HomeMy WebLinkAbout1996-02-26 City Council Summary Minutes Regular Meeting February 26, 1996 1. Joint Study Session with the Historic Resources Board - Canceled..............................................78-255 1. Appointment of Public Art Commissioner................78-256 ORAL COMMUNICATIONS........................................78-258 APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF DECEMBER 4, 11, AND 18, 1995........78-258 2. The Utilities Advisory Commission recommends to the City Council to direct staff to proceed with Phase 4 of the five-phase Telecommunications Strategy Study and perform a detailed evaluation of two potential telecommunications strategies78-258 3. Mayor Wheeler and Council Member McCown re CalTrain At-Grade Crossing..............................................78-281 4. Council Comments, Questions, and Announcements........78-282 ADJOURNMENT: The meeting adjourned at 10:10 p.m. in memory of former Mayors Stanley Norton and Jack Sutorius........78-283
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City Clerk Gloria Young announced that the Joint Study Session with the Historic Resources Board had been canceled due to a memorial service being held for former Mayor Jack Sutorius. SPECIAL MEETINGS 1. Joint Study Session with the Historic Resources Board - Canceled
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The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council Chambers at 7:08 p.m. PRESENT: Andersen, Huber, Kniss, Rosenbaum, Simitian (arrived at 7:15 p.m.), Wheeler ABSENT: Fazzino, McCown, Schneider SPECIAL ORDERS OF THE DAY 1. Appointment of Public Art Commissioner Council Member Andersen was impressed with all of the candidates. He supported Timothy Broderick on the first ballot because his skills, background, and interest in exploring funding mechanisms, particularly in the private sector, might be an excellent addition to the Public Art Commission (PAC). Council Member Kniss said the City was fortunate to have people who were not only willing to apply, but also to serve. She also felt Mr. Broderick was excellent, but she would support William Bourke on the first ballot because he was a different kind of commission prospect and had had a long time interest in art and service to the City. Mayor Wheeler agreed that there it was an outstanding group of candidates. She supported Linda Corbett on the first ballot because she would bring skills and talent to the commission that was not otherwise represented. Her particular expertise in outdoors, gardens and open spaces, and her creative ideas for integrating the natural landscape into artwork or artwork into the natural landscape would bring a valuable expertise to the commis-sion. RESULTS OF THE FIRST ROUND OF VOTING VOTING FOR BOURKE: Kniss VOTING FOR BRODERICK: Andersen, Huber, Rosenbaum VOTING FOR CORBETT: Wheeler VOTING FOR DANFORTH: VOTING FOR EMSLEY: VOTING FOR JENKINS: VOTING FOR WEISNER: City Clerk Gloria Young announced that none of the candidates had received five votes and another round of voting was in order.
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Council Member Kniss said she would support Mr. Broderick on the second ballot. RESULTS OF THE SECOND ROUND OF VOTING VOTING FOR BOURKE: VOTING FOR BRODERICK: Andersen, Huber, Kniss, Rosenbaum VOTING FOR CORBETT: Wheeler VOTING FOR DANFORTH: VOTING FOR EMSLEY: VOTING FOR JENKINS: VOTING FOR WEISNER: Simitian City Clerk Gloria Young announced that none of the candidates had received five votes and another round of voting was in order. RESULTS OF THE THIRD ROUND OF VOTING VOTING FOR BOURKE: VOTING FOR BRODERICK: Andersen, Huber, Kniss, Rosenbaum, Simitian, Wheeler VOTING FOR CORBETT: VOTING FOR DANFORTH: VOTING FOR EMSLEY: VOTING FOR JENKINS: VOTING FOR WEISNER: City Clerk Gloria Young announced that Timothy Broderick had received six votes and was appointed on the third ballot. Mayor Wheeler congratulated Mr. Broderick and encouraged the applicants to reapply when additional openings became available. It had been a difficult decision. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS Ben Bailey, 343 Byron Street, spoke regarding the Empire Strikes Back Caper.
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Harry Merker, 501 Forest Avenue, spoke regarding citizen letters. Edmund Power, 2254 Dartmouth Street, spoke regarding honesty in government (letter on file in the City Clerk's Office). Dennis Backlund, 488 University Avenue, No. 503, spoke regarding AME Zion Church. Ruth Anne Gray, P. O. Box 575, Palo Alto, spoke regarding the former AME Zion Church. Millie Mario, 900 University Avenue, spoke regarding AME Zion Church. Carol Murden, 1331 Martin Avenue, spoke regarding AME Zion Church. Bob Moss, 4010 Orme Street, spoke in honor of former Mayor Jack Sutorius. APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF DECEMBER 4, 11, AND 18, 1995 MOTION: Council Member Andersen moved, seconded by Kniss, to approve the Minutes of December 4, 11, and 18, 1995, as submitted. MOTION PASSED 6-0, Fazzino, McCown, Schneider absent. REPORTS OF COMMITTEES AND COMMISSIONS 2. The Utilities Advisory Commission recommends to the City Council to direct staff to proceed with Phase 4 of the five-phase Telecommunications Strategy Study and perform a detailed evaluation of two potential telecommunications strategies
Assistant City Manager Bernard Strojny said the report summarized the results from the first three phases of a five-phase Telecommu-nications Study to identify the best role the City could play to accelerate the deployment of a broad range of low-cost, high-quality telecommunications services throughout Palo Alto. Cities across the nation had to take action and implement telecommunica-tions strategies geared toward ensuring their leadership in the information age. Palo Alto, although more cautious than some cities, had moved forward on a deliberate path toward the identifi-cation and implementation of a telecommunications strategy that would best serve the citizens and businesses of Palo Alto. The demand for telecommunications services had increased significantly during the last several years and was projected to grow in Palo Alto by approximately 40 percent during the next six years. In May 1995, the City funded a consultant, the ICT Group, to perform the City's five-phase Telecommunications Study which was completed in Phases 1 through 3 in October 1995. The report was reviewed by the Telecommunications Advisory Panel (TAP), a seven-member advisory
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body formed to assist staff in evaluating a consultant study. After review of the reports, TAP requested that staff prepare a supplemental report to examine one potential strategy in more detail--a strategy to develop a broadband telecommunications network and leased access to all interested service providers. The "Develop Network and Lease Access" strategy would limit the City's role to providing the links between customers and service provid-ers. It could be pursued independently or with one or more partners. It would provide the benefit of fostering competition among experienced service providers who otherwise might be discouraged from entering the market due to the high cost of developing new infrastructure. On the basis of the analysis presented in the supplemental staff report (CMR:150:96), the strategy appeared promising and the City's best option if it chose to develop a telecommunications network; however, further analysis was needed to resolve significant uncertainties associated with it at the present time. If the City decided not to develop a telecommunications network, it should nevertheless utilize its existing assets; mainly ducts and poles and implementing a Lease Existing Infrastructure strategy. With a minimal amount of effort, the City could actively lease spare duct and pole space to private telecommunications network developers and to companies in Palo Alto interested in establishing point-to-point telecommunication links. It would present the opportunity to generate revenues from existing assets with little or no financial risk. Although other strategies were considered, they were not found as attractive. The details of the analysis were presented in the Phase 1 through 3 reports. Staff was currently recommending to proceed with Phase 4 with a focused analysis that was limited to the two most promising strategies. As part of the analysis, staff would investigate a number of variations of the types of leased access networks that could be developed. Variations on the network architecture and implications of different partnering and financing arrangements would be explored to determine the impacts on costs and service capabilities. At the completion of Phase 4, staff would return to Council with a recommendation for the telecommunications strategy that would best serve the citizens, businesses, schools, and other institutions of Palo Alto and an analysis supporting the recommen-dation and also a recommendation for telecommunications policy that would provide guidelines for managing telecommunications develop-ment in the public rights-of-way. In January 1996, the Utilities Advisory Commission (UAC) reviewed the reports completed to date and endorsed staff's recommended approach for proceeding with Phase 4. Staff was now requesting Council approval of Phase 4 of the Telecommunications Strategy Study. Paul Johnston, Chairperson, Utilities Advisory Commission, said the UAC had reviewed the results of the first three phases of the study and the most important issue in terms of the decision the Council would make was whether Palo Alto had a role to play in telecom-munications strategy, the UAC recommended the work continue. In terms of the approach, the UAC changed direction slightly in terms
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of not dealing with the existing consultant. The proposed approach did not result in any increase in the amount of money expended, in fact the amount decreased from the money allotted. The UAC felt while the ICT Group as a consultant provided valuable data for the purpose of evaluating the market place, the analysis of that data to determine the best strategy would be best performed by City staff, particularly in the Utilities Department because they had that analytical ability. If the Council went forward that evening, the major decision faced by the Council would be after Phase 4 when staff and the UAC returned with more substantive reviews. In terms of the direction the City was presently going, most of the focus tended to be toward infrastructure associated with providing advanced telecommunications services rather than some of the service content that might be provided over the network that would be produced. For example, if it were in the City's interest to make sure that the infrastructure within the City was first rate, that the streets were torn up as few times as possible, and in and how that would be managed, but it was not likely that the City would want to go into direct competition with a variety of service providers but rather provide a network by which that competition could thrive. City Attorney Ariel Calonne introduced Senior Assistant City Attorney Grant Knolling who was prepared to update the Council with some provisions in the report that had been affected by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (the Act). He would look for some amplifications specifically on the distinction between the Lease Existing Infrastructure and the Do Nothing options because as the Council saw with Metropolitan Fiber Systems (MFS), leasing existing infrastructure might be something where there would be no choice. Senior Assistant City Attorney Grant Knolling updated the ICT Development of a Telecommunications Strategy for the City of Palo Alto Report dealing with Phases 1 and 2. There were some referenc-es on pages 44 and 47 dealing with the Legal and Regulatory Review and federal legislation. In light of the Act, some of the statements might not accurately reflect the law to date. He referred to the third paragraph of Section 3.3 on page 44, "Fees for right-of-way and pole or duct usage are intended to be limited and controlled for utilities that are regulated. However, since the Palo Alto utilities are not regulated, it appears that they are exempted from these controls," and the first paragraph on page 47 which stated the same principle and cited two American Public Power Association (APPA) memorandum that stated municipal and cooperative utilities were exempt from the provision. He disagreed with that because the definition of Utility in the Act deleted the provision that stated that the section did not apply to utilities whose rates were regulated by the FCC. That provision was expressly deleted by the Act which implied that possibly the City might be subject to those particular provisions. He referred to page 5 of 13 of the staff report (CMR:150:96), Finding No. 3, Develop Network and Compete Directory, "At the highest level of involvement, the City
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could build a broadband network and provide services to end users directly without allowing other service providers to compete over the City's infrastructure," and said the fact that a public utility under the Pole Attachment Section to the Bill must allow any person who wished to gain access to the City's telecommunications infrastructure pointed out that the statement was incorrect. The City could not prevent other providers from accessing its infra-structure. Vice Mayor Huber asked to the extent any telecommunication got involved with television, cable, etc., what could be done as a City under the Act to ensure public access similar to what the City had now for governmental meetings, local usage, etc. Mr. Knolling said the Act did not expressly deal with that issue. Council Member Kniss said her understanding of the Act, along with the analysis in the National League of Cities' (NLC) recent weekly report, indicated that it was at the beginning of the analysis as far as interpreting what would actually happen. She asked whether it would be the same for Palo Alto or whether it was more explicit in the terms of Palo Alto given its Charter City status and how did it differ. Mr. Calonne said it depended on the issue. To put it into context, the NLC analysis was analyzed the prior Wednesday or Thursday to so it was fresh in everyone's mind. There were some areas where express language was used and that could be defined, e.g., between the Lease Facilities and Do Nothing options. The law clearly stated that the City could charge a just reasonable and nondiscrim-inatory rate for access to pole attachments by other telecom carriers which impacted the leasing proposal with what was a just reasonable and nondiscriminatory rate. He did not know whether the law would use a utility type of analysis where the City rate of return would have to be analyzed, but it was clear that there was some restriction in terms of what could be charged. What he did not know as a lawyer was if the language were meaningful in light of the market and if it would cause the City to lease at a lower rate than the market might support. If areas could be identified by the Council, his office could advise if there were specific answers; but he was sure there were many areas people would be discussing and he would turn to the League of California Cities (LCC) and the NLC to do an analysis. Council Member Kniss knew that companies were discussing the issue as well as cities and everyone was trying to determine what the long-term implications were, and she was interested in updates as things progressed. She said telecommunications was a very complicated topic would take the City in an interesting direction. There was nothing simple about telecommunications, and it changed daily and the predictions on where it would be five or ten years down the road differed markedly. She asked Mr. Johnston if he
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agreed, and if so, would he define a framework for the Council to look at, both in making a decision that evening and also as the Council went forward as suggested in the staff report (CMR:150:96). Mr. Johnston agreed that telecommunications was changing rapidly and was a very complex issue. He said it came at a time when the electric utility in particular was spending a lot of energy in determining where it would fit in a new more competitive environ-ment. In a sense, telecommunications came along when it had already gone through that phase and was ahead of the electric utility so to some extent both potential utilities could learn from one another. There were some things that made it unique in terms of electrical water, for example, one knew if one owned the infrastructure it was not likely to change very dramatically in the foreseeable future. From the standpoint of building infrastruc-ture, there were considerable risks. It was not clear if a fiber optic communications network were built, whether that network would be the right technology 20 years down the road; and if it were not going to be, whether the City would finance it in the same way it would other utilities. There was a lot of uncertainty and what the City learned was inevitably there would have to be some form of partnering. He did not believe it was an area where the City could just stake out a claim, build a network, and hope that enough people would continue to come long to pay the network off. The risks associated with that were too great; and if the report emphasized partnering and partnering for the express purpose of transferring risk, that would be a very significant part of what the UAC would likely return to the Council with. It would not be a request for a certain amount of millions of dollars to start building because it would not be that straight-forward. Council Member Kniss said there were several themes in the staff report: 1) that telecommunications should be profitable; 2) that it should increase the service level; and 3) that it should increase the City's sense of control. She asked if those were the main themes, especially as the Council entered into the next phase. Mr. Johnston said yes. The City wanted to provide advanced communications, promote competition, and wanted it sooner and cheaper, but there were many constraints and some of the things he felt the City would not be willing to do or he would propose the City not do because it would lose a lot of money. For example, if the City built a network just for the public good. There were people who would advocate doing that, but he felt that was a constraint that both staff and UAC were working under and the assumption that there was no money in the budget and the City either needed to make a profit or break even. Risks could be taken if there were a profit to be made. The motivation was to get advanced communications and promote competition. The UAC did not believe that it was likely that the City would actually be offering all of the services over the network. It would inevitably become extremely competitive and not best served by the City which tended
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to move more slowly than private enterprise so it would be appropriate to leave those services to the private sector but provide an environment that encouraged competition. Council Member Kniss said Palo Alto was the kind of community that could generate a lot of debate because many of its citizens worked in telecommunications. She asked Mr. Johnston to comment on some of the other communities that were used for comparison points. Mr. Johnston said the comparison points were interesting; but there in most cases, there was reasoning behind what other cities had done with telecommunications. It was very different from the environment of Palo Alto, but he felt Palo Alto could learn from other communities. He agreed with Council Member Kniss that Palo Alto probably would have a more lively debate than some other communities, but he felt it was encouraging. Because of the telecommunications demands in Palo Alto, it should be an attractive place for business to compete. If the framework could be set up for how telecommunications could work in Palo Alto, there would be a lot of interested companies who could provide competitive services. The per capita use of telecommunications in Palo Alto far exceeded the average for the state and the nation. Council Member Andersen asked for some clarifications in the staff report (CMR:150:96) with regard to the second paragraph on page 3 of 13, "California cities are not known to be legally prohibited from getting involved in any of these telecommunications markets as long as they stay within their city's boundaries." He asked what implications, if any, that had with the City's possible involvement with the Cable Co-op which crossed some city boundaries, and whether Palo Alto was limited as a result of that or did it apply with regard to Cable Co-op. Mr. Knolling said Palo Alto was not limited because it belonged to a Joint Powers Agreement (JPA) with six other entities. That particular provision refers to a California Constitution provision which limited public agencies from providing certain types of public utilities services outside of their boundaries unless the other agencies agree. Council Member Andersen clarified that in order for Palo Alto to be involved with those other agencies, unless there was a breakup, it would be involved with all the members of the JPA. Mr. Knolling said that was correct. Council Member Andersen asked if the City wished to include contiguous communities such as Stanford University in such a telecommunications program, would there be any restrictions, would another JPA need to be created, or could the City go ahead if Stanford were in agreement.
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Mr. Knolling said it was possible. In the case of Stanford, it had to interact with Santa Clara County (the County), so the County's consent would probably be necessary. Council Member Andersen asked if the Council proceeded with Phase 4, would that question be part of the consideration or could it be included as an area to explore. Resource Planner Van Hiemke said in terms of Phase 4, all the options would be explored including partnering with Cable Co-op. The fact that Cable Co-op did business beyond the City's boundaries was something that would have to be considered as part of the Phase 4 analysis and looking beyond the City's boundaries and what potential there was to do that. Council Member Andersen asked if the Cable Co-op question were extrapolated from, could the question of whether or not another area could be entered into, if Cable Co-op were not covered, i.e., Stanford. Mr. Strojny said that could be considered as part of Phase 4. Council Member Andersen referred to page 8 of 13, and said there had been some discussion regarding "fiber optic" versus "hybrid fiber-coax." He asked whether San Jose was currently installing the Hybrid Fiber-Coax (HFC) system, using an existing infrastruc-ture, or going into fiber optics. Mr. Hiemke said the HFC system was one that Pacific Bell was putting into place, but the City of San Jose was also involved in a project for putting conduit into the ground in a region in which it was installing a pipeline for a reclamation project and, as part of that, were also investigating partnering with a provider that would help get San Jose into the telecommunications business and install fiber optics and a network in those rights-of-way that served San Jose. Council Member Andersen clarified that fiber optics was the portion San Jose was carrying out itself. Mr. Hiemke said that was correct. San Jose's interest was primarily getting a fiber optic system. It was not fiber optic all the way to business or home necessarily but would be a fiber optic backbone. Council Member Rosenbaum said Cable Co-op was present and had some decisions to make in a short time frame. He said he did not get the impression from the proposed remaining studies that the issues Cable Co-op were interested in were going to be addressed. Mr. Strojny said staff's intention was to analyze and explore any proposal made by Cable Co-op as part of the Phase 4 process to see
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how it would fit into any overall strategies that the City might develop which should last for approximately three months. Council Member Rosenbaum asked when staff referred to a network or leasing access, how would that fit in with Cable Co-op's interest in a HFC system. Mr. Strojny said there was the potential for a HFC-type system which could involve the installation of the fiber backbone that could be linked to Cable Co-op's infrastructure. It was something Cable Co-op had discussed previously, and he expected it would be included in any proposal made to the City. Mayor Wheeler noted with regard to comparisons to other cities, that one of the strong motivators other cities like Palo Alto with its own utility systems had was an analysis which showed the benefits to be gained in operating their own utilities. She asked to what extent staff had done any of that type of analysis or would it be a part of the Phase 4 study. Director of Utilities Edward Mrizek said currently the Utilities Department owned and operated its own coax system which was installed in the 1980s and had been extended to most of the facilities. If a fiber optic system were to be developed, staff had not intended to include in the Phase 4 study any additional benefits of that system to the utility since a system already existed. However, if staff realized as Phase 4 were being developed and continued on to a marketing plan, there were additional needs for the utility if it expanded into substations, new areas of need, deregulation, looking at remote meter reading, time-of-day metering, etc., and as staff got into the deregulation area it would look at the needs of a HFC system if it was to be built, but it was not part of the Phase 4 study. Mayor Wheeler clarified the system that was in place would not permit the City to do remote meter reading. Mr. Mrizek said the City would not be permitted to fan out into a remote meter reading, time-of-day type metering. Things were being discussed in the deregulation of the electric industry and it would be reviewed with the UAC as deregulation continued. Andrew Mellows, Chairman of the Board, Mid-Peninsula Access Corporation (MPAC), 791 Coastland Drive, (letter on file in the City Clerk's Office), thanked and acknowledged the City of Palo Alto, Cable Co-op, and the other cities in the cable area who had the vision to support public access. He urged Palo Alto to grasp whatever opportunity there was to control the telecommunications infrastructure, and he hoped there would be substantial advantages to the City both in revenues as well as the strengthening of the community. MPAC looked forward to working in partnership with the City to establish success on the Internet as it had with video.
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The City should continue to be insistent on bandwidth for community use. Thomas Passell, Organizer, Community Committee for Local Cable, 3825 Louis Road, (letter on file in the City Clerk's Office) encouraged the Council to follow the recommendation of the UAC to proceed with Phase 4 of the Telecommunications Strategy Study. The proposal was extremely forward-thinking by the City and one which had wide implications for the future of Palo Alto as the informa-tion highway fully developed. The Community Committee for Local Cable supported the recommendation because it felt that the mature information highway would be a "natural" monopoly and, if so, it would be wise to own the network to guarantee some measure of competition. John Kelley, President, Cable Co-op Board of Directors, 1868 Mark Twain, expressed his thanks to staff and the Council for the memorial to Jack Sutorius. Across the country, a quiet revolution was taking place and cable channels were now involved in World Wide Web (WWW) and all of the resources of the Internet. People were witnessing the birth of an advanced information infrastructure that would transform the way they lived, learned, and worked. The new infrastructure had two basic parts: 1) a high speed, two-way telecommunications system, and 2) new locally created information services. Fiber optic cable on the latest cable modems would ensure the telecommunications capacity bandwidth would be plentiful and inexpensive. The new information infrastructure would improve data transmission speeds to a thousand times faster than with the standard telephone connection. Furthermore, a two-way design would allow transmission of information as well as receiving it which would accelerate the creation of community information services. He explained how an advanced information infrastructure would bring
the world to one=s doorstep and allow one to reach out across the world, i.e., information from libraries and cultural institutions, review of emergency information, contact teachers and visit classrooms through Web pages, etc. Palo Alto had already begun to create an electronic community and should continue to lead the way. He referred to an Newsweek article dated March 4, 1996, entitled "Getting Up to Speed" (on file in the City Clerk's Office) regarding school children having a high speed connection to Internet which was happening as a result of a demonstration project undertaken by the support of COM 21, who was prepared to bring that technology to a Palo Alto Planning Commission meeting for demon-stration. The basic technology was already available and how to build a physical substrate of an advanced information infrastruc-ture was already known. The seeds of community information services had already been planted and the cities on home page attested to that. The kinds of knowledge that could be disbursed widely for the benefit of the community were understood and Cable Co-op wanted to work with the City to achieve that goal. Together, the vision of advanced telecommunications infrastructure could be
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embraced which would serve the entire community, a fitting legacy for generations to come. Ken Allen, Member, Cable Co-op Board of Directors, 3784 Grove Avenue, supported the staff recommendation to proceed with Phase 4 of the Telecommunications Strategy Study and to encourage the Council to endorse Cable Co-op as a partner with the City. Cable Co-op could provide substantial resources to help the Council make decisions. The areas of uncertainty mentioned by staff were somewhat different than what Cable Co-op identified, and Cable Co-op could share a vision and provide substantive information. He referred to a document from CableLabs entitled Cable Television in the United States; An Overview (on file in the City Clerk's Office), which represented an encouraging picture of what could be done. In the last couple of years, there had been a literal revolution occurring with how ordinary citizens exchanged informa-tion and did business. Over a hundred years ago, Alexander Graham Bell approached Western Union about using the telephone over Western lines but ended up laying his own wire because Western Union could not understand the importance of the telephone. Today, every home and business had a two-way telephone and no home was wired for telegraph. People are faced with the same situation with the next generation of two-way communication. Cable Co-op would like to promote that new technology. It had an extremely valuable resource, and sometimes felt it was trying to explain television to someone only understanding telegraph. In the past 24 months, there had been a revolution occurring on how ordinary citizens exchanged information and how business was done. The revolution was constrained by one serious drawback: lack of bandwidth which was the movement of a lot of information very fast between two specific sites in a manner that did not exhaust the capacity of the medium and was not expensive. The problem was that the same wires that carried telegraph and telephone signals over 100 years ago were still being used in most homes and businesses to support the new technology. There was an installed cable system, the hardest and most expensive part of the bandwidth-hungry telecom system of the future. It was working well, locally controlled, literally owned by the subscribers and citizens of the community. It was the best run cable system around and provided the constant reusable two-way bandwidth that was needed for the telecom system. The best solution was a relatively inexpensive and low-risk upgrade of the existing Cable Co-op infrastructure to provide the backbone to carry the increased two-way traffic which was HFC. HFC was glass cables arranged in a bundle which branched off at nodes into coaxial cable lines that already go past nearly every house in Palo Alto. Once installed, it would have the same state-of-the-art technology that would be needed into the next century and would fit well with any other economically realistic plan for a telecommunications plant for the region and would scale well into any other technology which might come along. At first it might seem that the City faced an incredibly complex problem that hard to understand; however, the answer to Cable Co-op was obvious, once
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all of the realistic options were reviewed. He felt a reasonable two-way system could be deployed at a reasonable cost within two years. Cable Co-op had a vision to collaborate with the community, the broadcast content providers, and the two-way service providers to transform its plant into the local telecommunication infrastructure of the next century. Cable Co-op had a professional staff and a well-qualified General Manager, Brad Anderson, who was now working out a concrete plan and had been over the past year. Mark Rowosky, Member, Cable Co-op Board of Directors, 440 Cesano, No. 213, said the HFC system was a method of building a telecommunications infrastructure which combined microscopic glass bands grouped in fiber optic cables with copper based coaxial cables that were familiar to most people as cable television wires. In a basic HFC system, digital information systems which might carry voice, data, or video communications were carried from a separate source of fiber optic cables down to a given neighborhood. Many industry pundits suggested that developing an HFC-based system was short-sighted because eventually the coaxial cables would prove inadequate to carry all of the communications generated by a given home and would then need to replace the cables with more fiber optics. Therefore, each home should receive a fiber optic cable of its own. That logic was faulty as it ignored the issue of cost because devices such as computers, telephones, and televisions expected to receive electrical signals brought by copper wires and any data transmitted by fiber would eventually be converted to something copper based which was expensive. One of the powerful benefits of an HFC system was that it allowed one converter to be shared by 500 homes. Furthermore, the majority of homes in Palo Alto and neighborhood cities already had coaxial cables running through them which had been installed by Cable Co-op for the purpose of providing television. Those cables could be reused by attaching them to a newly constructed fiber optic system greatly mitigating construction expenses. Engineering estimates suggest that reusing a portion of the existing Cable Co-op infrastructure could cut the cost of building a telecommunications infrastructure by half versus constructing a system from scratch. An all fiber system would cost even more, hundreds of dollars per household, not for the fiber but for the electronics required. The second key argument against HFC was the claim that it would run out of bandwidth because households would be engaging in so much two-way communication. Through conversations with diverse groups such as Motorola, SRI, and Pacific Bell, it was apparent those fears were unwarranted. Instead of making claims based on broad generalizations, those firms undertook sophisticated modeling efforts to determine how much data communication capacity bandwidth. A household might make use of it in the future. A properly constructed HFC system with a grouping of 500 homes served by a single fiber from a central source would have sufficient capacity to serve all present and foreseeable future needs, and a host of purposes not yet envisioned. Those needs might be telephone calls, advanced cable television, high-speed computer
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data, etc. The system was versatile because it fundamentally reduced everything to bits, the language of all computers, and could be carried to homes over HFC. Ted Glasser, Member, Cable Co-op Board of Directors, 655 St. Claire Drive, said the issue before the Council that evening was not to preserve Cable Co-op as an end in itself but rather Cable Co-op and a telecommunications infrastructure as a means to other ends. Those other ends were often referred to as the metaphor of information. He encouraged the Council to think creatively and imaginatively beyond the metaphor of information. It was a metaphor that people in the United States used historically to define communication. He wanted to introduce a different metaphor called conversation which better captured the challenge before the staff and the Council. The things that made up the heart and sole of the community and that distinguished Palo Alto from other communities was what it meant to sustain a common conversation, the kind of communications infrastructure needed to accomplish that, and to preserve the kind of quality public communication that reminded people of the importance of what people had in common. The goal of whatever communication policy the Council would adopt was to create a local network of communication focused not only on exchange of information but for creating opportunities for a sustained enduring conversation. Gary Madden, Member, Cable Co-op Board of Directors, 2575 Preisma Creek Road, Half Moon Bay,(letter on file in the City Clerk's Office), said there was potential value of an advanced telecommuni-
cations infrastructure for Palo Alto=s businesses and schools. For business, the benefits were the ability to work at home (telecommute) and the use of technology to reach customers. He believed the most powerful argument for such an infrastructure was sustained regional economic growth. For education, the benefits were a foundation for creating a highly skilled work for higher education and distance learning. Palo Alto was a very enterprising community and if a telecommunications infrastructure were avail-able, schools and businesses would find ways to utilize and innovate it. An advanced telecommunications infrastructure could be an engine which on one hand could drive business growth and innovation and also improve the ability of our schools to teach young people and retool the work force for the next century. He encouraged the Council to take a leadership position to assure that the benefits from an advanced telecommunications infrastructure would be realized. He referred to a letter written by Brad Anderson, CEO/General Manager, Cable Co-op, dated February 26, 1996, (on file in the City Clerk's Office), which addressed the benefits of an HFC infrastructure in terms of economies of operating costs. Gordon Fuller, Member, Cable Co-op Board of Directors, 347 Webster Street, said people presently lived in a time like no other where the challenges and opportunities were great. The directors of
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Cable Co-op had labored hard and long on what moves should be made in light of the future. Monopolies were moving very strongly into the cable business which was the way of the future. Cable Co-op was also mindful about what future technologies might impact on the decisions that were being faced and its deliberations parallel those of the Councils. In order to make good business decisions, the current business environment needed to be considered and there needed to be some vision toward the future. His company, along with a number of other companies were looking at providing a transition technology to the subscribers allowing them to use the high speed delivery path of the cable together with the existing telephone communications. When electricity was first introduced, it took nearly 30 years and a World War to acquire the knowledge to make it pay off efficiently. He was working with a company who had developed a metering chip. With the metering chip the opportuni-ties for using broadcast digital services opened the doorway to rent-to-own software applications. One of the biggest problems in software and multimedia development was distribution which could be solved by operating in a system currently like Cable Co-op to deliver high speed data access to computers and charging only for what was used. The same concept could be applied more broadly to completely displace long distance telephone carriers as the infrastructure as the Internet expanded. All one needed to consider was that the digital switches for long distance service could be replaced by routers which plugged a client into the network. It was not clear whether the big companies had the advantage. Cable Co-op had taken the high risk, high reward path because it valued the community and wanted to develop the kinds of infrastructure and services it would need to face the next century. Presently, some of those issues were being considered in light of the future potential and how the community could be shaped. History was being rewritten and to have vision was something that was necessary. He encouraged the Council to take the path of the high risk to gain the greater rewards. Seth Fearey, Member, Cable Co-op Board of Directors, 1755 Oak Avenue, Menlo Park, (letter on file in City Clerk's Office), spoke to the role of advanced telecommunications infrastructure in the community. He wanted to comment on the benefits of community information services and referred to a project, the Public Access Network (PAN), created by Smart Valley, a Bay Area organization of which he was on the board of directors, to illustrate community information systems. The PAN project had two major or goals: making community information available on the WWW and to set up computers in public places to allow people without computers to have access to information which was shared by the City of Palo Alto and Cable Co-op. The vision of the Information Superhighway was to carry traffic in two directions. Public access meant both access to information and access to means of communications which was the next phase of the information communications revolution. There was a need to make it easier for people to create content that would transform what was available on the WWW and greatly
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enhance its value to the community. Palo Alto had the opportunity to provide leadership for its citizens and to provide a role model for other communities. Cable Co-op shared the vision of a leadership community and had provided a high quality service to those wanting access to information. The advent of communications technologies was giving Palo Alto an opportunity to increase access to information that would help in daily life and build a strong community. He looked forward to working in a partnership with the City. Bob Moss, Member, Cable Co-op Board of Directors, 4010 Orme Street, urged the Council to adopt the recommendation in the staff report (CMR:150:96) to continue with Phase 4 of the Telecommunications Strategy Study. He referred to the question of risk if the infrastructure were built. There were three components of the Information Superhighway: the fiber, the switching mechanism from the fiber to the coax, and the converter boxes in individual homes. The primary investment the City would make would be in the first two components. The fiber and the converters were going to be state-of-the-art or useable for many years. The uncertainty was in the converter boxes which changed rapidly. With regard to going to a hybrid system rather than straight fiber to the home, anytime there was a need for fiber to a specific location, that could be added on an individual basis, if needed, so it would not be obsolete in terms of capacity. With regard to what a fiber could produce, on an experimental basis, AT&T was able to put enough information into a single strand that equaled all of the phone
calls made in the United States on Mother=s Day. Cable Co-op was indicating between 48 and 96 strands for a backbone which would be more than ample for the next 50 to several hundred years. The system was doable, practical, and financially feasible. With regard to what one could get out of a telecommunications infra-structure, Barron Park Neighborhood Association (BPA) had had its own BPA net for several years and he made a list of everything it had engaged in from crime reports, creek side watch, to babysitting co-op. If the Council were interested, he could provide them with the list. It would give the Council an idea of what a community organization could do on a very low budget an also what could be done for the community on a personal level. With regard to what the high speed modems could do for the infrastructure, to download a program, a 70 meg would take five hours. With the COM 21 modems that were used by Cable Co-op for the last year, it could be downloaded in 30 seconds which might give the Council some idea of the capacity and capability. It would mean tying all of the communities together, building neighborhood-by-neighborhood, and creating a real community among a number of diverse communities effectively and inexpensively. The Council had an opportunity to be leaders and he urged the Council not to pass-up the opportunity.
He provided a report done by SRI Consulting, ΑA Review of the CATV
Business≅ (on file in the City Clerk=s Office).
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Walter Eich, 481 San Antonio Road, said the Internet offered many potential advantages, one being providing high quality higher education at a price that anyone could afford as opposed to the current outrageously priced product, thus solving many social problems associated with university acceptance. Previous speakers spoke to the tremendous technical advantage of the existing Cable Co-op coax infrastructure over ordinary telephone lines, and he urged the Council to be aggressive in studies of possible funding. It would be a shame if inaction by Palo Alto forced Cable Co-op to sell out to one of the larger cable companies whose poor reputa-tions for service and content were so richly deserved. Keith Cooley, Member, PA-COMNET, 1330 Harker Avenue, said PA-COMNET was a community grass roots organization whose goals were to promote the use of computer networking for greater community participation, involvement, and communication between the different groups in the community. PA-COMNET fully supported the objectives of the Telecommunications Strategy Study and felt the staff did an excellent job of assessing the state of telecommunications in the first three phases. PA-COMNET believed that the City had a role to play in bringing about a broadband network sooner rather than later which would be later if left to competitive service providers to create the network. It was important that a broadband network have universal access to all members of the community, including residents and all small businesses, not just the 50 largest corporations in Palo Alto. Any broadband network that was built should be symmetrical, cable of two-way communications. PA-COMNET encouraged the Council to adopt Phase 4 of the Telecommunications Strategy Study and urged that further phases of the study take a closer look at the community benefits possible rather than just assessing the financial liability. David Harris, 455 Margarita Avenue, said he had attended the discussions of the cable system ten years prior and recalled that part of his reason for supporting the locally controlled Cable Co-op was with the hope for two-way data communication in Palo Alto. As a businessman, his career was staked on having the best possible connection through WWW sources and users of information. The Internet was valuable to him personally as well, and he was a volunteer in helping to get the schools connected. The cable decision then was relatively easy, the cable system seemed like a local control of a natural monopoly. He found infrastructure to be complex, the very dynamic, fungible, forms of information that needed to move in different ways and a great desire by the customers to have it. He hoped the Council would make sure that the content of the policies being carried were separate from the carriage, as former Mayor Jack Sutorius had recommended during the prior cable hearings that the telephone companies would do the cabling and other people could police access. As a City there were some values: ducts, poles, billing systems, utility experience, and creative citizens. There were needs and desires like local content availability, quality carriage for business and residential
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citizens, and appropriate programs for higher education in the community. The challenge the Council was working on was Palo
Alto=s special assets that could be traded for what was needed. The recommendations in the staff report (CMR:150:96) seemed reasonable and he looked forward to the next steps in the process. RECESS: 9:17 P.M. - 9:30 P.M. MOTION: Council Member Andersen moved, seconded by Kniss, to approve the Utilities Advisory Commission recommendation that staff proceed with Phase 4 of the five-phase Telecommunications Strategy Study and with a detailed evaluation of two potential telecommuni-cations strategies: 1) develop a telecommunications network and lease network access, and 2) lease existing infrastructure. Council Member Andersen said excellent information had been provided to the Council which helped him in reviewing the material. The Council was looking at some complex issues with exciting potential. He was enthusiastic yet cautious as the Council approached some difficult decisions. He was interested in pursuing the partnering concept and looked forward to an opportunity for Palo Alto to make it possible for the citizens to be able to have as much of a competitive environment as possible, to have the broadest range of competitive services, and to make it possible for Palo Alto to be on the cutting edge in terms of what kinds of services would be available to the community. There was another question before the Council that the public, particularly Cable Co-op, was interested in which was getting some kind of a signal from Council as to what direction would be taken with regard to its potential future. Unfortunately, that could not be answered that evening because it would occur during the Phase 4 analysis. The process should not be too far off where that decision could be made. He was interested in the issue of the cost benefit of the hybrid possibilities that were available through some kind of combination with Cable Co-op, yet, some very long-range issues needed to be considered and the technology that was demanded. He asked where fiber optics came in and where the HFC system would work. He had conferred with Mr. Strojny about when a person needed more bandwidth than could be provided with a system that might be
available within Cable Co-op=s existing infrastructure, how simple or complex that would be. The Council needed to make a decision not so much on the basis of what was good for Cable Co-op but what was good for the community in the long run. Hopefully, there was the potential for working together in a way that would be mutually satisfactory. He was excited for the opportunity of putting something together that would serve the community in a way that was potentially important over the next 100 years as were the decisions
that were made early on in the century with regard to Palo Alto=s other utilities. Council Member Kniss felt the number of resources being put in were small in order to complete the next phase. The piece she was most
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interested in was the enormous long-range advantages advanced telecommunications infrastructure could have for the City and would have for generations to come. An analogy might be that one could only have enough electricity for three or four light bulbs in a home instead of having enough electricity to allow all the light bulbs a person wished to have function if there were insufficient bandwidth. She felt the Council as well as the community did not honestly understand what was being discussed. The Council did not normally discuss those kinds of issues. People were very comfort-able in certain parts of Silicon Valley with technology but many people did not truly understand. She had spoken earlier with Mr. Fearey about the Net Day project that was going to be held on March 9, 1996, and she was not sure people understood why it was important to wire schools. She urged the Council as it went into the next phase to be very aware as it looked for public support to use language that the public could understand. She felt people would be delighted to have the information as long as it was simple, succinct, and put in terms that could be understood. She said it took a long time for electricity to catch on, but she felt the Internet would catch on much faster. She noticed that children caught on to telecommunication technology much faster than adults and she urged adults; as parents, etc., not to be fearful of the new technology because it was the kind of thing that advanced children forward, was fascinating for them, and was truly what kept California competitive. She supported proceeding with Phase 4 and said that the realities needed to be looked at carefully. She urged staff to return to the Council with something that was very clear. It was amazing because what was being discussed was telephone service and in the olden days it was done by a telephone company, not by a city. Some very different kinds of services that could be provided by a City were being discussed; and as the Council went forward, it needed to remember that it was entering some very brave new world territory which needed to be addressed in a different way than in the past. Council Member Simitian said in the past week he had been asked to explain to someone how fiber optics worked and was pretty impressed with his answer, but five years ago he would not have imagined himself answering with a factual explanation. He had made a couple of observations he wanted to direct to staff, the UAC, the consultants, and the public. In receiving the information, it would be helpful if applications were addressed more and technology less. He understood that applications were driven by technology and that sometimes the technology suggested or created the applications. In terms of the issues the Council was dealing with as a City and as a Council, to discuss the applications was more helpful as a starting point. The exciting part of it that might capture some Council Members or the publics interest more than others was a fascinating place to be, but the bottom line was the
question of Αwhat=s in it for us≅ as a community and as a City which was driven by applications. That would lead to what he hoped would be the framework. When the next step came about, it would be
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helpful if the Council could be provided with policy choices and recommendations and that was why applications were going to be important. If a nine member body of officials were asked to make technology choices, that was a morass. If it were asked to make well-informed policy choices based on applications issues for the community, including the public sector, the private sector, and
individual consumers, it was the Council=s responsibility to do
that successfully. He agreed with Council Member Kniss= comments about the importance of language that lay people could understand and work with. His enduring request was if it were not in the dictionary, it should not be in a staff report; or if it were going to be in the staff report, it needed to be defined. Second, he was concerned about there being a role for the City, but he continued
to worry about the City=s ability to respond given all of the constraints under which it operated in a world which was as fast-changing as the telecommunications world. It could be as simple as the fact that the City had to publicly notice specific issues and provide an opportunity for public input and all the things that were valued as the democratic process which might not be helpful in the rapidly changing world of telecommunications. He supported moving ahead with Phase 4 and felt there was more for the Council to know and which should be available before the Council had to make choices.
Council Member Rosenbaum referred to Council Member Kniss= comment about the difficulty of the decision the Council would have to make, and he did not know if he felt comfortable or knowledgeable enough to make a decision that would require the investment of the
City=s money. He found the public and the UAC to be talking on parallel tracks, not intersecting. A lot of members talked about the wonders of the Internet, and he thought the Council might not disagree, but it was not going to be the basis of the decision the Council had to face. He had found it interesting in the informa-tion provided, that a company called Spectranet which was involved with the City of Anaheim, was willing to take the financial risk and do the work. He asked what was in it for Spectranet, what was going on, and was it something that held some promise for Palo Alto. Mr. Strojny said Spectranet was a firm that was organized about one and one half years prior. The professionals were from the telecommunications business and had left older-term service providers to form a business built around working with cities to construct infrastructure along the lines of the leased access strategy that was an option before the Council that evening. Spectranet had been working with financial institutions in a way that there were now investors who were looking at providing third-party money to help finance what amounted to municipal infrastruc-ture telecommunications projects. That was what was occurring in the City of Anaheim which was an adjunct to a telecommunications system that was set up for its own utility. Currently, Anaheim was
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thinking of extending it beyond the utility into linkages with other businesses and residents and using Spectranet as its partner. Council Member Rosenbaum asked what was in it for Spectranet and how would it make money on its investment. Mr. Strojny said Spectranet would operate the systems it was involved with. Rather than the city having to operate the actual daily activities of the infrastructure and the maintenance, Spectranet had the executive and maintenance expertise to ensure that the infrastructure ran correctly and connected to service providers and customers. Spectranet was paid for that service which was part of the proposals and agreements entered into with the cities it was engaged with presently. Council Member Rosenbaum clarified that Spectranet was taking the risk that service providers would show up and desire to lease the lines. Mr. Strojny said he had not seen the actual details of the financing but his understanding was that Spectranet was working with third-party financial investors who for the most part were assuming the financial risk and Spectranet was assisting in putting those kinds of arrangements together and then deriving the revenue from the actual operation of the system. Council Member Rosenbaum asked whether the operation of the system assumed that the service providers would want to lease space on that particular infrastructure. Mr. Strojny said that was correct. Spectranet also in limited circumstances had the ability to provide services itself, espe-
cially in a competitive Αaccess provider mode.≅ Spectranet was at least talking about providing some services as well as maintaining and operating the infrastructure. Council Member Rosenbaum clarified that there must be some assumption that as service providers Spectranet would either be required or would find it preferable to use the infrastructure that had been paid for by the third-party investors. Mr. Strojny said yes. The approach to the businesses was once the infrastructure was built, it would be a less expensive way to provide services for the service providers to build the infrastruc-ture themselves and incur that tremendous expense up front. Council Member Rosenbaum looked forward to those points being amplified in the information to be provided to the Council because perhaps Palo Alto could provide an outstanding service to the community on a more timely basis than surrounding communities would be able to do and do it with someone else taking the financial risks.
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Vice Mayor Huber said approximately one year prior he asked former Mayor Simitian to appoint him to the Telecommunications Advisory Panel (TAP) because he felt it needed to be someone who had never operated a computer, was not into technology, and might be functioning as a break on some of the interests of people. He enjoyed serving on the TAP and he actually picked up some terminol-ogy in the process. He said Mr. Johnston and Keith Cooley did an excellent job, and he felt their insights and approaches to what a municipality should be doing in the area was important. First, he
was interested in Αnatural≅ monopoly, a good analysis of what it would mean if a firm got there first with the ability to provide that type of service. Obviously, there could not be a true
monopoly but a Αnatural≅ monopoly that might keep people away. Second, he was interested in the financial aspects. He emphasized he did not think it was necessary that the City fund an infrastruc-ture. He believed what was needed was to ensure that it was there at a reasonable cost with the right kind of service. He did not want the Council to enter into it thinking infrastructure was something the City had to do. The City had to make sure the infrastructure was there for everyone that wanted it, but it was not necessary that the City itself become involved. Third, he clarified that the issues with regard to Cable Co-op would somehow be folded in so there would be some sense as to where Cable Co-op was, where it was going, and where the City might be in relation to that. Mr. Strojny said it was part of the Phase 4 analysis. Mayor Wheeler concurred with her colleagues. She had been struck
by the City=s experience and that of the neighboring cities that it had been much more attractive so far to private enterprise to service those areas of communities which they felt would give them the greatest return. As a member of the Council, she felt some responsibility to ensure that the residents, schools, and the City offices were afforded the same opportunities to plug into the new
generation of services. The Council=s moving ahead in directions that had been suggested by staff for continued study might be the most efficacious way to see that that happened in a reasonable time frame. She was disappointed when Mr. Mrizek indicated that use of
that technology to service the City=s Utilities Department was not foreseen as being included in Phase 4. She hoped that staff might reconsider. She felt it was an important aspect in looking at the
future of not only telecommunications but of the City=s delivery of
utility services to Palo Alto=s customers in the era of competi-tion. She supported the motion. Council Member Kniss asked whether the TCP would continue. It had offered a great deal of advice and Council Members had learned a great deal from serving on the TCP.
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Mr. Strojny said the TCP would continue during Phase 4.
Council Member Kniss agreed with Council Member Simitian=s comment to concentrate on the applications. It needed to be in English and in a way that could be understood. Most people did not care how a television worked but wanted to know what channels they could get when they turned it on. The Council needed to know what the City would get for its money and efforts. It was going to be a selling job for the group to put it out not only to the Council but to the community. Those three parts, the English, the applications, and what the end product would be was what the Council was looking for. MOTION PASSED 6-0, Fazzino, McCown, Schneider absent. COUNCIL MATTERS 3. Mayor Wheeler and Council Member McCown re CalTrain At-Grade Crossing Mayor Wheeler said there had been some discussion at the Joint Powers Board (JPA) level recommending an at-grade crossing of the railroad tracks at the Palo Alto CalTrain station as the preferred solution to address the need to meet Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements. She and Council Member McCown were concerned that recent Council discussions about crossings of the railroad tracks had seemed to point in the opposite direction as far as the Council was concerned. The Council also had not had an opportunity to hear from the City staff. The objectives of the memorandum before the Council that evening were to direct staff to prepare a report and that the Council be allowed an opportunity for discussion before passing on its conclusions to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). MOTION: Mayor Wheeler moved, seconded by Huber, to direct staff to: 1) prepare a brief background report, 2) invite representatives from CalTrain to be present at the Council meeting to share information on the proposed project, and 3) schedule the item for the next appropriate Council agenda. Council Member Rosenbaum wondered if it were not something of a two-edged sword. There had been a previous discussion as to the feasibility of having an at-grade crossing for the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) and some of the Council Members thought it was something they might want to review. If the staff of the JPA were suggesting that, whereas the Council was told that the JPA was against it, the other at-grade crossing issue might be brought up. He supported the motion. Mayor Wheeler clarified that it was the CPUC that indicated disinterest in the PAMF at-grade crossing.
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City Attorney Ariel Calonne understood there was a great distinc-tion between an at-grade crossing in a station versus in the middle of a railroad track. Council Member Simitian recalled clearly that a representative from the JPA said it had no interest in seeing an at-grade crossing and suddenly an at-grade crossing was no longer an at-grade crossing. As he had said previously, somehow an at-grade crossing worked for a race track but the Council was being told it would not work for a medical center. He supported the motion to gain some information about the issue, but he was still in the same place as before which was he thought there was some feasibility to the possibility of at-grade crossings understanding the safety issues inherent at an at-grade crossing. He was pleased to have the information and to support the motion, but he did not want his vote in that direction to be misunderstood as a predetermined conclusion that would be consistent with where the Council majority was previously. Mayor Wheeler said that was one of the reasons the memorandum was brought forward. Council Member Andersen supported the motion. Council Member Kniss said as Council Member Simitian had stated, she also found some glaring inconsistencies with the issue and looked forward to receiving the report. MOTION PASSED 6-0, Fazzino, McCown, Schneider absent. 4. Council Comments, Questions, and Announcements Mayor Wheeler referenced the memorandum to her Council colleagues regarding the massing model study for the proposed hotel at the corner of Page Mill Road and El Camino Real. Council Member Rosenbaum recognized the passing of Stanley Norton, past Mayor and Council Member, who also served as Assistant City Attorney and Planning Commissioner. He was also the attorney for the Mid-Peninsula Regional Open Space District for 20 years. On behalf of his Council colleagues, he sent their respects to the family. Council Member Kniss remembered Stanley Norton as a driving, formidable force on the Mid-Peninsula Regional Open Space District and said that hundreds of acres of land had been saved for open space because of his presence. Mayor Wheeler shared Jack Sutorius's past Mayor and Council Member legacy to the City of Palo Alto; and on behalf of her Council colleagues, she sent their most heartfelt condolences to the family. She also noted the passing of Stanley Norton and said the City would plant two trees in memory of the past Mayors.
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ADJOURNMENT: The meeting adjourned at 10:10 p.m. in memory of former Mayors Stanley Norton and Jack Sutorius. ATTEST: APPROVED:
City Clerk Mayor NOTE: Sense minutes (synopsis) are prepared in accordance with Palo Alto Municipal Code Sections 2.04.200 (a) and (b). The City Council and Standing Committee meeting tapes are made solely for the purpose of facilitating the preparation of the minutes of the meetings. City Council and Standing Committee meeting tapes are recycled 90 days from the date of the meeting. The tapes are available for members of the public to listen to during regular office hours.
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