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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2025-03-10 City Council Summary MinutesCITY COUNCIL SUMMARY MINUTES Page 1 of 20 Regular Meeting March 10, 2025 The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council Chambers and by virtual teleconference at 5:30 P.M. Present In Person: Burt, Lauing, Lu, Lythcott-Haims, Reckdahl, Stone, Veenker Present Remotely: None. Absent: None. Special Orders of the Day 1. Establish Interview Selection Process, Review Applicants, and Select Candidates to Interview for the Upcoming Board and Commission Vacancies. CEQA Status – Not a project. NO ACTION Francesca Reyes, Deputy City Clerk, discussed the 2025 spring recruitment process for the Architectural Review Board for three full-term vacancies, Human Relations Commission for one partial-term vacancy and Utilities Advisory Commission for two full-term vacancies. The recruitment period closed on February 26. She corrected an error in the staff report on page 8, line 2 changing thee total of applicants received from 14 to 15. Staff requested Council’s direction and action on determining a selection method for candidate interviews and reviewing the list of applicants and applying the selected method to finalize the interview selections. She described different selection methods Council used in the past. She pointed out that for the Architectural Review Board, the number of applicants matched the number of vacancies so the recruitment period could be extended to encourage a larger applicant pool. Mayor Lauing asked if Council wanted to opt to extend the application process to get more applicants for the ARB. Vice Mayor Veenker’s instinct was to go ahead with interviewing the three applicants. Councilmember Burt preferred to not have as many applicants as openings. He suggested interviewing and selecting for two spots and extending the application for the third spot. Mayor Lauing preferred that option. On the other two openings, he presented the options of interviewing them all or each vote for three. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 2 of 20 City Council Meeting Summary Minutes: 03/10/2025 Councilmember Reckdahl’s inclination was to vote for all six. Councilmember Stone preferred the process of the number of vacancies plus 50 percent and round up. He stated the application process provided the opportunity to winnow down the applicants and make it easier to make a selection. Otherwise, he did not see the point in having applicants go through the application process. He wanted to find a policy to stick with going forward. Councilmember Burt indicated the written applications served to inform them. He thought the method Councilmember Stone mentioned was only useful if they had a high volume of applicants. He added that in the past there were written applications he did not find to be exceptional but he had a different takeaway after the interview and vice versa. Vice Mayor Veenker stated the written application helped her ask good questions in the interview. She was inclined to interview all of the applications and refer to P&S to set a predictable rule that they could come back to Council over a certain number of applicants. She agreed they should set a predictable policy. Mayor Lauing was comfortable with interviewing all applicants for this time but agreed with winnowing them down in instances that there were a large amount of applicants. Councilmember Stone agreed with Vice Mayor Veenker’s proposed process. Mahealani Ah Yun, City Clerk, stated for clarification they would be moving forward with interviewing all candidates for the ARB, HRC and UAC, tentatively scheduled for March 24. Agenda Changes, Additions and Deletions None. Public Comment 1. Bill R. brought to Council’s attention two high school athletes that went to finals in the California Interscholastic Federation Wrestling Championship. He suggested City Council should consider giving them recognition. 2. Amber W. spoke about the benefits of additional remedial railway improvements and proposed community art initiatives strategically along the Alma Corridor as a complementary holistic approach to enhance the experience of pedestrians and cyclists. She advised being open to approaches that had not been considered before. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 3 of 20 City Council Meeting Summary Minutes: 03/10/2025 3. Angela D., resident of the Ventura community, recommended City Council use readily available information online to compare the merits of artificial turf and natural grass rather than paying a fee to Lloyd Consulting as they specialize in installing artificial turf. She urged City Council to follow the recommendation of the Santa Clara County Medical Association that all soccer fields be made of natural grass turf to benefit the health and safety of children, athletes and the environment and to follow in the footsteps of the Millbrae City Council, which banned all landscaping with artificial turf. She provided reasons for these recommendations. 4. Magdalena C., Ventura resident and four-time cancer survivor, urged Council to vote no on the contract to retain Lloyd Consulting to do another study on artificial turf. She would prefer the money be used to replace the artificial turf at John Boulware Park with engineered wood fiber. 5. Claire E., Ventura resident, expressed concerns about the astroturf. She shared the opinions that the Lloyd contract was unnecessary as there were already numerous studies and data against astroturf. She agreed wood fiber was a good alternative for playgrounds. 6. Dona T., psychiatrist, advocated for making the train tracks near high schools inaccessible to pedestrians. She stated data showed that installing barriers to bridges and train tracks significantly reduced the rates of suicide. 7. Maddie P., secretary of the Palo Alto Youth Council, and Vivian L., member of the Palo Alto Youth Council, shared updates on the Palo Alto Youth Council including the creation of a new bike safety commission, the next PAYC event, Pancakes and Pickleball on March 29 at 10:30 AM at Mitchell Park Community Center, their work on creating a music video to raise awareness around City Council initiatives, their Instagram account where they regularly post about related to City Council and work on a creation of a video featuring places in Palo Alto teens can go to. Council Member Questions, Comments and Announcements Councilmember Burt spoke about the strike at the ATU Union at VTA which would result in significant disruption in the county’s bus and light rail service. He described attending a summit associated with the Bifrost Summit. Councilmember Lythcott-Haims thanked her colleagues, Staff and members of the public for their support in the recent loss of her mother. Vice Mayor Veenker congratulated the student athletes for getting to the championship of the wrestling competition. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 4 of 20 City Council Meeting Summary Minutes: 03/10/2025 Mayor Lauing echoed Vice Mayor Veenker’s comment and stated they would attempt to get some publicity around it. He described attending the police academy graduation for the Palo Alto Police Department and was impressed with the graduates. Study Session 2. Review of the Community Services Recreation Division 2025 Special Events Work Plan NO ACTION Kristen O’Kane, Community Services Director, provided a slide presentation about the Community Services Department plans including the events workplan, new events in 2025, 2025 calendar of events and resources. Vice Mayor Veenker hoped there would be more dances and appreciated normalizing attending as an individual. She asked how they got the word out. She asked Director O’Kane to talk about the list of things on packet page 69. Director O’Kane replied the promotional material initially encouraged people to bring their family but it was changed to encourage coming as a family or individually. They were open to suggestions on communication. She talked about the Inclusive Resource Fair that was intended to instruct on resources that exist in the community to support special needs individuals or families. Councilmember Lu inquired what the process would be to propose more events. He wanted to see support for Bike Palo Alto and biking related events including some street closures and other educational programs to complement that part of the Council priorities. He wanted to know when the right time would be to provide input for events for the next year. He asked if there was a process to estimate and track attendance at the events. He thought there was value in having fewer higher production events that could be marketed and would draw more people. Ed Shikada, City Manager, commented it was a good time to think through what kind of process and/or format would be the most productive. He explained the City did support Bike Palo Alto. The question was what would be of greatest interest for the Council and the City. He noted they were always constrained by budget and staffing availability so identifying how best to meet the greatest value needs were top of mind. Mayor Lauing advised sending ideas to Director O’Kane would be a starting point. Director O’Kane stated they have staff onsite in the events who count how many people they estimate. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 5 of 20 City Council Meeting Summary Minutes: 03/10/2025 Councilmember Stone wanted to see more big ticket type events. He mentioned various events he liked in surrounding areas. He recommended coordinating the cultural festival with PAUSD. He wanted an explanation of the cost-saving plan for the holiday lighting event. He suggested looking into replacing the holiday tree in the future. Director O’Kane explained they were cost savings that were already incorporated into the event. She described one example of the City of Redwood loaning them a stage free of charge. She hoped to be able to collaborate similarly with neighbors. Councilmember Reckdahl queried if the pet costume parade would be pets dressed in costumes or people dressed as pets. He stressed the importance of events that encourage interaction. He suggested providing a best practices to the community. Director O’Kane clarified it would be pets dressed in costumes but people were welcome to come dressed as pets if they want to. She agreed example events could be included on the website. She added they were considering doing pop-up events at places like community centers with underutilized space. Councilmember Lythcott-Haims encouraged tracking attendance of the events. She wondered if a bigger partnership with Third Thursday had been contemplated. She reminisced about the May Fete parade with school floats and hoped they could be brought back. Director O’Kane replied they had talked about how the City could be more involved in Third Thursday. They had not completely narrowed down the City’s role. City Manager Shikada noted the City had provided funding for the program as well as limited staff support. He suspected that would continue and hopefully build additional support from the adjacent businesses for the activity. He added they were in conversation with the organizers as to what the future might be. Councilmember Burt thought a master list of special events in the City would be valuable for community awareness including significant co-sponsored events being led by others. He suggested merging Around the World in One Day with world music in some form. He recalled the pile of snow for the December holiday and tree lighting being a big deal. He agreed with Councilmember Lythcott-Haims’ comments about the May Fete floats. He recommended referring to Policy and Services Committee to come back with a policy recommendation on how to support cultural events without being discriminatory or endorsing one religion over another. City Manager Shikada advised they put all events they were aware of on the community calendar. He thought there was a need for a definition of what was meant by event. Mayor Lauing tripled down on the May Fete Parade situation and supported a longer route. He wanted to bring back giving out swag to the people watching the parade. He asked for details about events like Pancakes in the Park intended to have neighbors meet. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 6 of 20 City Council Meeting Summary Minutes: 03/10/2025 Director O’Kane explained Pancakes in the Park would be one event probably at Mitchell Park and not necessarily targeted toward a specific neighborhood. City Manager Shikada pointed out more than a thousand events were held in the last year. He instructed that the City’s calendar could be filtered to community events only. Public Comment: 1. Henry E., Oak Creek tenant’s union and community organization, wanted to see the Sunday Brunch that was held at Oak Creek Apartments restored. Consent Calendar Public Comment: 1. Penny E. (Zoom) (Item 5) remarked that the San Antonio Area Planning Contract had to be approved at the meeting. She hoped Staff and Council would consider the possibility of phasing the Area Planning process or Council might consider directing Staff to use data collected in the early phases of the San Antonio Area Planning process to inform a nexus study with specific mitigations that would be needed early on. She hoped to preserve right-of-way for bike lanes and did not view informal agreements as the appropriate way to do this. 2. Herb B. (Item 4) did not support using City funds for the program referenced in Item 4. 3. Amie A. (Zoom) (Item 5) aligned herself with Penny E.’s comments. MOTION: Councilmember Stone moved, seconded by Councilmember Reckdahl to approve Agenda Item Numbers 3-5. MOTION PASSED: 7-0 3. Approval of Minutes from February 24, 2025 Meeting 4. Approval of a Revenue Agreement with Santa Clara County to Provide up to $447,849 in Funding through September 15, 2026 to enable the County to Expand Its Operating Agreement with Move Mountain View for Expanded Safe Parking Operations at 2000 Geng Road; Approve FY 2025 Budget Amendment in the General Fund and PLHA Fund; and Authorize Reallocation of PLHA Activity (6) Funds Accordingly; CEQA status – categorically exempt. 5. Approval of a Professional Services Contract Number C25191402 with Rami and Associates in an Amount Not to Exceed $1,979,902 for Development of San Antonio SUMMARY MINUTES Page 7 of 20 City Council Meeting Summary Minutes: 03/10/2025 Road Area Plan for a Period of Three Years. CEQA Status: Exempt under CEQA Guidelines 15262. City Manager Comments City Manager Shikada provided a slide presentation discussing Strength in Community support resources, anticipated significant rain, Mayor’s State of the City Address and notable tentative upcoming Council items. Action Items 6. Adoption of an Interim Urgency Ordinance Amending Palo Alto Municipal Code (PAMC) Section 18.40.160 to Allow for Early Demolition or Deconstruction on Contaminated Sites. CEQA status – exempt under CEQA Guidelines Section 15061(b)(3). Claire Raybould, Interim Manager, Current Planning, provided a slide presentation about the Title 18 Amendment to allow early demolition in limited circumstances including the purpose of the ordinance, project overview, key policy considerations, recommended adjustments to the ordinance language, public comment and Staff recommendations and next steps. Public Comment: Herb B. opined sites that wanted to do demolition in the next year should be identified specifically. Councilmember Stone wanted to know if the no net loss housing ordinance applied to no net loss of BMR units on site. Jonathan Lait, Planning and Development Services Director, explained there would typically be a regulatory agreement that would be associated with the entitlement but if they were being demolished he did not know the answer. They would require a replacement of units but he would have to look further into the question about BMR. He stated the local regulation on packet page 175 was the existing text and talked about the replacement units. It was unchanged by this ordinance. He did not see specific mention to the low income units having to be replaced on a similar one-to-one ratio. He clarified nothing was being changed about the existing regulations when it came to unit replacement. He thought it would require more conversation with legal staff to understand. Ms. Raybould thought this code was recently amended to prohibit demolition of existing housings. As part of this code, it spoke to not utilizing this when there is an existing housing project at a property. Councilmember Lu inquired if there were any specific properties that were or had sought this kind of ordinance change. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 8 of 20 City Council Meeting Summary Minutes: 03/10/2025 Director Lait replied one property generated the conversation for them. They took that project and started thinking about it more broadly as City policy and what they wanted to recommend to Council. Mayor Lauing asked what prompted the decision of exactly one year. Director Lait remarked they wanted to have time to get the regulation in effect and give them time to work through the Planning and Transportation Commission process to go through the ordinary process of bringing an ordinance back to City Council. Vice Mayor Veenker questioned how these sites get identified and how long remediation takes. She expressed concerns she had with the ordinance. Ms. Raybould commented the Cortese List was made up of several different lists of corrective action orders from oversight agencies such as Department of Toxic Substances Control and Regional Water Quality Control Board. It deems a site as hazardous waste generating requiring corrective action. Provision 5 provided that the ordinance would not apply to any properties in residential use. Director Lait explained there was another process involved treating hazardous waste emitting sites. This did not preclude a homeowner from proceeding with remediation. MOTION: Councilmember Stone moved, seconded by Vice Mayor Veenker to adopt the Interim Urgency Ordinance amending PAMC Section 18.40.160 to Allow for Early Demolition or Deconstruction on Contaminated Sites. MOTION PASSED: 7-0 7. Adoption of Resolutions Amending the Comprehensive Plan to Re-Classify Portions of Ramona Street and California Avenue as Car-Free Streets and Closing those Streets to Vehicular Traffic; and Adoption of an Ordinance Allowing the City Manager to Create Regulations for these Streets, Setting Speed Limits for Bicycles on California Ave., and Implementing Ramona St. as Pedestrian Only (First Read); CEQA Status - An Addendum to the Comprehensive Plan Environmental Impact Report (EIR) (SCH#2014052101) Has Been Prepared. Ashwini Kantak, Project Manager, provided a slide presentation about the Car Free Ramona Street and California Avenue project including a background, car free portion of Ramona Street and California Avenue, proposed new street classifications, proposed ordinance, community and stakeholder engagement, fiscal impact, next steps for Ramona Street and California Avenue, key considerations and Staff recommendations. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 9 of 20 City Council Meeting Summary Minutes: 03/10/2025 Councilmember Lythcott-Haims queried if they were deliberately not mentioning scooters in the pedestrian only. She wanted to know why they were forecasting one will be discussed in FY26 and the other seemed to be less far along. Ms. Kantak answered scooters were included. She explained California Avenue was ahead of Ramona Street in terms of the improvements. Any additional discussion of funding would be for additional improvements if Council desired to do that. For Ramona, they were talking about the basic near-term improvements already funded for California. Those would be discussed through the budget. Mayor Lauing asked what the exception process for allowing vehicles would be. Ms. Kantak replied part of the ordinance allowed the city manager to have those regulations called out in terms of what would be allowed and when. The exception process would be worked out through that. They anticipated needing more access by commercial vehicles on California Avenue and would have a process in place for working with the stakeholders. Steve Guagliardo, Assistant to the City Manager, echoed Ms. Kantak’s comments. Councilmember Burt queried if there would be an extension to the parklet program set to expire in the coming months on Ramona. He wanted to know if Staff had looked at additional accessible parking spaces on Birch or in the alleys where the pedestrian walkways go to Cal Ave. Ms. Kantak remarked they would be able to handle that administratively until they had the new Outdoor Activation Standards in place. Mr. Guagliardo answered they continued to look at near-term improvements to the Cal Ave area and accessible parking was one of the things they continued to look at. They had not yet identified appropriate spaces but would be looking into maintaining accessibility. Bruce Fukuji, Assistant to the City Manager, remarked they were in the process of looking into additional accessible parking spaces. There were opportunities on Birch Street but it would be harder on the alleys because they were narrow. Vice Mayor Veenker assumed there were no lost ADA spaces on Ramona. She asked if both streets would be accessible at both ends when the bollards were down. Ms. Kantak confirmed there were no ADA spaces lost on Ramona and that both streets would be accessible at both ends when the bollards were down. Public Comment: 1. Maico C. expressed his support of Council’s decision on this issue. 2. Nancy C. encouraged Council to approve the initiative. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 10 of 20 City Council Meeting Summary Minutes: 03/10/2025 3. Elizabeth W. submitted that as a property owner on Ramona Street, she was not contacted regarding this issue. She pointed out the sewer pipes on Ramona Street were very old and backed up frequently. Bringing people to the street would cause issues with clogged sewers. She mentioned trucks parking in front of their private parking spaces. She talked about the limited parking in the City. She was opposed to closing California Avenue and Ramona Street. 4. Zareen K., owner of Zareen’s Restaurant, described how having car-free streets would bring foot traffic and benefit retail and restaurants. She had concern that if the streets were opened Uber and DoorDash drivers would take up the parking spaces. 5. Todd B., resident of California Avenue, advocated leaving bicycles out of the plan for safety reasons. He suggested asking cyclists to use parallel roads or slow down or walk bikes to the business they are going to. 6. Carlucho (Zoom), Palo Alto resident, enjoyed the closed streets and hoped for them to stay that way. 7. Vanessa Q. (Zoom), Palo Alto resident, explained how the closure of Ramona and Cal Avenue facilitated her ability to go out with her small children. She thought it looked aesthetically better when cars were not parked in front of restaurants and shops. She hoped for it to remain closed. 8. John S. (Zoom), Thoits, talked about why he believed taking action on the closure of the one-half block Ramona Street that night was premature. He urged Council to address the safety conditions related to the entrance to the public garage at 250 University, fire safety assurance, cleanliness, adequate restroom facilities and designating who would be responsible for maintaining the spaces. Councilmember Burt supported the recommendations with the exception of the speed limit of 15 MPH in biking. He wanted to see a lower speed limit. He wanted to direct Staff to move forward on additional ADA parking and designate alleyway parking for short-term parking for drop-off purposes. Vice Mayor Veenker asked Staff to respond to the safety question with respect to cars needing to turn around in the open part of Ramona and what the plan would be to police keeping the fire lane open. She requested a general concept of what type of improvements were being considered in the alleyways off Cal Ave. She suggested finding ways to enhance safety when walking from the parking lot to Cal Ave. Ms. Kantak replied the anticipation was to signage to indicate no throughfare on Ramona Street. Mr. Guagliardo explained going forward they would look for the partners on Ramona and California Avenue to partner with the City in stewardship of the space. Through the standard SUMMARY MINUTES Page 11 of 20 City Council Meeting Summary Minutes: 03/10/2025 permitting process, there would be enforcement of the footprint and configuration requirements. He remarked that they would enhance alleyway connections with art or signage to ensure there would be clear and effective wayfinding from the parking lots along with cleanliness efforts. He indicated lighting would enhance safety when walking from the parking lot to Cal Ave. Councilmember Reckdahl echoed Councilmember Burt’s points on parking and bike speed limits. Mayor Lauing associated himself with Councilmembers Burt and Reckdahl’s comments. He preferred not to have bikes on the street. He thought they should support the action already taken to make it legal. Councilmember Lu echoed Councilmember Burt’s comments. He thought it was important that signage address how to ensure maintaining the speed limit on a bike. He advised making the streets slower for cyclists by design. MOTION: Councilmember Burt moved, seconded by Councilmember Reckdahl to: 1. Consider the Addendum to the previously adopted Comprehensive Plan 2030 Environmental Impact Report (SCH# 2014052101); 2. Adopt the Resolution amending the Comprehensive Plan Transportation Element and Glossary; 3. Adopt the Resolution approving the closure of designated sections of Ramona St. And California Avenue to vehicular traffic; and 4. FIRST READ: Adopt an ordinance creating new Chapter 10.66 in Title 10 (Vehicles and Traffic) to allow the City Manager to create regulations to control vehicular access to these streets, set speed limits for bicycles at 8 mph on California Ave, and implement Ramona St. as pedestrian only by prohibiting bicycle and skateboard riding; and 5. Direct staff to incorporate additional ADA parking on side streets and alleys, as well as very short-term drop-off/pick-up parking. MOTION PASSED: 7-0 8. Approval of the 2025 City Council Priority Objectives, as well as Committee Objectives and Workplans. CEQA Status -- Not a Project. (Item Continued from February 24, 2025 City Council Meeting) Lupita Alamos, Assistant to the City Manager, gave an overview of the discussion, reviewed the proposed 2025 Priority Objectives and Committee Objectives and Staff’s recommendation. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 12 of 20 City Council Meeting Summary Minutes: 03/10/2025 Public Comment: 1. Ken H., Palo Alto resident, advocated a soda tax for Palo Alto to provide the required objective resources. 2. Bob L. explained why the airport community felt it was a mistake to table the long range facility and sustainability plan for the airport. He encouraged Council to work with the consultant to develop a plan worthy of the City and airport. 3. Tom M., Palo Alto pilot, indicated the decision to make safety-related improvements to airport within the footprint they had was reasonable. He asked Council to allow Palo Alto Staff to complete the long-range plan. 4. Bill F. stressed the importance of keeping the airport facility for the community. 5. James M. spoke in support of the airport and continuing the long-range planning process. 6. Bruce W. requested the City not table the long-range facility and sustainability plan for the airport. 7. Charlie B. speaking on behalf of (5): Peter M., Jazz S., Rick R., Gerry B. discussed reasons the group supported not delaying the long-range facility plan at Palo Alto Airport. 8. Carol M., DART representative, plead with Council not to delay the long-range airport planning as it would impinge on groups that need the facility to train and practice and to store equipment. 9. Dashiell L. (Zoom), conservation coordinator for the Sierra Club Loma Prieta Chapter, asked Council to consider adding the development of an ordinance to ban the use of plastic and petroleum-based materials in landscaping, evaluating air conditioning to heat pump language as a code option and tabling the long-range facilities planned for the airport. 10. Anne M. (Zoom) recalled the request being made on November 13th, 2023, to add the phrase “100 percent residential uses in commercial zones” in 8 places on 2 sections of the housing code under land use and design guidelines. She asked to have this added to the 2026 work plan. 11. John (Zoom) Loud hate speech. Mayor Lauing proposed that Item Number 10 was something they would want to do every year. City Manager Shikada responded this was an example of an exception. They phrased the objectives to reflect specific measurable, actionable, realistic, attainable, relevant and timebound goals. This specific one was an ongoing effort. It reflected an acknowledgement that SUMMARY MINUTES Page 13 of 20 City Council Meeting Summary Minutes: 03/10/2025 last year’s objectives included the phrase “facilitate the creation of sustainable business organizations” and it was realized to not be a realistic objective this year. They would keep giving people the opportunity to show up and be heard expecting to make progress so they could have a more specific objective in a future year. Mr. Guagliardo added this objective would call out something that would run through many of the other objectives. Many of the activities proposed under economic development and retail vibrancy objectives involved these partnerships with these groups but additional engagement was necessary beyond what was listed in each of the individual objectives. Talking about the objectives within the priority and calling out that the priority would involve this ongoing engagement as part of that objective would be business as usual. The quarterly reports provided on updates on the objectives for this particular one would be detailing the meetings that had happened and providing updates to the entire Council on those activities and how progress on enhancing those partnerships was being made. Councilmember Burt echoed Mayor Lauing’s thoughts on this objective. He would agree with reformulating it to reflect a more focused intention. He wanted to see a follow up of putting the objectives in different buckets in terms of the highest priorities in each section. He mentioned places under social and economic balance and public safety, wellness, and belonging that say ongoing and thought it would be more appropriate to structure the format for these to occur in an anticipated quarter. He saw a lot of places that had a single checkmark where multiple ones were warranted. He suggested identifying them as primary and secondary. On the first objective, he wanted clarity that the recommendations include permanent parklets. On objective 13, he wanted to include when they intended to implement the plan. He pointed out there were a lot of places where they might have one step early in the year but there would be an important step later in the year which would be the implementation date. Under 17, he pointed out that they had lost sight that innovative companies were an important part of enhancing their reputation as a business community. Councilmember Lu echoed the point about SMARTIE goals. He wanted an update on how they should think about the ones listed as ongoing. He asked if creating a goal to create a directory of all merchants in Palo Alto or increase the feedback received from merchants by X percent in order to attain more sustainable merchant groups would be plausible to bring back to them. He preferred to remove the item in question or come back with something articulatable that could be reviewed at the end of the year. City Manager Shikada answered they would apply as they got into some of the other categories. He stated the concept of partnerships was the key theme. Everything on the list required a level of partnership with the businesses within each of the districts. That was part of the rationale and goal of engaging Council through liaisons and would need to be part of the plan as they implement each one of the other line items. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 14 of 20 City Council Meeting Summary Minutes: 03/10/2025 Mr. Guagliardo stated if there was interest from Council in reframing it into something that was a formal SMARTIE goal and complied with each of those criteria, they could explore more tactical options and return to Council with it. Vice Mayor Veenker was not sure they could adjust to it this year but wanted to think about doing something like this next year. She thought drilling down beyond the categorical but ahead of the task list was where they needed to go. She had no concerns for the particular list presented. She was less troubled about how they categorized them as to making them important. She thought partnerships were important but it would be nice to say that particular task more along the lines Councilmember Lu suggested. She advised putting streetscapes high up. Councilmember Lythcott-Haims was interested in how the information was organized. She noted there were actually 68 objectives. She yearned for the like things to be grouped together. She thought it should be organized by priority. City Manager Shikada shared that they did not intend this to be organized in a way that would allow prioritization because they were intended to reflect that they could do all of them. Councilmember Reckdahl felt overwhelmed seeing the big list without prioritization. He thought some essential tasks were getting lost in the weeds of less important items. He wanted to know why pop-up stores were not on the list. He asked if the comprehensive update of the city's zoning code would be too big of an undertaking. Mr. Guagliardo explained the work for pop-up businesses in the same use category was already underway. Director Lait indicated the comprehensive update of the city's zoning code would be a significant effort and cost. Given the upcoming budget discussions and Staff resources, they felt it was best to put it on the below the line list. Kiely Nose, Assistant City Manager pointed out a secondary list on packet page 224 that gave high level quips about those not included. Mayor Lauing thought downtown cleanliness was business as usual and they should itemize what the medium-term investments for downtown were. On 15, it appeared to him that the only intent was to begin a feasibility analysis. On 17, he thought just looking at hospitality partners was not appropriate. Within this retail vibrancy and economic development, this was the only item on economic development. He thought they needed to be more thorough about wanting their brand in Palo Alto to mean something. On the issue of cleanliness, he asked if they could itemize any medium-term investments while waiting for the Grand Boulevard on University Avenue. He thought 11 should come off and 15 stay on. Ms. Kantak remarked for the University Avenue feasibility assessment, they were looking at doing some design work. They could be bringing an amendment for the consultant contract to SUMMARY MINUTES Page 15 of 20 City Council Meeting Summary Minutes: 03/10/2025 Council shortly. The feasibility assessment work would be looking at different options in terms of the geographic area and the likelihood of getting support. Both bodies of work would happen this year. They talked about a mid-block crosswalk in the shorter term phase, some improvements to the tunnel and looking at tree grade replacement. Ms. Nose advised leaving 11 on for the cleanliness portion but not the medium-term investments. She said it was helpful to have these areas identified as needing funding and the full Council support of it to help the committee prioritize amongst the many asks or ideas to ensure funding. City Manager Shikada added this would be a recommended add to the budget in June. They wanted to reflect that additional investment that would be needed in order to continue the work. It was written from the City so Staff would propose it and presumably Council would approve it. That is why it was listed as Council approval of funding to continue cleanliness. Councilmember Burt thought they should put concrete action on aiming for reactivation of the intermodal center and primarily the station building recognizing they would be partnering with VTA. City Manager Shikada provided a readback of the changes mentioned. On number 10, rephrase to a measurable objective for the year. It was the addition of this reactivation at the University Station building. Mayor Lauing asked if that was part of 11. City Manager Shikada said it was an additional objective not already on the list. Councilmember Burt thought of it as part of the medium term on 11. Mr. Guagliardo was tracking an implementation component on item 13 to follow up with the Council action and looking through them to see if there were implementation components beyond Council approval as a follow-up and flagging that as appropriate. City Manager Shikada said if they do not know that they would be providing an action, this would fall under the category of identifying the milestone that would occur this year. To the extent that installation would not occur this year, he did not think they would want to suggest adding that. Mr. Guagliardo brought up item 17, look beyond hotels in that description and make sure they were embracing that incubator and international reputation piece. The final piece they heard was on the outdoor activation guidelines and drilling in that would include adapting those spaces for outdoor dining and outdoor retail uses taking into account the context for those car- free streets similar to the parklet programs. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 16 of 20 City Council Meeting Summary Minutes: 03/10/2025 Councilmember Burt followed up on the point that was made that partnering with the business community and the property owners was an important part of what we do, that was their process that would be an overlay to how they do things as opposed to a concrete action in and of itself. He thought it was important but would not put it as one of the objectives. City Manager Shikada shared the work had continued on the Cubberley Master Plan. Based on the work ongoing there and specifically related to the development of the ballot measure that would be brought forward for next year, Staff proposed that the Cubberley ad hoc be treated as a non-Brown Act body and proceed on that basis limited to its activities in the time frame and subject matter of development of the ballot measure next year. Councilmember Burt acknowledged they had consultants and would have advisors to them of ambassadors. He was hesitant to restrict the ad hoc committee from being able to engage on the design or the community process simply because they had consultants. Councilmember Lythcott-Haims agreed with Councilmember Burt’s interpretation that the way it had been described sounded like it was just a ballot measure but there would be no ballot measure without a process of designing a community center. City Manager Shikada stated he was only pausing because design can have a broad set of interpretations. To the extent they were talking about the development of the master plan and how that would lead into the ballot measure, that would be considered a part of the body of work that the ad hoc would be involved in. The ad hoc would not be involved in budget decisions that would go to the Council presumably through the Finance Committee and broader liaison with the school district. Councilmember Lu confirmed the expectation in terms of publicly accessible meetings, the Cubberley ad hoc would still have some meetings open to the public and things would also come to the City Council. He wanted to hear about what that would look like. City Manager Shikada remarked it was not necessarily a given that the Cubberley ad hoc would have public meetings. Any action would be taken by the full Council in a public meeting. The ad hoc would be more flexible in terms of its meetings, could meet in public but no action would be taken without coming to the full Council. Consistent with guidelines they had suggested, there would not be a recommendation from the committee because the public would not have the opportunity to weigh in on the development of those recommendations. It would simply go to a full City Council discussion. Councilmember Burt thought even if it was not a Brown-Acted ad hoc, it did not prohibit the committee from having public meetings. He did not think the fact that it was not a requirement to have public meetings should preclude the committee from being able to have them if it seemed warranted. City Manager Shikada agreed. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 17 of 20 City Council Meeting Summary Minutes: 03/10/2025 Mayor Lauing opened discussion about the climate portion. Vice Mayor Veenker queried why they were not including the sustainability sections of the upcoming 2026-2027 work plan in the climate committee objectives on packet page 217. She expected the work would be mostly focused on climate action and less on sustainability, but to be precluded from addressing those issues if they come up within the scope of this committee would be something she would not advocate for. She thought the intention of the climate action and sustainability ad hoc was to deal with those issues as they came up. She encouraged her colleagues to include the whole scope of the two-year work plan within the ability of the committee to address. She mentioned the sentence that read “the committee will also discuss and provide input on SCAP implementation strategy leading to Council approval” and asked if there was a reason they would not make recommendations. She felt like they would want to be in a position of recommending things after the technical nature of the work they did. Brad Eggleston, Public Works Director, explained they framed it to be focused primarily on the climate action objectives. That was related to the capacity of work they thought they could get done with the committee. On the objectives having to do with climate action, there was a large body of work that would be difficult to work through this year. In the past with a previous ad hoc when they developed the three-year work plan, they reviewed the sustainability sections. It was a review of the staff product with some suggestions from the committee. That could be another potential path forward. He did not see any problem with making a recommendation. It was framed in terms of the approach of developing the future work plan. Councilmember Burt agreed that the committee should be able to have other sustainability goals under its purview. He noted a number of the other objectives were actually sustainability related. They did not have to go through this committee because they had their own momentum. Under develop and obtain approval for strategies for the 26/27 work plan, he thought including engaging with the student climate coalition on its heat mapping was a good thing but not core. He thought they should keep it at a higher level. Vice Mayor Veenker mentioned the complete construction of the initial pilot area of the electric grid modernization on line 21 that was charted for Q2. She wanted an update on the timeline for the pilot and the end goal. She wanted to see them get going on assessing how to establish a microgrid and a battery electronic storage system in Palo Alto. She thought objective 39 was important for climate, equity and environmental justice goals but had concerns about federal policy changes on that. She wanted to encourage having some sort of mid-year update to see whether federal policy affected that on infrastructure support. On line 23, the updated stream/creek corridor setback requirements, she hoped they could stick to landing in Q3. Jonathan Abendschein, Public Works Assistant Director, explained the grid modernization project was scheduled to wrap up toward the end of this month. That could be seen in the informational report on the SCAP on this agenda. Whether every last punch list item was being wrapped up or there were some very last items that may spill over into Q2 was to make sure they did not lock themselves into that March deadline in case things spilled into April. The SUMMARY MINUTES Page 18 of 20 City Council Meeting Summary Minutes: 03/10/2025 entire project goal was to complete the overhead sections by the end of 2027. This objective was about the 1200 home pilot area specifically. Councilmember Lu queried if there was an updated timeline for objective 32 and if this was the fastest they could go to start things in Q4. He hoped it would be prioritized highly. For Item 34 on E-mobility strategic plans, he wanted to know if that ultimately referred to an E-mobility or microtransit sharing program. With internal prioritization, he thought they should focus on some of the concrete infrastructure projects that have a public mandate and that people had been looking at them for a while and the kind of projects that could drive concrete emissions reductions and put them under more risk for the 80 by 30 goals. Ms. Nose replied they were in the process of pulling together the details for the project. They were moving along with Stanford in terms of grant eligibility as well as entering into contracts between Stanford and the City to design the project. With the gaps in staffing and transition happening in the transportation team, this project was not going as quickly as if they were fully staffed. As they navigate that transition, they expect to be able to more fully focus. Assistant Director Abendschein remarked Item 34 was meant to include all types of electric transportation ranging from the charging needed for electric vehicles to E-scooters or E-bikes to be used to help with last-mile solutions and making sure that everything that done in that space coordinated with the Reliability and Resiliency Strategic Plan to manage grid impacts and then also transportation programs and policies like the Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan to make sure that coordinated with those. Councilmember Reckdahl wanted to see the rail design on line 29 split in two, one for vehicle rail and the other for bicycle/ped crossings. Councilmember Lythcott-Haims thought Items 19 and 25 should have an X in the Public Safety Wellness and Belonging box. Councilmember Burt thought it would be more digestible if it was arranged into groupings. He agreed with putting the airport plan under climate but pointed out it also had a significant public safety component to it. He was confused because he thought they were told had had to go forward with the master plan as a requirement of the airport and were now being told they could jettison it. He thought they should go forward with the focused areas that remained important to them such as things that include safety and a focus on the microgrid. He recommended placing the airport plan back on the objective list with a more narrowed focus. He did not understand how they would not go forward with the master plan. Director Eggleston clarified the intent was not to jettison the airport plan. He thought they had gotten ahead of themselves on planning. He pointed out other things going on this year. The issue was that when they get into the thick of the planning work with the consultants and community engagement would take a lot of time and did not leave as much time for the other efforts as they need. The plan for this year was to consider that feedback from the study session. He intended to have them look at and define some potential alternatives for additional SUMMARY MINUTES Page 19 of 20 City Council Meeting Summary Minutes: 03/10/2025 study, which over the course of the year they would get things set up to recommence that probably at the beginning of 2026. He pointed out they could do it but would not have the resources they wanted to devote to the noise and leaded-fuel issues. He acknowledged the master plan was an obligation and they needed to move forward with it. They were proposing to pause the principal effort on it while they had some emphasis on these other issues and regroup and define what the next steps for this year would be. They were discussing an extension with the FAA. Mayor Lauing asked if some of the things mentioned should be in the climate action plan for this year, even though they were proposing pausing the long-range master plan for resource reasons. Director Eggleston stated the noise and phase out of leaded fuel were in there. They also had an objective about the reliability and resiliency strategic plan implementation and the microgrid as a component of that. He added the ones they had specific to the airport were in the Public Safety and Wellness section. They did not object to having the microgrid in the climate action. Councilmember Burt thought they should have an airport set of initiatives along the lines of what Mr. Eggleston described as their actual intentions. He did not see the East West Bike/Ped Grade Crossing project listed. He thought it would be coming back with a recommendation this year. Mayor Lauing stated Councilmember Reckdahl added that as a separate item splitting up the rail versus the bike with rail. Vice Mayor Veenker wanted to know how they could approach and start thinking about the BESA. She would like to see it included in what the climate action sustainability ad hoc could address. She thought it was a big priority. She wanted to have something that would indicate the continuity of intent and effort in this calendar year made express somewhere. Assistant Director Abendschein explained Council priority in 2024 was to adopt the reliability and resiliency strategic plan and begin implementation. They had that adopted last April. They brought a consultant on board and had been consulting with the UAC over the last six months or so. A cost benefit analysis on battery storage and some assessments of microgrids and how they could be used was included in that. That was in their work plan. They had been moving expeditiously on that analysis. Under that umbrella, there was also the analysis of the solar buildout and potential microgrid options at the airport. Director Eggleston agreed they could add something about it to an objective. He added that they were explicitly trying to include objectives that were already in the current work plan and where they had something discreet they planned to accomplish this calendar year. Those future things would probably be part of the 26 to 27 SCAP work plan that the committee would help them develop. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 20 of 20 City Council Meeting Summary Minutes: 03/10/2025 Councilmember Burt asked how confident they were that they would get the extension and what would happen if they did not and were not proceeding on a timely basis on the plan. Director Eggleston answered in the worst case he was told there would be the potential to have to pay back the funds the FAA spent on the planning effort. They had also been told by legal counsel that they were not aware of any time that the FAA ever did not grant an extension. Mayor Lauing commented they would do sections three and four at the next meeting. MOTION: Mayor Lauing moved, seconded by Councilmember Reckdahl to: 1. Approve Economic Development & Retail Vibrancy, and Climate Action and Adaptation & Natural Environment Protection sections of the 2025 City Council Priority objectives with the following adjustments as discussed and to come back to Council for final approval; and 2. Revert the Cubberley Committee to a non-Brown Act Ad Hoc; and 3. Adjust the Climate Action & Sustainability Committee to broaden the scope to include sustainability and the RRSP. MOTION PASSED: 7-0 Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 11:03 P.M.