giving out in 9 and 10, but frankly I would have voted no
back then if Norm hadn't weighed in and said, "We need this relief." I want
to put that back on the table. Neilson and I have had any number of
conversations about this. He has said his part of town is willing to take more
than their share, but continually taking more than their share isn't fair. I'm
troubled about this. We should be heading toward stopping this gap through
the Transportation Demand Management (TDM)—I'm hoping we will get that
one more financially in order—and through Scoop which the Mayor has discussed very well tonight. I think we're making some progress there. I
don't want us to end up with too many of the same issues that we had, that
prompted us to do this in the first place. I'm concerned that if we get too
prescriptive tonight, that's where we're heading.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Filseth.
Council Member Filseth: As I've been watching this, I've been sort of
scratching my head and going (inaudible). Council Member Kniss is exactly
right here and the City Manager as well. It has seemed more and more to
me over the last 20, 30 minutes that we think we're tweaking something up
here, but we're actually sort of doing a significant policy change. I'm leery
of doing that. As both Council Member Kniss and the City Manager said,
we're going to back to pushing on this side of the balloon and it's going to
pop out over there. The original thinking behind this problem was that—this
is a flip way to describe it—the Research Park moved to Downtown
University Avenue and brought a lot of cars with it and where do they go.
The original prescription here was we want to get those cars out of the
neighborhoods, and we'll see how big the footprint is, and we'll slowly
ratchet it down to give everybody time to cope with that. Now we're sort of
talking about—it's almost like we're saying we're going to steer those cars
over here, but not over there. That's a different thing than we started out
with. I'll be flip here. My neighborhood, Zone 3, would like to petition for
residents-only too if this becomes on the table. My point is I think we're
getting away from the original idea that we're going to try to manage this
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down. Now we're sort of being prescriptive about what goes where. We
may choose to do that, but it's a significant policy shift from where we
started out. I'm sensitive to the City Manager's comment of let's not do this
tonight. If we're going to do something like this, let's give Staff time to
think about it. We have a plan of record that we've been working towards,
that we all sort of understand finally. If we're going to shift that around,
let's be really careful.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Schmid.
Council Member Schmid: I like the Motion that we have in front of us. I
think there are two things for me that are very essential. "C" implies that
we will be around 1,500 as a base number that we're working from. D.iv
says that there's some leverage that should come out of this to make it
work. I would add one qualification. Mr. Buchanan handed out a map. The
only difference with this map is that it shows 80 percent, and the 80 percent
is concentrated in areas 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and 7. If we eliminate 9 and 10, the
danger is that there will be more pressure, the two hour parking plus the
permits, in those inner areas. Maybe it implies that Staff can look and say
should some of those be distributed to 3 and 8. I think we have enough
data to see that there's a potential squeezing into the inner sectors where the two hour parking is so intense along with the permits in there. Maybe
some relook at 3 and 8 would be helpful. Those are my comments.
Mayor Burt: I want to bring up one on D.iv. I think we want to give general
direction that it would be businesses that participate in the TMA or a Staff-
approved TDM program. If you take Channing House, they're not in the
area that is in the TMA. They could elect to participate. We had a
boundary, and perhaps we would say, "You can join the TMA, and you don't
have to be in the prescribed boundary." I want to give some latitude on that
approach. The same thing with the School District. It may be best to have
them have a TDM program, which they ought to have if they don't have it or
maybe they already do. First is that acceptable?
Council Member DuBois: Yes.
Council Member Berman: Yep.
INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion Part D.iv., “or a Staff
approved Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Program” after
“Downtown Transportation Management Association (TMA).”
Mayor Burt: Second, with that TMA, right now I think we have a suggested
fee structure, but it's toothless. It doesn't come close to providing the funds
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that would actually achieve the outcomes we're talking about. It would have
to be under a new fee structure for the TMA that would be designed to
achieve the outcomes of the RPP program and the 30 percent reduction in
Single Occupancy Vehicles (SOVs). I would just say under D.iv "under a
revised fee structure."
Council Member DuBois: (inaudible) separate item for the TMA to come
back with.
Mayor Burt: Within this Motion, just to put that clause in is the right way to
throw it in. It's not being prescriptive as to what that fee structure would
be. We just want to say they've got to be part of a TMA, it's got to be
meaningful. It won't be meaningful unless we revise the fee structure
without trying to prescribe what that is. That's kind of an open-ended ...
Mr. Keene: The TMA does have the delegated authority to set what the fee
structure is.
Mayor Burt: We're going to have to contend with how that would occur. We
haven't given guidance to the TMA to say we want a fee structure that would
result in the outcomes we're seeking. Frankly, we didn't think we had a
mechanism to have the businesses pay to achieve the results we want. We
were going hat in hand saying, "We'll take any contributions you can make." They were pennies on the dollar.
Mr. Keene: Mr. Mayor, may I just add a comment to this in the follow-up
sense?
Mayor Burt: Yeah.
Mr. Keene: The intention of iv, assuming that it is legal as the motion says,
is to motivate participation in TDM and in the TMA when the reality of what it
takes to be able to get parking permits comes about.
Mayor Burt: I would actually say two things. It's to motivate the
participation. That participation would solve the problem.
Mr. Keene: In many ways, right now a lot of that conversation is going to
take place outside the TMA, because these are not active participants, a lot
of the people we're going to be trying to reach. When they suddenly are
aware that they can't get the permits, there's going to be this whole
discussion that's ultimately going to have "wait, how do I talk to the TMA?"
I do think that the intent of this will be for this to naturally drive businesses
towards the TMA. Naturally, the TMA would say, "There's a revised fee
structure that's going to have to be part of this."
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Mayor Burt: I think we'll have a separate discussion. I just want to put in
there that the fee structure will need to be revised. Not what those amounts
would be, not to try to address that tonight. Just let's not imply that that
fee structure that they asked for on a voluntary basis—we're saying, "If you
do that, we're fine." That wouldn't solve anything.
Council Member DuBois: I guess it's okay.
INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion Part D.iv., “under a revised
fee structure” after “Management Association (TMA).”
Mayor Burt: I would also add a D.v for Staff to return with a draft set of RPP
objectives.
Council Member DuBois: That's in ii, isn't it?
Mayor Burt: Is it? I'm sorry. No, those are quantitative objectives. I'm
talking about goals.
Council Member DuBois: Can we say "proposed goals and quantitative
objectives"?
Mayor Burt: Yeah. Under this "return with a draft set of RPP overriding
goals" or something like that.
INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “return with a draft set of
overriding RPP goals.” (New Part D.v.)
Mayor Burt: I don't know if we want to try and tackle this issue of whether
we want Staff to engage with neighborhoods—maybe this would be less
urgent—on the block face issue. Absent that, we'll still get kind of this
clustering of the problem.
Council Member DuBois: By January 15th?
Mayor Burt: No, I don't think that's probably feasible.
Council Member Berman: Return with suggestions or a strategy?
Mayor Burt: Yeah. Josh, I'm trying to think about what would be some
direction on solving the clustering of parkers. What would give you some
latitude to engage with neighborhoods and not put this under a January
deadline necessarily? I think that is more complex than some of the other
things.
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Mr. Mello: I think we need to get a better handle on the two hour parkers,
who they are, what they're doing, look at time limits, and then potentially
reduce the number of permits that are available in those close zones in order
to get to the same occupancy level that you see further out.
Mayor Burt: Under D.ii Council Member DuBois, where you say "and to
reduce congestion," were you referring to parking congestion or traffic
congestion?
Council Member DuBois: Parking congestion.
Mayor Burt: We don't usually use that term that way. Maybe we're on the
same page there. Josh, you'll note that that's meaning the clustering. Is
that okay to add "parking" to clarify?
Council Member DuBois: Sure.
INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE
MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion Part D.ii., “parking” after
“and to reduce.”
Council Member DuBois: The City Manager has brought up should "C" be
moved down under "D."
Mayor Burt: Is that good with you?
Council Member DuBois: Yeah.
Mr. Keene: Strike the first part of it about direct Staff to return as soon as
possible and add "implement a freeze on the sale of" blah, blah.
Mr. Mello: "C" could affect our ability to better distribute the employees with
the same number of permits that are currently available.
Council Member DuBois: Again, just to point out, keeping that 9 and 10
that's 80 permits right now.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Berman.
Council Member Berman: That handled it.
INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE
MAKER AND SECONDER to remove Part C of the Motion and add to the
Motion, “implement a freeze on the sale of employee permits in Zones 9 and
10 and reduce the total number of available employee permits in all zones
by this amount and direct Staff to return with options to allow additional
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streets to petition to be added as resident only parking in Zones 9 and 10.”
(New Part C.vi.)
Mayor Burt: We solve your problems. Council Member Wolbach.
Council Member Berman: At least for tonight.
Council Member Wolbach: I have a potential recommendation, but I wanted
to check. "C," these are potential or we're sure we're going to proceed with
these as they're worded?
Mayor Burt: What we're saying is that Staff would return with proposals,
and then the Council would act on those proposals.
Council Member Wolbach: I think I'd like to see a little bit more flexibility in
or at least leave open for discussion, for us to consider and for Staff to
consider on Number iv, D.iv. What I'm looking for is perhaps an alternative
to requirement, which is more of a stick, and something that's more carrot-
based such as potentially having a tiered pricing structure for permits, where
companies that don't participate in the TMA could purchase permits, but
those who do participate in the TMA get a lower price. That doesn't mean
we give them a really cheap price but maybe a substantially higher price.
That way it would be a carrot, incentive to join the TMA. If that's something
that the maker and seconder might be open to, I'd try to propose ...
Council Member DuBois: Can we just say ...
Council Member Wolbach: Should I offer some draft language?
Council Member DuBois: ... if legally permissible, pricing incentives or
participation in Downtown TMA.
Mayor Burt: We want to say alternately.
Council Member Wolbach: Or alternately a tiered pricing structure to
incentivize TMA membership.
Mr. Keene: (inaudible)
Mayor Burt: Put it at the end.
Mr. Mello: A simpler way may be to just say that the RPP program will
encourage as many employers as possible to participate in the TMA.
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Council Member Wolbach: What I'm looking for here is to have a couple of
options that the Council could choose between. I want to make sure it's
clear what those options (crosstalk).
Mayor Burt: I'd prefer at the end of iv we just say "or alternately an
incentive structure for participation in the TMA."
Council Member Wolbach: I'd be fine with that. Would the maker ...
Council Member Berman: Did Tom say yeah?
Council Member DuBois: Yes.
INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the end of the Motion Part C.iv. “or
alternately an incentive structure to encourage participation in the TMA.”
Council Member Wolbach: That's it for me.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Holman.
Council Member Holman: One little cleanup and then an overall question.
In Number iv, the first from last line says Transportation Demand
Management, TDM, program to buy employer permits. I'm not saying this is
the thing that's right, but it should be employee. Sorry to be going back to
this one, but I thought in 6, which used to be part of "C," I thought the
maker of the motion's intention was to reduce the overall number of permits sold. Right here, all you're doing is reducing it by the number that are in 9
or 10, which is like 80 or something like that. I don't know that that's your
intention. The sentence is really ...
Council Member DuBois: The number available, which is 615.
Council Member Holman: Six hundred fifteen is how many aren't sold, but
that doesn't mean that they're all in 9 and 10.
Council Member DuBois: No. Nine and 10 have 615 total.
Council Member Holman: Nine and 10, I'm sorry?
Council Member DuBois: In 9 and 10, if you look at this map, 80 have been
sold out of a possible 615.
Council Member Holman: That's where the number comes from. Thanks.
Mayor Burt: Lastly, Council Member Kniss.
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Council Member Kniss: I'm looking at this. Most of it I can actually live
with. The part that I'm having a real problem with is at the very bottom, to
allow streets to petition to be added as resident-only parking. I'm
concerned that if those are resident only, then I think you're going to have
to go beyond even the blue-gray area on employee parking zones. Since
we're trying to get to consensus on this, Tom, I want to ask you how are you
viewing that. Are you seeing that it could continue out as far as Channing or wherever?
Council Member DuBois: Just to be clear, only 80 permits have been sold to
employees in 9 and 10. What I'm really proposing is we end the Downtown
Parking District and 9 and 10 are resident-only when you get that far out.
Council Member Kniss: What happens with the 80 that have been sold?
Council Member DuBois: Originally because I was thinking immediately, I
was saying allow those 80. If we're not going to address this until January,
we could potentially shift those 80.
Mayor Burt: They might be part of the 150 reduction for next year. They
get wiped out. That's to be determined in January.
Council Member DuBois: I think the important thing to realize is we're only
talking about 80 permits that have been sold. I don't think we're shifting a huge number.
Council Member Kniss: I hesitate on that one. Actually, my request would
be—I don't want to vote against the whole thing, but I'd like to vote against
C.vi, because I am very concerned about the resident only and that we're
going to hear from other areas that say, "We want resident only." We may
run into that in other districts.
Mayor Burt: I will separate C.vi if everyone agrees to vote up or down on it
without a debate. Are we good with that?
MOTION PART C.VII. SEPARATED FOR THE PURPOSE OF VOTING
Council Member Kniss: Agreed.
Mayor Burt: Now we're just going to vote on C.vi.
MOTION PART C.VII. RESTATED: Implement a freeze on the sale of
employee permits in Zones 9 and 10 and reduce the total number of
available employee permits in all zones by this amount and direct Staff to
return with options to allow additional streets to petition to be added as
resident only parking in Zones 9 and 10.
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MOTION PART C.VII. PASSED: 6-2 Filseth, Kniss no, Scharff absent
Mayor Burt: That passes on a 6-2 vote with Council Members Kniss and
Filseth voting no. Now we return to the main Motion. Council Member
Filseth, did you want to speak again to the main Motion?
Council Member Filseth: I wanted to speak to C.vi and just comment that
now you've got two plans. You've got the Staff plan and the College Terrace
plan.
MOTION AS AMENDED RESTATED: Council Member DuBois moved,
seconded by Council Member Berman to:
A. Accept the status report on the Downtown Residential Preferential
Parking (RPP) Program; and
B. Adopt a Resolution, expanding the boundary of the Downtown RPP
Program Phase 2 eligibility area originally established by Resolution
number 9577 to incorporate streets in the Crescent Park neighborhood
identified for inclusion by the City Council in response to a
neighborhood petition; and
C. Direct Staff to return to Council by Jan 15, 2017 with proposals for
changes to implement at end of Phase 2 that include:
i. Elimination of 5 day passes; and
ii. Propose quantitative objectives to reduce the impact on
neighborhoods, to eliminate spillover, and to reduce parking
congestion; and
iii. Give priority to lower wage employees; and
iv. Require registration in the Business Registry Certificate Program
and if legally permissible participation in Downtown
Transportation Management Association (TMA) under a revised
fee structure or a Staff approved Transportation Demand
Management (TDM) Program to buy employee permits or
alternately an incentive structure to encourage participation in
the TMA; and
v. Return with a draft set of overriding RPP goals; and
vi. Implement a freeze on the sale of employee permits in Zones 9
and 10 and reduce the total number of available employee
permits in all zones by this amount and direct Staff to return
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with options to allow additional streets to petition to be added as
resident only parking in Zones 9 and 10.
Mayor Burt: Now let's vote on the main Motion. That passes unanimously
with Vice Mayor Scharff absent. That concludes this item, I think. Thank
you all for coming and participating.
MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 8-0 Scharff absent
Inter-Governmental Legislative Affairs
None.
Council Member Questions, Comments and Announcements
Mayor Burt: Before we go into a Closed Session, just because the rest of
you thought we were going home, we have Council Member Questions,
Comments and Announcements. Council Member Berman, were you up for
that?
Council Member Berman: Yeah, just a quick thing. Yesterday morning, I
think—it seems like a long time ago—I went out with the Rotary Clubs of
Palo Alto and University, the two different names, to put flags up and down
University Avenue for Labor Day. They do this four times a day. At 8:00
A.M. on a holiday Monday, they're putting flags up. If you ever see all these
flags on the 4th of July or Labor Day or Veterans Day or one other holiday I'm forgetting, it's the Rotary Clubs of Palo Alto and the University Rotary
Club that do that. I just want to give them a thank you. Actually, Jim, I
need to talk with you afterwards about the storage space where they store
those flags. They have complaints.
James Keene, City Manager: I wondered who was doing that. It's good to
know. Thank you.
Closed Session
6. CONFERENCE WITH CITY ATTORNEY—POTENTIAL LITIGATION
Significant Exposure to Litigation Under Section 54956.9(d)(2) (One
Potential Case, as Defendant) – Phase 2, Downtown Residential
Preferential Parking District.
Mayor Burt: We now have an agendized Closed Session item, a conference
with the City Attorney regarding potential litigation and a significant
exposure risk under Section 54956.9(d)(2) and one potential case regarding
a Phase 2 Downtown Residential Preferential Parking Permit District. We
would need a motion to go into Closed Session.
TRANSCRIPT
Page 121 of 121
City Council Meeting
Transcript: 09/06/16
Council Member Kniss: So moved.
Council Member Schmid: Second.
MOTION: Council Member Kniss moved, seconded by Council Member
Schmid to go into Closed Session.
Mayor Burt: Council Member Wolbach, you had a light on. Was that from
comments or was that ...
Council Member Wolbach: I was just going to make a Motion to go into Closed Session. Looks like I got beat to the punch, and that's fine.
Mayor Burt: Please vote on the board. That passes unanimously with Vice
Mayor Scharff absent. We will now go into Closed Session.
MOTION PASSED: 8-0 Scharff absent
Council went into Closed Session at 11:33 P.M.
Council returned from Closed Session at 11:45 P.M.
Mayor Burt announced no reportable action.
Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 11:45 P.M.