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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2017-03-06 City Council Summary MinutesCITY OF PALO ALTO CITY COUNCIL TRANSCRIPT   Page 1 of 140  Special Meeting March 6, 2017 The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council Chambers at 5:10 P.M. Present: DuBois, Filseth arrived at 5:11 P.M., Fine, Holman, Kniss, Kou, Scharff, Tanaka, Wolbach Absent: Study Session 1. Status Report Regarding the Stanford Research Park Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Program and the Palo Alto Transportation Management Association (TMA). Mayor Scharff: Our first order is a Study Session regarding the StanfordbResearch Park Transportation Demand Management program and the Palo Alto Transportation Management Authority. Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: Because I have Stanford as a source of income, I'm going to recuse myself from the Stanford TMA discussion and come back for the Downtown TMA discussion. Council Member DuBois left the meeting at 5:12 P.M. Mayor Scharff: What we're going to do is actually split the items for Council Member DuBois in that we'll hear the Stanford TMA first, and then after that we'll hear the Palo Alto Downtown TMA. I'm just thinking about when I should do public comment. I guess what we'll do is public comment at the end, which probably makes the most sense. I was going to do it first, but then the public doesn't get to hear the presentations. I think the public probably needs to hear the presentations at least. We'll do the public comment on both of them together after we've had both. Hillary Gitelman, Planning and Community Environment Director: Thank you, Mayor Scharff, Council Members. Hillary Gitelman, the Planning Director. It's my pleasure to introduce our panel here today. It's actually TRANSCRIPT    Page 2 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  enough people to be a whole panel. Tiffany Griego and Jamie Jarvis are here to present for the Stanford Research Park, and Rob George and Wendy Silvani are here to present for the TMA. I know we have a limited amount of time today, so our thought was to hear the presentation and then questions and comments. If we run out of time, particularly when we get to the TMA discussion, we can certainly put a placeholder on Council questions. We know we have to come back to the Council sometime middle of the year to have a more in-depth discussion of funding and other issues associated with the TMA. That's already on the radar screen. With that, let me hand this off to Tiffany. Tiffany Griego, Stanford Research Park Managing Director: Good evening. My name is Tiffany Griego. Thank you, Hillary. I'm here with my Colleague, Jamie Jarvis, and you met us last year. We reported into Council last year, and we spoke for a full hour last year. We will be giving you a brief update this evening. Just to recap, last year we gave you a lot of detail about the Stanford Research Park in general. We also went into some of the market research we did last year, that gave us kind of the underpinnings for our TMA's philosophy and approach. We also gave you insights into the TDM due diligence effort. We won't be able to cover that again this evening. Tonight we will focus on giving you an update to convey how we've strengthened and evolved the TDM program in the Research Park over the past year. We will share with you the results of our commuter survey that we did last year as well as give you insight into several of the TDM metrics that we're collecting on an ongoing basis. We will describe the TDM programs that we've launched since we last met with you. We will also cover several of the keys to success that we have identified for our transportation efforts. Since I love the Research Park so much, I just wanted to give you an insight at a top level. The Research Park is 700 acres, 10 million square feet of buildings. It's home to 150 companies and about 29,000 employees. This is Palo Alto's home for cutting edge businesses. Our mission is to support these innovative companies in their R&D pursuits by providing modern facilities in a stunning landscape and to offer sustainable transportation programs to the employees who work here. You can see from this vantage point that the El Camino Real gateway to the Research Park is located 2 miles from the University Avenue Caltrain station, which is well served by the baby bullets. The El Camino Real gateway all the way to the opposite side of the Research Park, where Tesla and VMware and SAP are located, is a 3-mile distance. For several of the employees located in the RP5 district of the Research Park, they have to deal with a 25-minute Marguerite, last-mile shuttle ride, which is actually traversing 5 miles. Truly, what we have here is a suburban research park. As Mayor Burt put it last year, it was designed in the '50s and '60s really when the car was king. In many ways, this is just a recap of the context that we have, that we are TRANSCRIPT    Page 3 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  working within. Very quickly, this is a slide that shows you by the logos several of the largest employers with whom we are working in our TMA association. I would love to ask those who were able to come support us this evening to stand in the audience and be recognized for their commitment to our TMA. I'm going to just name the companies by name who are represented by these fantastic people behind me. We have representatives from Lockheed Martin, Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Ford, Stanford Health Care, Hudson Pacific Properties which is a property owner that controls a lot of the multitenant properties in the Research Park, Sand Hill Properties, Park, Nest, HP Inc. Thank you very much. These companies remain deeply motivated to address traffic congestion and to work together as well as with Stanford's TMA on transportation solutions. As we talked about last year, this is because traffic congestion impacts all of these companies' ability to recruit and retain top talent and to fully utilize employee productivity. Many large employers continue and have long since offered robust in-house transportation management programs. Where we come in is we provide the umbrella, the SRP-wide programs that complement their individual company efforts. They, therefore, see the value in working with our umbrella organization, our TMA. We have taken the feedback that you gave last year very seriously, and we've created ways to reach some of the smaller employers in the Research Park and expanded our membership, which Jamie will describe. We have done a lot of work in the past year to facilitate even more private partnerships as well as get heavily involved in advocacy work in order to maintain a lot of the public services that are available to us. Now, I'm going to ask Jamie to provide a summary of these efforts and to share information about the commute survey. Jamie Jarvis, Stanford Research Park Transportation Demand Manager: Thank you. When we presented to you last year, we were preparing to conduct our first Park-wide commute survey. We had three main objectives: to determine current commute modes; gather information that would help us develop and refine our programs; and provide commute information to employees. We received over 4,500 survey responses and over 2,500 requests for commute information. Now, I'd like to share some key results starting with our mode share. The table you're looking at has the Stanford Research Park results in the first column. I've added three points of reference. We have the Santa Clara County U.S. census data, 5-year average from 2010-2014, in the second column. The third column is the Downtown TMA survey results, conducted at the same time we did our survey last spring. Finally, the Stanford campus survey results from fall of 2015. You'll note that we do have a lower drive-alone rate than the County, and this reflects the efforts of our companies to date. Downtown results reflect proximity to transit and also housing as you'll see in the higher-than- average bicycling and walking numbers. Similarly, campus reflects TRANSCRIPT    Page 4 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  proximity to transit, housing, and also a 15-year comprehensive TDM program. I'd like to share some additional insights from our survey. Looking at how commute distance impacts mode, not surprisingly bicycling is highest among those who live within 5 miles of work. There's a transit sweet spot between 20 and 45 miles where transit is available and commuters are motivated to use transit. Our long-distance commuters, for some of them transit is not available, but they're still motivated to carpool and work out telecommuting arrangements. Some notable differences between those who drive alone and those who use alternatives. Commuters who live within 6-15 miles are more likely to drive alone. It's a little too far to bike for some of them, but their commute isn't painful enough to motivate them to use alternatives. This mid-distance commute is something that everybody wrestles with in their TDM programs; it's not unique to the Research Park. In addition, those who need to make stops along the way and those who value flexibility are also more likely to drive alone. By comparison, employees who value the environment, fitness, and cost are least likely to drive alone. Top reasons that employees give for driving alone include irregular hours. That's not likely to change in Silicon Valley, but we can fortunately address this by providing more options with more flexibility. Things like Scoop carpooling, which I'll talk about later, more flexible carpool options, and providing more frequent and later transit service can also address this issue. I emphasize later transit service because irregular work hours rarely means some days I get out surprisingly early, at least not in this Valley. That leads me to the next topic of inadequate transit being the second reason that employees cited for driving alone. Not only do they need more transit options, but they need more frequent service. It needs to be close to where they live and work. If we can't get it within walking distance, we need to have really convenient first and last-mile connections. SRP has taken care of personal emergency concerns with our guaranteed ride home program, and we've also covered finding carpool partners with two carpool matching options. We have a traditional option through our online trip planner at SRPgo.com, and then we have a flexible carpool option through Scoop. Our solo drivers are most interested in telecommuting, riding transit, and carpooling. We also have 17 percent overall who would like to bicycle. If you break that down by distance, 51 percent within 5 miles and 41 percent within 10 miles are interested in bicycling to work. I'd like to draw your attention to the "none" bar. That's only 13 percent who say they aren't interested in any alternative, which is great news for me. Looking at our transit use, 3 percent use Caltrain compared to 16 percent Downtown. This really highlights the difference in proximity to a well-served Caltrain station. We have 2 percent of our commuters on VTA and 1 percent on Dumbarton for a 3-percent total on buses. That's actually pretty good for a Silicon Valley worksite and reflects the fact that we have better-than-average bus service in the Research Park. I'd like to draw your attention to the chart. TRANSCRIPT    Page 5 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Most of our bus riders are dropped off within walking distance of their worksite. By comparison, two-thirds of the Caltrain riders need to ride a bus or shuttle between the station and work. The majority of our Caltrain riders use the Downtown station, and they do so because of the express trains, the frequency of service, and the Marguerite shuttle. It's actually surprising to me that 38 percent of the commuters use the Cal. Ave. station, given the level of service there. We actually have one San Francisco train per hour at Cal. Avenue compared to five per hour Downtown during commute hours. Yet, people are trying to make this station work for them, which to me highlights again the importance of proximity. We do have some good news regarding the Cal. Avenue station. We have two additional trains that will stop at Cal. Avenue in both the morning and evening service starting in April. These trains are going to serve our South Bay commuters, so we're still going to have that one train in San Francisco, but we're certainly happy to have some additional service for the San Jose commuters. We look forward to promoting that to them. In addition to our survey results, I wanted to share some of the ongoing metrics that we look at, things like our shuttle ridership, our bus ridership, our program registrations such as our Scoop carpooling use and use of the SRPgo trip planner and tracker. I'd like to update you on the TDM programs we've launched in partnership with our TMA members. When we presented to you last year, we had already launched several transportation initiatives including a TMA with our largest employers, VTA Eco Pass, guaranteed ride, and Bicycle Champions. We had the underpinnings of a strong TDM program, and we've continued to build on this foundation. Last year we expanded TMA participation to 18 companies including our largest multitenant property manager who represents over 40 companies. We launched an online trip planner and tracker at SRPgo.com. We organized vanpool formation events and provide a $300-per-rider subsidy. We conduct monthly commuter prize drawings and Spare the Air Day rewards. We provide free Zipcar registration and a $25 use credit so that people can try Zipcar for free. Our outreach coordinator has developed a database of over 7,000 SRP employees who are now receiving one-on-one follow-up. I'd like to talk about these last three programs in a little more detail. I've mentioned Scoop carpooling. We launched this in the Research Park in April of 2016. We now have over 3,500 registrations. Use is growing at 15 percent per month, and last month was our highest use to date even though it was a short month. We have achieved this participation through innovative promotions including traveling through the Research Park with an ice cream truck on hot summer days. We continue to provide subsidies, and we adjust these quarterly to optimize the driver/rider balance and use. The next program I'd like to talk about is our bike to work efforts. We have a Bicycle Champions advisory group that consists of 20 enthusiastic cyclists who guide and support our bicycling efforts. We've coordinated a variety of clinics and repair days throughout SRP, hosted by our TMA TRANSCRIPT    Page 6 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  members. Last May, we partnered to host five energizer stations that attracted over 1,000 cyclists. The final program I'd like to highlight is our San Francisco commuter bus. This launched in August of 2016. It operates on the west side of San Francisco, so it does not compete with Caltrain. Stanford, VMware and Tesla are the sponsor employers of this service, and the initial route was designed only to serve these employers to ensure that their riders have adequate capacity. After 3 months, we were able to expand the route throughout the Research Park. We now offer free trials and part-time rider fares to attract new riders and accommodate part-time use. Based on the success of the San Francisco service, we're now developing a South Bay route. Lastly, I'd like to give you a quick update on the programs that we're working on this year. We're providing free Eco Passes to engage smaller employers. We've found out that Eco Passes are a gateway TDM program that, once companies see the value of that, they're excited to work with us on other programs. In addition to the one-on-one outreach I mentioned, we send two monthly newsletters, one for all commuters and one specifically for bicyclists. We're exploring on-demand and express Caltrain shuttle services to provide connections that are faster, more convenient, and more flexible. We continue to expand the number of Zipcars so most employees will have a car within walking distance. We're coordinating weekly bike events for March through October. These include a bike concierge; lunch-time riders—next week, we're actually taking a group down to the food trucks at Palo Alto Square—monthly bike to work days with organized group rides so that new riders can join experienced riders to come in and try a bike commute; safe cycling clinics; and free inspection and tune-up days. Finally, we look forward to participating in Palo Alto bikeshare and are covering the capital and operating costs for 20 bikes and four stations in the Research Park. We plan to expand this program to meet demand. As you can see, we've accomplished a lot since we met with you last year and have several exciting, new initiatives planned for this year. Now, I'd like to turn it back to Tiffany for closing comments. Ms. Griego: Thank you. We have enjoyed the benefit of extreme focus on the Research Park employees, the 29,000 that I talked about. I'm struck by the fact that Jamie was able to build a database of 7,000 people that she is in direct, one-to-one communication with. These are representative statistics of the inroads we've made in direct-to-consumer marketing, which is a huge initiative for us. We feel that we are best positioned to offer customized solutions to our unique employee population given the constraints and the opportunities associated with both our geographic location and configuration as well as our business environment. We are collecting data, and we have the knowledge and ability to develop and launch the solutions that best meet the needs of our employees. When they don't work, we will pivot quickly and try new things. This is a core value to TRANSCRIPT    Page 7 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  this TMA. As transportation needs and options evolve over time, we are appreciative of the flexibility that we are able to retain to respond to these changes. This is one of the keys to our success, no doubt. We are privately funding our efforts with our TMA, and we are securing and utilizing the benefits of collaboration both with each other as well as the private vendors that Jamie covered this evening and many of the public agencies that we've talked about, whether it's the Dumbarton express, VTA or Caltrain, all of whom we've been in close contact with this year. We share best practices with other TMAs around the Bay area, and we benefit from the insights that they have gained over time. We have advocated for solutions that have been customized to our specific employee population. Certainly, we also appreciate the opportunity to share with you our efforts tonight and to benefit from this partnership that you have brokered with us over the past few years. Thank you very much. We'll take questions now. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. We're going to move to Council Member questions. We have to do public comment on both, and I wanted the public to hear the other one as well. I'll probably do the public comment at the end. Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you all for the presentation. It's very good; it's very interesting to see the summation of the Research Park at the very beginning. You've indicated that you have direct contact with 7,000 employees. What do you think—where is the impact in here on the Research Park? What are you seeing that is less traffic—I can see your stats? I want to see where are some of the outcomes. Ms. Jarvis: What we're looking at on our program right now is really focusing on rolling out programs and tracking the participation in those programs. Last year, we relied a lot on our employers to do the communications through their worksites. Some of them that's very easy, and some of them it's a little more of a challenge. By developing this database, which comes from people who have expressed interest in commute alternatives on the survey, people who have attended events that we've done, people who have replied to promotions that I've done, we've developed this ability to contact them directly, which means when I have an event like next week we're hosting a variety of bicycling events, I can get that word out quickly and right away where a lot of employers are like, "I need notice for my newsletter" or "I need to get this site-wide communication." The database is relatively new. We pulled that together towards the end of last year, and we're just now starting to roll it out with our monthly newsletters and our event-specific communications. What we're already seeing is—for instance we have a bike repair, free tune-ups and inspections next week. Last year I had trouble filling the slots; now, TRANSCRIPT    Page 8 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  they're all full. We already have a waiting list and we're pushing those people to a next date. That's what it's really going to gain us, the quick communication and quick response. Vice Mayor Kniss: It's primarily anecdotal, though, at this point. Ms. Jarvis: Correct. Vice Mayor Kniss: As far as looking at your parking lot or something like that, that would give you some visible or numerical indication, nothing yet for that? Ms. Jarvis: Not at this point. Keeping in mind 700 acres, collecting that kind of data is … Vice Mayor Kniss: I know you have enough parking, so that's not an issue. I guess what would probably persuade us the most is some kind of traffic count, if you can ever get to that. How many are actually biking? How many are actually doing Scoop, doing carpool, whatever that might be? When that happens, I'd be very interested in it. Ms. Griego: One thing to keep in mind, not only the size of the Research Park, 700 acres, but we have 120 driveways. We have really struggled with how to pull off a traffic count to be totally honest. You'll recall from last year, we learned from the County Roads and Airport trip counts that nearly 40 percent of the traffic on Page Mill Road is attributable to Research Park employers, 60 percent not attributable. We're on a major thoroughfare. It really strikes me when I look at a map of Palo Alto. Page Mill Road really bisects Palo Alto. We know from the County Roads trip counts that people are pouring off onto El Camino, they're continuing onto Oregon Expressway, they're pouring off onto Junipero Serra. It is a complex count that I think— this is not the first time we're hearing it. I want to make sure that you acknowledge that we know what you're asking for. One hundred twenty driveways is just a very difficult series of counts. By contrast, you had told me campus counts 16 different driveways. That's one way to portray the very different circumstance that we have versus Stanford campus. Vice Mayor Kniss: I understand. I hope, though, at some point when you do get those real solid numbers that you'll share them with us. I know you will. Thanks. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. TRANSCRIPT    Page 9 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member Holman: Hi. Thank you for being here. We all like data, so thank you for the data you've provided. It kind of goes along with Vice Mayor Kniss' questions. How many employees in Stanford Research Park? Ms. Griego: How many total employees work on these lands? 29,000. Council Member Holman: Twenty-nine thousand. Someone who's faster than I am and can do the math while I'm asking other questions. The percentages are great. In some of the presentations, if they were also presented as numbers, then we can kind of look at how many trips are still single occupancy vehicles and how many people aren't taking advantage of the various methods that you've provided here. Are you trying to focus on routes, on percentages or both? What's the strategy at this point in time? Ms. Jarvis: My goal is that everyone have a reasonable commute option. You can slice that by distance. You can slice it by routes. Ideally, I'd like for people to have more than one. That's when you start to get the flexibility and the comfort. We are looking at the likely commutes that people make and trying to figure out what options they have, filling the gaps for the places that don't have an option, like we did with the San Francisco commuter bus and will be doing with a San Jose commuter bus. Really trying to ensure that the majority of people coming to the Research Park have reasonable options. Council Member Holman: The percentage, I guess it was—20 percent of Page Mill traffic is attributable to Stanford Research Park—I'm sorry? Ms. Griego: Forty. Council Member Holman: Forty, I'm sorry. If I heard this correctly and from a prior conversation too, because some of that traffic goes south on Junipero Serra, it's not attributable to the Research Park. If you go south on Junipero Serra, you can still access the Research Park. It seems to be a little bit of a hole there, if not a sieve. How was that determined or how do you know how much traffic that is going south on Junipero Serra is or isn't attributable to the Research Park? Does that make sense? Ms. Griego: Yes. That's a fair point. I am quoting you numbers based upon my review of their data expressed in their reports. We don't know the exact destination of each trip that's turning right off of Page Mill Road. Some of it's probably going to the VA Hospital or possibly turning on Arastradero. Council Member Holman: Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. TRANSCRIPT    Page 10 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member Wolbach: Questions and comments or just questions? Mayor Scharff: It's a Study Session. Questions, comments, just no Motions. Council Member Wolbach: First, just a quick comment to say that I think this is going to be important for both parties, but especially I know it's important for the Research Park. I know that you're aware of it. My own framing of the issue is we talk often about this being the problems of transportation, the problems of housing, the intersection of those problems as a regional problem, and that we're part of a region. I'm increasingly considering Palo Alto to be the crux of the regional problem. Just as one anecdotal example. I was talking to a friend recently who lives in San Mateo, works in Santa Clara, does not need to stop in Palo Alto but does every day on her drive to work. Whether she's on 280 or tries El Camino or 101, getting through the slog of traffic on the regional highways through and past Palo Alto and Stanford adds a tremendous amount of time to her commute. I just think that's part of the context we should be thinking about and why this effort is so important. I really appreciate the work that Stanford's doing here. Within that 40 percent of Page Mill Road traffic, which backs up onto 280 as you know, whatever you can do to reduce trips helps the whole region. It helps Palo Altans, and it helps the whole region. I think it's our responsibility to support that effort. A few questions. It was something that I think we might have seen before on this. I know we've seen it before with the Downtown TMA. Have you done any or do you have available any breakdown on the geographic origins of trips coming to SRP? Was that in the presentation? I missed it or do you guys not have it in this presentation today? Ms. Jarvis: We did present it last year. Last year, it was based on ZIP Code data. It worked out to 50 percent South Bay, 20 percent East Bay, 20 percent Peninsula, 10 percent San Francisco. Council Member Wolbach: By Peninsula, you mean San Mateo County and South Bay, Santa Clara County essentially? Ms. Jarvis: Correct. This year we actually have the survey results. Instead of employer-reported ZIP Codes, we have ZIP Codes of the survey respondents. It was similar for South Bay, Peninsula, San Francisco. East Bay was a little lower this time; it was more like 15 percent. I'm not sure if that's just a survey difference or if that's actually real data. Council Member Wolbach: I think that's interesting and probably helpful. TRANSCRIPT    Page 11 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Ms. Jarvis: You heard my excitement about my new train service at Cal. Avenue. 50 percent of our commuters are coming from South Bay, so that's an option for them. Council Member Wolbach: That was actually going to be one of my questions. Can you clarify what you're seeing changing at Cal. Ave.? Are we getting more train stops there? Sorry, I was taking notes and trying to keep up, and I wanted to make sure I didn't miss … Ms. Jarvis: We have got two trains that used to not stop at Cal. Avenue are stopping in the morning. These are coming from San Jose. Approximate times, I want to say 6:46 and 7:46 they're coming in. 6:46 is a little early for the Research Park, 7:46 is a really nice time. In the evening, we have two additional stops going out around 5:00 and 6:00. Those are great options for the commuters. Council Member Wolbach: That leads to my next question. What do you see as ways that we can more efficiently get people either through immediate programs or longer term, whether it's infrastructure changes or whatever, to get people more efficiently from the Cal. Ave. Caltrain station dispersed to wherever their job site is in the Research Park? Ms. Jarvis: I think you hit on it, that Cal. Ave. is the solution there. You saw that the majority of our people are getting off at Downtown Palo Alto. That means they've got the slog down El Camino and then up into the Research Park. The more service we have Cal. Avenue really cuts that time in half. We are also looking at some on-demand shuttle services and some express services that will help us with that. Again, we're trying to make it less time consuming, more convenient, and more flexible. Those are the three things that are most important to the commuters. Council Member Wolbach: I don't know if you've seen it. There was something that was brought to my attention recently. Southwest Prime in the Minneapolis area, they're doing an on-demand, I think, 12-person shuttle system that seems to be pretty popular. I'm not sure it's a perfect model for us here in Palo Alto or the Stanford Research Park or for the Marguerite. It's an interesting thing to look and as the … Ms. Jarvis: We actually have one of our companies in the Research Park— Ford Innovation Center owns Chariot, which is offering a similar service. We're looking at partnerships with them. Council Member Wolbach: Great opportunity. I wanted to ask you a little bit about housing and SOV trips and how you see opportunities for workforce housing or even creating new neighborhoods in the Stanford Research Park TRANSCRIPT    Page 12 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  in the long term contributing to traffic or conversely helping reduce inbound single occupancy vehicle trips into the Research Park. That's whether we're talking about sites along El Camino Real and having the Marguerite or other partnered systems pull people from housing locations existent or in the future on El Camino Real into the Research Park for their jobs there or even a more substantial redesign that we've talked about recently of the Research Park. What do you see as some of the opportunities there for contributing to SOV reduction and also any recommendations on how we can further that conversation between the City government, residents of Palo Alto, Stanford Research Park, and your tenants, especially if we're talking about potentially more substantial changes that could have a really positive win-win on the housing and transportation combined? Ms. Griego: I think the data that you shared with us about your walking and biking rates in Downtown Palo Alto are a great source of information to show that housing proximate to job centers is somewhat self-mitigating, if not really highly self-mitigating. I think there's a lot of credit to that notion. It's on that premise that we feel incorporating housing on an additive basis into the Research Park in areas that are well served by transit, whether it's a VTA system on El Camino Real or Caltrain—additive housing located in the right location could serve more of that self-mitigating function that we think has merit. I bring up how suburban the Research Park is and how dispersed the FAR is throughout the Research Park on a fairly uniform basis to show what we're up against. The implied opposite is to try to be more strategic about growth in transit-oriented corridors. For us, that means along Cal. Ave. proximate to Caltrain and along El Camino Real and that general area. Council Member Wolbach: Something you just said and what you're saying about El Camino Real informs our thinking and will inform my thinking also. We were recently talking about a proposal for a housing site in an area zoned for housing right now on El Camino Real. I expressed some criticism and wanted to hear more discussion about the effectiveness of transit along El Camino Real to serve people living there, especially if they're living there and working nearby. It sounds like you guys are more bullish on it. Maybe I should be a little bit more open-minded myself. Ms. Griego: The visual I had in my head is not literally just confined to 50 feet of depth along El Camino Real. In the Research Park, we can think broader than that. When we last talked about housing on January 30th at the Council hearing, we were envisioning a broader swath of the Research Park for the potential integration of additive housing somewhat with an opportunity to design it really carefully so that it's a well-balanced community as opposed to a simple strip of housing. Time and thought TRANSCRIPT    Page 13 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  needs to be put into how to incorporate housing so that it's high quality and well balanced with its surrounding area. That's kind of my gut reaction. Ms. Jarvis: I'd like to add something. Don't underestimate the buses on El Camino. The 522 and the 22 actually carry more than a light rail line. When you see those buses go by, those are the workhorse of VTA's bus system. Council Member Wolbach: That's a good reminder. As we move forward, I'm excited by what we started talking about on the 30th of January. I'm excited to hear this discussion. Whatever recommendations you have for how we can really further that conversation about the future of the Research Park and how we can really work together with the City, Stanford, the tenants and also the residents in nearby neighborhoods, I think we'd welcome very much. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: That was very impressive. Thank you so much. I did have a question about your leases. Do they usually contain conditions for the employer to have a TDM or to join the TMA? Ms. Griego: I didn't say this actually. The Research Park is 66 years old. With that, there have been leases signed for 66 years. We have been including in our contractual documents with our tenants the need to participate in a TMA-like structure for a while now. Council Member Kou: It's still not 100 percent that all the employers are part of (crosstalk). Ms. Griego: I should say in the earliest days 66 years ago, people were signing extremely long-term leases in the Research Park. Still, I want to be clear about something. People are not coordinating with us or collaborating with us because of this provision, in my opinion. I think we are very focused on providing a demand-driven, data-driven program here. We are proving successful in truly partnering on a an elective basis with companies in the Research Park who don't have this clause in their lease. That's because we're offering cost-effective service and a high-value opportunity to them through our efforts. It's really not about the contracts or anything like that. It's about offering the right services based upon data. Council Member Kou: The way I look at it, I'm thinking that Stanford Research Park belongs under Stanford, so there's one ownership over there. Therefore, there may be an easier way to get the employers to participate in the effort. What you just said is a lot of them actually want to join it themselves. In that sense, how do we transfer that to Downtown? How do TRANSCRIPT    Page 14 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  we cause a lot of the employees here to participate in the effort as well, since a lot of the properties here are owned by different owners? I guess you guys are working in collaboration with them. Ms. Griego: Our perspective is we want to offer the right programs to our unique workforce so that they feel they're getting value for the investment that they're making with us. Council Member Kou: I wanted to also ask—I see in our Packet that you offer subsidies and credits to a lot of the people who use—there's a 300- rider subsidy. Can you tell me more about that? Ms. Jarvis: Many of our companies offer their own subsidy incentives. We wanted to make sure that everybody in the Research Park has access to these. We use them strategically when we need to make a program work. We need to be—these are not our employees directly, so there is some tax consequences and things like that to doing ongoing subsidies. We can do prizes and awards and short-term incentives. For instance, our vanpool subsidy. Getting people into a vanpool is a little tough. There's just this sort of reticence to "I'm going to lose flexibility." If they're comparing it to driving alone or carpooling, the cost seems a little high. We're willing to do a subsidy to get that started, to get those people over the hurdle. Similarly with Scoop, we subsidized that in a way that's strategic to balance the riders and drivers and make sure that people are getting the best rides that they can. That's sort of where we come in and do this almost like umbrella subsidies to make sure the programs work and everybody has access to that. A lot of our companies are doing their own generous programs in addition to that. Council Member Kou: How long do you find it takes for the subsidies to work, that length of time that people actually say, "I will ride that ride and do the car share" and all that? Ms. Jarvis: That's a really good question. It's an example of how we try something, and then we evaluate it and say that didn't work quite as well as we thought. Specifically with the vanpool promotion, what we were doing— this is consistent with a subsidy that a lot of counties have offered—is a $300 rebate after 3 months. The idea is that people would try the vanpool. By 3 months, they'd be hooked because they would see it's so much less stressful than driving and like the people in their vanpool and all that. That was actually, at least for our Research Park folks, not enough to get them to join. They basically looked at the prices and said, "That looks good for 3 months, but what happens next? I have a big price increase." We are actually modifying that. What we're going to be doing is covering one-third TRANSCRIPT    Page 15 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  the cost of the vanpool for the first year. The idea is to get them over that. Three months isn't enough, so we're going to make it more attractive for the first year. That's consistent with our cost-sharing arrangements on the larger commuter buses. My view is we should be encouraging vanpools too because we get free drivers. Those are a deal. That's an example of how we offer a program, and then we evaluate it, and we say what do we need to do make this work a little better. Council Member Kou: Thank you. There's some private funding. I'm trying to grasp how much funding it takes to run these kind of things, a TMA. Would you be able to share an approximate number? Ms. Jarvis: Stanford Research Park, we are covering the umbrella programs, a lot of the things we mentioned to you today. Of course, many of our employers have significant programs with their transit subsidies and their shuttle programs and things like that. I don't think we're prepared to share those numbers today. Council Member Kou: Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: Thank you very much for the presentation. It's super helpful to see this. I especially enjoyed looking at some of the data across the different areas of the Bay area. Stanford should be commended for a lot of this work. Ten years ago we were in a very different situation. Given the configuration of the Research Park and it's legacy, you've done a lot of good work. Our TMA can learn a lot from Stanford. Two quick questions, and both are kind of following up on my fellow Council Member Kou's questions. One, even if we don't get the total figures, it would be helpful for our TMA and for the City to get some kind of aggregate-level data about the costs, whether it's a more expensive to move somebody onto bike than it is to move them onto a carpool, things like that. That will help the City of Palo Alto cost out how many trips we can save via our TMA at what level. The second question is are you seeing higher transit use or higher non-drive- alone from newer employees? People are adopting this increasingly, I guess is my question. Ms. Jarvis: That's interesting because that is not something that we explored on the survey. As you're saying that, I'm thinking I need to add that to my survey for this year. What we are seeing is much higher transit use among San Francisco commuters. That's makes sense, and that could be—that's car ownership, that's a demographic issue. Also, we tend to have that our newer companies in the Research Park tend to be hiring more from San Francisco. There could be a correlation there. TRANSCRIPT    Page 16 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member Fine: Sure. I guess the correlation there is that 101 sucks, so you use something else. I think it'd be nice to get something independent of that, independent of the changing mix of the companies, but showing that within a given company at the Research Park new employees coming onto that company are using transit more frequently. The impetus there is we want to figure out what are the best practices in terms of transitizing [sic] employees. The incremental employees are really important there. Ms. Jarvis: Just an interesting counterpoint to that. The first people that stepped up to be vanpool drivers tended to be people who have been in the Research Park for a long time and used to drive a vanpool, and they want to do it again. Council Member Fine: Interesting. Thank you very much. Mayor Scharff: Now, we'll return to the Downtown TMA. If we can get the presentation on that, you want to go get Tom? Council Member Holman: Mayor Scharff, can I ask just one quick follow-up, really quick? Mayor Scharff: While he's getting Tom, you can ask it because we're short. Council Member Holman: What's your baseline? When you say 73 percent are drive alone, what's the baseline or is that creating a baseline because this is new? Ms. Jarvis: That would be our baseline. Council Member Holman: Thank you. Council Member DuBois returned to the meeting at 5:57 P.M. Mayor Scharff: This was really supposed to be one Study Session. It's become two. It's taking twice as long. We all spoke for a really long time on that. We don't have time to speak on the next item that long. By 7:30, I'm going to cut it off. If you want to speak, put your light on early. It would be great if we could speak for not that long. Rob George, Palo Alto Transportation Management Association Chairman: Thank you, Mayor Scharff. I want to thank the Council for its continuous support of the TMA during its first year. I'm very proud to sit here tonight, a year after formation, with some results that make the Board very proud about where we are at this point. Glad to solicit any comments or any questions that might come from this evening. We're just going to kick off TRANSCRIPT    Page 17 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  our first slide with basically milestones. I won't go line by line. In 2014, the TMA mandate came to reduce SOV drivers in Downtown by 30 percent. That was the beginning of what ended up in the TMA we have today. 2015, the Steering Committee was formed. I had the privilege of participating in that and even being chosen for the Board. It was a very active year for the Steering Committee to hear the Council, to hear the community and to work toward that. In 2016, a little more than a year ago, the TMA was formed. It's been a busy year for us. Initially we were talking about meetings that would happen quarterly, and we ended up meeting monthly and sometimes more often than that to get the TMA rolling. I'll go through some key milestones. In May, right after the Stanford Research Park launch, we launched our Scoop carpooling as well. It's been one of our foundational programs from the start. June, our business plan was formed. That was my first opportunity to sit in front of Council and talk about what the TMA was planning on doing and get feedback from the Council. In August, we got to work. Our first transit subsidies for low-income workers were launched in August with five companies. That's all before November, when we actually received our first funding from the City. Prior to that, all of the monies that the TMA was working with was membership fees and donations from at that point anonymous donors. Our website was launched in November, and we had our first email blast to the community. In December, personal outreach to small businesses started. I'm a representative of the TMA, but I'm also an area leader for one of those small businesses. We literally walked the programs that we had around town and solicited people in person to get the programs off the ground. The next slide is a slide that's near and dear to my heart. The 2015 and 2016 Downtown surveys really informed us about the service worker population in Downtown Palo Alto. I think there's some really interesting data that will allow us to move very quickly, maybe even more quickly than we've planned, to get to that 30 percent SOV rate reduction. The highest SOV rates of any employee category in Palo Alto is the service worker at 80 percent. With that being said, they represent about a third of the workers Downtown. If we go off the 2015 survey, that's about 3,500 employees that come into Downtown Palo Alto of the 10,000 workers Downtown. This is kind of a no-brainer comment. Taking transit can be the most expensive thing for someone that is making minimum wage or is working in an hourly job. Also, many of the businesses Downtown, many of these service employers, are small businesses that cannot offer discounted transit passes to their employees. It'd just be prohibitive to the success of their businesses. These employees, because of their diverse background, need access to all types of transit options. The one thing that, I think, is interesting and presents a challenge for this particular type of worker is the especially high turnover rate for service workers. I will share that in my business we have a turnover rate that is significantly lower than most businesses of this type. My turnover is 70 percent annually. That doesn't TRANSCRIPT    Page 18 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  mean that 70 percent of my team is disappearing every year, but 7 out of 10 employees are turning in that 1 year. Finding options that fit that turn is also something that's important. The next slide is actually a slide that we presented to the Council last June, which is one of two slides with a business plan overview. We presented two plans. One was a 3-year plan; one was a 5-year plan. This plan just outlines the goals that the TMA set for itself in terms of reaching that 30 percent SOV reduction. Our first year goal was set at a very modest 3 percent. If you remember back to the previous slide, we didn't really get started with any programs until August last year. This year, we've stretched to 8 percent. For 2018, which is the year where we'll get most of our momentum, we are hoping to get an 18 percent reduction. It's broken down by category from there. I don't think I need to go into the details of that. I thought that was valuable information about the costs of getting that 30 percent reduction over a 3-year period. I think this is one of the most exciting slides that we have to offer this evening, the results in the first 5 months. Based on the goals that we set, we are proud of these results. I'll go line by line here. In terms of carpooling, which has primarily been the Scoop program, our goal was 350 registered users and 100 monthly scheduled rides. We are actually at this point at 632 registered users and 137 monthly schedules. Transit subsidies, our goal was 25. We are at 60 participants in transit subsidies. In the list of cities, we are under our goal. We had set for 25, and we are at 17. We are looking at Lyft as a first-mile solution. That will help some of our riders that are having trouble finding parking spaces in those train station parking lots on the southern part of the Peninsula and in San Jose. Some information just in terms of trip information. From our carpooling, we've been averaging 225 trips per week or approximately 40 carpools per day. (Inaudible) 68 matched trips. I especially like this number, 41,810 miles saved by putting these folks into Scoop carpooling options and, of course, the associated CO2 reduction for greenhouse gases. Transit riders, vehicle miles traveled was reduced by almost 30,000 miles in our first 5 months of formation. This is just an amended slide with the results for this year, 2016, just updating. Carpooling, the goal was 600 registered, and we are now at 747 registered through the month of February. Scheduled riders is a little lower than our goal expected and matched trips as well associated with those numbers. Transit subsidies, we have 80 participants and 30 pending for March. In March, we have actually reached our budget, so we're holding those folks off until we have a little bit more money for them to participate next month. I think I want to draw attention to the bottom of the slide. Given funding, we are actually ahead of pace this year to hit our 8 percent SOV reduction goal in 2017, which is to have 450 employees in the program. An especially interesting note is that the City of Seattle took 10 years of program activity to achieve an 8 percent SOV reduction. We're on track to do that in less than 2 years. The next slide is just a breakdown of three—the next three TRANSCRIPT    Page 19 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  slides are breakdowns of three different business types. This is the slide about retail and service workers in terms of how we're achieving our results. I think it's very interesting to note that the average participant from the service worker category is making about $30,000 a year. The need there obviously for a $200 a month Caltrain pass is not disposable income that these folks have. We offer the options here. By percentage, Caltrain is by far the most popular at 52 percent. VTA with the 522 and the 22 is—I won't say packed—very active at 25 percent. SamTrans 25, and then the Dumbarton express for those folks that find affordable housing across the Bay and come across the Dumbarton Bridge. You'll also note that there are 19 companies participating in the service worker category. The next two slides have basically information that's similar to that based on similar categories, so I'm going to skip ahead to just a couple of quotes that we've had from service workers that have participated in the program. A quote from Amy, Executive Director of Avenidas, the phrase "life transforming" is that the ability for seven of her employees to be able to get to work and get to work without the worry of being able to afford this has made it incredible. Retail worker Downtown has also said they're not scrambling to find money for transportation costs. The participants are excited, and they are marketing departments, so to speak. They're telling others Downtown and around that this program exists. The next slide is basically how we can achieve the goals we're looking for in 2018. Carpooling, we're looking for a goal of 500 carpooling participants this year, transit subsidies up to 100, first-mile subsidies 50. I think that's going to be a critical addition with the two new Caltrain stops at Cal. Ave. There's going to be even more limited parking down in those lots in the South Bay. Lyft line solutions will help get those folks onto Caltrain. Budget needed for 2018 has us up around $720,000 for the year. I think it goes without saying that stable funding is the key to these results. Back to the comment about Seattle taking a decade to achieve the results that we're headed for in about a year and half, that's a point of emphasis here. The TMA's focuses for this year. The Board has been very active, have obviously obtained funding. When folks come to us with their applications and their desire to participate, whether they be hotel workers or service workers or professionals, we can say yes, we can welcome them into programs. Wendy Silvani from Silvani Transportation has done an amazing job for us, but our goal in early summer is to recruit a permanent Executive Director for the TMA. An advocacy campaign basically regarding transit passes for low-income workers kind of officially kicked this off in more than word of mouth and beyond our website including social media. We are about to make the selection of a Citizens Advisory Committee. We've got applications in, and within the next month or month and a half we will have a Citizens Advisory Committee to help us guide the TMA toward the future and make Palo Alto a better place to work and to live. The other thing and obvious is we've been hearing more and more about TRANSCRIPT    Page 20 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  expanding our capacity to include Cal. Ave. We've been having good results in the first 5 months. With this scalability, we could at some point include Cal. Ave. in the TMA's scope and responsibility. One of the things we would also like to do is expand the Board. Right now there are six of us on the Board, but we'd like to increase the size of the Board to make the Board more representative and even more diverse for the City of Palo Alto. The next slide is just interim budget numbers. For calendar year '17, we are still $55,000 short from a budget perspective of hitting our goal. We're going to be actively working to fill that gap. We're also looking forward to 2018 to secure funding for that $700,000-plus that we'll need to meet that 18 percent for next year. Basically, at this point a commitment for 2-year funding would allow the new Executive Director to do his or her job and get on with the work of developing programs, continuing to scale them, and drawing more and more workers from Palo Alto into the programs. One thing I did want to mention is that a transit fare structure, especially with Caltrain, is really prohibitive for us. Finding a way to lower the cost, especially of the Caltrain passes, to get more service workers and others onto transit would be helpful. We are currently paying full price for the transit passes we are providing to the workers in Downtown. That is it. I welcome your questions and comments and am eager to hear them. Mayor Scharff: Vice Mayor Kniss. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thanks for coming tonight. Since you're here and we have another item on tonight that's relevant to what you've been discussing, could you say a little more about the workers? You oversee a business that uses a lot probably of short-term workers, and you probably have a big turnover. Could you give us some more data on that? Mr. George: Back to the comment that I made about the 70-percent turnover … Vice Mayor Kniss: Per year? Mr. George: Per year. The one thing that a program like transit subsidies can do for a small business is lower that number. It would help those employees to stay longer. The type of business that I'm responsible for, we have Stanford students that are getting their degrees, and they're moving on. We have a broad selection. The better options we can offer them—they want to work in Palo Alto, but it's expensive. It's expensive to drive a car and to buy a pass. The more we can offer them, the more it'll stabilize not just my business but all small businesses. Vice Mayor Kniss: Most businesses Downtown have a "we are hiring" sign out in the front. I think a number of businesses have this turnover. It's TRANSCRIPT    Page 21 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  helpful to know that and helpful to know what it is that would make it a more robust offering to your—I guess they're not called sales in coffee, whatever you call it. Mr. George: Our baristas. Just an interesting counterpoint, there is no McDonald's in Downtown. McDonald's publicizes that their turnover is 300 percent annually. I think there are businesses in Downtown that have turnover that is, especially in the service worker area, as high as 300 percent. That requires an incredible amount of resources from that business to keep themselves staffed. Vice Mayor Kniss: That explains some other data to us as well. I appreciate that. I'm not sure most of us would guess that there would be a company or a business in the Downtown that has a 300-percent turnover every year. That's extraordinarily high. Thanks, and thanks for being here tonight. Mr. George: Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. Council Member Wolbach: Just a couple of questions, two or three. Do you have a sense of—sorry if I missed the numbers. How many businesses in Downtown Palo Alto are participating and are you in contact with? Do you know how many businesses you're working with or (crosstalk) to do any kind of database building like we were hearing about earlier? Wendy Silvani, Palo Alto Transportation Management Association Consultant: Every month, we're building and we are growing. I'm going to guess—I didn't check the list this afternoon. I think we're probably about 30 right now. Council Member Wolbach: Do you know how much penetration that is out of how many businesses in the Downtown? What (crosstalk) percentage? Ms. Silvani: Maybe 800 businesses total in terms of—if you look at the Business Registry for Downtown, there's between 700 and 800 line items in there. Many of them are kind of connected to each other, so there's some duplication. I would say over 600. Council Member Wolbach: My next question is, from that one, are you sharing data in both directions with those in the City Staff who work on the Business Registry? Do you guys have an open line of communication? Ms. Silvani: Yes, we do. TRANSCRIPT    Page 22 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member Wolbach: That's good to hear. What will it take to and what resources and support and guidance can we provide on the Council and as a City to help move towards more universal penetration as opposed to the limited penetration that we have right now? You said you have about 30 companies participating out of 600 or 700. What can we do to shift that? I'll be honest, I'm wondering if the funding allocations you're talking about are enough. I'm wondering also when it comes to governance if there's any support or guidance we can provide that'll help the Board be more proactive and take a greater leadership role in pushing for greater penetration and participation. Ms. Silvani: We have marketed incrementally over the 5 months because, like the Research Park, we've been building our systems. Because we are paying top dollar for these passes, we wanted to make sure that when we give somebody a pass, they're really going to be used because we have to renew them every month. Our process is a little bit more laborious. There's two things. One, getting changes to the fare structure for Caltrain, VTA, and SamTrans so we could buy passes at a much deeper discount and be able to offer them would greatly allow us to expand exponentially the number of people we can serve. The advocacy piece of changing the fare structure and creating a new structure region-wide for low-income workers is something that Caltrain is doing a Fare Study on right now. We are actively trying to put together a little coalition of people that come from the housing element, not just transportation because this is a huge issue region-wide, as you guys well know. That would be probably the thing that could make the biggest difference. If we could buy passes a lot cheaper, we could serve hundreds more people very quickly. We are in a position now that we have systems in place to scale up relatively quickly. I would say the second biggest constraint at this point is money. We don't want to offer somebody a pass for 1 month and go away. As Jamie explained, it takes a while to change people's habits. We have people who are in our programs, who have been working here for as little as they're brand new employees. Their employers have said this made the difference between being able to hire somebody and have them take the job and employers who have people who have worked there for 3 years and as much as 8 or 9 years who are very, very grateful to have this help as parking becomes more scarce. We have people and— again, the function of turnover in the retail and service industry, we've had relatively little turnover in the program. We always have some because people do move on and people move and they change. I've had several people who started out with one kind of pass, who have moved and asked if they could change it to another. That's a good sign because that means it's working and they value it. We have employers who out of 45 employees, 18 of them are in our program. Again, the constraint of money and being able TRANSCRIPT    Page 23 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  to get it out there—we have about 25 or 30 pending for April already, so we're starting to develop a backlog. Council Member Wolbach: I just wanted to make sure what I heard was the two things you need the most are money and also we need VTA, SamTrans, and Caltrain to provide cheaper fares. I thought we were going to have an opportunity to get cheaper fares by buying in bulk through the TMA. If that hasn't happened yet … Ms. Silvani: The transit properties don't have a cheaper fare that's available to us at this point. Council Member Wolbach: Let's keep talking to them. Thanks very much. Mayor Scharff: Council Member DuBois. Council Member DuBois: Good to see you guys tonight. That's great progress. Thank you for the update. Just a couple of quick questions. The coverage area, the Downtown boundaries, are different than the RPP district that we're talking about tonight. It's a more centralized area that you're covering currently? Mr. George: Yeah. It's essentially just the Downtown core. Council Member DuBois: Again, when you talk about expansion, thinking about locally serving businesses in the RPP district, things like small medical and dental offices going out to Middlefield Road, definitely would love to see you expand to those. Expanding to Cal. Ave. is great, but let's not just stay in the core either. Just to understand the methodology and everything, it looks like you're assuming there's about 10,000 workers Downtown. Are you holding that constant or are you forecasting growth each year? Mr. George: That number is based on the numbers from the 2015 and 2016 transit studies. We're using that as a benchmark, and it may grow. Council Member DuBois: As we do this each year—we're in a great place for where we are, but we need to become richer and richer as we go forward. I do think we'll see growth there. Ms. Silvani: I think the Business Registry, now that it's up and running, is going to help us keep that number more accurate as we go forward. Council Member DuBois: These assumptions are critical to measuring our progress. We don't need to sugarcoat it. It's great to have this very positive story, but let's try to get a realistic view. Similar comments about just understanding the methodology of the survey itself. It looks like you're TRANSCRIPT    Page 24 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  randomly picking people out of the Business Registry and talking to people in those companies. It'd be great to understand if any companies are refusing to participate when they're solicited. Again, evolving that methodology over time to become more statistically sound in terms of what it represents. I don't know if you had any response; it's just more of a comment. Ms. Gitelman: We'll be able to take those comments into consideration when we fund this year's survey. This is supposed to be an annual survey, so we can consider that further. Council Member DuBois: It looks like there were 829 people interviewed out of 10,000. It's really hard to tell how representative those numbers are. For where we are, it's fine. It's directional information. We can improve that. Ms. Silvani: It is representative of the blend of different types of businesses. I believe it is in the survey materials that you were given. It is a random survey. Letters go out and phone calls go out to a lot of people. They're weighted by the category. Council Member DuBois: Got it. It's random in terms of companies, but it's not really random in terms of the 10,000. Ms. Silvani: We don't go out and solicit the people. It's random that EMC, the research company, does so that it's really impartial. Council Member DuBois: The other thing I'd say is I don't want to be overly reliant on percentages but also starting to see both percentages and absolute numbers. It can be really hard to say the tech workers have the highest percentage of commuting. What does that really mean in terms of absolute numbers, if they're the largest group for example? I'm not saying they are; I'm just saying percentages on their own don't tell the full story. It'd be really good to see in absolute terms what are the biggest groups and how can we impact those groups that are commuting. Listening to you talk about turnover, we need to think about methods that are easy benefits that can be turned on and off and not out there for 6 months or a year if somebody leaves a business. Maybe technology is part of that solution, but also thinking about benefits where if you have turnover, you can offer that benefit to a new employee quickly. On the marketing front, I think we're making good progress. It looked like about half the people surveyed were aware of the TMA. Of course, that means half the people were unaware, so there's more work to be done. I really think we need to make the TMA relevant. That is going to be a combination of benefits, sticks and carrots both. Making benefits that pay for themselves where it's kind of a no TRANSCRIPT    Page 25 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  brainer you want to be in the TMA. I think sticks in terms of limiting free parking or other sources of parking. I did notice that a lot of the service worker employers are the ones that typically don't offer commuting benefits. What kind of response are you getting when you talk to them? Are they open to starting to offer benefits as an employer? Mr. George: I think the growth of that group is based on the word of mouth that's happened through Downtown. I guess long answer yes. Pete's is in the program because one of their baristas was talking to one of my baristas. Definitely the employees find it a valuable benefit. The employers definitely find it a way to have happier teams and more successful businesses. One thing I did not say in that 70 percent turnover number is that we've been operating in Downtown since 2011. For the first time since 2011, we are fully staffed. There are other factors and other benefits that my company has offered to the team, but the transit passes have been a significant driver in recruiting and retaining. Council Member DuBois: Just so I'm clear. A business could participate in the TMA; that doesn't mean that they're providing benefits to their employees. Right? Ms. Silvani: That's correct. Council Member DuBois: I was asking really do you guys see the willingness to provide benefits to employees. Ms. Silvani: One of the things—we're still in our infancy in terms of we're about 6 months into programs at this point. We are learning about the service worker in particular for the first time. As Rob pointed out, the turnover rate—they're small companies. Many of the small restaurants and other service businesses operate very much on a month-to-month budget basis. First of all, they're not large enough to buy an annual pass, nor with a turnover rate are they inclined to buy employees an annual pass even if they could. There's a lot of very unique characteristics that we are learning about now, and we're trying to figure out what it would take. That's why these initial year programs are called pilot programs. As we learn, hopefully we can start to configure things and move towards a future where there is more participation by either employees, employers or a combination of TMA matching things and new employee programs. We're not there yet. Council Member DuBois: It sounds like the right focus. Ms. Silvani: We're learning. I will say most of the commute programs that are out there and have been successful for the last 20 years are not geared for service workers. Because our drive-alone rate at 80 percent was so TRANSCRIPT    Page 26 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  much higher than any other category and the need so great in particular for that group, we decided to focus on that group this year. Council Member DuBois: Again, my comment about absolute percentages. That 80 percent of small businesses, is that number really larger than the 20 percent of larger businesses? Have you guys looked in terms of absolute numbers at the service workers? In aggregate, is that a large number of people? Ms. Silvani: I think the number of service workers is somewhere between 3 and 3,500 based on a 10,000 universe. It is a third of the community. Council Member DuBois: My last few comments about funding. As you guys look for funding, what sources of funding are you really identifying? Ms. Gitelman: Through the Mayor. Council Member DuBois, I don't know if you were here in the very beginning. I indicated that we're going to come back for a fuller discussion of this funding issue sometime in the middle part of the year. I'm hoping we can defer more questions on that subject. Council Member DuBois: To echo Council Member Wolbach, I think particularly if we can help out as elected officials, it's a great place to collaborate with the TMA in terms of trying to negotiate with Caltrain or VTA. It's a huge benefit to the TMA to be able to bundle and have a group negotiating power. If you're finding that they're not willing to do that, let us know and we can try. I think it's the kind of collaboration we should focus on. We also have a business tax advisory group aimed at transportation. Hopefully that's being looked at as a source. I just think we need to find stable funding where the people impacted are contributing through some means. The City can't really afford to subsidize all of this going forward. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: If we could wrap it up soon. Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: Actually I pass. Council Member DuBois has asked all my questions. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: Thank you. A couple or three things. I won't take long here. Something that doesn't cost anything. Have any of the companies adopted or do they know about or has the TMA promoted a first source hiring program with especially their restaurant and service employers? Basically that means you give first priority to finding your employee within a quarter or half mile. Those employees are less likely to TRANSCRIPT    Page 27 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  drive. Has that been a promotion at all to make people aware that there's a great benefit to doing this? I know one employer—I'll just name it. Palo Alto Hardware has done that for many, many years just on their own. It keeps their parking lot much emptier for customers. Has that been considered or adopted or promoted? Mr. George: Not at this point. Thank you for the suggestion. I made note, and I'll definitely take it back to the Board. Council Member Holman: I see on—there's no numbers on these—the slide that talks about 3-year business plan overview says active participants walk, bike. It says 2017 25 and in 2018 100, but there's no reference to bike commuters further on in the report. Do you have any numbers about how many actually are using bike? Ms. Silvani: Just from the surveys that have been done so far. One of the things we're hoping to get to starting in a couple of months is a focus on active transportation. Council Member Holman: I know I and pretty much everybody else have seen especially late at night some of the service workers, restaurant workers riding bicycles to their homes, and they're not lit, and they're not—frankly, I think they're just not very safe. As a benefit to employment with these companies in Palo Alto, has the TMA considered buying a nice bicycle for $200-$300? The company owns them; the business owns them. It's a real benefit to the employee, and it provides also a safer means of transportation. It's pretty inexpensive compared to some of the other options. Ms. Silvani: Actually we had a meeting with one of the bike vendors several months ago where we were talking about perhaps setting up bikes that could be used particularly in front of hotels by guests during the day. They could be taken home by employees at night. We have yet to get to that, but that's a great idea. Council Member Holman: Nothing wrong with that, but I was also thinking while you're an employee here, this is your bike. It's an ownership thing and kind of a pride of employment kind of thing. Ms. Silvani: I think we could definitely look into that. Council Member Holman: I think I have just some quick—if the goal was 25, for $5,000 you could buy those 25 bicycles at, say, $200 apiece. Because our Business Registry, I don't think, has been updated this year—I don't TRANSCRIPT    Page 28 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  know how it would have been—is it a handicap that we don't have an updated or current Business Registry? Ms. Gitelman: My understanding is the Business Registry is updated annually, so it's happening this spring sometime. The TMA survey happens in the spring also. There may be some syncing up that we need to do in the future, but they do both happen annually. Council Member Holman: Maybe at the end of the meeting somebody can tell us who's running that or managing that. That would be great to know. I think those are my questions. Thank you very much. Mayor Scharff: Thank you very much. Now, we'll go to the public. You'll have 2 minutes. We first have—Tom, I'm going to have to ask you to step out because I don't know which they're going to talk on. We have Stan— sorry, I'll probably pronounce it wrong—Bjelajac, to be followed by Neilson Buchanan. Council Member DuBois left the meeting at 6:37 P.M. Stan Bjelajac: Good evening, everyone. I'm a local dentist. I've had a chance to speak to you guys a few times over the days. Recently, we were privy to a presentation that was sponsored by residents, where we got to learn more about TMA. I know from my wife's line of work and such that there are many TMAs that are very successful. We would like to have the City of Palo Alto make a strong commitment to making the Palo Alto TMA viable in the future so it can help more businesses expand to more neighborhoods and help. Since our presentation, for what it's worth, I learned about Scoop. While my work presently doesn't allow me to take public transit, I did sign up. I think on Thursday I will take one car off the road by picking up one of the neighbors. We would like, again over the course of this as TMA develops and other parking programs and such develop in Palo Alto, our group to be present, to be part of the process. I think each group, whether it's restaurants or whether it's us healthcare providers, we all face unique challenges. I think we're all here to serve the residents and to live next to each other and make Palo Alto a better place. That said, I'm hoping that the City provides us a viable platform so that we can work together and no needs get neglected going forward, whether it's with parking or TMA and such. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Neilson Buchanan to be followed by Adina Levin. Neilson Buchanan: I want to make two quick remarks again. The first remark is to reemphasize the whole concept of the TMA. It still is not getting across to people. In the last couple of weeks, we've been talking to TRANSCRIPT    Page 29 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  a lot of different businesses, we residents that is. Just once again, let's assume we have 10,000 employees or 15,000 employees between here and California Avenue. The concept is that a fraction of them will use the alternate modes of transportation. If everybody chips in X amount of money and you've got, say, 10,000 people and let's say employers help fund the campaign at $100 a year per FTE, not per part-time person, that generates a whole ton of money for the 15 percent to take advantage of the TMA services. I know that concept is not getting across. It's actually very, very affordable. In fact, $100 a year in my amateur opinion is too much first- year money. We're not prepared to spend it. I was prepared weeks ago to give the City an unrestricted gift of $500 from my grandchildren's college fund as a goodwill gesture and a challenge to the employers that you too can come up with some money to help the City General Fund. I thank you for that. A little bit of money goes a long way. The poor old TMA here is the third cousin, poor cousin, to Palo Alto's TMAs. They cannot survive going the way they are. They need structure. Expand them to California Avenue as quickly as you can with more money. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thanks, Neilson. If you have the small version of that check, you can give it to the City Manager. He's sitting right there. Mr. Buchanan: It's going into your night box as I walk out tonight, if I get out of here by 9:00. Otherwise, I'm keeping it. Mayor Scharff: Adina Levin to be followed by Jeff Levinsky. Adina Levin: Good evening. Adina Levin, Friends of Caltrain. I'd like to make several points. First of all, it's really great to see this City policy and the execution of it getting fleshed out. Friends of Caltrain had a campaign to work on Caltrain as well as other transit agencies to improve their fare structure for TMA, for a few years. Some of our advocacy, I think, helped Caltrain get their Fare Study started to begin with. Now, it's really time to move that forward. Right now the employees in Stanford Research Park, the full-time employees of large employers that make over $100,000 pay much less than what's being paid for the service workers. Even if it wasn't extra discounts and was only giving the Go Pass structure but allowed the TMA to be the agent for the Go Pass structure, that would be a huge and transformative change. In addition with means-based fares, MTC, the region has a means Fare Study, which seems to be stalled out right now. There's a significant opportunity to work with Palo Alto TMA and the other emerging TMAs to go there. One thing from these emerging numbers is that the cost to reduce a trip, which we have from the Palo Alto TMA—it would be great to see from Stanford Research Park as well—is significantly less than the cost to build and maintain a space in a structured parking garage. As we're TRANSCRIPT    Page 30 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  thinking what can and should the City do, thinking the City is looking to build the garages but is nervous or concerned about—you get more out of reducing trips. By increasing the cost of the full price parking permits—I can submit this in writing and come back when we're talking about funding—that would go a long way towards paying. Lastly … Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Ms. Levin: … really interesting to hear about the role of potential housing in reducing the car trips and traffic and parking demand. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Jeff Levinsky. Jeff Levinsky: Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council Members. I just wanted to point out what appears to be a math error in the TMA presentation. Their goals for 2018 say that they'll get 18 percent reduction in SOVs. If they were to achieve that, then the 750 participant number is wrong. It should be 990, which would be a jump of 540 from the previous year, which is really great if they could do that. That error appears in two places in the document. I just want to say that as you consider later tonight the RPP reductions and things like that, taking these numbers into mind they should be easily able to achieve the several hundred a year reduction that is being considered because these numbers show more than that. Thank you very much. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. That concludes this item. Special Orders of the Day 2. The Mayor’s Green Business Awards Recognizing Palo Alto’s Businesses That Have Earned the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Energy Star Certification. Council Member DuBois returned to the meeting at 6:44 P.M. Mayor Scharff: I wanted to thank everyone for coming out in such large numbers for the Mayor's Green Business Awards. Really appreciate you all coming for that. We have Josh Wallace, who's going to come up and do that. Ed Shikada, Assistant City Manager: As Josh comes into position here, I'd actually like to point out our timing was either coincidental or very well planned. We'll take the latter. Since we actually have a number of the companies that Tiffany pointed out, they're part of the Research Park. Clearly companies that are progressive and engaged in transportation are TRANSCRIPT    Page 31 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  also progressive and engaged in energy conservation. I think we get a bit of a two-for in our business community. I would also like to acknowledge Josh Wallace, who is one of our few key account representatives, managers, that are providing direct and point-of-contact interface between all of our utilities and our key business customers to ensure that we're maximizing both their opportunities to leverage our utilities programs as well as the benefit they bring to our grid overall. With that, let me turn it over to Josh. Josh Wallace, Utilities Representative: Thank you, Ed. I appreciate that. Welcome, everybody. Council, Mr. Mayor, thank you for giving me this opportunity to give the praise that is well due to our Energy Star and by extension Green Business Leader Award winners for this evening. These are major companies that have done what it takes to—turn the mike on. It is on. Thank you. Welcome. The first thing I'd like to say by way of housekeeping is we will have some photographs here because these folks want to have the opportunity to have their picture taken with the Mayor and the Council. Afterwards, I will keep this as brief as possible. The takeaway from the Green Business Leaders Award is the companies that are here tonight have gone way beyond the typical effort involved in running an efficient building, an efficient complex, an efficient campus. They have achieved what's known as the Energy Star Award. They are very high up in efficiency, and we want to recognize them. I will do that starting right now. First we have Hudson Pacific International. There's a company … Mayor Scharff: Josh, I think you're going a little off script. At least it's not on my script. (Crosstalk) different. Mr. Wallace: I'm off script. I didn't know if we were … Mayor Scharff: My script's (inaudible). I think I'm supposed to say … Mr. Wallace: Please do. (Crosstalk). Mayor Scharff: I'm supposed to say our City Council initiated the Mayor's Green Business Leaders Awards in 2012 to reward businesses that are working hard to improve the energy efficiency and sustainability of their building. The Awards recognize local businesses that not only talk the talk but walk the walk in supporting our community environmental goals. Eligibility for receiving the City of Palo Alto's Mayor's Green Business Leaders Award is based on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Energy Star benchmarking process. Through EPA's portfolio manager, businesses can track their building energy use and compare it to similar buildings as a benchmark of efficiency. The City awards businesses that have received an Energy Star score of 75 or higher within the past year. Ed, now you get to … TRANSCRIPT    Page 32 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Mr. Shikada: I think from that point, we can just jump directly into the specifics on the recipients of the Award. Mr. Wallace: Thank you, Ed. Our first batch of Awards goes to Hudson Properties. They are proud recipients of eight awards tonight. Hudson Clocktower Building 2—if we could have Hudson come up and receive their awards, that would be great. Thank you. We have Betty Veronico and we have Tatiana (inaudible) and Elena Barakova [phonetic]. Thank you very much. We're going to hand these awards (inaudible) out. Thank you, Ed. Appreciate that. Clocktower Building 3, that's 620 Hanson Way, our first award for this building. That's great. Clocktower Square Building 3, second year for this Green Business Leader. 3400 Hillview, Building 1, the first time winner. It is almost 80,000 square feet. Congratulations on that. 4400 Hillview, Building 2, Hudson's highest scoring building at 89 out of 100. Great first-time effort. Embarcadero Road, 2100 Geng Road, the Embarcadero Place buildings were built in 1984, so they're still impeccably maintained. This is the second award for 2100 Geng Road. Embarcadero Place, 2200 Geng Road, another second year award winner and another score in the 80s. Congratulations. Embarcadero Place, 2300 Geng Road, a newcomer to the Geng gang. Welcome aboard. Congratulations to all three Embarcadero Place winners. One more award for Hudson, and that is Palo Alto Square Building 5, the final winner from Hudson. As I said, saving the biggest for last. This is 128,000 square feet, our largest building this year. It was built in 1971. They've done a great job with this building in keeping it up to the Green Business Leader standard. Congratulations to team Hudson. Our next recipient is Stanford Real Estate and Hines Property Management. If we could have Nicole Evans [phonetic] come up to the podium. 3210 Porter Drive is their fifth Green Business Leader Award. It's the most awarded, highest scoring, and oldest building. A 92 score, built in 1962, plus its score has increased since last year. They're just making a good thing better. Congratulations to Hines for 3210 Porter Drive. 975 Page Mill Road, the fourth award for 975 Page Mill. That's a great tradition they've got going there. 3200 Hillview Ave. is a second-time winner. We're looking forward to a third. Keep up the good work. Again, congratulations. Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions Mayor Scharff: Agenda Changes and Deletions. We have one Agenda Item, Item Number 12. I need a Motion to move that to March 7th. So moved by Council Member Wolbach, Council Member Kou, seconded. MOTION: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member Kou to continue Agenda Item 12 - PUBLIC HEARING: Adoption of an Ordinance Amending Chapter 18 (Zoning) … to March 7, 2017. TRANSCRIPT    Page 33 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Mayor Scharff: If we could vote on the board. That passes with—who's missing? Unanimously and Vice Mayor Kniss missing. Next. MOTION PASSED: 8-0 Kniss not participating City Manager Comments Mayor Scharff: City Manager Comments. Ed Shikada, Acting City Manager: Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of the Council. I do have a few items of timely note I would like to bring to Council and community's attention. The first in terms of two Draft Environmental Impact Reports that are now in circulation, that the City has recently received. One concerns the City of Mountain View's draft North Bayshore precise plan, and the other concerns Stanford's proposed development of a mixed-use project on six parcels along El Camino Real in Menlo Park. Mountain View's Draft EIR is available on their website, and comments are due on April 17th. Public hearings to consider adoption of the precise plan and certification of the Environmental Impact Report are planned for June of this year. Menlo Park's Draft EIR is available on their website, and comments are due by April 13th. A public hearing will be held at the Menlo Park Planning Commission on March 27th. Planning Staff will be reviewing both documents this month, and we'll be preparing comment letters for the City Manager's signature. Given the volume of other work in the City Council's busy agendas, we do not anticipate scheduling a Council review of the comment letter but would be happy to receive comments from individual Council Members as well as we'll provide the comment letters to you once prepared. A second topic, the ongoing storm drain program fee ballots. On February 24th, the City mailed 20,000 storm water fee ballots to Palo Alto property owners. We expect that by now the ballots have been received. If a property owner has not received a ballot, they should contact the City Clerk's Office. Ballots must be received back to the Clerk's Office by 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 11th, in order to be counted. Ballot count will be conducted in the Council Chambers at 9:30 a.m. on April 12th. Information on the ballot is within the Packet itself as well as through a link on the City's homepage. Next topic, Edgewood Plaza. Earlier today, there was a hearing with the Hearing Officer, Lance Bayer, which concluded the Administrative Hearing regarding Edgewood Plaza. Specific issue being considered is the developer's appeal of citations for the absence of a grocery store at the shopping center. Hearing Officer now has 30 days to provide a final, written decision, which Staff believes will focus on the dollar amount of the citations. Following that decision, either side may file a complaint in Superior Court to seek judicial review. Next topic, traffic speed surveys. Public is invited to a community meeting this Thursday, March 9th, at Room H-1 at Cubberley TRANSCRIPT    Page 34 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Community Center, 6:00 p.m., where Staff will present findings of recently completed engineering and traffic speed surveys to gather input on whether the posted speed limit should be raised to facilitate radar speed enforcement and to discuss alternatives to raising speed limits. The meeting will focus on streets in south Palo Alto including East Bayshore south of Embarcadero, Middlefield Road south of Oregon Expressway, Coyote Hill Road from Page Mill to Hillview Avenue, Deer Creek Road from Page Mill to Arastradero. Staff has already hosted a meeting for north Palo Alto earlier this month. We anticipate Staff will return to City Council later this summer with recommendations for reducing average motor vehicle speeds through design and/or increasing posted speed limits for enforcement. For further information on that topic, we have our Transportation Division projects website with the information. Finally an upcoming event this weekend on Saturday, March 11th, from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., our Arbor Day festival at Mitchell Park, where the community's invited to join the fun and celebrate Arbor Week by attending the Palo Alto Community Arbor Day Festival. We are partnering with Canopy and other nonprofit organizations and local businesses to put this annual community festival on for California Arbor Week and highlight the importance of our urban forest. That concludes my report. We've got our Arbor Day Festival flyer on the screen. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Holman, I saw your light. Council Member Holman: Just two clarifications if I could. Thank you for the City Manager Comments. With the Mountain View and Menlo DEIR comments, is there a possibility for these to go to the Planning and Transportation Commission? Did you say that the Council would comment on the Staff letter or not? Mr. Shikada: At this point, Staff does not anticipate bringing it forward on your agenda, given the timelines. However, we'll follow up on bringing it to PTC. Council Member Holman: The other question is—because it's a question I get from the community and wonder myself. As speeds are increased on some of the streets that are being looked at right now, are there going to be traffic officers assigned to enforcing those new speed limits? Mr. Shikada: Fair question. I think that will be a topic potentially for part of your budget deliberations but also ongoing operations with the Police Department. As you know, we no longer have a dedicated traffic unit, so this would need to be handled in conjunction with other assignments. It does facilitate the ability for the Police Department to enforce speed through the use of radar. TRANSCRIPT    Page 35 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Oral Communications Mayor Scharff: Now, we're on to Oral Communications. We have several speakers. We have Karen Machado speaking for five people, I believe. That will be followed by Sea Reddy. Everyone will have 2 minutes except for Karen, who's speaking for five people, who will have up to 10 minutes. Karen Machado, speaking for Martina Entriker, Terry Holzemer, Max Galindo, Marian Slater: Thank you very much. Good evening. I'm from Evergreen Park. Many of my neighbors and I came tonight to talk to you once again about our RPP. Lots of my neighbors and I are concerned about the idea that you might revisit our RPP before it gets implemented in May as the current plan. We'd really hate to see that. We really appreciate your support. We want to see our RPP being given a chance. We understand that there are some people who have concerns about it, and they want to see it be altered before it even starts. We'd hate to have that done. We think that providing permits for 250 nonresidents is sufficient. That's what Staff recommended. I think we can give that a try, and let's see how it goes. Please don't make any changes now. There are four simple things that we think Staff could do to address some of the concerns that people have raised. The first one is expand the Palo Alto TMA to California Avenue right away. We really need to see that done. Employers need to help employees find transit options, and they need to find parking opportunities for their own people. It's not up to the neighborhood; it's up to the City and the businesses to provide parking. We can't solve that problem. The second thing is move ahead with building the California Avenue parking garage that's in the works. Get that done right away. That will really make a big difference to help in the California Avenue business district. The third thing is prioritize permit allocation to include small businesses, retail and low- income workers. You can easily do this by just modifying the website where you apply for a permit to allow people to identify what business it is that they work at. If you need some programming help, we have several programmers in our neighborhood who could help you with that. This is an easy technological problem to resolve, and I think we could solve it. Let's not make a roadblock for something that's so simple to fix. The fourth thing is include the east side of El Camino parking spaces between College Avenue and Park Boulevard in our RPP. By doing that, you can give more space for employees to park and get permits. There's a lot of parking signage already on El Camino, so it must be possible. It seems like right now most of those spaces are being taken in the early morning by Stanford employees. Is that how you want things to work? That doesn't seem like the way we want to manage the transportation and parking issues. Once again, please let us go ahead with our RPP the way it's already planned. They're already starting to TRANSCRIPT    Page 36 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  put up the signs. We want to go ahead. Please don't alter it now. Thank you so much. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Sea Reddy to be followed by Hank Sousa. Sea Reddy: Good evening, Mayor and the citizens of Palo Alto. One good thing. On Sunday, I was walking with a friend of mine in Downtown, and I happened to see Jim Keene and his family. He's doing well, and he hopes to be back. I wish him all the best. I told him we miss him now. That's the good news. Regarding parking, I think we have a lot of struggle. One observation is when we have a football game, we have 60,000 people come here. We put all the cars in Stanford under the trees. I cannot see why we couldn't do a mini of that, negotiating with Stanford on their trees to some of the employees. Why do we residents have to suffer? I go to a chiropractor, and the lady in the front office has to go every 2 hours to re- park her car. It seems like we need to do out-of-the-box thinking. Third thing is how the President feels when somebody wiretaps him. It's a good lesson for citizens like us that somebody wiretaps us, we feel about the same. Why can't we get along? President Obama is great. President Trump is great. I think we should all get along. I think this is pretty childish to wiretap each other. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Hank Sousa to be followed by the Palo Alto Free Press. Hank Sousa: Hank Sousa, 100 block of Melville Avenue and longtime neighbor of Castilleja School and supporter of the school's educational mission but also a member of the group in opposition to their planned expansion. I brought along some visual aids this evening. The school was at 385 students in 1995 and in '99 went to 415. They asked for 425, but the City said stick at 415. That was affirmed again in 2001 with their current CUP. They're supposed to be at 415. As everyone's probably aware, they've been violating for quite a number of years. Now, with their application for the new CUP, they want a huge jump up to 540. The problem is that the school is quite dense already. It will become even more dense as far as students per acre. There are several suggestions. One is offsite parking. This is Foothills Tennis Club, a weekday morning. Maybe bring kids in shuttles. It's more environmentally friendly. Once they return to the enrollment of 415 and limit their outside events, the pursuit of an underground garage would no longer be a priority. Another item is they want to lower the swimming pool and bring it 15 feet closer to Emerson. The real problem is during water polo matches the whistle disturbs the neighbors on Emerson. Possibly a retractable cover over the pool. Finally, the school wants to knock down the existing buildings on Kellogg and TRANSCRIPT    Page 37 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Emerson, but they're in okay shape. We'd like to see the exteriors remain and just do a nice remodel job on the inside. Thanks for your time. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. The Palo Alto Free Press to be followed by Stephanie Munoz. PaloAltoFreePress: The Board of Directors of Palo Alto Free Press, whom are located in Nicaragua, have decided to cease operations as a result of Title 17. Title 17 is essentially the digital millennial copyright act. Dave Price has filed a complaint, which has essentially shut down Palo Alto Free Press. We have decided not to move forward. This particular article here is the article in question. As you see, Mr. Price there next to his newsstands. What's really interesting is that we have the email that was received from a member of his staff essentially giving us consent to use that document. We do have some good news. We're going to be rolling out Bay Area Free Press. Unfortunately, the technology has not been perfected. Your voice, your bridge to community change, [foreign language]. Essentially what we have done is we have registered the domain in Nicaragua. It falls under Nicaraguan law. The servers are going to be located in Nicaragua. It falls on Nicaraguan law. Of course, Nicaragua does not have good relations with the U.S. As I citizen, I think it goes without saying the Nicaraguan government is going to side with me on this issue. Have at it, Mr. Price. We're going to be moving forward. We're going to be rolling out with Bay Area Free Press. By the way, we are going to be hiring, and our starting salary is going to be $80,000 a year plus a benefit package. Anyone who's interested in becoming a journalist, please send me an email at BayAreaFreePress@gmail.com. I will forward that to the Board of Directors located in Nicaragua. I will review those resumes before I forward them on. We will make a discussion as to whether or not to fly you to Nicaragua all expenses paid for an interview. That's where we stand. Look for awesome things to come forward in the future. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Stephanie Munoz to be followed by Craig Fitzpatrick. Stephanie Munoz: Good evening, Mayor Scharff and Council Members. I'm sure you've all taken note throughout the country that small towns and large ones and groups of people have actually stood up on their hind legs and said, "No, we do not approve of the Federal government's trying to exclude illegal immigrants." That's the Federal government. To me, it's sort of surprising because who can go against the government to that extent? It for sure, I think, shows the mood and the feeling and the ethics and the morals of this country. I think most of the people in this country whether or not they belong to an organized religion believe that we're put on earth to help TRANSCRIPT    Page 38 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  each other. It is not helpful to exclude people and not give them a place to be safe. In the Palo Alto Weekly, I noticed that the police are charging people for lodging inappropriately in the United States Post Office. I think that should give you pause. After all, isn't the United States Post Office under the jurisdiction of Palo Alto? When the government mentioned selling the Post Office, there was some talk about whether or not Palo Alto could afford to buy it. We could really use it. Some people said we could put the homeless there. We could at least put them in the basement. I sent for the policy papers that the United States Congress has, and they want the homeless to be the beneficiary of government properties. I would think twice. Put the homeless someplace. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Ms. Munoz: Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Craig Fitzpatrick to be followed by Susan Rosenberg. I'm not seeing Craig Fitzpatrick, so Susan Rosenberg. Susan Rosenberg: Good evening, Council. Thanks so much. I'm Susan Rosenberg. I am Co-Chair of the Palo Alto Storm Water Committee Campaign. I've served on the Storm Water Blue Ribbon Committee. Since 2005, I've served on Palo Alto's Storm Drain Oversight Committee, now called the Storm Water Oversight Committee. I tell you this because 10 days ago the City mailed the storm water ballot measure to property owners. It's very important for the health and wellbeing of Palo Alto that this measure passes. It only needs to pass by a simple majority. This measure has been endorsed by State Assemblyman Marc Berman, County Supervisor Joe Simitian, Gary Kremen of Board of Santa Clara Valley Water District, all of you, the current Palo Alto Council, as well as former Council Members who still live here in Palo Alto. This measure has also been endorsed by Acterra, Canopy, Clean South Bay, the Crescent Park Neighborhood Association, Grass Roots Ecology, the League of Women Voters of Palo Alto, Palo Alto Forward, Palo Alto Chamber of Commerce. Last Friday the Palo Alto Weekly endorsed this ballot measure. I apologize for standing here and reading this list, but this has been a very low-budget, word-of-mouth campaign. Mailboxes won't be inundated with campaign mailers nor will there be any newspaper ads. What I ask of you is to use your phone, your email, your social media to get the word out that voting yes on this measure is the right thing to do for Palo Alto. I want to thank you very much. I also want to introduce—I'm one of the members of the campaign. This is Joe Teresi; he's a former City employee. This is Bob Wenzlau, who I'm co-chairing this with. I'm also going to hand in my ballot today, because I'm voting. TRANSCRIPT    Page 39 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Mayor Scharff: Thank you, Susan. David Schrom to be followed by Mark Mollineaux. David Schrom: Hi, I'm David Schrom. I want to say at the very outset that I'm not exactly certain why I'm here. I thought we had this all settled, but for some reason something that's not transparent caused my neighbors to feel that we really hadn't settled it. I'm concerned about the absence of transparency more than anything else. To review, everybody who voted for you guys lives in this City. All of our homes are on streets, and those streets were built just to provide access to our homes. Sound planning requires that that's how they be used. This includes having parking available on the streets for residents, visitors, and guests. Yes, they're public streets, and so is 101. I don't ride my bike there. We permitted people to build, as you guys know, under-parked structures. They're externalizing these costs. It's just unfair. This Council breathed a breath of fresh air into my life because you seemed to have been, with the Staff's help, on track to fix this. This process has been going on since the last time Gary Fazzino was Mayor and got limited permit parking in our neighborhood 35 years ago. It was then abandoned, but it existed. People have been concerned about it all that time. For the last couple of years, it's been intense. The "Johnny come lately's" who want to come in here and upset this process at the 11th hour, I invite to just be patient and get back here with us after the trial period, and let's see how things work out. I want my neighborhood to be safe, quiet and neighborly. I really thank you for taking this step in that direction. I'm going to finish before that buzzer. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Mark Mollineaux. Mark Mollineaux: Hi there. My name is Mark Mollineaux. I graduated from Stanford, currently looking for a place that I can afford so fingers crossed. After I spoke here last month in favor of just any development at the University Avenue—it was a couple of units. As I was walking away, a resident said to me, "This isn't the housing you're looking for. This is luxury condos. This is not for you." I just think this kind of misses a big point here in that today's affordable housing is yesterday's market rate condos and other types of housing. That's what we don't have here. There's new data, the Case-Shiller housing index, from San Francisco comparing single-family housing versus condos in the city, San Francisco. Single-family housing has reached an all-time high as far as their value goes. It's gone 0.1 percent up in December. The latest data, 7 percent higher in the last year. Condos have gone up much less, 3.2 percent. For the first time in a while, we've seen condo values decrease. They're more affordable. It makes sense. Condos, you can always build more of it. They depreciate over time. When you have single-family housing, most of the value is in the land. It TRANSCRIPT    Page 40 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  appreciates over time. You simply can't make this affordable if there's only so much land to go around. It's just important to remember single-family housing is the real luxury housing. It's not the condos; you can always make more of them. If we really want affordable housing, if we really want more people to be able to afford it, I think you have to look at real solutions and not rationing out something that inherently can't go around. I invite you to look for real solutions and not to make a narrative of saying, "That's luxury housing. That's not for us." It's the only way. I also invite you to look for more solutions for truly affordable housing, public projects, community land trusts. Market rate housing really can't be vilified if you want real housing. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Consent Calendar Mayor Scharff: Now, we'll return back to the Council on the Consent Calendar. Council Member Holman. Council Member Holman: I'd like to pull 9a please. Mayor Scharff: You need two other people. Council Member Kou, Council Member Fine, Council Member Tanaka. MOTION: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member Kou, third by Council Member Fine to pull Agenda Item Number 9a- Approval of a Contract With SoBi … to be heard on a date uncertain. Mayor Scharff: I would say that matter is pulled. We'll come up with a new date. We'll pull that to a date uncertain. Before we vote on the balance of the Consent Calendar, we have several speakers. We have a couple of speakers on 9a. The matter has been pulled, and there will be a full discussion on that at Council at some point. Feel free to talk or not; it's up to you. On the Consent Calendar on Item Number 9, we have Bob Wenzlau. Bob to be followed by Ilya—I'm sorry, Ilya—Movshovich. Bob Wenzlau, speaking regarding Agenda Item Number 9: Shall I begin? My name's Bob Wenzlau. I'm president of Palo Alto Neighbors Abroad, our Sister City program. I wanted to thank the Palo Alto Fire Department, the Palo Alto City Council as they consider a donation of a large fire vehicle that had been surplussed. I wanted to just briefly say why this is important. In November, our Neighbors Abroad organization had planned to have a group of dancers from Oaxaca come to Palo Alto. Those dancers were intimidated; their families were intimidated to a certain degree by the new policies. While not getting into necessarily the policies, I think a statement of TRANSCRIPT    Page 41 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  generosity and kindness that the City Council is about to make is a wonderful gesture into the narrative. I wanted to thank you on behalf of Neighbors Abroad, your Sister City, and also convey the appreciation of Oaxaca, which has been relayed to me, that these fire vehicles that go down there basically provide infrastructure to a community that's probably ten times as large as ours and has a fire department one-tenth the size of ours. It's an important gesture. Thank you very much. I appreciate your efforts on this Motion. Good night. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Ilya to be followed by Bill Ross, if you wish to speak on 9a. Ilya Movshovich, speaking regarding Agenda Item Number 9a: Hi, how are you? I wanted to speak on the SoBi implementation contract really quickly. One of the reasons is I'm a VP for a company called Blue Gogo, which happened to be mentioned in SoBi's proposal. It's a dockless bike sharing program, which actually in the proposal was looked at as one that would not work, which is strange considering it's one of the first dockless bike sharing in the U.S. It hasn't even been really given a chance to see if it does work and how well. It does work quite effectively all over Europe, in Asia as well under their respective regulations and laws. Also, we'd be happy to actually speak further and do a separate presentation, if there's a need, on why it's beneficial for cities. Nonetheless, it's not City of Palo Alto's job to invest in startups. It's 2017; there are VC firms; there's lots of other ways for these companies to receive funding. To offer 5 years of a contract for technology that's equivalent to basically kind of a floppy drive, if you will, in 5 years something else can come up. For the City to invest over $1 million 5 years later is not the most rational necessarily way to do it and probably will not be beneficial for the City. I would like to suggest another alternative. Happy to again talk about dockless opportunity if there's a need. Happy to even go with SoBi if they want to do their 350. We're happy to do 350 of dockless bike share as well to show you the difference in the end. Mayor Scharff: Thank you. Bill Ross, if you wish to speak. You'll wait. Annette Ross, the same. Thank you very much. That concludes the Consent Calendar. Are we ready to vote on the Consent Calendar minus Item 9a or are we not ready to vote on it? Are you pulling it or not? You're not. Vice Mayor Kniss: Do you want a Motion? Mayor Scharff: Yes. Vice Mayor Kniss: So moved. Mayor Scharff: Second? I'll second the Consent Calendar. TRANSCRIPT    Page 42 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  MOTION: Vice Mayor Kniss moved, seconded by Mayor Scharff to approve Agenda Item Numbers 3-9. 3. Approval of the 2017 Water Integrated Resources Plan Guidelines. 4. Approval of Amendment Number 1 to Design Contract Number C15158029 With Schaaf & Wheeler Consulting Civil Engineers for an Additional Amount of $99,850 for a Total Amount Not-to-exceed $699,850, for Programming of the Program Logic Controllers (PLC) for Fiber Optic Connections to Pump Stations and Creek Monitors as Part of the Storm Drain System Replacement and Rehabilitation Project SD-06101. 5. Approval of an Update to the City's Ten-year Electric Energy Efficiency Goals (2018 to 2027). 6. Approval of Amendment Number 1 to the Promissory Note and Amendment Number 1 to the Agreement Between the City of Palo Alto and Palo Alto Housing Corporation (PAHC) for the Acquisition of the Sheridan Apartments at 360 Sheridan Avenue; and Approval of an Expenditure of Funds Held by PAHC for the Acquisition of a Property Interest in the Sheridan Apartments. The Project is Exempt From the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) per Section 15061(b)(3). 7. Approval of a 3-year Contract With SoftwareOne, Inc. for Microsoft Licensing in the Amount of $455,707 Annually. 8. Resolution 9669 Entitled, “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Approving a Facility Naming Plan for the Junior Museum & Zoo.” 9. Resolution 9670 Entitled, “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Donating a Surplus Fire Truck to our Sister City, Oaxaca, Mexico and Accepting $25,000 From Neighbors Abroad as the Purchase Price of the Fire Truck.” 9a. Approval of a Contract With SoBi for Implementation of a 350-Bicycle Bike Share Program for Five Years With no Ongoing Cost to the City Following an Investment of $1,104,550 in Capital Costs for Bicycles and "Hubs." (Continued from February 27, 2017). Mayor Scharff: If we could vote on the board. Minus 9a. That passes unanimously. MOTION PASSED: 9-0 TRANSCRIPT    Page 43 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Action Items 10. Resolution 9671 Entitled, “Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Amending Resolutions 9473 and 9577 to Continue the Downtown Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) Program With Minor Modifications and Finding the Action Exempt From the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) (Continued From February 13 and 27, 2017).” Mayor Scharff: With that, we are here for our first Action Item, Item Number 10, which I need to recuse myself from because I own real property in the Downtown. I will be passing it off to the Vice Mayor, who will lead us through this. We'll be ready in about 3 minutes. Mayor Scharff left the meeting at 7:27 P.M. Council took a break from 7:27 P.M. to 7:30 P.M. Vice Mayor Kniss: … part of the meeting. I'm going to ask our City Counsel, Molly Stump, to explain why I'm sitting here instead of your esteemed Mayor. Molly Stump, City Attorney: Thank you, Vice Mayor Kniss. City Attorney Molly Stump. For the benefit of the Council and the public, there has been a number of questions about recusals for conflicts of interest. The Vice Mayor asked me to go over this briefly with all of you. Under California State law, the Political Reform Act, public officials need to recuse themself [sic] when a governmental decision that is before them would foreseeably have a material impact on one of their financial interests. Financial interests come in a variety of types. It can include ownership in real property, business interests, income, gifts. I'm missing one. The rules are fairly complicated. California law requires us to ask the question whether there's a disqualifying conflict with respect to a specific, identified governmental decision. We have to ask this question repeatedly. We've been before the Council on Downtown RPP a number of times. When we go through this analysis, we have come up with a variety of results out the backend. I know that's been confusing to some. The decision-maker on conflicts ultimately is a California State agency called the Fair Political Practices Commission. As an initial matter, my office assists public officials to understand whether they have a conflict or not. In a close case, we usually agree that we should consult with the FPPC; they are ultimately the enforcement and administrative agency that applies those rules. In the case of Downtown RPP, we asked the FPPC whether four Council Members had disqualifying conflicts. The FPPC said that two Council Members who own residential real property and also the City Manager in the district would have a conflict but are able to qualify TRANSCRIPT    Page 44 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  under an exception that only applies to residential real property. Those Council Members are Council Member Filseth and Council Member Holman, and City Manager Keene is in that situation as well. We also asked the FPPC whether Mayor Scharff could participate in this item. He has an ownership in real property that is a commercial property. In that case, the FPPC said that the governmental decision that's before the Council tonight foreseeably would have a material impact on the business interest he has in that property, and that he should not participate. Finally, we asked the FPPC whether Council Member Kou should participate tonight because Council Member Kou is a real estate agent associated with a brokerage that has an office in Downtown Palo Alto within the RPP district. Under the conflicts rules, a brokerage is a source of income to a Council Member real estate agent, such as Council Member Kou. In that case, the FPPC has told us that that is not a disqualifying interest for Council Member Kou. The agency focused on the size of the brokerage house. Keller Williams is a very, very large business. The agency determined there's not a material impact on a business of that size based on the decision that you'll make tonight. That's why we have the eight Council Members that are before us, and Mayor Scharff is recused. I just do want to caution the public that, if there is another opportunity or need for the Council to revisit questions and policy issues around Downtown RPP, we will ask these questions anew with respect to whatever is the governmental decision that is before you at that time. The answers may be the same or, in fact, they may be different. That's just the complexity of the conflicts rules that we work under in California. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you very much. It has been reminded that you are the Palo Alto City Counsel, not County. Again, thank you all for being here tonight. I know some of you have come other times before to speak on this item tonight. I promise we will get it done, and we will make this decision tonight. I want to indicate that we have a number of cards here, over 30 at this point. I'm going to ask that you all get your cards in by 7:45. Other than that, we're not going to take any more after that or you all will be here again 'til midnight. Some of you may recall the last time we sat here and made this decision, there were just four of us with Eric Filseth having drawn either the long or the short straw. I don't know which one. We made that decision at 12:45 in the morning. I want to commit to you we're not making any decisions at 12:45, Norm, even if that's when you prefer them be made. Let's start out tonight. We're going to list the people on the board as you have seen in the past. I'm also going to ask if three of you would come up at once, just be lined up. We can move much more quickly that way instead of waiting for you to come down. I hope you'll indulge us in doing that. Our first speaker tonight is—bear with me on pronunciations—Reza Riahi, I TRANSCRIPT    Page 45 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  believe. She's going to be speaking for five people, and she will get 5 minutes. Hillary Gitelman, Planning and Community Environment Director: Excuse me, Vice Mayor Kniss. If we could start with a Staff presentation, it might color the public testimony. Vice Mayor Kniss: I'm so sorry. I'm so aware of the poor audience that's come back several times, I was going to start there tonight, Hillary. Excuse me. We are taking up—this is a continuation of the Downtown Residential Preferential Parking program. My apologies to Staff, who have a great deal to say tonight. Please continue. It's Hillary Gitelman, and Josh will be backing her up, or are you the lead? Josh Mello, Chief Transportation Official: I'm the lead. I remember that late night well. Our presentation is rather short this evening in the interest of getting to discussion and public comments. As you know, we're here tonight to discuss continuation of the Downtown Residential Preferential Parking program. This program is part of our three-legged stool, our strategy to manage parking in the Downtown area, the first of which is parking management. This includes residential preferential parking, parking wayfinding, automated parking guidance, and several other initiatives. That's followed by our efforts in transportation demand reduction. This is reducing the number of SOV trips to the Downtown core. Those efforts consist of the Palo Alto TMA, our shuttle, our recently adopted TDM Plan Ordinance, and several other initiatives. Finally, the third leg of that stool is parking supply measures. This includes programs such as our valet assist program in three of the garages Downtown as well as the construction of new supply through the addition of the new garage at Waverley and Hamilton. The Downtown RPP program was the first that was initiated under the Citywide RPP Ordinance. That Ordinance was passed back in 2014. Immediately following the passage of that, Staff began working on the Downtown RPP program. In August of 2015, permit sales went live for the Downtown RPP program. The program officially rolled out in September of 2015. That program did not include employee parking zones. It also did not include a cap on employee permits. The first phase of the pilot was mainly an information-gathering exercise to see how an RPP program would operate and what the demand was out there for employee permits. In April of 2016, we rolled out Phase 2 of the Downtown RPP program. Some of the changes in Phase 2 included an update to the Downtown RPP boundary. During our experimentation with Phase 1, we determined that the area needed to be expanded. There was some spillover from the initial area. We also wanted to anticipate future spillover, so we created what are called eligibility areas. We also established a limit of 2,000 annual employee permits. This was TRANSCRIPT    Page 46 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  based on the fact that we only sold about 1,500 permits for employees during Phase 1 of the program. We also made a recommendation to reduce employee permits annually, which Council supported. We suggested the 10 percent number as a potential reduction factor, and that was based on the efforts of the TMA in reducing SOV vehicle trips as well as the addition of new supply through the development of Lot D at Hamilton and Waverley. We created what are called employee parking zones. One of the things we identified during RPP Phase 1 was that employees were clustering closer to the Downtown core, and we had no way to better distribute them under Phase 1. By creating these kind of thin employee parking zones that encircle the Downtown core and assigning only a limited number of employee parking permits to each of those zones, we are able to better push those employees more evenly through the larger RPP district. We also created a limit on daily employee permits, and we recommended prioritizing employee permits giving a set-aside for low-income employees. We were able to do that through Phase 2, so we actually set aside about half the employee permits for low-income employees. We subsequently had to move some of the full-price permits over to the low-income allocation there was such a demand for low-income permits throughout Phase 2. This is the updated map of the current Downtown RPP under the Phase 2 program. The green block faces are blocks within the Downtown RPP program. The light blue block faces are eligibility areas. Those are not currently within the Downtown RPP program, but residents of those blocks can administratively opt-in to the program. They don't have to come to Council; that can be done by the Director of Planning and Community Environment. They submit a petition, we do a mail survey, and then they are automatically entered into the RPP program. The dark black dashed lines are the boundaries of the employee parking zones; there are ten of them. They are designed in order to balance the employee parking throughout the district. They're rather thin the closer you get to the core, and then they widen the further you get from the Downtown core. Zones 9 and 10 and a portion of 8 are not currently within the Downtown RPP program. They are eligibility areas, so they could opt-in in the future. We are holding an amount of permits in reserve in those areas for when those blocks do opt into the program. I actually have updated numbers that I got today from our online permit sales contractor. As of December 22nd of 2016, we had sold 4,854 resident annual permits, 825 resident 1-day permits, 1,335 employee annual permits, and 163 employee 1-day and only one employee 5-day. The update I have for you tonight is employee annual permits. We have sold an additional 25 permits since December 22nd for a total of 1,360. On top of that, there's an allocation of 40 permits to Addison Elementary School that's not included in this total. Those were a special permit you created during Phase 2 that was a reduced price hangtag. Those are only available to Addison Elementary School employees. There's 40 of those for a grand total as of today of 1,400 TRANSCRIPT    Page 47 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  employee annual permits. That's the total that we've sold to-date under Phase 2. On the bottom of this slide, one important data point that often gets lost in the conversation is that not all employee permit holders show up at a given point in time. Just because there have been 1,335 employee annual permits sold does not mean that all 1,335 employees show up every single day throughout the day. During our last observation on December 1st of 2016, we only documented 436 employee parking permits in the entire Downtown RPP district. We think that's because only about 30-40 percent generally show up at a given point in time. We also heard earlier this evening about the high rate of employee turnover at some particular business types. We think that people may be buying annual permits and then leaving their place of employment, and that permit sits unused for the remainder of the time during that annual permit. Generally, we think the program is working fairly well. If you look at the occupancy maps, you'll see there's very few blocks in the Downtown RPP district under Phase 2 that have significant burdens of nonresident parking. We generally think the demand for permits for employees has been met. There's still a handful of permits that are sitting unpurchased in Zones 9 and 10 even as of today. We think that the current number is adequate to handle the existing employee permit parking demand. However, there are several recommendations that we're making this evening, and those are included in the Resolution that's before you. The first is to eliminate the 5-day employee parking permit. We only sold one throughout Phase 2, so we think it makes sense. The extra administrative burden of carrying that extra permit type is really not worth it given the fact that we only sold one during Phase 2. We also documented a very low employee parking permit show rate. I mentioned only 436 employee parking permits were on-street at one point in time. We think creating a 6-month employee permit in lieu of the annual employee permit might help some of those permits re-enter circulation quicker when employees depart their places of employment. We would recommend selling 6-month employee permits instead of the annual employee permits. There's also still some overcrowding occurring on the blocks closest to the Downtown core and SOFA as well. We're recommending a two-pronged approach to this. The first is to extend enforcement until 6:00 p.m. This is consistent with what you just adopted for the Evergreen Park/Mayfield RPP. Moving forward, we think 6:00 p.m. makes more sense for some of these areas, particularly if there's a large night life and restaurant business in those areas. The second is that we're recommending reducing the number of employee permits by 10 percent per year at a higher rate in the inner zones. When we last came to you, you gave us direction to first look at reducing the number of permits in the outer zones, Zones 9 and 10 as shown in the map. As we've collected data throughout Phase 2, we've noticed that there's still a fairly significant impact to the inner neighborhoods directly around the core from nonresident motor TRANSCRIPT    Page 48 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  vehicle parking. In order to deal with that, we're recommending reducing anywhere from 5-20 percent by zone. The 20-percent reductions would occur in the areas closest to the Downtown core where there's a lot more 2- hour parking. We can't forget that on top of the resident permit parking and the employee permit parking, there's also 2-hour parking that's permitted throughout the day. That's a really hard number to get a handle on. We think that we can control the number of employee permits, so we think we need to focus our efforts on the reduction in the immediate core. This is a table that shows our recommended rate of reduction by zone. That's the far right column. Let me walk you through these columns here, because it's a fairly complicated calculation. On the left is the total issued, so this is the total number of permits that have been issued as of December 22nd. That bottom number, 1,335, as of today should be updated to 1,400 not 1,335. Currently, we're able to sell 1,515 permits. That's because in Zones 9 and 10 we've only released 25 permits in Zone 9 and 105 permits in Zone 10. Ultimately, when all of the eligibility areas opt into the program, we would be able to sell 2,000 permits. There's a large number of permits—I think it's 450—that are held in reserve in Zones 9 and 10 today. After all of that, given the recommended rate of reduction, we would have a total of 1,346 permits available as of April 1st when the program renewed. The existing 25 permits in Zone 9 and 105 permits in Zone 10 would bring us down to the 1,346 number. Some other recommendations that we have this evening is to establish a program goal of 85 percent occupancy. We currently don't have any kind of desired goal for the level of occupancy that we expect in these RPP programs. This would be a block-by-block analysis, and we would use this 85 percent number, which is generally what's used in parking practice. That's how we would moving forward balance the needs of the residents and the nonresident parkers and move forward with any permit reduction factors over and above the 10 percent that's recommended this evening. We also looked at whether we could require TMA membership; that was one of the other directions that we received from you when we last visited you on Downtown RPP. We think that we should really wait until the TMA is more firmly established. A big influx of membership and funding may not be in their best interest right now. They're still in the ramp-up stage and the planning stage. They're just about to expand their membership, so we wouldn't want to artificially add members that weren't fully vested in the TMA. Before you this evening is a formal recommendation to adopt a Resolution amending Resolutions 9473 and 9577 to make permanent the Downtown Residential Preferential Parking Program—it's included as Attachment A in your Staff Report—and direct Staff to make corresponding changes to the Residential Preferential Parking Administrative Guidelines and find the program exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act. We have one additional Staff recommendation for you to consider this evening, which is to direct us to return to City Council in 2 TRANSCRIPT    Page 49 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  years to reassess the employee parking permit reduction rate based on the results of the Palo Alto TMA programs and other parking management programs and then consider exempting dental and medical service offices from the employee parking permit cap. With that, that concludes our presentation for this evening. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thanks, Josh. I know that there will be lots of questions from those of us sitting up here. I'm going to suggest we start instead with the audience tonight. Council Member DuBois: I was going to ask—I had my light on. Could we do a quick round of technical questions or you want to go to the public? Vice Mayor Kniss: Depends on how late you guys want to go. If you want a quick round of technical, I'm going to stop them at 8:05. Council Member DuBois: No comments, just questions. Vice Mayor Kniss: Go ahead. Council Member DuBois: I should have asked you this question before. Do any other cities in California sell permits to office workers in residential neighborhoods? Mr. Mello: A very limited number do. I know the San Francisco program offers them to only the business owners. I think they're allowed to have delivery vehicles as well, but it's mainly targeted towards small, mom-and- pop shops. I don't know, Hillary, if you have any more—I think we're the outlier in offering such a large number of employee permits. Council Member DuBois: The current situation in Zones 9 and 10, we don't have "no parking" signs up throughout the neighborhood; it's just a few streets? Is that (crosstalk)? Mr. Mello: Only the streets that are shown in green on the maps are included. I can pull that up again. On the map on the screen, the streets shown in green are currently in the program, and they have regulatory signs with 2-hour parking and permits exempt. The streets shown in blue are eligibility areas, so they are currently not regulated, but they can administratively opt into the program. Council Member DuBois: We made a Motion that Zones 9 and 10 be frozen in terms of employee sales. I don't see that in the current Ordinance. Mr. Mello: Based on the data that we collected and the recurring clustering that's happening in the blocks closest to the Downtown core, our TRANSCRIPT    Page 50 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  recommendation this evening is to instead reduce the number of permits in the inner zones at a higher rate. That does differ from the direction we received from Council at the last visit. Council Member DuBois: There were letters suggesting that—some letters were suggesting that 1,300 spaces is like 2 percent of Downtown parking. I saw another letter suggesting it was 54 percent. Do we know what the total number of parking spaces is Downtown? There's a huge difference in facts there. Mr. Mello: We do. I can look that up during public comment and get back to you on that. Council Member DuBois: It'd be useful for the public to understand what percentage of parking we're talking about. Mr. Mello: I will reiterate the fact that our experience has shown only 30-40 percent of employee permit holders show up at any point in time. Despite the 1,300 permits being issued, not all of them are going to show up and occupy curb space. Council Member DuBois: Last question. This idea of coming back in 2 years, would an automatic reduction happen in between? Mr. Mello: The Resolution that's before you this evening includes a 10- percent-per-year automatic reduction. Council Member DuBois: Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: I have now Adrian, Eric, and Karen. You've got 10 minutes; divvy it up. Council Member Fine: Thank you. I'll be quick. Do we know how many households have bought one permit, two permits, three permits, four permits? Mr. Mello: That would be a fairly detailed exercise in database downloading. Our permit system is managed by a separate consultant, a contractor. We don't have seamless access to the permit system. They would need to attach each permit to an address and then filter it by address. Council Member Fine: We should do that. Second and last question. Do we as a City have a plan to continue funding the RPP as commercial permits are decreased and we lose that revenue? TRANSCRIPT    Page 51 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Ms. Gitelman: Currently we are actually putting General Fund funds into support establishment and operating these programs. We've been talking about Fiscal Year '18 as really the year we have to get a handle on this and develop a long-term strategy for all of the parking funds. We'll have more discussion of that in the coming months. Council Member Fine: I would just say your opening slide about the three legs of the stool informs that in terms of parking management may be able to fund RPP in the future. Council Member Filseth: Thanks very much. I just want to make sure I understand. If you look at Zone 9, we sold one permit. That means that we're prepared to sell another 25 just on the existing streets. If more streets opted in, then we would increase that number from 25. Do I understand that right? You said we released 25. What does that mean? Mr. Mello: As of today, we've released 25 permits in employee parking Zone 9. Ultimately, if every street within that zone opted into the program, we would then release 245 permits. Council Member Filseth: If I understand what your recommendation is, we sold 1,335 last year or actually 14 after adjustments. You're recommending that this coming year we sell a smaller amount than that plus the open space already in Zones 9 and 10, because those numbers are about equal. Is that right? Mr. Mello: We would recommend currently as shown selling 1,346 total permits for the next year of RPP. Council Member Filseth: Which is essentially what we sold last year. Mr. Mello: As of today, we've sold 1,400 employee parking permits. Council Member Filseth: Thanks. Vice Mayor Kniss: Karen, last one. Council Member Holman: I'll be quick here. Why wait 2 years for the medical/dental rather than including them in the prioritization along with low-income employees? Mr. Mello: Medical and dental offices are currently eligible to purchase RPP permits. The level of reduction, while it will remove a certain number of permits from circulation this coming year, it's going to get more and more difficult for existing businesses to purchase permits as that 10 percent starts to escalate. We think within 2 years the dental and medical offices may TRANSCRIPT    Page 52 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  need some other alternative because they may start being locked out of the permit purchases because of the reduction. Council Member Holman: The other question is really not an aside. It really is to this point of reductions and such. Can we require that new construction not be eligible for RPP permits? The reason for that is so that a new project either parks it or TDMs it so that we don't have this conflict going on. Ms. Stump: They're looking at me because this is a fairly complex question under State law. We've had a number of different iterations of questions about customization with respect to RPP eligibility. We should look carefully at each of them. We can explore that. There may be some ways that we can address that. The item isn't before you tonight. Of course, it would be with respect to any future project that comes before you. We'll take a look at that and give you some more information. Council Member Holman: That's indication that Staff will return to us with a follow-up to that question. Ms. Stump: We can do that, yes. Council Member Holman: Thank you very much. Vice Mayor Kniss: Done speedily and well. We have—how many cards? Council Member Wolbach: Thirty-four plus the (inaudible). Vice Mayor Kniss: We have 34 plus two groups that are going to speak. We're going to start with this now. Please if you have a card, get it in, in the next 5 minutes. After that, we're going to call that a day because we're probably going to take an hour and a half of public comment at this point. I'm going to call the first—there are two speakers that are going to be coming up. The first is Reza Riahi, and the second is Neilson Buchanan, both of you speaking for groups. Both of you will have 5 minutes. Then, we will go on with the rest of the speakers. As you see your name here, if you'd please come up three at a time waiting to speak, that would be very helpful for us. We don't want to keep you here all night. I think that will help streamline our process. After the first two groups, there will be 2 minutes per person. Reza Riahi, would you like to begin? Pull the mike so that it's right next to your mouth. Reza Riahi, speaking for Babak Moostan, Larry Wong, Linny Wong, and Pamela Wong: Thank you, Council Members. How fitting it is that today's National Dentist Day, and I am a dentist along with a few of my Colleagues here. Thank you. I have a quick presentation. You've seen these before, TRANSCRIPT    Page 53 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  but I thought it's worthwhile looking at these pictures. This is where we started in 2015 with all the red blocks around the Downtown area. This is a study that was done December 1st of 2016 at 12:00 to 2:00, which tends to be the busiest time of the year. You can see the effects of RPP already. There are still some areas of congestion. This is the employee total for the same time. These are the employees that have the RPP. You can see it is working. I congratulate the residents for doing that. I went around just in my area; I'm in Zone 6. I took some pictures, and I don't have time during the day so this is random, when I'm going to lunch or coming to work. This is Zone 6 on February 8th at 11:00 in the morning. This is east and west of it. This is Middlefield and Forest at 2:30 p.m. You can see plenty of parking at this point. 15th, 11:00 a.m., there is congestion; you can see it to your right. That's because on the east side of the street there's complete blockage because of construction. I was still able to find parking on Channing. This is again Channing going down at 11:30 March 1st. This is at 1:15, same day in our parking lot. You can see the patients are taking up all the spaces that are available in our parking lots. Phase 1 of RPP was introduced about a year and a half ago. Phase 2 was supposed to be implemented based on the data from Phase 1; however, it kind of seemed like it rolled on through. Studying the development has been interesting. I've been trying to learn as much about it as I can. We were unfortunately not included to participate at all in the implementation. We were late to the game as healthcare providers. We do sympathize with the residents, and we think the years of unchecked development has brought the congestion that has deteriorated the quality of life. This has affected residents and some of the business community as well. We do urge the Council to be cognizant of any future developments without self-parking. That being said, I think it's agreeable that RPP has done quite a bit so far. There are still areas of congestion, but I think that requires a scalpel rather than a hatchet to go at it. No pun intended. Now that the brunt of the congestion has been addressed, we urge the Council to ask their Staff to come up with solutions to address these smaller pockets of congestion, to initiate the permanent phase-out without any alternative, reliable transportation is devastating to the dental community. We urge the Council not to implement any automatic phase-out until functional, reliable, alternative transportation means are in place. The dental community is just beginning to learn about the TMA. Although, it's in its early stages and it may not directly affect our employees, we believe that it is a viable effort in reducing congestion. We kindly ask the City Council to consider further funding the TMA to make it functional for many of the businesses in the area. We may actually hopefully get somebody from our community to be on the Board providing advice. The potential reduction in number of allocated parking permits—let me go through here. I want to leave that up there. That's data that we had from last year. That's the dental community in Palo Alto that are affected. Those TRANSCRIPT    Page 54 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  are the number of patients that we provide care to. The potential reduction in the number of allocated permits has created real havoc in our dental community. I've stood in front of you and told you that this is affecting us. So far we know there is one practice that's moving away already after many, many years. There's another one that hasn't signed a lease yet. They're waiting to hear what the Council does tonight. On top of it, we've been having a hard time filling positions that are open. If you look at most of the offices in Palo Alto, we have open positions that we can't bring in people because of the long distances and commutes. The dental community has been providing care for decades, since most of the buildings have been built 60 years ago, and they've passed on from one dentist to another with very little growth. That's the 2016 survey; the numbers are up there for you to review. 75-90 percent of our patients are Palo Alto residents. Our employees, we have about 292 employees, 95 percent are female. I can't get through this. We have 41 dentists. What we're asking the City Council is—I'll just read this last We urge the Council to introduce an Amendment to designate a secured number of parking permits for the dental practices as it has done for the other community-serving entities such as Addison school and Channing House. We further request the same consideration be extended to Evergreen Park and any other future RPP area in order to preserve the local access to dental care. Thank you so much. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you for coming. I know they appreciate your applause, but you've probably heard us say many times if you skip the applause, it's easier. Then, no one feels offended or in some other way. Nelson Buchanan, you're speaking for ten people tonight for 5 minutes. Neilson Buchanan, speaking for DM Griffin, Jeff Levinsky, Fred Balin, Paul Machado, W.T. Davids, Terry Holzmer, David Kwoh, Linda Anderson, and Leslie Goldman: That saves my face, because I don't think I would have gotten any applause. Thank you. I've got seven points to try to drive home. I'm sure they'll be reinforced and unreinforced. The role of a neighborhood in Palo Alto is not to become a commercial parking lot. Unfortunately, because of failed City Council stewardship over the years, parking expansion into the neighborhoods has gotten out of hand. We're just now really beginning to deal with the shortage by setting limits. When you set limits, as I've said before, when the pie gets smaller, the table manners change. That's going to be the nature of what's going to be happening for the next year or so. We have achieved a breakthrough with the data this time, at long last. I urge the Council to start thinking about setting a limit for the neighborhoods around University Avenue. Start thinking in terms of what's the fair load, what's the historic load of the special case of our neighborhoods to be a 400-parking-space garage, a 500- parking-space garage, a 600-space parking garage. Think in terms of a TRANSCRIPT    Page 55 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  building just like your other garages Downtown. You manage the spaces in those garages on a fixed, physical basis. The fault comes by the fact that there's thousands of parking places out there. You can go to Zone 9 and 10 and 11 and 12. You could stop at the Bay or go on to Milpitas. That's just foolishness. I would urge you tonight to start dealing with the fact. Set a limit, and then we'll talk about the garages. We'll get to my final point which is going to be prioritization. Expanding large distances from University Avenue is a mistake. The Vehicle Code brings up adjacency. I'll let you and Molly worry about that. There are two documents in the City archives that are being ignored. One is as recent as last June. A report comes to you regularly that says here is the parking deficit. I don't agree with the calculations, but I'll accept 777. Triple 7s, that's got to be good or bad luck for somebody. You're not acknowledge the deficit. You've already talked about tonight what about buildings that come along and add to that deficit. I was at the SAP workshare site this morning. If everybody came to work in a job share situation, we'd have a whole other parking pattern. That's not been addressed. My other point is that the parking assessment district is the elephant in the room. I urge you all to come up with a plan to have a Study Session so we can understand the entitlements that have been put into the Ordinances for the Parking Assessment District. You will never solve the parking problem in University Avenue without understanding Parking Assessment District. I'm not advocating to change it. I'm just asking you to formally understand it in a Study Session. College Terrace is an ideal parking permit program. I hear rumors about wanting to change that. I would absolutely oppose that. Nor do I advocate College Terrace for a University Avenue parking program. We have a historic commitment to Downtown parking. Finally, the reduction threat is both positive and negative for University Avenue. I don't have time now, since I thought I was going to have 10 minutes or more. That threat is both positive and negative. That needs to be discussed very carefully. You won't have funding for TMA. You won't have a whole lot of mitigations if you don't keep the threat there. The fact that the dentists suddenly have gotten wind of what's going on—I don't blame them at all. I've spent an inordinate amount of time, enjoyable time, with the dentists. We're beginning to bridge a lot of gaps. The threat is not healthy in the long run. This next year, 1,400 permits, 1,500 permits, that would all be very tolerable. I'd ask you to reexamine everything on August 28th; that's your first real Monday after the break. This is not a permanent, stable situation that has been created. Making it a 2-year endeavor actually frightens me given the turnover in Staff, the turnover in opinions. This has been a healthy start. The 436 was a big aha as the show rate has proven something. As I've said before, we're moving along. Stay the course. Let's look at it in August because we'll actually know the demand, and we'll know the show rates. Thank you. TRANSCRIPT    Page 56 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you. After Paul comes Laura Beaton and Norm Beamer. Get close. Paul Krupka: Good evening, Vice Mayor Kniss and members of the City Council. My name is Paul Krupka. I'm the sole proprietor of Krupka Consulting. I'm an independent transportation consultant with over 35 years of deep and broad experience. Mr. Benjamin Cintz, a Palo Alto resident and business owner, engaged me to conduct a review and prepare a professional opinion about the proposed changes to the Palo Alto RPP Program that would over time eliminate parking permits. I'm here to provide a summary of the highlights of a letter that I issued and sent to Josh Mello dated March 3rd. City Staff, in their evaluation of what kind of parking reduction would be required, used a reduction factor of 5 percent per year from 2015 to 2030 that would allow the parking demand to be reduced below supply. The rate and then the absolute value of the end result at year 2030 are unrealistic for a few reasons. The resulting 2030 drive-alone rate would be 26 percent. It's now about 57 percent. This low rate is imply unheard of in central business districts on the Peninsula and in Silicon Valley. There really isn't any evidence of a reduction or a downward trend in your parking demand in the Downtown area. Finally, the TMA which we heard about tonight and its business plan are in very early stages and conditioned on resources and funding. To wrap up, the consequence of eliminating employee permits without commensurate reduction in Downtown parking demand will be continued employee parking in the RPP Program area. If I may just say one final point. Any reduction in employee parking permits must be carefully correlated with actual data that documents total parking demand over time. Thank you very much. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you. Next is Laura Beaton. Laura Beaton: Good evening. My name is Laura Beaton, and I represent the Crescent Park Neighborhood Association and Neilson Buchanan. I'm here to provide the Council with a very quick explanation of why the Vehicle Code does not allow the City to issue permits for Downtown employees to park in neighborhoods very far from Downtown like Crescent Park, which should be able to opt-in to a resident-only RPP. As you know, the Vehicle Code lets cities establish parking restrictions, and then a city can issue permits to those who live and work adjacent—that's the important word— adjacent to those streets to park in those areas. Here, what the City is proposing is to permit Downtown workers to park in places that are by no stretch of the imagination adjacent to Downtown. I'm talking about Zones 9 and 10 here. Under the proposal, what we're looking at is a system where someone who works near the Caltrain station in Downtown could park up to 1 1/2 miles away in Crescent Park during the workday. This is not what the TRANSCRIPT    Page 57 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Vehicle Code intended. I've reviewed RPPs throughout the State. Cities generally adhere to the Vehicle Code's adjacency requirement by requiring permitted parkers to park quite close to their home or business, sometimes within 500 feet or a couple of blocks or at least within a designated zone that includes the address of the person who has the permit. This is what courts have approved in certain cases because they have said that adjacency means allowing someone a permit to park within the impacted area. Someone who's in the impacted area can park in the impacted area. Zones 9 and 10 are not in the impacted area. They didn't have a parking problem before the RPP was created, and now the City is looking to export parking to those neighborhoods. That's the opposite of what an RPP is supposed to do. You had it right in September when you asked Staff to freeze employee permits in Zones 9 and 10, and that's what we would ask you to do here. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you for coming. Norm Beamer and then Malcolm Beasley, John Guislin, and Michael Hodos. Norm Beamer: Thank you. At your meeting on September 6th you unanimously passed a Motion which called for implementing a freeze on the sale of employee permits in Zones 9 and 10 and reducing the total number of permits by the number of unused permits—I'm talking about employee permits, of course—in those two zones. If you did that, that would bring the number down by a factor of 615, which would bring it down to approximately what the recommended new maximum amount is. It drives quite nicely. There's only 36 permits currently sold in Zones 9 and 10, and it should be frozen at that number rather than being increased to 584, which is the new proposal. The Motion called for allowing additional blocks to opt- in in Zones 9 and 10 on a resident-only basis. That's completely ignored in this current proposal Furthermore, back in February of last year when you passed the Resolution for Phase 2, you called for the reduction in permits, the annual reduction, to be occurring in the outermost zones first. Now, they're reversing course and saying it should be in the innermost zones. Basically what they're saying is push the problem out into Zones 9 and 10, into Crescent Park and other neighborhoods that didn't have the problem and have them share the pain. As the previous speaker pointed out, not only is that contrary to the requirement of adjacency but it just doesn't seem to me to be fair. It also is counter to the whole notion of trying to encourage people to use alternative ways of getting here. If you just keep expanding the area and making more and more spaces available, it's not going to be an incentive. Thanks. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you. Next is Malcolm Beasley. TRANSCRIPT    Page 58 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Malcolm Beasley: Thank you, Council. I've been here before; I think you know more or less who I am, but let me remind you that I’m a 43-year resident of Downtown North. My comments tonight are a little different perhaps. My theme is I've watched this for 43 years. I've been through these cycles. We cannot continue to do this over and over again. Let me expand that remark. I have some questions that I'd like each of you to address this evening in your comments, in your thoughts. The first one is fiduciary responsibility. As the fiduciary body for our City, how does your position on RPP speak to the principle articulated in the Comprehensive Plan that commercial enterprise is encouraged but not at the expense of the City's residential neighborhoods? You all know that. If fiduciary responsibility by the Council, not you guys but in general, had been honored, we would not have this problem, and we would not have this problem over and over again. I'd like to hear what you think. Quality of life standards. What is your view of the maximum reasonable size for the Downtown RPP district? What is the maximum acceptable intrusion of nonresident parking into the neighborhoods adjacent to commercial districts? Without standards, it will creep, and you will never know when you're getting into trouble. It's a part of the fiduciary responsibility. I think you have to face up to the fact that you can't just solve one problem at the expense of another. Data should inform our decisions. We all say that, but doing it in this case has not been easy. For me at least, the rationale for 1,800 nonresident permits—where is the data that justifies that? Vice Mayor Kniss: Thanks, Mr. Beasley. Mr. Beasley: Why is there not—just one last sentence. As another speaker said, we do not have good models of what the growth and the demand is going to be. We're just going to be in this problem over and again. I just think it's an issue of fairness. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you. John. John, we're all agreeing we don't know quite how to say your last name. Maybe you could say it for us one time. John Guislin: Guislin. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you. Mr. Guislin: Hi, John Guislin. I live in Crescent Park. I've worked on RPP for more than 3 years and was on the original stakeholder group. I thought I knew something about the history of RPP in Palo Alto until I read Dave Price's editorial in the Daily Post of February 27th. I had no idea this issue goes back to 1968. If you haven't read it yet, it has all the ugly details in summary. It's a good read to understand the history of why we haven't been successful for so long. I do think we're making progress. I want to TRANSCRIPT    Page 59 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  thank the Staff, particularly Josh Mello. He answered the questions about data very diplomatically tonight. I think we still do not have access to good current data. I've put in a request to public information to get (inaudible) the number of dental permits that might have been issued. The third party that provides our data was not able to deliver that. I think we should find a way to get a hold of this data and perhaps manage it ourselves. Secondly, I think the Council needs to consider what Norm Beamer said about Zones 9 and 10. There are only 36 permits sold in those zones. You should just close it down now when you have the opportunity. It's a simple decision. It's a simple process. It will have minimal impact on any other zones. Close those down and make them resident-only parking, if that's what's needed to protect neighborhoods. Lastly, the Parking Assessment District. I've asked former and current Council Members to explain that to me. No one has been able to do so. We've got to take this out of the shadows, get a Study Session on the Parking Assessment District as soon as possible. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you very much. Michael Hodos, then Joe Baldwin, Abigail Wittmayer, Greg Tseng. Michael Hodos: As most of you know, I've lived in Professorville for nearly 40 years. I was among the first small group of residents that began meeting more than 7 years ago to discuss ways of addressing the growing problem of nonresident parking that was overwhelming our neighborhood. Since then, the representatives of Downtown South and Downtown North have worked diligently with our business counterparts and the Planning Department to help bring the current RPP Program to where it is today. In general, I would say that while the neighborhood as a whole has supported RPP and has experienced positive impact on many of our streets, there is one glaring omission from the report that continues to adversely affect a significant portion of Downtown South, the severe clustering of nonresident parking in the portion of Downtown South bounded by Forest Avenue, Embarcadero Road, High Street, and Bryant Street, which are Zones 6-8. In fact, our surveys have found that of the 17 street block faces in that area, 13 of them are routinely fully parked on a daily basis during working hours. No other parking available from 10:00 on. Unfortunately, while Staff has verbally acknowledged this situation, the report makes no mention whatsoever of the clustering problems in the affected street faces much less a commitment to address the problem. In other words, the very area from which the impetus for RPP sprang has continued to be over-parked for the first 18 months of RPP. On behalf of those in the affected area, I'm asking that you specifically direct Staff to address this issue. The difficulty is that the zones run parallel to University Avenue. The clustering occurs at the western side of each of Zones 6-8. Out beyond Bryant Street, there's plenty of parking, but naturally people who work Downtown want to park close to where they TRANSCRIPT    Page 60 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  work. The Staff has to come up with a way to solve that problem hopefully by August of this year. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thanks very much. Joe Baldwin. Joe Baldwin: Downtown RPP district is a numbers game. Here are some numbers, facts, one question, and two requests. Numbers. Over 4,000 parking spaces, over 500 block fronts, 1,400 employee permits sold, Staff recommendations cap 1,800, goal 0. Fact. When Staff unveiled the zero goal, all 11 stakeholders, residents and businesses gasped and/or laughed. Each knew it was unrealistic. None of them proposed it. All knew then and know now there's an acceptable compromise between 0 and 1,800. Question. Do any of you truly foresee a day when not one single employee may park anywhere between the creek, Alma, Embarcadero, and Guinda? Request Number 1. Please direct Staff to recommend a compromise goal. Half of the proven demand is 700. Half of the proposed cap is 900. Zero is Don Quixote's impossible dream. Employee spaces must be distributed evenly, one or two spots on each block front depending on its length. I've lived in RPP 44 years now at Channing House. I co-employ 140 employees. As a resident and employer, I respectfully urge you to, Request Number 2, direct Staff to prioritize employee permits this way. First, nonprofit, public benefit institutions like Addison school and Channing House. Second, long- serving neighborhood businesses not eligible for Downtown garages. Third, low-wage employees. We buy permits for some employees. A zero goal will make it impossible for us to do that. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you for coming. Abigail followed by Greg and then Susan Tseng. Abigail Wittmayer: Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity. My name's Abigail Wittmayer, and I am the store team leader for the Whole Foods Market on Homer and Emerson. I'm going to cut and paste what I have here for speed. We need 250 team members to run our business at Whole Foods. We have 198 now. That means I need to hire 52 team members. Hiring obviously is my biggest issue at Whole Foods Market. It used to be my only obstacle, the cost of living, but now the Ordinance joined in. We ring up 4,000 transactions a day; more than 6,000 people walk through our doors. I have 80 designated parking spots in the lot across the street, which I share with businesses in the area. Obviously, I can't have our team members park in there. On any given day, I have 100 team members that take up parking spots in the area, be that 2-hour or permit. A lot of my team members are not interested in public transit, but it was very nice to hear the TMA speaker earlier. If you take away 10 percent of our parking each year, each year it'll be harder for me to serve this community. TRANSCRIPT    Page 61 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Last year, I had many frustrated team members that were extremely disappointed and shocked at how quickly the zones closest to the store sold out. I think we all know that they were forced to park many blocks away. It's not always the safest walk to their cars at 11:00 p.m. at night. Myself along with 200 of our team members want nothing more than to be good neighbors and have supported our RP program since it first started. However, if they can't get the zone that they prefer, my fear is that they will clog up 2-hour parking instead of walking the poorly lit streets back to their cars. If they take up that 2-hour parking, it'll not only not go to my customers but it'll not go to all the customers of the surrounding businesses. When we first came to Palo Alto 28 years ago, Whole Foods Market, we were the fifth store to open up outside of Austin, Texas. We chose this community to serve, more specifically Professorville. We want nothing more than to find a common ground. Currently, this is not working for us. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you for coming. Greg Tseng. Greg Tseng: Hello. My name is Greg Tseng. I'm a dentist, and my practice is on the 200 block of High Street. We live in Palo Alto. I met my wife at Jordan Junior High School in the '60s. We own our house in Palo Alto and our practice in Downtown since the '80s. As a longtime Palo Alto resident, I understand and want to support our friends and patients that are in the community here. I was also sort of wondering why as a property owner I'm not at least allowed the same parking rights as the other property owners Downtown. We understand how the residents feel about that. We were affected by the same parking issues, that a lot of the train people and Stanford people were parking in our neighborhood, and we couldn't find parking. It seems like the Parking Permit program has taken care of those issues. I think it should be kept the way it is right now. I don't see why we need to ramp down the amount of parking at least where I am. I heard the other issues there, and maybe those do need to be addressed. If nothing else, I would actually like to be offered what the residents are offered. Our property is larger than a lot of the residences in the area there. I wouldn't want more parking than what the residents are offered. I think that would be enough. I'm not sure why it needs to be ramped down to zero. There's commercial next to us. There's all commercial across the street. There's commercial next to me. There's the fire station, more commercial. The only residential is the property behind me. That actually has been a longtime rental, which is kind of a commercial property for them. They're allowed to have commercial parking permits. It doesn't seem fair that I’m not able to get them. I think I'd like to have the permits available and not ramp down to zero. It'd be nice to be able to park in my zone. Thank you. TRANSCRIPT    Page 62 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Vice Mayor Kniss: Thanks for coming. I won't try the last name. I didn't do very well before. Greetings. Susan Tseng: Hi. I'm Susan Tseng, Greg's wife. Vice Mayor Kniss and Council Members, thanks for the opportunity to speak. I'd like to reiterate what Greg had to say. I obviously agree with everything he said. I also wanted to add that I've lived in Palo Alto my entire life. Greg and I met in sixth grade. This is our City; this is our home. We're very privileged to feel that we can own a home and own a business in the same town. We feel very fortunate to do that. We feel privileged to serve the patients that we do, who are members of this community. One way we do that is by having this wonderful staff that comes to work every day. If we can't offer them a place to park, I'm not sure what we would do. None of our staff lives in Palo Alto, as you probably surmised. Many of the dentists have this very same issue. It's too expensive to live here. Normally, the jobs that we can offer in a dental office are not the highest paid positions for living in an area like this. We would just ask that you consider to keep letting us buy these permits. Keep letting us have our wonderful staff come to our offices so we can serve our patients in the future. Thank you very much. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you. The next three will be George Calvert, Denise Delange, and Simon Cintz. Again, if you get relatively close to the mike, it moves much more quickly. Thank you. Mr. Calvert. George Calvert: Hi. I'd like to speak on behalf of my dentist. I came from rural upstate New York, where a lot of people lose their teeth early in life. My last experience of going to the dentist there was having eight abscessed teeth pulled at the same time. Years later, I came to Palo Alto, terrified of going to the dentist. I went to Dr. Wong, and I wanted him to pull teeth, but he fixed them. I just want to speak on his behalf and all the other dentists. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Good. Thank you for coming. Denise Delange. Denise Delange: Hi. My name's Denise Delange. My husband has been going to the dentist in Palo Alto for over 30 years. He's had the same dentist the whole time. Without parking available for the dentists in their parking lot for their patients, they won't have patients. Please support your medical professionals. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Simon Cintz. Simon Cintz: I wanted to call your attention to some very important data that's in the Staff Report. It's a long Staff Report; you may not have looked at it carefully. What you see on the screen there is from Page number 60. I TRANSCRIPT    Page 63 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  have marked it up; I've not changed any of the data. I've grayed out the commercial Downtown district. What you see is the account of RPP employee permit holders, parkers in the RPP residential neighborhood. The legend is a little different. That very, very light color is 0-25 percent impact. The dark navy blue color is over 50 percent. Take a look at that map, and you will see the impact of employees that have RPP permits on the neighborhood. Matter of fact, there's only 18 block faces—not blocks but block faces—that have greater than 50 percent impact. The next slide. These are people that do not have permits. These are the 2-hour parkers. There are 47 blocks faces that have greater than 50 percent impact. This is a comparison. The 2-hour parkers have 2.6 times the impact compared to RPP employee parkers. That's the real problem, the 2-hour parkers. You folks are barking up the wrong tree. By reducing the number of employee RPP permits, you're not going to change the impact on residential streets. Matter of fact, as Abby from Whole Foods was saying, you will probably create more 2-hour parkers, and that's your problem, the 2-hour parkers. If anyone wants to ask me, I have a solution to that problem, but my time's up. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you. Our next speaker is Suzanne. Is it Quo? Thank you. Then, James Stephens, Chris Lee, and Georgie Gleim. Suzanne Quo: Good evening. My name is Suzanne Quo. My husband is Brian Quo; he couldn't be here this evening because he had emergency back surgery last night. I'm reading this for him. Vice Mayor Kniss: You might pull the mike down just a bit. Ms. Quo: Thank you. I'm a Palo Alto resident as well as a pediatric dentist. My dental practice is (inaudible) Pediatric Dentistry on Emerson Street in Downtown area. I've been practicing here for 12 years. I'm also a resident of Palo Alto. The majority of my young patients are Palo Alto families. As part of my practice, I only treat children from simple checkups to more complex procedures to emergencies and accidents. My office is 5 minutes ride from a number of public schools, most notably Addison Elementary School, and a 5-minute walk from a number of private schools and nursery schools. My office is an ideal location to serve my Palo Alto residents who park in a parking lot. It would be inconceivable to have a mom of three children under the age of 5 walking 3-4 blocks when she could park in our lot. It's just easier. My staff cannot park in our lot for this very reason, so we have permits to park on the streets. I support my fellow Palo Alto dentists in requesting the Council exempt all dentists and medical professional offices from RPP reduction cap. Please make sure that you include all dentists in the greater Downtown area and not just those on TRANSCRIPT    Page 64 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Middlefield. We dentists on the outer areas of Downtown provide services that are no less important than the services provided by other dentists in Palo Alto. We have the same problems as everyone else. It is easy to identify all dentists, and we have a license from the State of California, and we all need a parking permit to survive and operate in Palo Alto. I think we'll be more than happy to provide you with our business and dental licenses. Thank you very much. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you for speaking. James Stephens, Chris Lee, Georgie Gleim. James Stephens: Good evening. I'm Jim Stephens. I'm a Palo Alto dentist. My wife and I have provided oral healthcare for Palo Alto for over 30 years. Our practice was established in the '50s, and our building was built and finished in the late '50s. 80 percent of my patients come from Palo Alto. On the other hand, only 10 percent of my staff. Many of my staff members drive for an hour to get here in the morning. They're challenged by traffic like everybody else. If there were suitable alternatives, it would be wonderful, but there are not. Dentistry is a small business. To be a convenient, personal, neighborhood office, we need our assistants, hygienists and office staff. RPP is working as it is. Why rush to institute a phase out? Let's take a breath, let the current RPP work before making it more difficult for your friends and neighbors to receive the dental care they need and expect. The last time I was here, we were talking about retail, buying online. Council Member Holman doesn't buy online, and I appreciate that. I cannot fix your child's tooth online when they fall. I cannot take care of your tooth care online when they fall. Your residents deserve to have personal care at their family dentist. Don't make that difficult, please. Take a breath, leave it like it is, let's go forward. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you. Chris Lee. Chris Lee: Hi, I'm Chris Lee, pediatric dentist. I love my job, and I love the City where I do it. At work, I'm not on the phone with a hedge funding manager from New York, nor am I skyping a factory owner in China. I'm doing Sponge Bob impersonations so an autistic boy will let me clean his teeth, or I'm singing the Little Mermaid theme to help a little girl get through the extraction of an infected tooth. I'm here in Palo Alto providing a basic, essential health service directly to people who live in Palo Alto. Even in a world where face-to-face contact is being systematically invented out of so many customers' experiences, your dentist still can't email you your filling nor can he or she have a cleaning sent to you by drone. To serve people in Palo Alto, we need to physically be in Palo Alto. Even though I pay a great wage and offer good benefits, it's really hard to attract and retain employees TRANSCRIPT    Page 65 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  with the necessary credentials and personality to help me serve you. Most dental personnel can't afford to live in Palo Alto, so a 1-hour commute by car would become a 2-hour commute by mass transit. Bikes are a great way to get around Palo Alto, but to Palo Alto from Daly City, Hayward, Los Banos a different story. My staff and I park on the street to allow our patients to park onsite. Imagine a pregnant mom with two active toddlers in tow with a diaper bag for each or a grandma taking a sedated child home from my office. With unchecked development of densely packed office buildings and the proposed 10-percent decrease in phase-out of parking permits being sold, Palo Alto dental offices will be subjected to a sort of parking Darwinism, which limits resources to compete for parking and consequently for employees. All this begs the question how will dental personnel get here to serve residents here if the only feasible means of getting here will be allowed to park nowhere. The RPP Downtown is justified and apparently quite effective. I just ask you to examine the need for reducing the number of parking permits as already the red maps that have been turning green underscore how successful it's been so far. Thanks. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you very much. Georgie Gleim, Mel Matsumoto, and Susan Nightingale. Georgie Gleim: My name is Georgie Gleim. I'm a Crescent Park resident; I own a business Downtown. My employees for decades have been supplied parking permits in the structures. Three of my staff members do take Caltrain. I'm still very concerned about reducing the employee street parking and the employee parking permits down to zero. That just isn't going to work. The existing structures don't have the capacity for all employees who need to drive as well as long-term parking for our customers. Many businesses have staff who have hourly requirements or part-time requirements that just don't lend themselves to the existing public transit. You've already heard about the numbers of employees who come from distances like Los Banos. That does not lend itself to existing public transit. I appreciate the earlier suggestion of trying to hire people who live close to the business; that's not practical either. All of these businesses have a hard enough time finding employees within the Silicon Valley no matter where we're looking. The large tech businesses do tend to get the brunt of the local ire, but they also bring a tremendous amount of revenue to Downtown in the retail businesses and in the restaurants. They also have the best record at the transportation management. They have the lowest percentage of their employees driving into work. I do appreciate the City's trying to find alternative ways of parking permits such as a 6-month employee permit. That's a welcome idea. If the ultimate goal is to have no on-street parking for employees, that sends a very clear message to the businesses, both retail and service and restaurants, in our business TRANSCRIPT    Page 66 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  community. If that's the decision, then that will have quite an effect on income in the Downtown area and in the City. To quote our first dentist who spoke—I thought he said it beautifully, Dr. Riahi—do not phase out the employee parking until a functional and reliable alternative is in place. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you. Mel Matsumoto, then Susan Nightingale and Nathan Hanley. Mel Matsumoto: Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'm Executive Director of Channing House at 850 Webster, where about 265 residents live. We sympathize with our Palo Alto neighbors who have difficulty parking in their own neighborhoods. Our concern is with the 10 percent annual reduction in employee permits. We have started internally to gradually reduce the number of resident and employee cars, and we look forward to working with the TMA in that effort. We are very sure that the reduction in our cars will not keep pace with the reduction in employee permits as currently planned, particularly if it's accelerated as Staff recommends. We need our employees to provide care and services to our residents, most of whom have been longtime Palo Alto residents before they moved to Channing House. We ask your consideration like other business owners in finding a workable resolution between balancing resident and nonresident parking needs. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Mel, before you sit down, how many employees do you have on a fairly regular basis? Mr. Matsumoto: We have in total about 140 employees. We bought 80 permits in this current year; about 50-55 is used at any given time. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thanks very much. Next speaker is Susan Nightingale. Susan Nightingale: Hi. My name is Susan Nightingale, and I'm one of the owners of Watercourse Way. We've been in business for 37 years. We employ about 120 people. We have purchased about 50 RPP permits and 15-20 garage permits. We're always looking to hire good people. There are no permits available on RPP. All the zones are closed, so we have people that are parking in the 2 hours even though it's very difficult with our shifts. I don't really understand why you want to reduce the RPP permits. You're still going to have people driving to park, so you're going to have the 2-hour moving the car thing. I don't think you're going to end up with the goal that you're looking for, which is a complete reduction unless you just really don't want any businesses Downtown. I'd really like you to think again about this 10 percent reduction. I will also say that I've heard from numerous employees that their morale is bad. They feel that they bought the permits; they did what we asked them to do. Now, they're being told that it's going TRANSCRIPT    Page 67 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  to be reduced to zero, and they're going to have no place to park. They feel that the City doesn't want them. That's what I've been hearing. I just don't think that's the message that the City of Palo Alto wants to give. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you. Next is Nathan Hanley, David Lipson, and then Mehran. I'll struggle with that one in a couple of minutes. Nathan Hanley: I'm just going to echo what some of the other people have said. I really feel like taking the employee permits down to zero is really shortsighted. It could destroy the City; it really could. You need to provide parking for the employees somehow. If you take them all out of there, then people are going to be moving their cars every 2 hours. That's customers that could be parked there, and then they're not going to find parking. They're going to go somewhere else. They're going to go to Mountain View or somewhere else to shop or to have their service. I really think if you really are serious about wanting to take the employee parking out of the residential area, which I get why the residents don't want us intruders in their neighborhood, I think the best thing to do is to make sure you provide parking for the employees by a garage and have foresight and make sure that that happens. That's the only way to solve the problem. Thanks. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you. David Lipson. David Lipson: Hi. I'm a local periodontist. I practice on the corner of University and Middlefield. My father was here for 40 years. I've been here for 24 years. I grew up in the area. I've seen it grow. Everything's been great so far until the last 5 years. Suddenly, we're having this huge high- tech surge, and suddenly it's changed everything. I feel like it's pushing me out of the area. I have six employees; they need to be able to park here. I can't bring people here if they can't park. They're not going to take public transit. I had a Craigslist ad out a couple of years ago, and I had 100 people apply for it. I've had a Craigslist ad out this year and had about two people apply for it. It's just getting harder and harder. That's all I have to say. I just hope you guys don't reduce it. Mehran Fotovatijah: Hi. My name is Mehran Fotovatijah. I'm an endodontist practicing in Evergreen Park district. There have been many meetings and emails going back and forth between the residential leaders and our dental team, trying to come up with a solution to make RPP work. We understand parking is a major problem in Palo Alto. However, we're not part of the problem. We healthcare providers are part of the local service community. The majority of our patients live in this City. We provide services that are essential in life. Kids who get into sports injury at local schools, people who get into car accidents, bike accidents that incur dental TRANSCRIPT    Page 68 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  and facial trauma. A study that was published in the Journal of American Dental Association in 2013 stated that dental emergencies are at the rise. There are more people visiting their dentist for tooth ache, tooth fractures and simply dental needs an emergency basis. We are happy to serve them. The other point that I would like to bring up is vital to any business owner is recruitment and retention. What makes dental offices unique is the high demand for dental (inaudible). There's always a shortage and need for qualified dental assistants, hygienists and administrative support. As it is, we are paying our employees much higher salaries than national average. The reason we have to provide a more attractive package is to be able to recruit and retain employees who travel long distances to get to work. Most of our employees cannot afford to live in Palo Alto and nearby cities. They mainly live in the East Bay (inaudible) San Jose. It is not practical to ask our employees who commute 45 minutes to an hour and park their cars in the nearest parking structure, which is 10-15 minutes' walk to our offices. Public transportation is simply not an option at this moment. Retaining these employees is impossible. In this room, we have some of the finest dentists and specialists. Patients come from all over the State to be treated by them. We need to keep these practices vital and functional. We rely on professionals like you to help us mitigate this problem and address issues like prioritizing the parking limits and making them available for healthcare providers. Please extend it to the Evergreen Park district and other RPP districts as well. Designate the number of the passes that are being allocated depending on the size and the number of the employees. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you very much. Our next speaker is Christopher Joy … Christopher Joy: That's correct. Vice Mayor Kniss: … followed by Judy Kleinberg and Stacy Quo. Mr. Joy: I'm Christopher Joy. I'm a general dentist at Homer and Middlefield. I'm President Elect of the Mid-Peninsula Dental Society. I own my own building. Since our building was built in 1956, the dentists and their teams have peacefully coexisted with the local residents. During the week, we would come in, in the morning. The residents would go to work. In the evening, we would leave and the residents would return. On Sundays, the Lutheran church on Homer and Webster would park in our parking lot. We are part of the neighborhood. Over the years, the parking got tighter and tighter until something had to give, and the RPP was born. RPP isn't perfect. It cost me $3,000 in permits for my team, and I can't pass onto my patients. It has significantly improved the parking situation as evidenced by the map TRANSCRIPT    Page 69 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  and street photos that Dr. Riahi provided. Doug Price in the Daily Post recommended that Council declare victory and not reduce the number of available permits. What's the rationale for the 10 percent per year reduction other than to create intense competition? The loss of street parking for our teams is an existential threat to the neighborhood dentists. If our assistants, hygienists and office managers can't park, they will not be willing to commute from the places they can afford to live. Unfortunately, there is no alternative to the car for these highly skilled employees at this time. The loss of local community-serving businesses impacts the lives of residents. Without neighborhood businesses, residents will have to drive long distances to fuel their cars, get their dry cleaning done, have their dental work done. Local dental offices decrease traffic. Many of my patients ride their bikes to the office. If the dentists are forced out, the businesses that replace them will be much less neighborhood-friendly. Some tech offices allow 82 square feet per person; that's three times the space density of our office. If retail is in decline on University and California Avenues—I don't have anything more to say. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you for speaking. Judy Kleinberg. Judy Kleinberg: Thank you. I'm going to try to condense this as fast as I can. The original Council direction to Staff acknowledged the conditional nature of creating the RPP program. The reduction of employee permits would need to be conditioned on objective data, showing viable, accessible, and reasonable alternatives to street parking. The proposed Ordinance changes before you tonight would remove those conditions entirely. This contradicts the original Council direction to Staff. It's also just plain bad policy to do away with the RPP program for Downtown workers before there's enough alternative capacity for them to park elsewhere, before there is another garage, before there is a fully functional TMA helping workers come to work via public transit or some other method and shared options. It's not the tech workers by the way. Can we correct that alternative fact? It is not the tech workers who are occupying all of these spaces. It is the service workers. It's the dental workers. It's the people working our hotels. Please make sure that we talk about the real people who are having trouble finding places to park. These are people who don't have a workable alternative to driving and don't have access to a garage within a safe and reasonable distance from their workplace. These are the workers who provide needed services to our residents and visitors. We need them to keep our businesses thriving and to serve our residents. The proposed zeroing out is called a minor modification. For these workers, elimination of Downtown street parking before there are viable alternatives is not minor. We urge you to give the new transportation and parking projects and programs the time they need to develop and succeed fully before eliminating TRANSCRIPT    Page 70 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  parking permits. The Chamber is committed to working with the City and our members and the residents as we did with the original RPP program to make sure that this really works. Please give us the time and don't reduce it to zero. You've heard all the right reasons for not doing that. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you. Stacy Quo, then Earl Whetstone and Barry Hart. Stacy Quo: Hello, members of the City Council. Thank you for this opportunity to hear our voice on the RPP program in Palo Alto. My brother— his wife spoke earlier, Suzanne. He's a pediatric dentist, and I’m an orthodontist. We both practice in separate offices but in Downtown Palo Alto. While my other Colleagues have spoken about the viability of providing healthcare, I wanted to talk about the quality of healthcare. It's been truly a privilege for all of us to be able to provide dentistry and serve this community. Palo Alto is vibrant and a forward-thinking community. The many services this community provides and the close interaction with the medical community has afforded us the ability to be innovative in the type of dentistry we provide and the complexity of the cases that we take on. I could not provide the same type of orthodontic services if I practiced in San Leandro, Sunnyvale, or San Carlos. Paramount to this, none of us could provide the outcomes or provide a good patient experience without our support staff. As you've heard, many of our support staff make commutes from an hour to 2 hours away. On my team, some of them have been doing it for over 10 years because they're truly committed to the patients and to this community. We all treat the community. The majority of my patients reside in 94301 and 94303 ZIP Code. IN fact, my brother and myself and my parents live in the 94303 ZIP Code. We chose to reside in Palo Alto because of the many services that this community affords. That's services across all spectrums. Patients walk and bike to my office. We appreciate having the RPP program in place because, unlike 10-15 years ago, in recent years we haven't been able to find parking in the streets, but now we can. We would very much like to continue serving this community. Many of us have signed long-term leases, and we want to stay, but it's not feasible if we don't have a place to park and a place to offer our staff to park. In closing, we would very much appreciate your reconsideration of reversing the 10- percent reduction and the RPP exclusion because it affects not only our ability to provide care but also to provide quality healthcare. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you very much. Is it Earl Whetstone? Earl Whetstone: Yeah, thank you. My name's Earl Whetstone. I've been a practicing dentist here on Middlefield Road for over 20 years. My office has been serving the residents of Palo Alto for over 60. I'm a resident-serving TRANSCRIPT    Page 71 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  business. I cannot speak for other businesses in the community, but I'm here speaking as a dentist who is concerned about the residents of Palo Alto. I want to continue to provide a health service to the community. Unfortunately, I have already lost two employees directly due to the RPP program, and hiring has become almost impossible. As dentists, we are supporting the residents with the RPP program but not in the structure that it's heading towards, which would force us out of the City of Palo Alto. We are just asking to consider the modified form which would provide dentists the opportunity to continue to purchase parking permits in zones located near their offices. This is relatively easy to do with the data that you guys have on file. It would be nice if we can identify the businesses nearby and allow them to access zones to allow that parking. The City Council has a difficult responsibility to look out for the greater good of all residents, not just those who want employee parking to be down to zero. This drives out these resident-serving businesses and ultimately can hurt the residents of Palo Alto. I request that the Council identify that dental services are important to the quality of life for Palo Alto residents and, as such, should be protected and amend the RPP to allow resident-serving businesses like dentists to continue purchasing these permits. Additionally, these permits would be assigned to one of three zones around a particular business. This would ensure an even distribution of parking. Protecting the resident- serving businesses like dentists and ensuring that they can continue to share the streets with residents is not a loss for the RPP program, but it is a win for the quality of life for all the residents. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you for speaking. Barry Hart, Phil Salsbury, and Eric Wu. Barry Hart: I'm Barry Hart, a resident of Crescent Park. I first want to say that I enjoy walking and biking to my dentist. I'm certainly in favor of them having parking and a thriving business nearby. I think the question is what has changed in Palo Alto, that's pushed things past the tipping point. I see Rudy's Pub closing. I see Zibibbo closing. I see the laundromat closing. I see them filled up with very densely packed office workers who are high tech workers. I think they really change the character of our town. I think a lot of the problems really originate from there. We didn't have more dentists 5 years ago. We didn't have more retail, but we have a lot more high-tech workers jammed into a little bit of space. I think this is where the problem lies. Vice Mayor Kniss: Phil Salsbury, then Eric Wu. Phil Salsbury: Good evening. My name is Phil Salsbury. I have lived in Crescent Park on Martin Avenue for 39 years. About a year ago, I came TRANSCRIPT    Page 72 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  before the City Council when the second phase was being considered, and I expressed my concern about the spread of the parking congestion into Zones 9 and 10, but I supported the Resolution at that time because of the phase out. Now, if I understand the numbers correctly, it appears that you're looking to Zones 9 and 10 for more overflow parking and, at the same time, reducing the rate of reduction. I object to those changes. I feel that that undercuts what I thought was a compromise at the time. To me, it's much like squeezing the middle of a balloon. You're pushing the congestion to the outer areas where those neighborhoods are least able to accommodate and where the impact on quality of life will be most dramatic. I urge you to find good, long-term solutions, but please do not destroy the quality of life in the neighborhoods where we've enjoyed for so many years. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you. Our last three are Eric Wu, Richard Brand, and Stan Bjelajac. Eric Wu: Good evening, Council Members. Eric Wu, orthodontist, Evergreen Park, and a 37-year resident of Palo Alto. Tonight, you'll be deciding on whether to amend the current RPP program in the Downtown area. Over the last few months, members of the Palo Alto dental community have worked hard to talk with leaders in the neighborhoods, Council Members as well as residents in the greater Palo Alto area about the importance of preserving neighborhood-serving businesses such as dentists. Our signed, online petition on change.org circulated by only a handful of us dentists garnered over 1,100 Palo Alto resident signatures in a short span of 2 weeks. They all support our cause. The dental community supports the RPP 100 percent. In addition, we recently met with neighborhood leaders and found out about the nonprofit TMA, which we urge Council to seriously consider to further develop for the future. However, without the adequate number of permits allocated to our highly skilled dental employees, we risk losing our staff and ultimately our practices. If you value locally owned dentistry in Palo Alto and the quality of life that it brings to your life, then please help support us to continue to serve the community of Palo Alto. I do respectfully request Council to amend the RPP this evening to prioritize and carve out dedicated parking permits for neighborhood-serving businesses such as dentists and their staff. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you. Richard Brand and then, as I said, Stan Bjelajac, or close. Richard Brand: Good evening, everybody. Thank you. I along with ten other people in 2014 volunteered my time to work on what became a very balanced group, the coming up of RPP stakeholders. Our goal and objective TRANSCRIPT    Page 73 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  was residential preferential—remember this was a preferential issue about quality of life and how do we deal with getting employee cars out of our neighborhoods. Together we came up with a good program working with staff and appreciated that. I also want to say because there's a lot of discussion about taking it to zero, in the RPP stakeholder meetings we never agreed on a zero number. What we did—you can look in the minutes if you want to—was talk about a 20 percent number plus or minus of the curb spaces available for employees over a period of time. Just to set that memo straight, that was what we agreed to in a straw vote. The majority voted that it should be about a 20 percent number. In addition, our plan also recommended that employee RPP permits be reduced equitably across the area. What we came up with was the zone idea. I'm here to tell you that I'm in Zone 7. David, if you could pop that picture. I need more than 5 percent reduction. This is Bryant Street, the bicycle boulevard, 900 block, Zone 7, looking toward City Hall with bicycles having to go around because there's no place to park on the street. Staff has put Zone 7, my zone, at 5 percent, and other zones at 20. As Norm Beamer said, I want an equitable solution here. 5 percent plus a 6-month rollover will create more of this, not less. I'm asking you tonight that Zone 7 should be 10 percent. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you. I think you're the only stakeholder who spoke tonight. Maybe somebody earlier. Good, thank you. Thanks for identifying yourself. The last person is Stan. You didn't speak before? I guess you spoke in Oral Communications. Stan Bjelajac: I was the first and last. This one I didn't have anything prepared. This comes from the heart. You had a lot of my Colleagues tonight. They've brought up a number; 80 percent of all of our patients individually are Palo Alto residents. What they didn't say is that when you put all of us together, that's 100 percent or nearly 100 percent of all Palo Alto residents get served by us here in Palo Alto. You've had different groups come and speak. They asked their constituents to stand up here in front of you. Not once have I seen in the ten-some-odd meetings I've been here 100 percent of people stand up. If the Council is committed to neighborhood-serving business, it doesn't get any better than that. As far as us dentists are concerned, we're under incredible constraints. To give you an example, it took the international space organizations 4 months to pre-select a team of astronauts that are going to go into space. It took me 7 months to find the registered dental assistant and 8 months to find the kind of hygienist that will allow me to provide you and everyone else here with some of the best care in the United States. We have the second highest overhead in United States. We cannot pass that cost onto the consumer. What I would like the Council to do tonight, whatever number you agree on the permits, if you're committed to having us as your resident- TRANSCRIPT    Page 74 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  serving business, start by making a cut within the permits allotted, not in addition to. If it's Downtown 300 permits—to secure us and allow us to continue to retain our staff, allow us to continue to recruit and, should we ever lose an employee, be able to replace them. With that number, we can work with the resident leaders and we can work with our neighbors who, in most cases, are our patients. We don't have this fear that in 6 months, when the time is up, we might not be able to treat our patients any longer. This is an opportunity to start doing the right thing. We can identify the next neighborhood-serving business and go from there. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you for coming. Thanks to all of you for coming. We eventually heard from about 50 of you tonight. We appreciate your input. We're going to take this back now to the Council. I'm going to suggest that we do, as quick as we can, a round of questions. I know you'll have some technical issues that you want to discuss with Staff. Let's do that and then come to a Motion. I don't see any lights on yet. Anyone want to talk? Mr. Mello: If I could just jump in. I have an answer for Council Member DuBois' question earlier. There's a total inventory of 5,964 on-street parking spaces within the Downtown RPP district. With the Bryant Street Bicycle Boulevard upgrade, which is going to happen this year, that will remove 43 spaces. There will be a total inventory of 5,921 spaces. Council Member DuBois: The question was total parking including garages. Mr. Mello: The garages is a separate number. This is just on-street inventory for the Downtown RPP. I would have to look again for the garage number. Council Member DuBois: If you could give us that total. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Were you done talking or did you have more questions? I know he was answering a question, but did you have others? Council Member DuBois: It's really comments, but I don't want to go to motions yet. Could we do a quick round of comments and questions? Vice Mayor Kniss: Yes, as long as we do it relatively speedily. Council Member DuBois: I think we're here tonight to discuss parameters around the RPP. Staff has proposed some, but I think it's worth us stepping back and thinking about what problem we're trying to solve, because we may not even be aligned on that. We've been at this for about 3 years or since 1968, according to Dave Price. I think the problem to solve and why TRANSCRIPT    Page 75 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  we started was to improve the quality of life in the neighborhoods. It was a Residential Preferential Parking Permit Program. If we could maybe think about our conversation in terms of those parameters—we talked about having a quantitative goal, and Staff has come back with one. Is it a discussion about the number of permits? Is there a permit reduction strategy, the geographic distribution types of permits, prioritization? Something we haven't really touched on at all is pricing, which we might want to consider. Again, this is pretty unusual for us. We ran a pilot for 8 months; we've run it for a year, so we've got a lot of real data to base a decision on. I hope we'll consider that real data. Just quickly to run through those categories I mentioned. The quantitative goal. Our goal should be to get rid of the red space. Setting the goal at 85 percent is full parking; that's at the red. The idea of a goal is a great one. I would propose we get down to 49 percent, which is green. I don't think saturating the neighborhoods is aligned with the problem we're trying to solve, which is improve the quality of life. If we can achieve getting down to some level, I would be open to not going to zero. That's a change for me, listening to all the speakers. I do think we should have a goal of getting it down to a green level. In terms of the number of permits, we started with 2,000 as an initial estimate several years ago. Again, we have almost 2 years of real data. We see actual demand of about 1,400. I don't see any reason to increase the parking in the neighborhoods. That, again, is going against the problem we're trying to solve. We need to support our TMA. It was good the TMA came to us tonight. I am personally going to be less inclined to support the TMA if Council actions actually increase the number of cars in the neighborhoods. We need a little bit of pressure to bolster our TMA. Personally, I would support going to a number like 1,500 this year, which is a slight increase over what we actually sold, hearing what Staff is saying about how many permits we sell versus how many get used. Adding a little bit of (inaudible) might make sense. I think that's a reasonable number. I don't see how we go from selling 1,300 up to 1,800. My question about what other cities do is particularly relevant. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. Hearing that we're an outlier in terms of allowing the amount of commercial parking in neighborhoods, that's not where I want to be. Again, I don't think it gets to the problem we're trying to solve. I'd like us all to be clear about that. My problem to solve is improving quality of parking in the neighborhoods. If somebody else feels that we need more parking in the neighborhoods, we need to help business parking, let's be straight about that because we're going to be talking at odds if we can't agree to what we're trying to do here. In terms of the parking reduction strategy, we are committed to building another garage. That's why the reduction happens slowly over a number of years. As I said before, I'd be okay at stopping at 49 percent saturation level. I do agree with what Judy Kleinberg said. This is a conditional thing. We start to reduce it so much per year; we see how we're doing, how our TRANSCRIPT    Page 76 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  TMA is doing. We're not locked in for 5 years or 10 years. We can change this along the way. I would like to see us clarify the language on the reduction. This has happened before where we said 10 percent, and we switched to 200 because 10 percent changes every year. It's 200 this year, 180 next year. It just keeps changing. I think it's more clear if we add clearer language. In terms of geographic distribution, we did have a Council Motion that we froze 9 and 10, and we were only selling residential permits. That changed. We had a pretty big discussion about that. For me it boils down to what is the outer limit of Downtown. We need methods to eliminate clustering. Staff's made an attempt. I'm not sure it's the best method. It's kind of a gross method. We should maybe even think about enforcing adjacency, which would be requiring businesses to be within 500 feet of the zone they're buying permits in. That's a way you could avoid clustering, and it would certainly help some of the businesses along Middlefield Road, for example. In terms of prioritization, we do need to use our Business Registry and think about nonprofits and locally serving businesses. I think we can do that. We keep bringing that up. That would help the medical and dental community. I would rather have something more general about locally serving businesses than calling out specific exemptions. That gets pretty tricky if we just prioritize dentists. The idea some of the public had about businesses that are eligible for spots in the parking garages, should they also be eligible for RPP, that's worth some thought. I would look to see us over time look at technology that would—even instead of selling in 6-month chunks, if we could deactivate permits and be able to—if an employee leaves, even though they still have that permit, it's not valid anymore on maybe a monthly basis. We could still sell 6-month permits, but it just wouldn't be active anymore. Finally, maybe not tonight but we should think about pricing and types of behavior we want to see. I don't know what's going on. These pictures of empty parking garages makes me think that we want to raise commercial parking in the neighborhoods and make sure the garages are actually being filled. That's a quick run. I hope that framework was useful in terms of thinking about problems to solve and then all the different questions we're looking at. Thanks. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thanks. I have Cory, then Adrian, and then Lydia, and then Karen. Council Member Wolbach: I actually appreciate Council Member DuBois' suggestion that we focus on our goal to start. We do share the same goal of improving quality of life by reducing the parking congestion on the street. It's also important to note that from the stakeholder group to today, we wouldn't want to do that in a way which negatively harms neighborhood- serving businesses and which doesn't even take into consideration negative impacts on others. It's our primary goal, but it's not to the exclusion of any TRANSCRIPT    Page 77 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  other goal. There's a way to balance those. It's important to keep that in mind. We'll see what others say. I'm certainly not going to propose that we increase the number of permits on the street. I'm not sure threatening to hold the TMA hostage at this point is the appropriate approach. Council Member DuBois is free to make whatever threats he wants. When it comes back for more conversation, the idea of getting everything back to the green level of congestion, I hope that Council Member DuBois will clarify if he means total congestion or the number of permit parkers on those streets. It could mean permit business parkers plus permit residential parkers, business parkers on their own, or permit residential and 2-hour parkers. That goes to an area where I'm not sure we have a ton of clarity. I'm not sure how much confidence we have that everybody who needs a permit is currently trying to buy a permit. We did hear from at least one business tonight—I think it was Watercourse Way—saying that they have employees who are still doing the 2-hour shuffle. I'm not sure exactly what our solution for that is. Having more flexible options and better promotion of this, especially having better flexible options about how the permits work is important. Having at least an option for 6-month permits is important. I wonder if maybe having 1-month or 3-month permits at least as an option might be useful. I'm thinking about this in the context of the earlier conversation where we heard how a business with comparatively moderate turnover was looking at 70 percent turnover in a year. Having worked in some of those fields myself, having worked as a barista, and thinking about the people I know who have worked in those businesses or run those types of businesses, running local shops, the degree of confidence that an employee has in some of those lines of work, that they're going to be in that job in that place in a year, is often a really low level of confidence. Investing in an annual permit for a job where you're not sure if you're going to be there in a year is a pretty tough sell to the employee, especially if they're not going to be driving every day, if they work a couple of days a week or they work a couple of days during the week and then a couple of days on the weekend. They don't need it Monday through Friday. The cost effectiveness and the logic for buying an annual permit is pretty low. What do you do? You do the 2-hour shuffle. Having more flexible options is important. I did see that we didn't sell a lot of the 5-day passes. Those are scratchers or were those for 1-week? Mr. Mello: Yes, the 5-day and 1-day are scratcher hangtags. Council Member Wolbach: Could Staff clarify are employers allowed to buy permits now for a year and give it to whatever employee needs it that day? My understanding is we decided not to do that because we were worried some employers would buy up all the permits. TRANSCRIPT    Page 78 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Mr. Mello: Employers can buy the 1-day and 5-day hangtags. We have a limit of ten per purchase per person per year. The stickers are allocated to a specific vehicle, and they need to be purchased by an employee. Some employers will buy permits for their employees, but ultimately they need to be assigned to a vehicle. The employee hangtags are purchased oftentimes by the employers, and they can be transferred between vehicles. Council Member Wolbach: Can those be purchased on an annual basis? Mr. Mello: The hangtags, yes. Council Member Wolbach: That's actually something that we might want to—I'm not sure how to encourage that more. For the whole business, for the employer and for the employees, having the employer have the hangtags necessary for whatever employees they need on shift during the hours of enforcement, the employer can say, "You're the one working today. Here's your hangtag for today." Have something like that or if we can get to the point of having—I guess it depends on how many people we have out there enforcing. Maybe there's ten hangtag or even sticker permits out there per business but only five allowed to be parked at any one time. Does that make sense? An employer might have ten employees but only five working per shift. Just a gross simplification of how the schedule might work. Through our parking enforcement, if we saw that they had more than five of their employees there at a time, then they would be dinged for that. I'm just trying to keep our options open to think about where we go with this in the future. It's important to really think about the context that we came to this idea of reduction. We heard one of the members of the Stakeholder Committee making—something I noticed going through the old Resolutions and realizing we've oversimplified step-by-step as this has gone forward. Back on December 2nd, 2014—my Colleagues can see this on Packet Page 393. It's Item 10, Attachment D, Page 4 of that item. It's 10- D-4. The "3" just above the middle of the page says reduced allocation, after Phase 1 the Director may reduce the allocation of employee parking over time as additional parking and transportation options become available. If we're going to have, either scheduled or up to the Planning Director's discretion, reductions over time, especially if we're heading towards zero, those kinds of criteria are still really useful, additional parking and transportation options. Additional parking could be new garages. That's part of the three-legged stool. It could also be something we could do a lot faster. I know there are a couple of startups working on this, basically ridesharing but for parking spaces. Either a resident or a property owner or business in the Downtown area that has a space or a driveway that they're not using can put on an app, "I've got a space if somebody wants to come use it, they can come take that space for today." That employee who is TRANSCRIPT    Page 79 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  looking for a place to park or an employer is looking for a place for the employee to park can go on that app and see there's a space at this address, a couple of blocks away. Those apps are being developed. That might be another way to get more parking spaces available and make better use of the parking supply that's out there right now and is underutilized. Council Member DuBois also pointed to our own garages and the importance of making sure we utilize those. All this, again, is on this idea that additional parking supply in some way becoming available is important criteria if we're going to eliminate the parking on the street. Along with that, that same section I was reading from before, transportation options becoming available. Transportation options essentially means our TMA. We heard tonight that the TMA is off to a good start, but it's just getting started. It's really neophyte still. It has a lot more to go before it's a viable alternative. A philosophy I've held for many years is if you're going to kick somebody out of one place, you need to make sure they have somewhere else to go. The idea of the three-legged stool, a three-pronged approach, is we have RPP on the street, we provide additional parking supply, and we provide alternatives through the TMA. How those function together, how we think about it systemically as a functioning system is really critical. That was back in December 2nd, 2014. On February 23rd, 2016, just over a year ago, Attachment 10-E, Section D on Page 4, Packet Page 399, talks about reducing by 200 permits per year based on parking analysis and mode split analysis. We went from what I thought were clear criteria to basically saying we can reduce if there's analysis. We've done some analysis. At this point, the current Resolution goes even further than that, though, and basically says we can reduce over time. You see that in 10-A, Packet Page 371 on Page 5-E. It doesn't really talk about having a need to have additional supply and alternative transportation methods in order to reduce. It's important we continue to work on all three prongs, all three legs of the stool. I want to make sure they're working together. When we started out on this, it was the question of how do we improve quality of life and reduce parking congestion but not by throwing businesses, big businesses or small businesses, a tech company, a coffee shop or dentist under the bus. That wasn't our goal. There is still a way to make this work. We've heard from the business community that they want to work with us on making it work. That was the spirit and the direction we got from our Stakeholder Committee originally. As we move towards motions, I hope that we'll focus on that. Zones 9 and 10—I know I've been talking a long time here. Zones 9 and 10, I'm open to options on that. I'll listen to my Colleagues' thoughts on that. I do feel like that's pretty far afield from the core of the Downtown area. If we can reduce it or eliminate and move towards full residential permits in those zones in the not-too-distant future, that's probably the right move. Concordant with that, we need to figure out how to reduce some of the bunching, the grouping that we see in the other zones, whether that's TRANSCRIPT    Page 80 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  splitting up the zones that we currently have, moving to block by block or whatever. I will leave my comments at that. I've talked for far too long, but I appreciate the indulgence of the Vice Mayor. Vice Mayor Kniss: Adrian, Lydia, and Karen. Before you start, let me mention it's now after 9:30. We've been underway since 5:00. I need to look at Staff and ask do we have to do Number 11 tonight, which is the comments on the EIR for Stanford. The answer is yes. Ms. Gitelman: If not tonight, then tomorrow night. Vice Mayor Kniss: Simply a reminder to everyone that you do have another item. You might keep that in mind as you're making your comments. Adrian. Council Member Fine: Thank you, Vice Mayor. First, I want to thank all the folks in the public who came out to speak to us today, residents, business owners, dentists, folks from Channing House. I really appreciate it. You've given some great input. It also speaks to the fact that this is a balancing act among different constituents across the City. As Council Member DuBois pointed out, the focus of this program is preference for residents. We need to keep our focus on that. There are inordinate parking impacts in our neighborhoods, Downtown , and Cal. Ave. to some degree. We do need to address that. On the converse, I don't believe we can go to zero for employee permits. Tom, the converse of your point is do we know of any Downtown districts without employee parking options. I'm not sure I do. There is a balancing act to be had here. I want to echo what Cory said, this is part of the three legs of the transportation demand management, parking supply, and parking management stool. We really need to keep our focus on all three of them as they interact systematically. Tonight we kicked out an item for bike share for $1 million, but our TMA has only got $100,000 so far. We need to consider those costs as well. I also wanted to commend Staff for a job well done. Overall, our RPP program is a huge success. We really need to acknowledge that. We used to have clogged up streets in our neighborhoods, and now we don't. Hundreds of block faces have had reduced employee parking impacts. That's a good thing. I don't believe we should be aiming for 49 percent. Best practice is to use parking, which is a valuable resource and why so many folks showed up tonight, at 90 percent use. How we split that between residents and employees, we can work that out. I think something I was pretty persuaded by are some of these maps from Mr. Cintz. They really do show that we have a 2-hour parking problem, which reinforces the need for us to look at our Parking Management Study and potentially look at charging for parking Downtown, perhaps even Cal. Ave. These maps are showing it's not the employees, it's not the folks with TRANSCRIPT    Page 81 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  the employee tags causing these midday impacts. These are the 2-hour parkers who are coming to go shopping, to get lunch, or maybe just hopping around zones because they work at a business, and they're just stepping out every 2 hours, which is an economic impact to our business owners. I'm also going to echo Cory on the 2014 Stakeholder Committee. It was really clear that we reduce these parking numbers as additional transportation and parking options become available. Tom, also I agree with you. I think 10 percent is a little funny. We should choose a hard number if we're going to reduce them. That's a lot cleaner. Clustering does need to be looked at. We can address that, but I really point out the clustering issue is the 2-hour parkers. It's not the employee parkers. As Josh mentioned earlier, only 30 or 40 percent of the employee parking permits are being used on a daily basis. If we're choosing whatever, 1,300, 1,800, cut that number in half. One quick question and then I'll pass it back to my Colleagues. Josh, you mentioned there are 5,964 on-street parking spots. You're looking for the number of garage spots. Do we have any estimate of the number of residential parking spots, what folks have in their residential garages and their driveways? Mr. Mello: We do not have that number. I do have the number for garages and lots, though. Garages, the total number of spaces is 2,454 with 1,546 of those being permit spaces. For the surface lots, there are 772 total spaces, and 181 of those are reserved for permits, for a grant total of 3,226 garage and lot spaces. Of those, 1,727 are permit spaces. Council Member Fine: That should give us some indication. If we're looking at 2,000 permits, 1,800 permits, 1,400 permits and we have 3,225 off- street, that's a metric and a balance we should be looking at. Personally, I would be really interested in knowing how many private, residential spots there are. I don't want us to get into a situation where we're giving away an extraordinarily valuable resource, a parking spot on-street, to residents at the expense of them using their driveways or garages. That's why I asked my question earlier, do we know how many residences have bought three, four, five permits. That would be really important data for us going forward. With that, I'll send it back to all you. Vice Mayor Kniss: One quick question before we go on. To clarify, Josh, the 5,964 spaces are one through ten or is that one through eight? The number of spaces in the zones. Mr. Mello: That's one through ten; that's all ten zones. Vice Mayor Kniss: That's everything? Mr. Mello: Yes. TRANSCRIPT    Page 82 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Vice Mayor Kniss: In a couple of minutes when you figure it out, could you take out nine and ten and see what's left? Mr. Mello: Yes. Vice Mayor Kniss: We'll come back. Lydia, you're next. Council Member Kou: Thank you, everybody, for remaining so long and for Staff for updating us on this. I see some of the dentists have dentists love Palo Alto. I appreciate that, but there are also a lot of other community- serving businesses that love Palo Alto as well. There's only so much Palo Alto, the City, can do. What it boils down to is that when we have buildings that come up for approval, that are not fully parked, this is what brings us to this point. Whereas, some might believe it's alternative facts, there are some rules that we should follow. One, we would really solve this parking issue if we went with the rule of thumb that one employee takes up 250 square feet of the space in that building. Today, these office buildings do not operate this way anymore. These tech workers are in a small space. As a matter of fact, one of the companies in California Avenue is operating at 85 square feet per employee, approximately 85 square feet per employee. They actually only have one parking space. When you look at this, you know there's something wrong in the system we have, and now we're invading into neighborhoods and impacting their quality of life. As a matter of fact, I really don't think Zones 9 and 10 should even be eligible. It should have the College Terrace RPP. I can agree with Council Member Wolbach on that. That's residential. As long as you make areas eligible, you're just asking it to be used. We should actually be looking at reduction in a sensible manner. I don't think anybody has advocated—the stakeholders group had actually said that they were looking to go down to zero. They've even said that they're committed to understanding that this is a Downtown location where businesses operate. It's not an intent to go down to zero. I'm sorry, I don't agree. We need to look at keeping Downtown a viable business place, but definitely not to impact further the neighborhoods. I would support the current max that is listed in Josh's Table 1, recommended reduction in employee parking permits, but not at the 1,800 because the whole goal is to make sure that we can understand what we're able to take in the neighborhoods. I just want to say I appreciate everybody talking, and I hear you. However, at the end of the day, businesses have an ownership for their employees. You also provide the degree of confidence for your employees. The City is responsible for providing parking for the customers that come to your businesses. We want to make sure that we have a viable Downtown, and there is parking enough for your customers. There is needed share where you have to take responsibility as a business owner here. It's part of your operating expenses. I wanted to find out—Josh, you TRANSCRIPT    Page 83 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  gave some numbers about the garages and the surface parking lots. How about the private commercial spots? Mr. Mello: That's going to take a little bit of research as well. I do have Vice Mayor Kniss' answer, though, when you're ready for that. Council Member Kou: Thank you. Mr. Mello: Zones 9 and 10 have 1,811 on-street spaces. If you subtract those out along with the bike boulevard spaces that will be removed, that leaves 4,110 spaces in Zones 1 through 8. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thanks very much. That's very helpful. That was 4,000 and change. Mr. Mello: 4,110. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you. Council Member Filseth: Did you say Zone 9 and 10 total were 1,811 street spaces? Mr. Mello: That's correct. Vice Mayor Kniss: Lydia, were you done? Council Member Kou: Yes, thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thanks. Karen and then Greg and then Eric. Council Member Holman: Thank you. I'll try to save some time here with I agree with pretty much everything that Tom started with. I agree with Cory about dealing with the clustering issue. I agree with comments that have been made about I don't think there was ever an intention to go to zero. I don't think that's feasible, doable, practical. I think it would cause great harm. We can't get there, and we're not going to go there I don't think. One of the current speakers and a Colleague to my right mentioned this too, the 2-hour parking. If we reduce the number of permits that we're selling, how do we know that those spaces aren't just going to open up to 2-hour parking intrusion again? Mr. Mello: If we reduce the number of employee permits in a particular zone, how do we know that they won't be taken up by 2-hour parkers? I don't think we know the answer to that. TRANSCRIPT    Page 84 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member Holman: It seems to me that would be a critical thing to understand because it could land us right back where we started. We have to figure that one out. We have to figure that one out. In terms of supply, we will—people have talked about this. The Downtown parking garage, the TMA will be increasing the supply. Council Member Kou mentioned and I've brought this up a number of times. There are a good number of privately held parking lots and garages that should be made available, one would hope, to the public. I was really appalled the other night. I ran Downtown and went into Prolific Oven for maybe 10 minutes to pick something up. I came back, and they were issuing tickets at a private surface parking lot at night. I said to the poor guy who was issuing tickets—he was just hired by the bank. This is anything but a community kind of activity because the bank's not open, but they're issuing tickets. Restaurant workers can't park there; nobody can park there. What would be the harm? Just a side comment, but I was anything but pleased because of the kind of message that sends. Adjacency, I don't want to be an outlier as other people have said. Zones 9 and 10, it's going to sound like I'm self-serving because I live in one or the other of those. It doesn't satisfy the definition of adjacency. As far as prioritizing permits, I agree with the low income and maybe the service workers and retail workers get captured by the low income. I'm not sure how the medical and dental office workers might or might not be captured by that. That needs to be addressed. Don't know how we're going to get to a Motion here, by the way. I still think the medical and dental community, dental community especially, ought to look at something I've mentioned before, which was looking at some kind of partnership with local cab companies or Lyft or whoever to provide means for patients to get to their offices to free up some portion of the parking lots for employees. As terms of distribution, I don't know why some neighborhoods are being put upon—I guess it's one way of putting it—like Zones 7 and 8 only having a 5 percent reduction. It doesn't seem realistic or, if you look at it from a fairness standpoint, not fair to me. I would want to adjust that up to 10 and maybe reduce some of the others to 15 to balance out to 10. As terms of a maximum number of permits, I'd go with 1,400 or 1,500. I'll stop there. I'm sorry, one last thing. I do agree also with the comment that was made earlier about sharing of permits. It's more economic for the employees and more economic for the employer to be able to share permits. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thank you. Greg. Council Member Tanaka: I wanted to thank Staff for your work on this. It seemed like a very difficult problem. I also want to thank everyone for coming out to speak. This is not an easy problem here. I want to ask Staff questions about pricing. Josh, can you tell me how does the pricing work? I TRANSCRIPT    Page 85 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  would like to know how the pricing works for the RPP, how the pricing works for the garages today. Mr. Mello: A full price resident parking permit in the RPP is $50. They're entitled … Council Member Tanaka: Per year? Mr. Mello: Fifty dollars per year. Council Member Tanaka: When they buy one, two , three, it's $50 for each? Mr. Mello: They're entitled to one free permit, and then every additional permit is $50. A full price annual employee parking permit in the Downtown RPP is $466. A reduced price employee parking permit in the Downtown RPP is $100. For the Downtown garages and lots, an annual parking permit is $466. There is no reduced price option for the garages. There are daily permits available for the garages for $17.50 per day. The daily scratchers for the Downtown RPP are available for $5 per day. Council Member Tanaka: I heard someone say that the garages are empty. The permits aren't being used. Is that true? Mr. Mello: I have the permit data for the garages I can put up. There's currently a wait list of 25 folks for the Civic Center garage and 10 for the 800 High garage. There are 174 permits that are available as of February 27th in the remaining garages and lots. Council Member Tanaka: My question, though, is not just this but also actual usage. Someone had photos of empty garages. Are the permits in parking garages not being used? Mr. Mello: We have fairly detailed occupancy data that we can share with you for each of the garages by time of day. That would be much too much information to go over right now. I could pull that up possibly and put one of the tables on the screen. We do our best to monitor. It's a manual process right now. We recognize that we need to automate this a little bit. That's why we'll be moving towards the automated parking guidance system for the garages, to manage the permit space allocation in real time. In regard to Council Member Wolbach's comments about more flexible permit periods, it's currently a stretch to offer too much variety in permit options because of the system we have. We're actually moving forward with a more comprehensive parking permit system that would enable app-based purchases of daily permits, weekly permits. By no means are we at the top of our game right now in parking management in the garages and lots. TRANSCRIPT    Page 86 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member Tanaka: Can you tell me what is the average occupancy of the garages? Just average for the permits. Mr. Mello: That's going to take a little bit of digging. I don't know that off the top of my head. Council Member Tanaka: What can you tell me about the occupancy of the garages for the permits? Mr. Mello: I don't have that information available right now. I'd have to look it up. We can come back to that later in the questions, if that works. Council Member Tanaka: What I'm trying to understand is are there a significant number of parking spots in the garages not being used, permit parking spots. That's really what I’m trying to get at. Mr. Mello: Some of the lots are full. Today, we just had all of the valet spaces occupied in Lot R. We had to overflow people to Civic Center. That garage is well utilized. Civic Center is also well utilized. It really varies by garage. That's what I mean when I say I can't give you a round number for all of the garages and lots. Council Member Tanaka: From the pricing you just told me, it seems like because reduced employee parking is not available for garages, it's actually cheaper to park on the street then. Is that right or am I missing something? Mr. Mello: That's correct. An annual permit for the garage is $466. An annual permit for RPP is $466. What differs is RPP offers a reduced price option, which the garages don't, for low-income employees. Council Member Tanaka: Why don't we offer that for the garages? Mr. Mello: We're planning to come back with you later this year with a more complete conversation about our pricing in the garages. RPP was implemented separately from the garage permit pricing. Those permits were never adjusted to match what was introduced in RPP. Council Member Tanaka: I think the situation is that the garages are connected to the street parking. It's kind of one big supply of parking. To treat these as separate things, they're really not. When you push people out of the garages to the streets, that's not good or vice versa. I think you have to look at this in a more holistic manner versus treating the garages completely separate. In fact, I would say we should actually encourage people. The prices should be lower. We should use the economics to push TRANSCRIPT    Page 87 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  people to the garages versus having a higher price for the garages and pushing people to the street. Mr. Mello: I think ultimately that's where we want to end up. This evening we are here before you to renew a program that has permits that will expire on March 31st. We need to move forward with the Downtown RPP, but we do plan to come back in relatively short order and have a much more robust discussion about parking price, garage pricing, RPP permit pricing as well as on-street parking pricing. Council Member Tanaka: The problem, though, is that these programs are connected. They're not separate. To look at them in isolation is the problem. Ed Shikada, Assistant City Manager: If I might, Council Member Tanaka. As Josh is pointing out, I think we've actually got scheduled within roughly a month to come back to you with that larger discussion of pricing Downtown and connect some of the pieces. Again, as he pointed out, many of these programs have been developed on separate tracks over the course of many years. Council Member Tanaka: I've heard that the interceptors that you guys use to patrol the parking—actually you guys have started moving to LPRs. Is that right, license plate readers, or has that never happened? Mr. Mello: We're going to be discussing the potential introduction of LPR at our meeting in April, when we come back to discuss the greater parking strategy. Currently we do not use LPR. Council Member Tanaka: As several other Council Members mentioned, without something like that, the 2-hour shuffle is going to happen. You have something that's free against something that you have to pay a lot of money for. It's going to push people to free. As some of the speakers mentioned earlier, if we don't have something for that, it's going to just keep pushing people to do the 2-hour shuffle because it's far cheaper, especially for low- income workers who don't value their time. This has to be thought a little bit more comprehensively than we're doing right now. We're looking at just one small piece of the total ecosystem for parking. If you don't think about how it connects to everything else, we're not really solving the problem. What's the schedule for the LPR? Ms. Gitelman: Thank you, Council Member Tanaka. As Acting City Manager Ed Shikada just said, we have an item coming to Council in April sometime to talk about parking management more broadly. We'll be prepared to discuss it in that context. TRANSCRIPT    Page 88 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member Tanaka: My opinion would be that we should talk about this then and look at it holistically versus make changes or reduce parking now. I think we should look at this in a holistic fashion, look at parking not as an RPP program but as a Downtown parking problem. How does it work with the garages, the parking lots, the LPR? Someone used the idea of a balloon. You squeeze one end; it goes out the other. In some ways, no matter what we do it's going to push parking—if we start reducing the number of permits, it's going to start pushing parking to do 2-hour shuffles. Ms. Gitelman: You're very astute, Council Member Tanaka. These things are related. Obviously, the Council could decide to defer a decision tonight to a later date, but then we'd have a lapse in this program. We wouldn't be able to carry out enforcement after April 1st. That's entirely up to the Council. There is some interrelationship between all of these aspects, and that's part of what makes this such a challenging and really interesting problem for the Council and all of us to address. Council Member Tanaka: For me, I'd be in favor of keeping it the way it is until we look at this more comprehensively. The other thing that's not really contemplated in this program is—we're not really using one of the biggest levers we have, which is economics. We're not using the fact that—we're keeping the pricing kind of flat rate, which doesn't actually make sense to me. Really, we should be thinking about—the zones near the core should be more expensive perhaps as you go out. The clustering could be solved with pricing, but I don't think Staff has thought about this. We have a flat-rate pricing which kind of doesn't make sense. If you wanted to watch a hockey game and you wanted to sit in the front row, it's going to cost you more. The way you control that clustering is with pricing. Staff has a very simple pricing mechanism that doesn't take that into account. I for one would like to see this program maybe kept the same until the Staff has time to actually think about a more integrated program that contemplates variable pricing depending on where things are happening, thinking about LPRs to prevent the 2-hour shuffles. Even on the residential side, if someone has—how many permits can they have? Up to four permits or five permits? What's the limit? Four. If someone goes for four permits, maybe they should be paying more for that fourth permit. Maybe we should start thinking about economics so that it becomes more fair and balanced. Right now, the problem with the idea of caps, saying we're only going to sell this many permits, is that it can be wrong. We have a total lack of data in many cases of what's really happening. The caps might be just totally off. If we use economics, it could self-balance. I for one would like to just see it kept the same. Maybe give Staff time to think about this in a holistic fashion, think about the garages, the parking lots, LPR, think about variable pricing so that it's more fair and balanced for everyone. Let economics balance it out TRANSCRIPT    Page 89 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  versus trying to make a wild guess as to what is the right number. Some simple questions that my Colleagues have answered we don't know. The advantage of having more of a market-based system versus a guessing- based system, which is what we're trying to do now—we're trying to guess— is that we can be dead wrong. It could kill Downtown. It could (inaudible) business. It could cause a lot of other problems. Rather than us trying to make difficult predictions, we should table this, let Staff do more work, and come up with a more holistic program that has pricing contemplated in this. That way we're really solving the problem versus just looking at this program in a very narrow lens tonight and getting it wrong. Mr. Mello: I have the occupancy data for the Downtown garages, if you're still interested in that. It's 73 percent to 94 percent during the day. Those were taken in May, September, and October, in afternoon, mid-afternoon, and evening. Fairly highly utilized. Less usage in the morning, 46 percent to 54 percent in the morning, but the garages are fairly well utilized, upwards of 70 percent utilization through most of the day. Vice Mayor Kniss: Thanks, Josh. Thank you for getting the answers to this as we have gone along. Thank you, Greg. Lastly, Eric. We're getting to a point at some point where someone might want to think about a Motion. I realize it's still pretty early, but we might still think about it. Council Member Filseth: Thank you to Staff for all … It's only 10:00. I would move the Staff Report with a number of changes. If I get a second to discuss, I will. I would encourage further shaping on the Staff Motion by amendments, but I think the Staff recommendation is a good framework to build on. Vice Mayor Kniss: Looking to see a second. Council Member DuBois: I'll second. MOTION: Council Member Filseth moved, seconded by Council Member DuBois to: A. Adopt a Resolution amending Resolutions 9473 and 9577 to make permanent the Downtown Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) Program and direct Staff to make corresponding changes to the Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) Administrative Guidelines including the following changes: a. Direct Staff to return to Council in one year to: TRANSCRIPT    Page 90 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  a. Reassess the Employee Parking Permit reduction rate based on the results of the Palo Alto Transportation Management Association programs and other parking management programs; and b. Consider exempting dental and medical service offices from the Employee Parking Permit cap; and B. Allocate 150 permits to community oriented services including: a. 75 permits for dental use; and b. 75 permits for Channing House employees; and C. Delete reference to 85 percent utilization in the Recitals; and D. Delete “until they are zeroed out;” and E. Find the program exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Council Member Filseth: Thank you. If I can speak to my Motion. I want to move the Staff Report with the following changes. First is we come back in 1 year, not 2. The second is we allocate 150 permits out of the total to community-oriented services as follows: 75 to dental and small medical employees and 75 to Channing House employees. Three, we delete the reference to 85 percent utilization. Four, we delete the words "until they are zeroed out" on the discussion of reduction. Let me just comment a little bit on this. As we all know, all of us have been here for many times. This problem has been a long time developing. Residents in Professorville were warning about this a decade ago, that the number of commuters was growing faster than the number of parking spaces available. As a result, they were flooding into the neighborhoods. I think all of us wish we'd moved on this years ago when the problem was smaller than it is, but it is where we are today. Does the Staff have the chart—this chart? It's the December—this one, do we have this one? That one. It's the one dated December 1st, 2016 from 12:00 to 2:00 p.m. I don't think that's it. It's on Page 69 of the Staff Report. This is the chart I'm looking for? Mr. Mello: (Inaudible). Council Member Filseth: Noon to 2:00 p.m. Is that it? That is it. Can we see the whole thing? It's sort of hard to tell the green from the yellow up there, which is too bad. This is a complicated beast with a lot of moving parts. This is the problem we're trying to solve. We've got a lot of heavily TRANSCRIPT    Page 91 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  congested streets in neighborhoods. This represents a lot of progress from where it was before. I see Josh frowning there. Are we in the right place? This is progress for sure. It used to be all red. What's happened so far is— it's clear progress. We've eliminated the Stanford people mostly. We've eliminated the train people. I suspect that, as Council Member Tanaka would comment, just charging for this probably made an impact on the number. This is good, but clearly we need more work. If you look at this chart, it's still clear that there are significant parts of the neighborhoods being used basically as commercial parking lots. It's our job to make sure that those streets are safe for kids to ride their bikes on and all the other uses. Looking at this, I think we should manage to this. Council Member DuBois' suggestion of 49 percent would turn that whole chart green. That's a justifiable thing. It's pretty clear to most of us what should happen here. We can discuss how we get there. It ought to all turn green, and we ought to prioritize local-serving businesses first. If you agree with that, I think there are a couple of important things here. First of all, I don't think anybody thinks we need to get to zero in order to turn that all green and return it all to being basically residential neighborhoods. In fact, what Staff's trying to do with the rolldown and the 20 percent in some places and the 5 percent in other places is attempting to spread out some of that red stuff. We can discuss whether it'll work or not, but that's the intent, to spread this out. Maybe we don't actually have to reduce it very much to get to all green. We don't know yet. As people have pointed out, there's the issue of the 2-hour parkers and so forth. We're learning this stuff as we go along. That's a big part of the reason I think we should come back in a year, not 2 years. Staff should continue on their mandate to try to figure out how we get it to all green, take into account some of the stuff we've learned, and let's see where we are in a year. Then, we can assess which tools make sense to go to the next year, whether it's further reductions or whether we do something with the 2 hours or something like that. (Inaudible) question. Ms. Gitelman: If we could just get some clarification on the Motion. We see in the Staff Report where you're referring to—when you talk about deleting the phrase "until they are zeroed out," but we're actually looking at the Resolution. We're on Packet Page 371. The Resolution contains the 85 percent standard in the first section, in the whereas clauses or the findings. We can certainly delete that. There's no reference here to zeroing out. There's just the suggestion that we would issue 1,800 permits, and then it would go down by 10 percent per year. That's the paragraph, "e" on Page 371, that we'll have to modify. Council Member Filseth: Sorry? There's nowhere in the Ordinance that says we go to zero. TRANSCRIPT    Page 92 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Ms. Gitelman: It's really just this paragraph. We would want to modify this paragraph to say that following the first year allocation of 1,800 6-month employee permits, Staff will return to Council to discuss further adjustments based on the data on … Council Member Filseth: That's the intent. Staff should in a year see how we're doing on the congestion here and assess the impact of another 10 percent along with the impacts of potentially other kinds of tools, and let's have a discussion on what to do next. I think that's how it should read. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to remove Part D of the Motion and add to the Motion, “modify Section 5.C.2.e to include a cap of 1,800 six-month Employee Parking Permits.” (New Part A.i.) Ms. Gitelman: It would really be an Amendment to that Section e—it's C.2.e—to incorporate this change. We'll need clarification from you as well on the direction about allocating permits to those uses. I guess I'm wondering whether you mean that they should be prioritized like low-income workers. I don't think with the 1,800 permits they'll be constrained from buying permits. Council Member Filseth: I don't think so either. Ms. Gitelman: Just in the future when we start to limit the number of permits, we want to somehow treat those. Council Member Filseth: I think that's the reason to do it. The reason is to set up the structure to do it. I actually think that it is a little bit artificial to do that, but we should do this now. Staff should go off and—as we set aside the allocation, Staff should consider how to develop a more comprehensive solution. I'm sure the dentists and doctors are not going to be the only ones we're going to want to look at, but we should start somewhere. This is a good start. Mr. Mello: Could I maybe suggest—I think the easiest way to handle this would be to exempt them from the cap. If we reach a cap, then those types of businesses would continue to be able to purchase. That's the easiest way administratively to do it. We could then verify that they were an employee of this particular business and grant them a permit. Council Member Filseth: That works now but, if we're looking for a solution some years down the road or something like that, that might not be it. We have to come up with a mechanism of deciding what's one kind of business versus another kind of business. TRANSCRIPT    Page 93 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Mr. Mello: I'm just worried that we set aside a certain portion for them, and they wouldn't be purchased. Then, we'd be holding permits back from other eligible employees. That would be one worry with setting aside a specific amount. Council Member Filseth: I understand. The other thing that might happen is we sell the whole allocation, and then we sell another 150 on top of that too. Could that happen as well? Mr. Mello: That could happen, but we could bring that data back to you in a year when we bring back the recommended permit allocations and let you know how many locally based services purchased permits above and beyond the cap. We could have another conversation about what the appropriate limit is. I don't foresee it going too far above the cap. Council Member Filseth: I understand. I would rather we did a specific allocation if we could. Whatever we do here, we're going to want to do on California Avenue as well. Council Member DuBois: I'd suggest we allocate it, and then we release it if it's not purchased within a certain amount of time or something administratively so it's not … Council Member Filseth: How about that? Could we do that? Mr. Mello: Yes. For the low-income allocation, we're now going to revisit that monthly, and we're going to release extra full price permits for low income if the low-income ones sell out. That was a problem we had during Phase 2. We could do a similar rebalancing with these. Council Member Filseth: I think that would work. Mr. Mello: After 6 months, would that be appropriate? Council Member Filseth: That sounds reasonable. We'll have to see what the language to do that is. Mr. Shikada: Council Members, if I might. As you go down this road, I recognize that we're going to go down this road. I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't throw down the acknowledgement that this program already runs at a deficit. The administrative complexity would certainly not help in terms of our ability to continue much less to scale this as it grows. I would caution the Council to try and keep it simple for the purpose of administration going forward so that we are able to keep it in a sustainable manner. TRANSCRIPT    Page 94 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member Filseth: I agree. I understand that completely, but I would hope that people recognize that this is actually a pretty important issue. What we have here is a scarce resource with more demand for it than there is supply. The days in which everybody who wants to park in Professorville has a space are gone, and they're probably not going to come back. We're going to have to manage this resource. At the moment, with the exception of the low-income things, we're basically managing it first-come-first-serve. We are going to have to be more proactive about this. The City is going to have to actively manage, and that means we're going to have to figure out this class of business versus that class of business and so forth. We're going to have to do it. I understand the administrative complexity issue. We should keep it as simple as possible but not simpler. Ms. Gitelman: Council Member Filseth, I just want to see if the Clerk has captured the intent here. If the Clerk has gotten Section A of the Motion correct, we're hoping that Section B is no longer relevant. Then, Section C would refer to the recitals in the Resolution. Council Member Filseth: Yes, I think Section b is replaced by Section B. Is that what you're saying? Ms. Gitelman: Actually we were hoping "b" would stay, and we could potentially add Channing House to that list. "B" would no longer be relevant. Council Member Filseth: I thought we said we'd do the opposite, which is release them as they … Council Member DuBois: We didn't want to exempt them. Council Member Filseth: What did Josh say? Mr. Mello: Originally, the way we thought this might perhaps work is to exempt them from the employee cap and use their own professional organizations to verify whether they were in fact a dental office. Our vendor could check to make sure they're on a list provided by their professional organization. What I think you recommended was instead we hold 150 out of the 1,800 for dental and medical or just dental and Channing House, and then we release them if they're not sold within 6 months to the general permit supply. Council Member Filseth: Does that work if we're doing these things on a 6- month cycle? TRANSCRIPT    Page 95 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Mr. Mello: I guess they would be released anyway because the permits would be renewed. Maybe a 3-month cycle. We're going to be looking at the permit balancing on a monthly basis with the low income and the full price. We could also look at whether these are selling and make some adjustments. Council Member Filseth: Consider exempting them from the cap. If we exempt them from the cap and let's say the cap is, for the moment, 1,800 and we get 100 permits bought by the dental offices, doesn't that mean we're going to sell 1,900 permits? Mr. Mello: Possibly, yes. Council Member Filseth: What we'd really like to do is sell the 100 to the dentists and 1,700 to everybody else. How do we do that? Ms. Gitelman: The way we were looking at this data is we were thinking with the 1,800 permits no one's going to feel a lot of pain. We're not going to run into a problem. It would give us a year to kind of come up with a system for making sure that the special entities that we want to guarantee permits to can get permits. It just seems a little ornate. We have a special deal for Addison already. If we add a special deal for Channing and then we add a special deal for the dentists, we're getting up to a large number of our permits are set aside … Council Member Filseth: Of special deals. Ms. Gitelman: … or special deals. Council Member Filseth: That's right. I think that's right. We would like a more systematic way to do this than a whole series of one-off deals. It would be nice to have the dental deal in place while we work on that. Vice Mayor Kniss: (Inaudible). Council Member Filseth: I was sort of hoping for "B." Vice Mayor Kniss: It's your Motion. You can do as you like. Ms. Gitelman: Just to add to this, I think we heard from one of the speakers there were 260 dental employees. If we have 600-plus low-income permits, 260 dental permits, 40 Addison permits, 80 Channing House permits, we're getting so there are only a small number of permits left for everybody else. Council Member Filseth: This is where we're going. TRANSCRIPT    Page 96 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Ms. Gitelman: I'm wondering whether this is a change you want to make now or whether it's one you'd like us to come back with some further analysis to make next year when we think people are going to start feeling this permit reduction. Council Member DuBois: Eric, maybe if I could speak to my second, if you're done. Council Member Filseth: Go ahead. Actually, I have one more comment if we come back to this. Vice Mayor Kniss: (Inaudible) redundancy though. Council Member Filseth: I understand. I just wanted to comment on the 85 percent thing, and let's come back to this. I don't think the 85 percent thing makes sense in this context. 85 percent parking utilization is a number which has come out of a number of urban planning studies to what makes for efficient traffic circulation in Downtown areas. I would prefer that efficient traffic circulation is not the priority in residential neighborhoods, which is what we're talking about here. I don't think the 85 percent number makes sense in this context. That's where that came from. I'm sorry, go ahead, Tom. Council Member DuBois: Super quick, and I'm going to get to maybe some amendments, which you can either accept, or I'd suggest we just quickly move through. Council Member Filseth: I want to resolve this issue. Council Member DuBois: (Crosstalk) maybe a proposal to resolve this thing. Super quick. I think we still need a goal if it's not 85 percent. When I was saying 50 percent, I was including all uses, 2 hours, residents, business. You said it, it's not a resource to fill completely. It's a benefit of the neighborhood. We all said we don't need to go to zero. I hope I was clear that I was saying that as well. Two-hour parking to me is not a problem. That's a benefit. We want people to come Downtown to shop. Street parking at retail should be for that. I see that as a priority, to provide spots for shoppers. In terms of the caps, Council Member Tanaka was suggesting we need data. We've been doing this for 3 years. We actually have real data. This is one of the few times we have almost 2 years of real data. I do think we need to make a decision. This Ordinance is renewing. Starting with some amendments … Council Member Filseth: Wait a second. I want to resolve the "b" versus "B" thing. TRANSCRIPT    Page 97 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member DuBois: I'm getting to those. Council Member Filseth: Sorry. Council Member DuBois: Channing House said they only use 55 permits. I feel like this is getting overly prescriptive. I'd like to say something like 150 permits for locally serving nonprofits and small office medical and dental, and just doing that. Either we reduce the total cap by that amount so we could keep "b" and just reduce the 1,800 by that amount. It's the same effect. Ms. Gitelman: If I can interject. Just from an administrative perspective, I just pity the Joe Parking Permit Issuer who has to decide who's an eligible nonprofit. We really would like to try and be pretty … Council Member Filseth: I think we want to be careful of scope creep at this point in time. If we do the eligible nonprofits, then we're going to look at retail, and then we're going to look at some other stuff. I think we should stick strictly to dentists and Channing House for the moment. What I'm hoping is we can pipe-clean some kind of solution with them that maybe can scale to other people too. Council Member DuBois: If you modified A.2.b to say 150 permits and then reduced A.i by that 150 and then delete "B," you could essentially have the same thing. Vice Mayor Kniss: It makes more sense to keep "B." Council Member Filseth: I actually agree. It makes more sense to keep "B." I don't know how we do it, but that makes more sense. Council Member DuBois: Then, I guess you're suggesting delete … Council Member Filseth: Delete "b." Council Member DuBois: … "b." On "C" there, my proposed Amendment would be to delete 85 and propose 50 percent as a goal. Again, I'd like to see a target. Council Member Filseth: I'll accept that as an Amendment. Council Member DuBois: Again, we might want to vote on these separately. That was on "C" at the end. Council Member Filseth: You know what? I actually think we should vote on that one separately. TRANSCRIPT    Page 98 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member DuBois: That's what I’m saying. Council Member Filseth: Don't take it out there. That will be an Amendment. Council Member DuBois: It's replace 85 with 50 basically. Council Member Filseth: Replace 85 with 50. If the Motion fails, delete reference to 85 should still be in there, though. Council Member DuBois: Okay. Another proposed Amendment would be to set the number of permits at 1,500 … Vice Mayor Kniss: Why don't we do one Amendment at a time. If we get too many up there, we're not going to keep it straight. You have moved. Did you get a second? Is there a second to the 50 percent? Council Member DuBois: I thought Council Member Filseth. Council Member Filseth: I'll second it. Can I second his Amendment? Vice Mayor Kniss: That means you're just going to incorporate it into the Motion. Council Member Filseth: If it passes. We have to vote on it. Vice Mayor Kniss: No, no. If you've accepted the Amendment, it's accepted. Council Member DuBois: Does anybody else accept it? Council Member Filseth: I don't accept it. Council Member Kou: I'll second. AMENDMENT: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member Kou to replace in the Motion Part C, “85 percent” with “50 percent.” Vice Mayor Kniss: There's a second. Do we need to have extensive discussion on this? Council Member Filseth: Did you say 55 percent or 50? Council Member DuBois: I said 50. Vice Mayor Kniss: It's now gone from 85 to 55 percent. I think a fair question at this point is to say to Staff what would it take to get to 50 TRANSCRIPT    Page 99 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  percent as far as number of spaces. I think that's something we could work out pretty quickly. Mr. Mello: The average block in the Downtown RPP has somewhere around 20 spaces per block. We're talking about 10 vacant spaces per block. Council Member Filseth: He's got to include all (inaudible). Vice Mayor Kniss: In the Downtown area, that's pretty substantial. Council Member Filseth: I don't think you can calculate it. You've got to account for all the resident spaces too. The only way to do that is empirically, by going out and counting. That's what Neilson did. You pick the number by what the characterization of the neighborhood is going to look like, not what the demand for space is. Mr. Mello: The average block has 20 spaces available in inventory. If we were to get to a 50 percent occupancy, we would have 10 occupied spaces and 10 vacant spaces. It wouldn't be even on every block because we'd still have the clustering of the 2-hour parkers, unless the goal would be to have a 50 percent occupancy on every block in the Downtown RPP. Council Member Filseth: I think that is what you're talking about, 50 percent occupancy on every block. Council Member DuBois: In the neighborhoods, yeah. Mr. Mello: That would probably require eliminating some 2-hour parking, reducing the 2-hour parking to shorter time periods, removing some blocks—it would take some pretty drastic steps to get the inner core blocks down to 50 percent, I would think. Vice Mayor Kniss: You're going to go way overboard to make that happen. Council Member DuBois: The 85 percent would be the same. You're going to do the inner core to 85? Council Member Filseth: No. I don't think that should be in a Motion. Vice Mayor Kniss: Let's get this one—we've now got one that says 85 percent with 50 percent. That's the Amendment we're about to vote on. Ms. Gitelman: If I can interject. Vice Mayor Kniss: Briefly. TRANSCRIPT    Page 100 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Ms. Gitelman: One more thought perhaps. We think that 85 percent is achievable by adjusting the employee permits. You still have a lot of 2-hour parkers. By doing the adjustments correctly on the employee side, you should be able to get to 85 percent. You could probably get to 75 percent or something being even more aggressive in that category. To think that you're going to get much lower than that without a whole other round of parking regulations and changes to effect the 2-hour parkers … Council Member Filseth: I think this is something—if I understand where you're going, this is something we want to get to over time, not we're going to get to with this. I completely agree. To get to that, we're going to have to do what Council Member Tanaka said, which is look at everything holistically. Vice Mayor Kniss: I'm going to ask you to vote on this instead of having a long discussion about it. I don't think this one is that complicated, to be honest. With that, the Motion is to replace Part C 85 percent with 50 percent. Could you vote on the board as to whether or not you accept that change or not? Molly, we think we're going to run into this occasionally tonight. That would say that's a no. That Amendment fails. AMENDMENT FAILED: 4-4 Fine, Kniss, Tanaka, Wolbach no, Scharff not participating Council Member DuBois: Let's keep it moving. Council Member Holman: Just one quick—would it help us move that one along one way or the other clearly if it just said 50 percent over time? Achieved over time, would that help change any votes? Vice Mayor Kniss: Because we're going to end up parsing everything tonight, let's leave that one and go on to what's probably going to be a number of other amendments. Council Member Filseth: Can I make a suggestion? If we're going to do what Council Member Tanaka said, which is look at this holistically, maybe that belongs to part of our discussion of that. Council Member DuBois: I still think we need a quantitative goal. We've had that discussion multiple times. My second Amendment would be to change A.i to make the cap at 1,500, and then to bring back some of the language that Council Member Wolbach mentioned of directing Staff to return in a year to look at a reduction of 200 based upon occupancy analysis and mode split analysis. I think the reduction actually goes in A.ii. TRANSCRIPT    Page 101 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member Filseth: I'm not going to accept the Amendment because I think we should vote on it separately. If it could be … Ms. Gitelman: Can I just remind the Council that by referring to 1,800 there, we actually mean 1,346 because some of the permits are held in reserve for streets that haven't annexed in yet. 1,800 is used in the Resolution, but it's actually a smaller number of permits that would actually be sold because of those streets that aren't in. Council Member DuBois: Again, I'm suggesting we do not expand up to 1,800 based on selling the 1,400 to date. We would only expand up to 1,500 including annexing streets of "9" and "10." Ms. Gitelman: I guess our reading of 1,800 is it's not an expansion because we wouldn't sell all 1,800. We would only sell those that are available on the streets that are within the program. It would actually be 1,346 permits, which is a reduction from the current number that we've sold. We've currently sold according to today's numbers 1,400 permits. We would be authorized to sell 1,346. Council Member DuBois: Are you saying instead of 1,800 here, it should say 1,346? Ms. Gitelman: Actually both numbers are accurate. It would be 1,800 if all the streets annex in, and it'd be 1,346 if only the streets that are currently in stay in. Council Member DuBois: Based on actual demand, which we—all I'm saying is if all streets annex in, the max would be 1,500. That's the Amendment. Council Member Holman: I'll second. Vice Mayor Kniss: The maker of the Motion doesn't accept it. Is there a second? Council Member Holman: Yes. AMENDMENT: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member Holman to replace in the Motion Part A.i. “1,800 six-month Employee” with “1,500 six-month Employee.” Council Member DuBois: Super quick again. We have real data here. This 1,800 number is a holdover before we had any data. We've sold permits for almost 2 years now. We've been at 1,300 to 1,400. I'm suggesting an extra 100 spots, which is more demand than we've seen but capping it. I TRANSCRIPT    Page 102 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  don't think we should pass tonight the ability to actually expand up to 1,800 from selling 1,300 in the last year. Ms. Gitelman: We're doing the math to figure out what that would translate to in actual permits. If you can give us a moment. Council Member DuBois: All of "9" and "10" could opt-in to get to the 1,500. Ms. Gitelman: That's right. Vice Mayor Kniss: Karen, do you want to speak to your second? Council Member Holman: Yes. What happened here? We're only voting on the 1,500 instead of 1,800. There will be another change because we talked about adjacency earlier. "9" and "10" opting in is not, which gets to what Director Gitelman was saying. Ms. Gitelman: If I can just interject. If you change the 1,800 to 1,500, then we would only be issuing 1,015 permits because a lot of those streets haven't annexed in. Instead of the 1,400 that we've issued, we would be issuing 1,015. That's a significant reduction. Council Member DuBois: Why couldn't you just issue the same number as you did this year? Ms. Gitelman: We could, but then it wouldn't be the 1,500. Council Member DuBois: If you resold people permits that they already had today, you'd be selling 1,400 permits. Mr. Mello: Correct. Mr. Mello: You would need to authorize us to sell 1,400 permits and then eliminate all of the permits that are in reserve in Zones 9 and 10. Council Member DuBois: I was trying to be a little higher level than that, to say you rebalance it across the zones. Council Member Filseth: Are you saying you reduce the reserve in Zones 9 and 10 to 150? Is that what you're saying? Council Member DuBois: That's not what I was saying. I was saying just take the new total and allocate it across the ten zones. It would actually be 100 more than we've sold so far. TRANSCRIPT    Page 103 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Ms. Gitelman: I think we have a challenge because a previous Council direction was to create this eligibility area where streets could annex in. They haven't all annexed in, but we've set up an administrative process where these streets could be added at any time over the course of the year. The 1,800 number that we are recommending was based on an assumption that over the course of the year they would all annex in. We could issue up to 1,800 permits, and that would constitute a slight reduction from what we issued this year. Council Member Filseth: Under the Amendment, if no other streets opt-in, how many permits do we sell? Ms. Gitelman: 1,015, which is significantly less than the 1,400 we've sold. Vice Mayor Kniss: You've changed the entire dynamic (crosstalk). Council Member DuBois: Karen, do you want to speak? Council Member Holman: A clarification on—that still doesn't jive for me. The other thing is if you're saying that Zones 9 and 10, the streets that hadn't opted in—that's not my block; it's already in—would those be employee or resident only or anything, first-come-first-serve? Ms. Gitelman: We're just talking about the number of employee permits right now. Of course, any household on those streets, any residents, would be eligible to buy 14 resident permits. I'm sorry, four per residence. Council Member Holman: Council Member DuBois, I rather appreciate what you're trying to get to. That's why I seconded it. This totally is in defiance of what Director Gitelman is saying is accurate; I don't doubt that it is. "9" and "10" are not adjacent at all. Those streets that could opt-in are not adjacent to the retail district, are contrary to what other cities are doing. They're counter to what the—the reason I'm motioning over here is (inaudible)—attorney who has been consulting with neighbors has been saying. Can you say it one more time because it's escaping me? Why it would be that we'd only be issuing—you said 1,115 permits? Vice Mayor Kniss: No, 1,015. Mr. Mello: There are permits that are being held in reserve for Zones 9 and 10, for those streets that are not yet in the program. Those are kind of abstract permits to come at a later date when those streets opt-in. We need to have those available, because when we talk to you we want to talk about the total potential employee permits. In reality, we've only issued 1,400 permits in Phase 2 for the areas that are already in the program. One TRANSCRIPT    Page 104 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  alternative that you could consider is to issue the 1,400 permits for the streets that are already in the program and not issue any additional permits for Zones 9 and 10. That would get you down roughly to the number that was made in the Motion. The new streets that annex in would not be eligible for employee parking. Council Member Holman: Council Member DuBois, would that be agreeable to you? Council Member DuBois: Yeah. I think that's the effect of what I said. That's what he's saying. Council Member Holman: Not according to what they were saying. With that caveat—Staff is saying to reduce the 1,500 to 1,400. Mr. Mello: The wording would be 1,400 employee permits available with no permits held in reserve. Council Member Holman: You're good with that? Mr. Mello: For the eligibility areas. Council Member Filseth: Does he mean with 100 permits held in reserve for the eligibility areas? Mr. Mello: For what? Council Member Filseth: Does he mean 100 permits held in reserve for the eligibility areas? Council Member DuBois: To get to 15? Mr. Mello: We could also do that, 100 held in reserve. That would be a pretty significant reduction in the outer zones, 9 and 10, eligibility areas. Council Member Filseth: I thought that was what you wanted in the first place? Council Member DuBois: Yeah. I'm suggesting 1,500 not 1,400. Council Member Holman: That's fine with this additional language with none held in reserve. I'm good with that. Council Member DuBois: Did everybody understand that? Council Member Holman: Actually it's 100 held in reserve. TRANSCRIPT    Page 105 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member DuBois: Yes. 1,400 permits and 100 in reserve. AMENDMENT RESTATED: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member Holman to replace in the Motion Part A.i., “1,800 six-month Employee Permits” with “1,400 six-month Employee Permits available plus 100 held in reserve for Zones 9 and 10 for the next year and direct Staff to return in one year with potential changes based on occupancy studies.” Vice Mayor Kniss: Unless somebody really needs to speak to this Amendment, I'd like to suggest … Council Member Wolbach: (Inaudible) can see it. Council Member DuBois: The only other change there was not just the TMA but also parking occupancy analysis. Vice Mayor Kniss: In fact, I'm going to ask Eric to restate it as the maker of the Motion. You're willing to live with that one? Council Member Filseth: I think we're going to vote on it. Council Member DuBois: It's an Amendment. Vice Mayor Kniss: If you're willing to accept it, we don't have to vote on it. What this does is … Council Member Filseth: I think I'm going to vote for it as written. Vice Mayor Kniss: This takes it down from 18 to 1,400, and then it puts 100 in reserve. Essentially you've got 1,500. Am I right? Mr. Mello: It takes it from 1,800 to 1,500. It takes the permits that are available immediately from 1,346 to 1,400. Vice Mayor Kniss: That's what we're doing. Council Member DuBois: I think it's a good compromise. I think it's reasonable. Vice Mayor Kniss: You're both in agreement on this? I would actually be in agreement with you, but again we really do need to move this one unless somebody desperately needs to speak to it. Why don't we vote on it? We finally have a 5-3. That one does pass. AMENDMENT PASSED: 5-3 Fine, Tanaka, Wolbach no, Scharff not participating TRANSCRIPT    Page 106 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Vice Mayor Kniss: It does significantly reduce it. I think we end up about where we were before other than we're not saving the spots in the Crescent Park and the outer Professorville neighborhood. Am I right? Mr. Mello: I'm sorry, could you restate the question? Vice Mayor Kniss: It's okay. Let's move on from there. In the middle of this—that Amendment does pass. However, Council Member Tanaka has asked me if he could jump in and make a Substitute Motion. I'm going to allow this because I think this would take us in quite a different direction if there's any interest. Council Member DuBois: We just passed it, though, right? Vice Mayor Kniss: Pardon? Council Member DuBois: We just passed it, though, correct? Vice Mayor Kniss: We passed it. We passed the Amendment. I have just taken the privilege of the Chair and said I know that Council Member Tanaka wants to make a very different Motion. Council Member DuBois: I still have some other amendments. Do you want to do this now? Vice Mayor Kniss: Let's clear the lights guys. I'm asking Council Member Tanaka if he wants to make his Motion. Council Member DuBois: I had some further amendments. Vice Mayor Kniss: I've decided not to. I think it's important that Adrian get out what he—I'm sorry, Greg Tanaka. Council Member Tanaka: It's 10:45 right now. We have another item after this. I think the current RPP is not broken. It definitely has improved that map. It's not perfect, but people are generally happy. It would behoove us to let Staff sync this up with the bigger program of figuring out what we do with our garages and the license plate readers and come back with a comprehensive program that uses progressive pricing to get what we want instead of caps and allow us to really look this thing in a much more comprehensive way where we're not pushing people from … Vice Mayor Kniss: Greg, is that the Motion? If so, you need a second. TRANSCRIPT    Page 107 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member Tanaka: Yes, I know. I'm just going to leave it as let's defer it for Staff to come back to make a comprehensive Downtown parking program. Vice Mayor Kniss: Essentially, this is to defer the agenda item to another time? Council Member Tanaka: Yeah, but basically freeze the program as it is. Keep it going until Staff has time to put together a comprehensive program. Vice Mayor Kniss: Is there a second? Council Member Fine: I'll second that. I actually have another Motion in mind, but I'll second this and see if there is support. SUBSTITUTE MOTION: Council Member Tanaka moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to continue the existing RPP program and direct Staff to return with a more comprehensive Downtown parking program. Council Member Fine: I agree with Council Member Tanaka that we're getting too much in the weeds in the previous Motion. This is some pretty radical changes, going to 1,400. Vice Mayor Kniss: Is there a second? I mean, does anyone wish to speak to this? Eric. Council Member Filseth: I think we've promised the residents parking relief. We shouldn't kick the can down the road until we have a giant, holistic solution. We should proceed with this piece. Thanks. Vice Mayor Kniss: Unless somebody else wants to speak, what we've had now is suggesting tabling essentially this and coming back with something more comprehensive. I happen to agree with Eric that we've got to keep this moving. It is what we have promised. Would you vote? Council Member DuBois: If I could continue? I just had two more things. Vice Mayor Kniss: You can, but first I want to report the vote. The vote on the Substitute is Council Member Fine and Council Member Tanaka voting yes and the remainder voting no with the Mayor excused from this item. SUBSTITUTE MOTION FAILED: 2-6 Fine, Tanaka yes, Scharff not participating Vice Mayor Kniss: We're back to you again, Tom. TRANSCRIPT    Page 108 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member DuBois: I do think the pricing discussion is important. It's getting late. I was going to make a Motion about pricing, but I think I'll defer on that unless somebody else would like to. I do think we should increase street parking including the daily parking above the garages. My last Motion would be to have Staff analyze and come back with a proposal that new commercial buildings or commercial parts of mixed-use buildings not be eligible to purchase RPP permits. Ms. Stump: We would just understand that as not a legislative item for tonight, but a direction that we'll report back on options to accomplish that goal. Council Member DuBois: That's all I'm asking for. Vice Mayor Kniss: That doesn't need to be an Amendment. What I'm hearing Molly say is this could come back in a different form. Ms. Stump: We understand that it's important that Council understand the parameters on this question, so we'll bring it back in a different form. Council Member DuBois: Do you need direction from Council to vote on that? Ms. Stump: I don't think we need a specific vote on it tonight. Thanks. Council Member DuBois: I'll stop there. Vice Mayor Kniss: Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: No, that's for another Motion I wanted to make. I think we should vote on—I'll just make a Substitute Motion then. I'm going to move that we adopt the Resolutions to make RPP permanent and find them exempt from CEQA. However, we reduce employee permits by 100 permits per year for 2 years and reassess annually at Council based upon additional parking and transportation options becoming available and based upon parking occupancy analysis and mode split analysis. Additionally, we reassess within a year and study it over the year—this is the part I'm going to need some help with. Explore ways to find neighborhood-serving medical, dental and senior care as exempt or allowed to purchase beyond the cap. Council Member Wolbach: I'll second that. SUBSTITUTE MOTION: Council Member Fine moved, seconded by Council Member Wolbach to: TRANSCRIPT    Page 109 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  A. Adopt a Resolution amending Resolutions 9473 and 9577 to make permanent the Downtown Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) Program and direct Staff to make corresponding changes to the Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) Administrative Guidelines including the following changes: i. Reduce the number of Employee Permits by 100 permits per year for two years; and ii. Reassess this reduction on an annual basis based upon additional parking and transportation options becoming available, and based upon parking occupancy analysis and mode-split analysis; and B. Consider ways to exempt or better serve neighborhood serving medical, dental, and senior care uses; and C. Find the program exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Council Member Fine: Let me speak to this quickly. Vice Mayor Kniss: Would you be clear, Adrian, in how this differs the one that's currently on the board? Council Member Fine: The one that's currently on the board shoots us down to 1,400 effectively. It also takes Zones 9 and 10 effectively out of the program by using their 300 permits and redistributing them in the core area. It takes the reserve and move them into the core area. It just gets rid of them? Then, you're "9" and "10" out anyways. It's effectively taking "9" and "10" out, which we would need to explore. Essentially what I’m trying to do here is acknowledge RPP is working. I think we do have some flexibility to reduce employee permits annually. Council should continue looking at it annually, however, based upon parking impacts and mode split. The main reason—Council Member Filseth, you said you wanted to get rid of some of these clustering areas. I actually don't believe reducing the employee permits is going to do that. That's the 2-hour parking problem, which we're going to address separately. I don't think we can address them all tonight. Finally, I think we've heard loud and clear from our business community, particularly medical, dental, and senior care services, that they're particularly worried about their ability to do business in the Downtown area. We should look at ways to provide support for them. Potentially it's exempting them; potentially it's about allowing them to get some certain number of permits. Potentially it's allowing them to buy over the cap. I don't know exactly what the mechanism is there. This would get TRANSCRIPT    Page 110 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  us to 1,800 right now. Next year when we revisit it, it'll be at 1,700. We're going to have some more data where, I presume, we're not going to see the clustering problem gone away because we're still not addressing the 2-hour parkers. I'm going to let Cory speak to this. This is a good way to continue reducing the employee permits, continue serving our residents, and it gives us the flexibility to address the business needs. I'm going to go down and work them in a sec, but I guess Cory will want to speak to this. Council Member Wolbach: Let me start by saying I was leaning towards supporting the original Motion. As the amendments were added, it was harder and harder for me to support it. This is a little bit cleaner. I'm okay with tweaking this a little bit. I'm also okay with some amendments as long as they make it clearer not more complex. There's this balancing point between getting too much into the weeds or not addressing an important part of this admittedly very complex issue in front of us. I'm sympathetic to both motions. Hopefully, we can get behind this one and make what necessary tweaks we need so that we can get five votes for it at least. I am worried—what I'm trying to do here is see if there's a way we can marry these two and find a compromise. Honestly, I don't want to see us getting stuck in 4-4 votes. It would be great, especially for something this controversial, if we can get greater consensus. There was language in the original Motion. There was this discussion—I want to make sure Council Member Filseth—I have his attention. This is actually really for you. There was a debate about "b" or "B" in the original Motion. I actually felt that "b," which was consider exempting dental and medical service offices from the employee parking permit cap, was the right part to go with. We ended up dropping that from the original Motion and going for something different. It's important that we leave those kinds of potential exemptions for a future year once Staff, Council, etc., have had a chance to really explore it. For a number of reasons, I think it would be inappropriate for us to provide any carve-outs for any particular group at this point but to prepare for that conversation over the course of the next year. Council Member Filseth: I actually like Adrian's language more than I like what you just said. Council Member Wolbach: I'm not proposing making an Amendment based on that. I think what Adrian has done here is created maybe a third option that we can all get behind on how we address medical/dental/senior care. We might want to add exempting neighborhood services such as medical, dental, and senior care. That would be, I think, coming back in a year. Actually to the maker of the Motion, with "D"—it looks like you're still working on it. Was it the maker's intent that Item D be something that we really address starting next year when this comes back? Those would not be TRANSCRIPT    Page 111 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  done immediately because the people administering, the Staff or consultants administering this program would not be prepared, as we heard from Staff tonight, to implement that right away. We might want to make changes around Zones 9 and 10. I think there is some division on the Council and some lack of clarity about what we want to do with Zones 9 and 10. My honest preference is that we find a way to get to Zones 9 and 10 having essentially the College Terrace-style RPP if they want it on a block-by-block basis. I don't think we need to do that right now. That might be another thing we could come back with in a year. I would like to be able to get to that point. They were added as optional opt-ins to the existing Downtown RPP for the time-being as we're continuing to work through this. It's an iterative process. We did a couple of phases in the pilot, and it's going to continue to iterate as we deal with unintended consequences and expected ones. I do think we want to get to the point where Zones 9 and 10 in the current system can go to having no employee parking. I don't think we need to do that right now, but I think we can set that up so we can have that happen in the future. Actually I would suggest an Amendment. I'll wait just a second while the maker confers. Maybe this is one we vote on separately. It might be one we want to have a quick round of discussion on (inaudible) to suggest at this point. Let me know if you think we should vote on it separately or if you'd be willing to incorporate it. For Zones 9 and 10, direct Staff to explore ways of converting them to residential-only RPP … Council Member Fine: I'd accept that. Council Member Wolbach: … over time. INCORPORATED INTO THE SUBSTITUTE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Substitute Motion, “direct Staff to explore ways to convert Zones 9 and 10 to residential only permitting over time.” (New Part D) Vice Mayor Kniss: Do what with them in the meantime? Council Member Wolbach: Use the existing system for the time being. Council Member Filseth: How many permits do they sell? Council Member Wolbach: Beyond that, open to amendments by others as far as how many amendments we apply there. Council Member Fine: I think the purpose here is that much of Zones 9 and 10 are the reserve, which we don't necessarily have to access yet. TRANSCRIPT    Page 112 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member Wolbach: This is clear. It addresses most of the key issues here. If people want to offer other friendly amendments, I'd be open to listening to them. I do like the direction this Motion is going more than the original. I was pretty sympathetic to the original one too at least as it started. Council Member DuBois: Could we see the original again, if there's a way to go back and forth? Council Member Wolbach: Since nobody's piping up, I'll just add one thing to what I was saying before. If I could look to Council Member Fine, the maker of the Motion. If we could scroll down again to the current one. On Item D, would you be comfortable with changing it to consider ways to exempt or better serve businesses such as and then neighborhood-serving etc.? INCORPORATED INTO THE SUBSTITUTE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to replace in the Substitute Motion Part B, “medical, dental, and senior care uses” with “businesses such as medical, dental, and senior care.” Ms. Gitelman: Council Members, if I can just add one more complexity. We're concerned that if you just make "9" and "10" residential only, then the reductions that we're going to see in employee permits are going to be in Zones 9 and 10. They're not going to be in the inner area where we've noticed the red block faces. The reason we had tilted the reductions toward the inner core is to try and achieve a better result in those zones. Council Member Wolbach: Right. What we're suggesting as you come back to us in a year is that we have an opportunity to look at a change for Zones 9 and 10 with the understand that there will be tradeoffs. The point is well taken. Thank you. Vice Mayor Kniss: We now have a Substitute Motion on the floor. Council Member Fine, do you want to speak any further to your Motion? Council Member Fine: This is a nice way of slowly chunking away at the employee parking issues Downtown and easing our business community into it while also taking care of our residents. I'll just put it out there. I would be willing to make Letter B start us at 1,800 this year. I thought that's what I did originally, but I didn't actually. Essentially we're taking off 200 right now; we go to 1,800. Next year, we go down to 1,700. Council Member Wolbach: I accept that right now. TRANSCRIPT    Page 113 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member Fine: I'm going to change that. On Letter B, we go to 1,800 this year right now overall, and then reduce by 100 per year. Council Member Wolbach: I'd accept that as well. INCORPORATED INTO THE SUBSTITUTE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add at the beginning of the Substitute Motion Part A.i., “start with 1,800 Employee Permits in the first year and.” Council Member Fine: It's similar to the other Motion. I think it's a little cleaner. It's also allowing us to explore the ways we might serve some of the business communities. Rather than trying to pick an exact number out of the hat right now, since we're starting at 1,800, it gives the dental, medical and senior care communities a little bit more flexibility. This also includes Provision F, which is looking at ways to move Zones 9 and 10 to purely residential. Mr. Mello: If I could jump in. Does that also include the recommended Staff rates of reduction for the zones? The zones at the core would have a higher reduction rate. Are you recommending a flat reduction rate? Council Member Fine: I'm happy to leave that up to Staff. You guys know that better. As Tom mentioned at the beginning, there's a number of parameters we can address. We could go fiddling with how much you're moving each zone, but I think we best leave that up to Staff. Vice Mayor Kniss: I'm looking to see—Karen, do you have your light on to speak to that? Council Member Holman: Yeah. Don't know where this is going to end up. If this one is the one that passes, I'd like to offer an Amendment. The minimum reduction in any zone would be 10 percent. Right now, it goes from 5 to 20 percent. I ask that you accept that. Council Member Fine: (Inaudible). Council Member Holman: You have some of the most heavily impacted zones, 7 and 8, only getting a 5 percent reduction. Other portions are getting 20 percent reductions. It seems hardly equitable. Council Member Fine: You're just moving (inaudible). Council Member Holman: I'm just saying the minimum reduction. Staff can work out how the numbers work out. The minimum reduction per zone would be 10 percent. TRANSCRIPT    Page 114 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member Fine: Can Staff speak to that? Mr. Mello: I think a clearer way to say that would be to say start with 1,800 equally reduced in all zones. It's a numerical figure now; it's not a percentage. It might be easier to just say start with 1,800 with the reduction occurring equally in all zones. Council Member Holman: If that's acceptable to the maker? Council Member Fine: I would accept that if you're willing to support the Substitute Motion as a whole. Council Member Holman: I'm not going to bargain. I'm not going to bargain. Council Member Fine: All right. I'll testimony the waters. I'll accept it. Council Member Wolbach: I will accept it but suggest that—the truth is that's what we're doing, looking for ways—I wouldn't call it bargaining, but you can call it what you want, or making sausage. We're looking for ways to find a Motion that we can all get behind. AMENDMENT TO THE SUBSTITUTE MOTION: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member XX to add to the Substitute Motion Part A.i., “with a minimum reduction per Zone of 10 percent.” AMENDMENT TO THE SUBSTITUTE MOTION RESTATED AND INCORPORATED INTO THE SUBSTITUTE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Substitute Motion Part A.i., “spread equally across all Zones.” Council Member Holman: Whatever Motion passes, the job of the Council Members from my perspective is to make whatever is on the screen the best it can possibly be. That doesn't mean or imply implicit support for the whole Motion. Council Member Wolbach: What I’m suggesting is that if there is anything that is causing reservation in supporting the Substitute Motion, the amendments needed in order to earn your support should be offered. Vice Mayor Kniss: Let me just tell you briefly why I'm not going to vote for this even though I think it's a really good Motion. We've gone from 18 down to 15. Am I correct, Josh? In the first Motion, we went from 18 to 15. Mr. Mello: Yes, the first Motion had a total cap of 15, and this one has a total cap of 18 for the first year. TRANSCRIPT    Page 115 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Vice Mayor Kniss: Your suggestion for tonight was 1,346, but you said it was actually about 1,400. We've actually got an extra 100 in there that we didn't anticipate. What we're doing is very different. We're looking at "9" and "10" and treating them somewhat differently than we have before. Mr. Mello: Under this Substitute Motion, if it was approved, we would issue 1,346 permits. The previous Motion, we would issue 1,400 permits on day one of the new program. Council Member Kou: Will you repeat that? Mr. Mello: This Motion that's on the screen, the Substitute Motion, we would issue 1,346, which is what the original Staff proposal was. That's the calculation you get when you have a cap of 1,800. For Council Member DuBois' Motion, which was previously—it would be—sorry I lost my—1,400 permits would be available on day one. But there would no longer be permits held in reserve in Zones 9 and 10. Vice Mayor Kniss: That's the biggest change. That's important for us to understand. The numbers are rather close. What's really different in the Motion as it now stands that was Filseth's Motion is that we end up without the excess in Numbers 9 and 10. I would only tell you why I'm supporting that. To go way back when, another night when we were here much later than we are tonight—this is still early, everybody. That night I attempted to take "9" and "10" completely out of it. I think Norm has left now. Norm agreed that night that that would work. I'm comfortable with the first Motion, which is the one that is the non-Substitute Motion. Anybody else to speak? I just took my turn. Karen, you spoke. You spoke, Tom? Are you speaking to this motion or to … Council Member DuBois: Speaking to the Motion. I don't think it's simpler; it's just a different Motion. We're cutting the reduction in half to 5 percent a year. I do think it's time to get specific in terms of reassuring people. I think one of the other differences here was the specifics about Channing House and dentists in the first Motion. Council Member Filseth actually convinced me that—I actually started off with something more aligned to what you have, more general. He convinced me it was time to be more specific. Just to understand what the first Motion accomplishes is it actually moves to effecting the residential permit parking in Zones 9 and 10 in a much more direct way. I'm not going to support this Motion. This Motion also keeps the 85 percent target for neighborhood streets, which I don't think is the right goal. Vice Mayor Kniss: Any other comments? Cory. TRANSCRIPT    Page 116 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member Wolbach: I'd be open to amendments not at the 50-percent level, because that would be removing essentially—we're talking about removing like 2,000 permits. We're talking about having way too few—way too small utilization of the streets. I'd be open to amendments on what the goal is for street utilization, whether it's 75 or 80. If 85 is too high, I think there might be a compromise somewhere in there. I think the maker would be open to that as well. As far as "9" and "10," again if there are amendments that would improve Item F, I'd be open to listening to them. Vice Mayor Kniss: I'm seeing lights go on again. Does everyone need to speak to this again or are we at a point where we could vote on the Substitute Motion? Can we vote? SUBSTITUTE MOTION AS AMENDED RESTATED: Council Member Fine moved, seconded by Council Member Wolbach to: A. Adopt a Resolution amending Resolutions 9473 and 9577 to make permanent the Downtown Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) Program and direct Staff to make corresponding changes to the Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) Administrative Guidelines including the following changes: i. Start with 1,800 Employee Permits in the first year and reduce the number of Employee Permits by 100 permits per year for two years, spread equally across all Zones; and ii. Reassess this reduction on an annual basis based upon additional parking and transportation options becoming available, and based upon parking occupancy analysis and mode-split analysis; and B. Consider ways to exempt or better serve neighborhood serving businesses such as medical, dental, and senior care; and C. Find the program exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA); and D. Direct Staff to explore ways to convert Zones 9 and 10 to residential only permitting over time. Vice Mayor Kniss: To move this along—I know it's frustrating. After 11:00, we need to vote on this. This is your vote now on the Substitute Motion made by Council Member Fine. This one is a 5-3. I won't read all the names on the board. This one is a yes from Council Member Wolbach, Council Member Fine, and Council Member Tanaka. TRANSCRIPT    Page 117 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  SUBSTITUTE MOTION AS AMENDED FAILED: 3-5 Fine, Tanaka, Wolbach yes, Scharff not participating Vice Mayor Kniss: Let's go back to the original Motion, and let's see if we need to fiddle with that anymore. That's a technical term. Can you bring the original back up? Ms. Gitelman: Vice Mayor Kniss, this Motion still has that Section B that is of concern to Staff. Just the idea of between now and April 1st, figuring out how to allocate a special category of permits and these numbers, I guess we're … Vice Mayor Kniss: Say no more. We can go back to the—we hear your concern. It's well stated. Let's go back to "b" instead of "B." Council Member Filseth: I actually kind of liked Council Member Fine's language on this one. If we've still got that, can we see what that looked like? Vice Mayor Kniss: Eliminate B-1 and 2. Council Member Filseth: B-1 and 2. It was direct Staff to explore ways to— "D." The one thing I think is important is we shouldn't have the word— better serve or prioritize or carve-out or something like that, maybe prioritize is a good word. I don't think we want to build-in an exemption. What's going to happen is we're going to use this for—it's going to go to other kinds of groups. We can't start doing exemptions. Prioritization is more … Council Member DuBois: As the seconder, I agree. It's not to exempt; it's to allocate. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to remove Part B of the Motion and replace in the Motion Part A.ii.b., “consider exempting” with “consider ways to prioritize.” Council Member Filseth: "B" goes away. Vice Mayor Kniss: Eliminate "B" both sections please. Council Member Filseth: That's right, A.ii.b. Seconder, are you okay with that? Council Member DuBois: Should we include schools as well? They're kind of separate right now. TRANSCRIPT    Page 118 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member Filseth: They're already in there. Council Member DuBois: It's Addison. Vice Mayor Kniss: I think we've already taken care of that. What else is there in this? Cory said he's never had a chance to speak to the Motion. Please, Cory, go ahead. If anyone else wishes to speak to this and hasn't spoken to it before or needs to speak to it again, put your light on. I'm putting out all the lights right now. Council Member Wolbach: As we continue to bargain here, that change substantially improves this Motion. I'm glad we went through the exercise of the substitute because at least we got something good out of it. That change that we just made helps. The "B," delete reference to 85 percent utilization in the recitals, what does that mean? What is the effect of that? Actually, I really want to know what Staff thinks that means. Mr. Mello: Included in the recitals in the actual Resolution that's attached is—one of the recitals says that we would adopt a parking occupancy goal in the neighborhoods of 85 percent or less. The intent on that was when we come back to you we have some performance measure that we can relate. We're collecting all these parking occupancy surveys. We'd like to be able to come back to you and say we are meeting the performance measure, we are not meeting it, here are some recommended changes in order to meet that performance measure. Council Member Wolbach: If we deleted that performance measure, what goes in its place? Ms. Gitelman: It would be a qualitative standard. That section would read it is the goal of the City to reduce the impacts of nonresident overflow parking from the Downtown commercial districts on the surrounding neighborhoods. Council Member Wolbach: I would look to Council Members Filseth and DuBois and ask if they would be comfortable with a friendly Amendment to delete "B." If we want quantifiable goals, we should keep the 85 percent utilization or change it to another number. Again, I'm not comfortable with going very low. At least it's something. If we get rid of it, we lose all specific goals. I think (crosstalk). Council Member DuBois: Can you propose the number? I tried to propose a number. Council Member Wolbach: I'd say change 85 percent utilization recital to 80 percent. TRANSCRIPT    Page 119 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member Filseth: I'm not going to accept that. 80 percent is essentially 100 percent capacity utilized. We have promised people parking relief, and 80 or 85 percent does not do it. That's why I think we should take it out. The effect of not having anything in there just means we're going to wrangle with it some more, but that's how it is. Council Member Wolbach: My understanding was the 85 percent was a standard that we got from somewhere. Does anyone remember, off the top of their heads, where (crosstalk)? Council Member Filseth: Eighty-five percent is a number that comes from a number of urban planning studies and is quoted by Donald Schoup in The Highest of Free Parking as being an optimal number by which if you get any higher than that, traffic gets backed up as people jockey for parking spaces. The 85 percent is optimal to encourage smooth, rapid traffic flow in urban areas. I would submit that encouraging smooth, rapid traffic flow is not the object of residential neighborhoods. Council Member Wolbach: I would argue that it's one of our goals. Having people backing up, stopping on the street, circling over and over again is one of … Council Member Filseth: In residential neighborhoods? Council Member Wolbach: Is something we do not want to see in residential neighborhoods. We don't want people circling around looking for parking. We don't want people stopped, blocking the road especially on some of our newer roads. The point I'm trying to make is that 85 is better than 100. There might be a number that's better than that. We can have … Council Member Filseth: I think I'm not explaining this correctly, but I'm not going to accept the Amendment. Council Member Wolbach: I'm going to suggest that we—I'm looking for something we can all get behind here. Council Member Holman: Can I suggest that there's such little difference—if I might be so bold here—between 85 and 80 and it's 11:20 and we have a significant item yet to come, we're dancing around the maypole here in the month of October. Council Member Wolbach: I'll offer another one, which is 75. I still think it's important to have some kind of number. I think 50 is too low; I think 85 is too high. I think 75 is a compromise. It's for now; it's for a year. Staff wanted to have a number in there so that we have something quantifiable to TRANSCRIPT    Page 120 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  work with, so that we have a goal and we can judge ourselves against that goal. I'd suggest, whether it's friendly or not, replace 85 utilization with 75 percent. That would replace "B." Vice Mayor Kniss: Let's just jump in here. Can Staff make a comment regarding the utilization? Ms. Gitelman: It was really the Council's direction the last time we were here to come back with a quantitative standard. We put out the 85 percent, which is the standard we've been using in all our data collection efforts. If you want to set a different standard, then that's your prerogative. Council Member Wolbach: Again, I'll offer that as an Amendment, friendly or unfriendly. Council Member Filseth: I'm not going to accept that either. If we approve that, then we're going to get neighbors out here with pitchforks. Council Member Wolbach: I think if we don't have anything, we're going to get neighbors out here with pitchforks. Is there anyone who would be willing to second it as an unfriendly Amendment? We can discuss it more or vote on it. Vice Mayor Kniss: They're not jumping up and down, Cory. Council Member Fine: Just a question for the maker and the seconder. If we're just deleting the reference to the utilization rate, what then? We just don't use that as a metric? Vice Mayor Kniss: There isn't support for it. Sorry, Cory. Let's get that one out. Let's see if we can actually get this someplace. AMENDMENT: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member XX to replace Part B of the Motion with, “update reference to 80 percent utilization.” AMENDMENT RESTATED: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member XX to replace Part B of the Motion with, “update reference to 75 percent utilization.” AMENDMENT FAILED DUE TO THE LACK OF SECOND Vice Mayor Kniss: "B" is now gone. We want to delete that reference. Council Member Filseth: No, no, that's there. "B" stays. TRANSCRIPT    Page 121 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Vice Mayor Kniss: You do want that deleted. You want "B" to stay, deleting the reference. Got it. Who else needs to speak to the main Motion at this point? Put your hand up because by now different—Karen and then Adrian and Lydia. Council Member Holman: Here it is. A.ii.b seems to be a little bit at conflict with something else that we've had as the program before. Before we have prioritized the low-income employees. Could I suggest amending that to say including low-income employees, consider ways to prioritize neighborhood- serving businesses such as medical, dental, and senior care. Ms. Gitelman: If I can interject, Vice Mayor Kniss. The suggestion is already dealt with in another section of the Resolution. I'm not sure that the Amendment is required. Vice Mayor Kniss: The low-income employees? Council Member Holman: I just want to make sure that this language doesn't supplant the other language. We can't prioritize to different sets of employees, low income and the medical, dental and senior care. Council Member DuBois: That's fine with me just to keep it clean. Council Member Holman: Eric was the maker of the Motion. Eric's okay with it. Tom's okay with it. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to restate Part A.ii.b. of the Motion, “in addition to low income employees, consider ways to prioritize or better serve neighborhood serving businesses such as medical, dental, and senior care.” Council Member Holman: Hillary, does it confound the issue? It seems like it just clarifies it. Ms. Gitelman: It's just a little confusing because the program already prioritizes low-income workers. We're saying consider these additional priorities in the next year. Vice Mayor Kniss: I frankly think it's redundant. We have continuously talked about how we're going to—we even have special pricing for low- income employees. If you guys are determined to have it, I just don't think it adds anything. Council Member DuBois: It's fine. We're just saying it doesn't supplant it as long as you understand that. TRANSCRIPT    Page 122 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member Holman: We just don't want to supplant the other. Vice Mayor Kniss: I would just eliminate it. Keep this as clean as we can at this point. Council Member Holman: The maker of the Motion has accepted it, and so has the seconder. Vice Mayor Kniss: We're trying to get to a vote here at some point. Adrian. Council Member Fine: One Amendment. I'd like to modify A.i so that we— instead of 100 held in reserve, change it to 200 held in reserve. Vice Mayor Kniss: For Zones 9 and 10? Council Member Fine: Yeah, for A.i, yeah. Do I have a … Vice Mayor Kniss: That's an Amendment, and that would change the 100 … Council Member Fine: 100 to 200. Vice Mayor Kniss: … to 200. Is there a second? Council Member Tanaka: I'll second. AMENDMENT: Council Member Fine moved, seconded by Council Member Tanaka to replace in the Motion Part A.i., “100” with “200.” Vice Mayor Kniss: There's a second on that. Do we need any discussion about it? Council Member Fine: Just to speak to it quickly. Right now, there's 300 in reserve in those two areas. Two hundred seems like a fair balance if we are trying to reduce them. One hundred seems a little bit restrictive in the long term. Vice Mayor Kniss: Any other—did you want to speak to that, Greg? Anybody else? Are you okay voting on this? I'm actually okay with that. Can you not just vote? Go ahead. Council Member Kou: No, I can't just vote on this. I thought the whole purpose of this was residential preferential parking. At the end of the day, we're trying to reduce the number so that the residents are not affected. Zones 9 and 10 are eligible areas that should not be eligible. Why are we holding 200 in reserve when we already have 100? If we need to come back TRANSCRIPT    Page 123 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  to 200 and to bring this up again, in 1 year this is coming back. I won't support the 200. Council Member Fine: Not all of them are going to be allocated. This gives us more reserve, and we can still move it down year after year. If our goal is to get rid of employee parking, we should just go to zero. Council Member Kou: I understand that. You like the flexibility, but I don't agree that we are going to compromise the neighborhoods and residents on this kind of issue. They're already compromised. We need to step up for them right now. Council Member Wolbach: If it's okay with the Chair, I'd like to weigh in on this briefly as well. Vice Mayor Kniss: Yes, go ahead. Council Member Wolbach: Thank you. I actually don't agree with this. This is one area where we may differ. We should be focusing on—I would actually propose after this Motion that we insert some language that we had in the previous Substitute Motion to explore changing Zones 9 and 10 to residential only. I'll vote against this one, and then make that Motion as well. Vice Mayor Kniss: Can we vote on this? We're now voting on the Amendment, 100 to 200. You know it. That fails with Fine and Tanaka voting yes. AMENDMENT FAILED: 2-6 Fine, Tanaka, yes, Scharff not participating Council Member DuBois: Can we just call the question? Vice Mayor Kniss: I'd be delighted. CALL THE QUESTION: Council Member DuBois moved, seconded by Council Member XX to call the question. CALL THE QUESTION FAILED DUE TO THE LACK OF A SECOND Council Member Wolbach: As I just said, I wanted to make one last Motion. Vice Mayor Kniss: What would it be? Council Member Wolbach: That is hopefully a friendly Amendment. The language that we had in the previous Motion was to … TRANSCRIPT    Page 124 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Vice Mayor Kniss: Which part does it deal with? Council Member Wolbach: Zones 9 and 10. Direct Staff to explore ways to convert Zones 9 and 10 to residential only permitting over time. Vice Mayor Kniss: That's one that we could take up at another time frankly. If anyone else is dying to support it, I think … Council Member Filseth: That was actually my reaction. Vice Mayor Kniss: The question's been called. It was a great idea, Cory, but … Council Member Wolbach: I just thought it was important to indicate … Vice Mayor Kniss: I think what we've done is … Council Member Wolbach: … to the residents of Zones 9 and 10 that we are looking to reduce employee parking in the neighborhoods. Vice Mayor Kniss: Keeping them at 100 is very much in that direction. AMENDMENT: Council Member Wolbach moved, seconded by Council Member XX to add to the Motion, “direct Staff to explore ways to transition Zones 9 and 10 to residential parking permits only overtime.” AMENDMENT FAILED DUE TO THE LACK OF A SECOND MOTION AS AMENDED RESTATED: Council Member Filseth moved, seconded by Council Member DuBois to: A. Adopt a Resolution amending Resolutions 9473 and 9577 to make permanent the Downtown Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) Program and direct Staff to make corresponding changes to the Residential Preferential Parking (RPP) Administrative Guidelines including the following changes: i. Modify Section 5.C.2.e to include a cap of 1,400 six-month Employee Permits available plus 100 held in reserve for Zones 9 and 10 for the next year and direct Staff to return in one year with potential changes based on occupancy studies; and ii. Direct Staff to return to Council in one year to: c. Reassess the Employee Parking Permit reduction rate based on the results of the Palo Alto Transportation TRANSCRIPT    Page 125 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Management Association programs and other parking management programs; and d. In addition to low income employees, consider ways to prioritize or better serve neighborhood serving businesses such as medical, dental, and senior care; and B. Delete reference to 85 Percent utilization in the Recitals; and C. Find the program exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Vice Mayor Kniss: Tom has called for the question. Do we need to vote on whether or not we're going to vote or are you okay with voting? If we are all okay with voting, let's vote on the board. Thank goodness. At only 11:30 at night, we finally have an agreement. We have voted 7-1, Council Member Tanaka declining for obvious reasons. Thank you all very much. You at least need a quick break. Thank you, guys. You were very patient. MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 7-1 Tanaka no, Scharff not participating Council Member DuBois: Liz, would it be okay if I recuse myself now? Seriously. Vice Mayor Kniss: Actually I am too. We're both leaving. Council Member DuBois: Can we do that right now? Vice Mayor Kniss: Can you do it right now? Council Member DuBois: Before the break. Vice Mayor Kniss: Just say it out loud, yeah. Council Member DuBois: Because Stanford is a source of income, I'm going to recuse myself from this last item. I will see everybody tomorrow evening. Vice Mayor Kniss: I am also going to excuse myself, and not for any good reason. Council Member DuBois left the meeting at 11:26 P.M. Vice Mayor Kniss left the meeting at 11:26 P.M. Mayor Scharff returned to the meeting at 11:26 P.M. Council took a break from 11:26 P.M. and returned at 11:31 P.M. TRANSCRIPT    Page 126 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  11. Review and Direction to Staff Regarding Comments on the Preparation of an Environmental Impact Report for Stanford University’s Application for a Major Modification to Their General Use Permit (GUP) With Santa Clara County. Mayor Scharff: Do we have any public comment? We do. Our first speaker is Todd Collins, to be followed by Herb Borock. Todd Collins: Good evening or should I say good morning. I'm Todd Collins. I'm a member of the Palo Alto School Board; although, tonight I'm speaking on this as an individual. I do have the benefit of having led the major part of the District's recent enrollment planning effort, which gave us significant insight into the impact of Stanford on-campus housing during the current GUP. I want to bring to your attention some concerns about the impact of the proposed GUP on our City's schools and on our traffic. The proposed housing under the GUP will likely have a very significant impact on enrollment in Palo Alto Unified. My estimate, based on what I've seen so far, is it could produce up to 1,000 additional students out of 12,000 total. Aside from the impact of 1,000 additional students, the location of the housing creates additional issues, particularly the 550 faculty housing units proposed for Quarry Road across from Stanford Shopping Center. This housing would be in an area that is not well served by our current schools and has few, if any, students living in it today. Many of those students would likely be driven to and from school as are almost all the students currently residing at Stanford West. Virtually none would be able to walk to our existing schools. To reach the nearest elementary school to that proposed housing, which is Addison, requires crossing a State highway, active train tracks, Alma, our Downtown district twice each day. The second nearest school is over 2 miles away. Up to 2,000 additional car trips could be added to the current load. An alternative approach, of course would bring the school to the students rather than the students to the school. If Stanford plans to continue to build housing on the west side of campus, it may make sense to build them a school. That requires land, of course, and Stanford owns the land. We'd need to work with them to set aside land for their school as, of course, we have done before with Escondido and Nixon schools. In addition, the plan calls for almost 1,000 units of graduate student housing. While Stanford is telling us that the housing will not be for families, it will nevertheless lead for more students—can I continue or no? Mayor Scharff: Nope. Mr. Collins: I'll email the rest. Mayor Scharff: Thanks. Herb Borock. TRANSCRIPT    Page 127 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Herb Borock: Mayor Scharff and Council Members, this afternoon before 4:00, I emailed comments on this agenda item. Somehow it never made its way to the Council Members or to the Clerk. The first opportunity I had to forward a copy from my inbox where I did receive my copy was about 8:00 this evening. It apparently did arrive this time and went through the normal forwarding. I don't know how many of you had a chance to see it. It says that something was forwarded at about 8:00, and the item is timestamped 11:00 that's being forwarded because it's in universal time from my email box. I tried to get you something in writing so I can talk about it. I normally would say someone looking at their computer, the communications wouldn't work, but this would be something that was originally sent earlier. I hope you could all look at it. Essentially it's more detail on the development within Palo Alto that's Stanford development. There's general language in the Staff proposal, and I’m suggesting that it be more precise. Secondly, I believe that we need to know in the EIR what land Stanford has that it can sell, that is, land outside the founding grant that's alienable land. That can be turned into anything or we may have creative ways of using it or trading that land for future development. I suggested in my letter that my letter and others be attached to your comments. Rather than trying to wordsmith or make changes to the Staff's draft letter, it would just attach those. Thank you. Mayor Scharff: Thank you very much. Now, we'll return to Council for questions, comments and motions. I'll take the Chair's prerogative and move the attached draft comment letter regarding the preparation. Council Member Fine: I'll second that. MOTION: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to direct Staff to transmit a final letter to Santa Clara County with the City’s comments on the scope of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) being prepared regarding the proposed Amendment to Stanford University’s General Use Permit (GUP). Mayor Scharff: I think that was Council Member Fine, but I couldn't hear. You both shouted. Just briefly I'll speak to it and say that Staff did a really good job taking all the feedback we had when we last had a Study Session. I think I read almost everyone's comments in this letter. I think it's important to get it out. I think Staff did a good job. Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: I think the Mayor has summed it up well. I also think it's important to get home. Mayor Scharff: Exactly. That's what I was thinking. Council Member Holman. TRANSCRIPT    Page 128 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member Holman: Since I third this Motion. Thank you. I think the Staff actually did a very good job with this. I do have some additions, though. Truly, I think you captured a lot but there are some things that are important to add in here. On Page 2 under Aesthetics and Cultural Resources, in the third to last line it says performance standards should be identified to minimize or avoid. I would add potential impacts through alternatives. Adding the words "or avoid" … Mayor Scharff: I'm confused. Where exactly are you? Council Member Holman: I'm under Aesthetics and Cultural Resources, Page 2, third line from the bottom. It starts in that section performance standards should be identified to minimize or avoid potential impacts through alternatives and mitigation measures. Mayor Scharff: That's fine with me. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “with the following changes: A. Add to Aesthetics & Cultural Resources, ‘or avoid’ after ‘be identified to minimize.’” Council Member Holman: I have these written down if that's going to be helpful later. Mayor Scharff: That depends how many you have. Council Member Holman: I have a few. Under Air Quality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Noise and Vibration, the DEIR should also provide numerical analysis of greenhouse gases created through demolition and construction. In other words existing buildings being replaced by new; this is aside from construction activities. Mayor Scharff: Say this where? Council Member Holman: I'm sorry? Mayor Scharff: Say it again. Your line where you're starting. Council Member Holman: This goes under Air Quality, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Noise and Vibration. The DEIR should also provide numerical analysis of greenhouse gases created through construction and demolition. Mayor Scharff: Is that a new line? Where is it going in? TRANSCRIPT    Page 129 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member Holman: It's a new line, and this is separate from construction activities. Mayor Scharff: Where does it start? Right now it says the DEIR should provide quantitative analysis. Council Member Holman: I added it as a sentence at the end of that section. Mayor Scharff: At the end of that sentence, you're going to say the DEIR should also provide. Got it. Council Member Holman: Numerical analysis of the greenhouse gas created through demolition and construction. Mayor Scharff: No, I won't accept that. Council Member Holman: Council Member Filseth, will you second that? Council Member Filseth: I'll second that. AMENDMENT: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member Filseth to add to the Motion, “add to Air Quality, Green House Gas Emissions, Noise, & Vibration, ‘the DEIR should also provide a numerical analysis of greenhouse gasses created during construction and demolition.” Council Member Holman: Speaking to the Amendment, this is because it is an easy thing to analyze. These are things that LEED has finally started to address. These are significant impacts that result in equivalency of adding many car trips to the road, is a simple way of putting it. Mayor Scharff: Do you want to speak to your second? Council Member Filseth: If the maker of the Motion is amenable, I think it needs a couple more words on it. The dominant one is the emissions produced during the creation of the materials used in construction itself. I think you want the words "including creating of the building materials used." Council Member Holman: That's fine with me. INCORPORATED INTO THE AMENDMENT WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Amendment, “including creation of the building materials used.” Council Member Filseth: Manufacturing cement and steel is what you're talking about. TRANSCRIPT    Page 130 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Council Member Holman: There's also the … Hillary Gitelman, Planning and Community Environment Director: Mayor Scharff? Council Member Holman: … recycling of buildings that get taken down. Hillary. Ms. Gitelman: Mayor Scharff, if I could just interject on that last point. If we add that sentiment about the emissions inherent in building materials, we would be holding Stanford to a different standard than we hold ourselves. We haven't thus far quantified lifecycle emissions as part of our accounting. Just FYI. Council Member Holman: When we were talking about the GUP last week, I actually mentioned that and asked them to be the leader. Acknowledging that we don't yet do that and we sure as heck should be doing it, so I asked them to be the leader as they are on many, many environmental fronts. They didn't say no. Mayor Scharff: You've both spoken. I will speak to my opposition to this. My opposition is based on what Director Gitelman just said. We don't hold ourselves to that standard. I think we have to think about to what purpose. Are we basically going to try and decide that anytime anyone builds anything we should be using concrete and steel? I'm not sure that without a discussion and not without us doing it ourselves why we should hold Stanford to a higher level than what we do when we've had no Council discussion about this. We've had no Staff Report on it. I think that's inappropriate. Council Member Holman: If I could just—I bring it up and have brought it up a lot. We haven't had a separate agenda item to discuss it, but I have brought it up a good number of times. The mission here is to analyze greenhouse gas emissions and what the impacts are. That's the purpose of an EIR. There are clear greenhouse gas impacts from construction and demolition. AMENDMENT AS AMENDED RESTATED: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member Filseth to add to the Motion, “add to Air Quality, Green House Gas Emissions, Noise, & Vibration, ‘the DEIR should also provide numerical analysis of greenhouse gasses created during construction and demolition, including the creation of the building materials used.” TRANSCRIPT    Page 131 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Mayor Scharff: I see no further lights. Should we vote on the Amendment? That fails on a 4-3. AMENDMENT AS AMENDED FAILED: 3-4 Filseth, Holman, Kou yes, DuBois, Kniss absent Council Member Holman: I have—on Page 4 talking about housing. This could fit any number of places here. The gist of it is to create no housing demand outside of GUP boundaries. In other words, Stanford should accommodate its own housing demand it's creating. Mayor Scharff: I'm not going to accept that either. I think that's too amorphous. Council Member Filseth: That's not what an EIR does. It just measures (inaudible). Mayor Scharff: That's correct. Council Member Holman: It makes Stanford—for the jobs they create and the housing demand they create, they provide the housing. It's pretty simple. Council Member Filseth: That's not what an EIR does. (Inaudible). Council Member Holman: It would be an impact on Palo Alto or Menlo Park or some other community if it has a housing demand impact. Council Member Filseth: Don't you want it to have (inaudible)? Council Member Holman: Microphone. Council Member Filseth: Don't you want it to say quantify housing demand as opposed to create no housing demand? It's the EIR; it's just an analysis. It's not a directive. Council Member Holman: Quantify, that would be good. Quantify housing demand outside of GUP boundaries. Is that acceptable then, Mayor Scharff? Mayor Scharff: No, it's not acceptable. Council Member Filseth: I'll second it. AMENDMENT: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member Council Member Filseth to add to the Motion, “add to Population and Housing, ‘create no housing demand outside of GUP boundaries.’” TRANSCRIPT    Page 132 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  INCORPORATED INTO THE AMENDMENT WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to replace in the Amendment, “create no” with “to quantify.” Council Member Holman: Thank you, Eric. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Fine. Council Member Fine: I'm not going to support this. I think it's an interesting exercise, but again this actually gets back to the last one. We don't even do this ourselves in the City of Palo Alto, where we're quantifying that housing demand and forcing ourselves to meet it. I don't think we should do the same with Stanford. AMENDMENT AS AMENDED RESTATED: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member Filseth to add to the Motion, “add to Population and Housing, ‘to quantify housing demand outside of GUP boundaries.’” (New Part B) Mayor Scharff: Seeing no further lights, do you want to vote on the Amendment? That doesn't pass; there's no lights. It's still not working. There we go. That passes on a—do you need five votes or four votes? Who voted yes? We have Council Member Kou. You voted, Cory, yes? We have Council Member Filseth and Council Member Holman. Does it pass or not pass? It passes. It passes on a 4-3 vote. AMENDMENT AS AMENDED PASSED: 4-3 Fine, Scharff, Tanaka no, DuBois, Kniss absent Council Member Holman: On Page 6, we're talking about parks and demand on parks. I look to Staff for help with how this should be phrased. This is all going to be built out. We have a Mayfield agreement for the Mayfield soccer fields that expires—I meant to look up what year it expires. It will certainly expire in the not too distant future after the build-out of Phase 2. They need to accommodate and reconcile the—they either need to accommodate or replace the Mayfield playing fields. I guess a way of putting that would be— like I said, I need help with language on that one. It's too late. Ms. Gitelman: If I could suggest maybe we just pose it as a question, ask them whether their proposal includes preservation of the soccer field. Council Member Holman: That's an excellent way of putting it. Mayor Scharff: That's acceptable. TRANSCRIPT    Page 133 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “Under Recreation, ask if the proposal incorporated preservation of the Mayfield soccer fields.” (New Part C) Council Member Holman: Thank you. I can't read one of my own notes here. I'm sorry. I've written thank you here in a few places for Staff. Under Transportation and Circulation, remind me if traffic enforcement support is something that CEQA considers. We have public safety, fire and police, for those kinds of things. We don't have in here mentioned the need for additional traffic—analysis of whether we would need additional traffic enforcement support. Ms. Gitelman: Typically, we would analyze traffic safety, the safety of traffic operations in an EIR. I've never seen an EIR that identified the need for additional traffic control officers specifically. Usually, that's within the public safety discussion. Council Member Holman: That would be included in the public safety discussion then? Ms. Gitelman: Right. Council Member Holman: I'm going to hold you to that. On the next Page also still Transportation and Circulation, in the middle of the Page there's a (inaudible) on the information provided. After that, Number 3, it says estimate transportation-related construction impacts. I think the word should be evaluate. Should it not? Ms. Gitelman: Either one, if you prefer evaluate. Council Member Holman: I'm more comfortable with evaluate. Estimate doesn't seem to hold any so what. Mayor Scharff: I'm fine with evaluate. INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “Under Transportation & Circulation, replace in the second Bullet 3 ‘estimate transportation related’ with ‘evaluate transportation related.’” (New Part D) Council Member Holman: On Number 4, it says pending review of daily vehicle volumes, consider resetting to the no net new trips. I would suggest it would be pending review of daily vehicle volumes, reset the no net new trips. TRANSCRIPT    Page 134 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Mayor Scharff: Does Staff have thoughts on that? Ms. Gitelman: That change is fine. It really doesn't matter. Mayor Scharff: That fine with you? INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “Under Transportation & Circulation, replace in the second Bullet 4 ‘pending review of daily vehicle volumes, consider resetting’ with ‘pending review of daily vehicle volumes, reset.’” (New Part E) Council Member Holman: Same Page. I'm sort of assuming here and don't have anything that convinces me otherwise that this DEIR might use only VMT and not LOS. Does Staff know? Ms. Gitelman: The County has committed to using LOS as well. Council Member Holman: That's good to hear. I didn't have a chance to go back and look up what roadways were being analyzed. It talks about Campus Drive. Do we know what roadways are being analyzed? Ms. Gitelman: The County actually consulted with our Transportation Staff when they selected the corridors and intersections. We feel pretty good that they have cast a wide enough net. Council Member Holman: Just quickly, I put down here 101, 280, Sand Hill, El Camino, Willow Road, University Avenue and Stanford Avenue. Ms. Gitelman: I don't have the list on the top of my head. I know that our transportation professionals were consulted, and they were happy. Council Member Holman: On Page 8, after Number 9, the second paragraph says the traffic analysis should also study the extent to which Stanford commuters are avoiding (inaudible) counts by parking on local streets in adjacent neighborhoods. This was something I did bring up last week. Stanford should contribute its fair share of ongoing RPP operation costs for Evergreen Park and College Terrace. Mayor Scharff: Wouldn't that go in—we have a comments section later. Don't we talk about other issues? If you want to put that in the other issues section. Council Member Holman: Other issues, that's fine. TRANSCRIPT    Page 135 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add to Other Issues, ‘Stanford to pay its fair share of College Terrace and Evergreen Park RPP.’” (New Part F) Council Member Holman: That's where I'd put my note, my expanded note. I have just—almost done here. Under other issues, I'm curious about what impact there might be on social services or the demand for social services given the anticipated population growth. Is that something we could add under other issues? Mayor Scharff: What was the question? Council Member Holman: The anticipated population growth for the build- out, is there a way to analyze or estimate what the demand for social services would be with that kind of population increase? Ms. Gitelman: Could you be a little more specific? Is there a service that the City provides that you think we would be overtaxed or extended beyond our current budget? Council Member Holman: Yeah. For instance, we provide—one example would be we provide funding for HSRAP organizations that serve the community more than the City does directly. Would that demand increase to such an extent that we would have to further increase social services funding? In other words, the homeless population increase because of housing issues that we have here. Is there any way to analyze that? Ms. Gitelman: I've never seen that done in an EIR. Maybe it's possible to do that based on the income levels you anticipate in the units. I don't know. Council Member Holman: It's truly a question. I don't know how to do it. It's truly a question. I look to the maker. Mayor Scharff: I guess I don't really see it as relevant. I don't see how Stanford's increase in campus is going to dramatically or significantly increase the homeless population. Council Member Holman: Just an example. I don't know. I truly don't know. It's a topic that came up in a conversation with somebody else, that I thought was worth querying. Two last things. One is the 25-year Foothill protection … Mayor Scharff: Which protection? Council Member Holman: The 25-year Foothills protection. TRANSCRIPT    Page 136 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  Mayor Scharff: Foothills protection. Council Member Holman: I'd like to ask that they change that to in perpetuity. That's again other issues. Mayor Scharff: I'm not going to accept that. Stanford would never agree to in perpetuity. Maybe if we asked for a longer period, they might agree, but that's not part of the EIR. Council Member Holman: These are other issues. Mayor Scharff: This is not our only shot at this issue. I don't think now is the time to draw that line in the sand. Council Member Holman: Do I have a second from anyone else? AMENDMENT: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member Kou to add to the Motion, “add to Other Issues, extend the Foothills protection in perpetuity.” Mayor Scharff: Do you want to speak to it? Council Member Holman: I think this is something that was really sought the last time this went around. Given that it's just what 17 years later and Stanford's asking for an additional 2 million square feet, and they can't answer the question of what their maximum build-out is, I think it's important for us to try to achieve protection in perpetuity for the Foothills. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Kou. Council Member Kou: What Council Member Holman said. If they can't give us a maximum build-out, we don't know what their population is going to become. In this letter, it states that Stanford doesn't really think—they state that we have a lot of regional parks and open space. With their growth, we don't know. I think it'd be great to have that open space forever. Mayor Scharff: Anyone else what to speak? Seeing no lights, I'll just basically say I agree it would be great to have it nailed down forever. I think this is a longer conversation and not something to just throw out there at the end. We're much more likely to end up saying we want another 25 years. We should think about that seriously and ask for something that's achievable. I can tell you that Stanford probably would not support that. In fact, they chose to pay the $5 million themselves on the Stanford trail rather than give an easement in perpetuity. They would have agreed to an TRANSCRIPT    Page 137 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  easement for 50 years, 70 years, but they weren't going to agree to in perpetuity. The language of in perpetuity is really inflammatory. Council Member Holman: If this should fail, I'll come back with another Amendment that gets closer to what you're saying. Mayor Scharff: I think we're going to have other shots at this. This is about the EIR. I'd want to think about what the right number is and what we could achieve. Council Member Holman: I think the Supervisors are also looking to get direction from us about what we want to see. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach, did you have your light on? Council Member Wolbach: First a question. The maker of this Amendment suggests that it would go under other issues. Correct? The language in the EIR now says that they'll protect it for an additional 25 years beyond the date of implementation of the Draft EIR. When would the 25 years expire? Council Member Holman: Staff can speak to this. Right now, the 25-year protection period has the clock ticking on it. It's not an additional 25 years. I didn't read an additional 25 years. It's what we have now period. Council Member Wolbach: If this was going to say an additional 25 years, I'd support it. I would not support in perpetuity for the reasons stated by the Mayor. Mayor Scharff: I'll move an Amendment to you Motion, that instead of in perpetuity, we do it for another 25 years. Council Member Holman: Would you accept 50? Mayor Scharff: No. I'm willing to reconsider it. If you want to do it tonight, I'm willing to do 25 years. I'm happy to just say extend it. That's probably makes the most sense of where I'd like to be. Council Member Holman: I could go with that, extend it. Extend the Foothill protections. Mayor Scharff: You're fine with that? Council Member Fine's with that, so we'll go with that. AMENDMENT TO THE AMENDMENT: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member XX to replace in the Amendment, “perpetuity” with “25 years.” TRANSCRIPT    Page 138 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  AMENDMENT RESTATED AND INCORPORATED INTO THE MOTION WITH THE CONSENT OF THE MAKER AND SECONDER to add to the Motion, “add to Other Issues, ‘extend the Foothills protection.’” (New Part G) Council Member Holman: One last one. The preface to this is that Stanford still has 750,000 square feet—I'll have to come back to you, Beth, and clean up some of these. Stanford still has 750,000 square feet of the 2000 2- million-square-foot academic buildings that haven't been built. We have yet to see or realize the impacts from that 3/4 million square feet. Under other issues, I would like to ask Stanford to, as alternatives considered as part of the DEIR, look at alternatives for 750,000 square feet and for 1.25 million square feet as opposed to 2 million square feet. Mayor Scharff: No, I won't accept that. Council Member Holman: Looking for a second. AMENDMENT: Council Member Holman moved, seconded by Council Member XX to add to the Motion, “add to Other Issues, ‘look at alternatives of 750,000 sq. ft., and 1.25 million sq. ft.’” AMENDMENT FAILED DUE TO THE LACK OF A SECOND Council Member Holman: Is there any smaller number than 2 million square feet that you would accept? Mayor Scharff: No. Council Member Holman: Anyone? Mayor Scharff: Going once, going twice, going three times. Council Member Holman: Guys, this is 2 million square feet just 17 years after the last 2 million square feet. Mayor Scharff: Are you done? You said that was the last one you had. Council Member Holman: That's the last one I had. Mayor Scharff: Council Member Wolbach. That was for the thing. Council Member Filseth, was that for the other thing? Seeing no lights, no one's going to get mad. Can we vote on the board? Wait, you need to clean this up. Council Member Kou: I just want to make sure "F," Stanford to pay its fair share of College Terrace and Evergreen Park—can we make sure the TRANSCRIPT    Page 139 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  language also states Mayfield because it's the Evergreen Park and Mayfield RPP? Mayor Scharff: I think that was the intention. I just want to check with Council Member Holman. You're fine with that? We'll ask Staff while we're waiting, is there anything in this letter we should send a message on the fire negotiations given that I heard today from our Chief that Stanford seems to have lost a little focus on that, in that there is some issue that came up. Ms. Gitelman: We consulted with the Chief and with the Attorney's Office on the language we crafted in the letter. (Crosstalk). Mayor Scharff: You feeling good about it. I just thought I'd raise, because I had some conversation with the Chief yesterday on it. Ms. Gitelman: I think we're okay. I should say a lot of City Staff contributed to this letter. Meg was a wonderful organizer in pulling it all together. The Chief was involved. We had help for Public Works and Utilities and CSD and a bunch of others. Mayor Scharff: I'll just say it publicly since we're waiting for Council Member Holman. If Stanford's listening, I think it's time to wrap up those fire negotiations. MOTION AS AMENDED RESTATED: Mayor Scharff moved, seconded by Council Member Fine to direct Staff to transmit a final letter to Santa Clara County with the City’s comments on the scope of the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) being prepared regarding the proposed Amendment to Stanford University’s General Use Permit (GUP) with the following changes: A. Add to Aesthetics & Cultural Resources, “or avoid” after “be identified to minimize;” and B. Add to Population and Housing, “to quantify housing demand outside of GUP boundaries;” and C. Under Recreation, ask if the proposal incorporated preservation of the Mayfield soccer fields; and D. Under Transportation & Circulation, replace in the second Bullet 3 “estimate transportation related” with “evaluate transportation related;” and E. Under Transportation & Circulation, replace in the second Bullet 4 “pending review of daily vehicle volumes, consider resetting” with “pending review of daily vehicle volumes, reset;” and TRANSCRIPT    Page 140 of 140  Special City Council Meeting  Transcript:  3/6/17  F. Add to Other Issues, “Stanford to pay its fair share of College Terrace and Evergreen Park RPP;” and G. Add to Other Issues, “extend the Foothills protection.” Mayor Scharff: That passes on a 7-0 vote (Inaudible). MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED: 7-0 DuBois, Kniss absent 12. PUBLIC HEARING: Adoption of an Ordinance Amending Chapter 18 (Zoning) of the Palo Alto Municipal Code to Update Code Sections Regarding Accessory Dwelling Units. The Ordinance is Exempt From the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) per Sections 15061(b), 15301, 15303 and 15305 and was Recommended for Approval by the Planning & Transportation Commission on November 30, 2016 (Continued From February 6, 2017) (Staff Requests This Item be Continued to March 7, 2017). Inter-Governmental Legislative Affairs None. Council Member Questions, Comments and Announcements Mayor Scharff: I guess we're going to adjourn the meeting and do what we normally do, Council Member Questions, Comments, Announcements, tomorrow. Today, we'll do it later today. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 12:05 A.M.