HomeMy WebLinkAbout1996-12-02 City Council Summary Minutes 12/02/96 81-1
Regular Meeting
December 2, 1996
1. Resolution Expressing Appreciation to All Former Members of
the Disability Awareness Task Force for Outstanding Public Service.................................................81-3
ORAL COMMUNICATIONS..........................................81-4
2. Resolution 7636 entitled ΑResolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Exercising the Option to Extend for One Year the Agreement with National Parking Corporation for Attendant
Parking Services≅ .......................................81-5
3. Contract between the City of Palo Alto and Barbara A. Judy for Contract Professional Services for Administration of Interim Regulations for Residential Buildings Constructed Prior to
1940....................................................81-5
4. Ordinance 4388 entitled ΑOrdinance of the Council of the City
of Palo Alto Amending the Budget for the Fiscal Year 1996-97 to Provide an Additional Appropriation for the Police
Department to Receive Supplemental Funding for the Citizens Options for Public Safety (COPS) Program - State Assembly Bill (AB) 3229"..............................................81-5 5. Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Declaring
its Intention to Amend Section 12.16.020 of Chapter 12.16 of Title 12 of the Palo Alto Municipal Code by Establishing Underground Utility District Number 37 (continued from 11/12/96)...............................................81-5
6. Assessment of Interest Level for Residential Parking Permit Program (continued from 9/16/96).......................81-11
7. Contract with Randazzo Enterprises, Inc. for Arastradero Preserve Structure Removal and Agreement with Bay Area Action
for Reuse and Recycling of Materials from the Arastradero Preserve...............................................81-27
12/02/96 81-2
8. Council Direction to Staff on the Procedure for Filling the
Council Vacancy Which Will Be Created When Council Member Simitian Joins the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors81-36
9. Council Comments, Questions, and Announcements.........81-40
ADJOURNMENT: The meeting adjourned at 11:40 p.m. in Memory of Maria Holt...................................................81-40
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The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the
Council Chambers at 7:24 p.m. PRESENT: Andersen, Fazzino, Huber, Kniss, McCown, Rosenbaum,
Schneider, Simitian (arrived at 7:38 p.m.), Wheeler
SPECIAL ORDERS OF THE DAY 1. Resolution Expressing Appreciation to All Former Members of
the Disability Awareness Task Force for Outstanding Public Service
MOTION: Council Member Fazzino moved, seconded by Schneider, to adopt the Resolution.
Resolution 7635 entitled ΑResolution of the Council of the
City of Palo Alto Expressing Appreciation to All Former Members of the Disability Awareness Task Force for Outstanding
Public Service≅
MOTION PASSED 8-0, Simitian absent.
Tina Gutierrez, 938 Clark Avenue, #62, Mountain View, Chairperson of the Human Relations Commission (HRC), thanked the members of the
Disability Awareness Task Force (DATF). The HRC voted to sunset the DATF recognizing the ongoing needs of the disabled community in
Palo Alto and desiring to meet those needs through other opportunities. The HRC looked forward to working with members of the community who represented the disabled in Palo Alto to continue
to meet their needs of access and advocacy.
Janet Stone, 2225 Ramona Street, liaison from the HRC to the DATF for the past year, thanked the members of the DATF for its service to Palo Alto and for improving the lives of people with
disabilities.
Jim Snodgrass said he moved to Palo Alto 25 years before, and a few days later was blinded by a car accident. It took a long time for him to realize he was the same person, just without sight. While
the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) had made great strides, the intangibles of what was inside a person with a disability was
where increased awareness was needed.
Council Member Andersen thanked all who had been involved on the DATF. He was Council liaison to the DATF when ADA was being considered. During attendance at DATF meetings, he noted the
strident advocacy being carried out. He agreed with Mr. Snodgrass that prior to ADA, Palo Alto modeled how cities might better respond to and respect the disabled. The work carried out by the
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DATF throughout its tenure impacted not only the Palo Alto
community but also the course of the ADA legislation. He commended them.
Council Member Schneider said her mother had been disabled since birth, and she understood the challenges of people affected by
disabilities. She had been especially interested in the DATF and its progress. As she looked back to when she was a child and what amenities were available for her mother, the increase in those
amenities during the existence of the DATF was a real credit. She applauded each member of the DATF and knew each member would
continue ongoing advocacy efforts. Mayor Wheeler thanked the DATF for its efforts. Having been a
Council liaison to the DATF early in her Council career, she was aware of the wonderful contributions the DATF had made to the Palo
Alto community. ORAL COMMUNICATIONS Maryanne Dockstader, 909 Loma Verde, spoke regarding Shoreline
Amphitheatre noise issues. Edmund Power, 2254 Dartmouth Street, spoke regarding honesty in government.
T. J. Watt, homeless, spoke regarding a dangerous speed zone next to the quasi-private school zone. Michael T. Wollenweber, P. O. Box 213, spoke regarding the
Sheriff=s Dump Truck Driving School.
Sam Sparck, 302 Poe Street, spoke regarding representing the Palo Alto Civic League. Tanya Cantrell, 4421 Lincoln Way No. 2, San Francisco, spoke
regarding the tragedy of disbanding the Disability Awareness Task Force. Janet Stone, 2225 Ramona Street, spoke regarding continuance of the Disability Awareness Task Force.
Alice Fischgrund, 750 Torreya Court, spoke regarding continuance of
the Disability Awareness Task Force. CONSENT CALENDAR
MOTION: Vice Mayor Huber moved, seconded by Fazzino, to approve
Consent Calendar Item Nos. 2 - 4.
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2. Resolution 7636 entitled ΑResolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Exercising the Option to Extend for One Year the Agreement with National Parking Corporation for Attendant
Parking Services≅ 3. Contract between the City of Palo Alto and Barbara A. Judy for
Contract Professional Services for Administration of Interim Regulations for Residential Buildings Constructed Prior to
1940
4. Ordinance 4388 entitled ΑOrdinance of the Council of the City
of Palo Alto Amending the Budget for the Fiscal Year 1996-97 to Provide an Additional Appropriation for the Police
Department to Receive Supplemental Funding for the Citizens Options for Public Safety (COPS) Program - State Assembly Bill (AB) 3229"
MOTION PASSED 9-0.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
5. Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Declaring its Intention to Amend Section 12.16.020 of Chapter 12.16 of
Title 12 of the Palo Alto Municipal Code by Establishing Underground Utility District Number 37 (continued from 11/12/96) Council Member Simitian asked whether the Utilities Advisory
Commission (UAC) had reviewed leaving multiple poles up and down the street when an undergrounding project was done.
City Manager June Fleming said the pole issue would not be an item within the purview of the UAC's charter and purpose.
Council Member Simitian thought that whenever a person dealt with
$750,000 budget issues, they were implicitly policy issues. Ms. Fleming said in the context of the budget, the UAC did review
the item.
Council Member Simitian said spending $2.4 million of citizen funds to get rid of the poles located in citizens' backyards was what was being looked at.
Director of Utilities Edward Mrizek said for the particular
underground district, that was correct with some poles also on Middlefield and Embarcadero Roads.
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Council Member Simitian understood people were being asked to spend
the $2.4 million because the City believed it improved the service and it was an ancillary aesthetic benefit.
Mr. Mrizek said that was correct.
Council Member Simitian said from an aesthetic design standpoint, he was concerned $750,000 was being spent and the 16 most visible, unattractive poles on Embarcadero Road were being left. He queried
the service implications of undergrounding those poles.
Mr. Mrizek said the 60 kV were on the tall poles, and the 60 kV line was well above the tree levels. He referred to a map attached to the report (CM:482:96) which reflected the routing of the 60 kV.
It followed major thoroughfares, and while it was an aesthetic problem, to underground the 60 kV would not increase reliability.
There were little to no problems on the overhead distribution system. Council Member Simitian asked why it was so wonderful to put the other lines underground but it was not wonderful to put the 60 kV
poles and lines underground for service reasons. Mr. Mrizek said telephone and primary and secondary power systems were lower level cables in the backyards and the distribution areas, and they created additional operating and maintenance
problems because of tree trimming and accessing locations in the backyards during storms by City operating crews. Those were the areas where there were major power failures during storms and winds. The 60 kV did not have those problems.
Council Member Simitian said one of the things the City liked about the 60 kV poles and lines were that they were right out there and
easy to access where everyone could see them. Mr. Mrizek did not necessarily like the 60 kV better, but it was a
very expensive proposition to underground them and would not increase reliability.
Council Member Simitian believed fairly implicit in the staff report (CMR:482:96) was the suggestion that while the City could
get rid of 16, 60 kV poles, they would end up with 4, 60 kV
transition poles that in staff=s opinion were even less attractive.
Mr. Mrizek said there would be transition poles on either side of the underground area. The City would be able to remove the
16 poles along Embarcadero Road, but as they rose up outside the underground district to go overhead again, on both sides of the district there would be a transition pole on either side. The
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Hopkins Substation was within the area, and it would have a
transition pole to rise up and bring the 60 kV into the substation located behind the fire station.
Council Member Simitian queried whether the transition poles would be removed eventually.
Mr. Mrizek said if the City continued to underground the 60 kV, as they moved along down Embarcadero Road or other underground
districts, the transition pole would be removed, and a transition pole would have to be installed further down. Until the entire
60 kV were underground, the map attached to the report (CMR:482:96) included the 60 kV routing.
Council Member Simitian asked the number of poles that would be removed for the $2.4 million the residents would be spending.
Mr. Mrizek said 97 poles would be removed. Council Member Simitian clarified there were two transition poles at each end of the district.
Mr. Mrizek said that was correct. Since the Hopkins Substation was in the center of the district, the need to transition back up at Hopkins Substation, in and out of Hopkins Substation there would be two poles behind the fire station going into the Hopkins Substation
for a total of four transition poles. Council Member Simitian queried the visibility of the poles at the substation.
Mr. Mrizek said they were the same height as the ones on Embarcadero Road.
Council Member Simitian said they had worked both with the Utilities Department and with the Public Works Department with the
help of the City Manager and the town architect to try and be a little more aesthetically conscious in some of the areas in the
past couple of years. If time, energy, and money were put into aesthetic considerations, he queried whether the four 60 kV transition poles could be a little less intrusive as had
historically been the case.
Mr. Mrizek said no because there needed to be appropriate clearances for the 60 kV.
Council Member Simitian queried whether siting them in a particular way would make them less readily evident.
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Mr. Mrizek said they needed to be located basically on the routing
of the 60 kV line. Council Member Simitian said one group of people who had been
aggrieved by the traffic burden was on Embarcadero Road. He tended to think Embarcadero Road was a gateway entrance into the City
along with two or three others, and he was concerned about the visual impacts. To ask residents to spend so much money to do undergrounding while leaving that which was most readily apparent
and the most intrusive from an aesthetic standpoint was not an appealing prospect. He understood the competitive issues and did
not believe Palo Altans wanted their utility to be competitive at the expense of an unattractive community. They were going through what was a once every hundred year process in terms of the
undergrounding, and he would not want to think they missed the chance to do it right. He might have to abstain from voting
because he believed all the arguments and evidence pushed in a different direction from the direction he wanted to go. It was clear the Utilities Department had a particular policy position which he was not sure he shared. The matter could be sent to the UAC, or he could just vote no, or they could talk about spending
the money, but he was troubled about the particular stretch of road and wanted to hear from other Council Members. Vice Mayor Huber queried whether it would be cheaper to underground the 60 kV along with the other undergrounding proposed by staff or
whether the cost would be the same if it occurred in the Year 2000. Mr. Mrizek said it would be the same cost because it had to be a separate installation from the distribution system.
Council Member Andersen said if Council decided it wanted to underground the 60 kV, he clarified it could not be done within the
existing plans projected for the next ten years. Mr. Mrizek said that was correct.
Council Member Andersen said it appeared there would be some kind
of cost savings if they could combine the work. If Council said it wanted to go underground with the 60 kV also, he queried whether it could be included with some of the projects on the planning boards
for the next ten years.
Mr. Mrizek said there would have to be a new capital improvement program (CIP) entitled "60 kV undergrounding" and a decision about what level of expenditure the Council desired to spend each year
on the CIP especially in light of the competitive issues being addressed over the next five years. They were currently looking at
the CIP programs to determine what level to maintain the
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reliability for the customers and to keep the costs down to
maintain competitiveness when deregulation was fully implemented in the Year 2002.
Council Member Andersen queried whether deregulation might cause the City to defer some of the undergrounding projects.
Mr. Mrizek said deregulation would affect all of the operating costs and how the City did business. The City had to be very
competitive on its distribution system costs and its supply costs.
Ms. Fleming said the issue about whether to underground the 60 kV was not new. It was discussed in connection with the CIP a few years before, specifically in connection with the Alma Substation
project. There were expressions at that time similar to those of Council Member Simitian that if undergrounding were to occur,
whether it would not be better to underground everything. No conclusions were reached other than it was too expensive to undertake at that time. There were two on-ramps approaching where the issue could be discussed again and where Council would not be pressured with time concerns. The issue of deregulation was
complex, and it was unfair to throw undergrounding into the mix when Council did not fully understand deregulation. There were many serious policy decisions to make regarding deregulation and how the City would do business. Those discussions would provide Council with better information with which to make larger
decisions, and she suspected the underground issue could be folded in at that time. Undergrounding the 60 kV would be a consideration because while the City did have to be competitive, Council had to make decisions to accommodate the Palo Alto community and how it wanted to look. The other factor was a procedural one. The issue
before the Council was a Resolution of Intent, so the matter was not closed. The project could be separated out and dealt with
again either when the matter returned to Council or as a separate item.
Council Member McCown said while the discussion was helpful, she had not heard anything that would cause her not to want her to move
forward with the undergrounding package as recommended by staff. MOTION: Council Member McCown moved, seconded by Rosenbaum, to
adopt the Resolution.
Resolution 7637 entitled "Resolution of the Council of the City of Palo Alto Declaring its Intention to Amend Section 12.16.020 of Chapter 12.16 of Title 12 of the Palo Alto
Municipal Code by Establishing Underground Utility District Number 37"
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Council Member McCown said there were enormous benefits to the
undergrounding process including removal of the rats= nests on telephone and cable wires. In a perfect world, it would be nice to get the other single 60 kV transmission out too. The cost figures
of such a project were significant, and she did not see how the project could be considered other than as a broad citywide policy issue. Obviously, the Resolution of Intent was not the agenda item to allow Council to do that. She was also concerned about where the City would find itself in the new competitive environment with
the electric utility. If she extrapolated $750,000 for the number of blocks on Embarcadero Road out across the whole system, she
would want to know how the dollars being considered on that compared with a lot of other priorities the City might be facing with regard to the electric utility. While in a perfect world the
City would like to start whittling away at the remaining lines, the City was aesthetically cleaning up other more troublesome, things and she would not want the City to cease doing that because of the broader policy issue which needed to be considered. As the City Manager indicated, if there were an on-ramp time to consider the
question, she believed it might be useful to do so on a broader basis.
Council Member Andersen appreciated Council Member McCown's comments. In the context of the deregulation discussion, he
believed it was appropriate to consider a long-term approach to resolving the 60 kV lines, as well as elements of other City
capital improvement issues, and there might be other priorities on which Council would place higher priorities. It would also be appropriate to discuss the 60 kV lines when Council considered the so-called gateway areas.
Council Member Simitian opposed the motion. Based on his tenure on the Council, it was easy for Council to say it should consider some things in context. However, the fact of the matter was the issues became lost in the context. Items went before Council in bite-size pieces, and Council dealt with them. He was not optimistic the
issue would resurface in a clear and specific way that would generate Council activity. He hoped his no vote would cause Council to remember the issue if and when the opportunity arose to consider it. Council was spending $2.4 million of the public's money to clean up an aesthetic issue that most people did not see
except in their own backyards, but Council was not prepared to spend $750,000 of the City's money to deal with the aesthetic
pollution in its most visible location. Deregulation or not, Council still needed to maintain quality of life, and part of that was the design issues Council struggled with so frequently and
painfully but which did not always rise to the fore in public works or utilities discussions.
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Council Member Kniss believed that while Council Member Simitian's
points were well taken, she was not convinced to vote "no." Deregulation was cause to watch and exercise caution over the next several years. As always, Council appreciated the thorny issues,
and she looked forward to what Council Member Simitian might do for the City's roads and highways at the County level.
MOTION PASSED 8-1, Simitian Αno.≅
6. Assessment of Interest Level for Residential Parking Permit Program (continued from 9/16/96)
Assistant Police Chief Lynne Johnson said in March 1996, Council directed staff to assess the interest level of residents who lived
adjacent to the downtown area regarding a residential parking permit program and to return with a status report. Based upon the responses to the written surveys and two community meetings, it was safe to say there was a considerable amount of interest from various perspectives voiced on the issue. While there were
divergent opinions related to the specific causes and possible resolutions of the problem, the clear consensus was that on-street
parking for residents in the neighborhoods immediately adjacent to the downtown area was a problem. However, due to the variety of factors related to the problems, one solution, like a residential
parking permit program, most probably would result in other consequences. Since the staff report was completed in September
1996, staff conducted another neighborhood parking occupancy survey. Eight days after the vehicles were chalked for the most recent survey, staff found 58 vehicles that had been chalked the week prior that were not moved during that period of time. She believed it was safe to conclude that those vehicles were not
associated with visitors to the downtown area. Because Council directed staff to only assess the residents' interest levels, no specific recommendations were made. Staff believed Council might wish to defer taking any action on the issue until some other issues like the downtown parking structure feasibility study and
the South of Forest Avenue (SOFA) study were presented to Council for consideration. Council Member Schneider referred to the time the City used the parking permit program for neighbors in the Grecian Health Spa area
of the City. All things being equal, she queried whether the history there provided any way of anticipating how many permits
would likely be issued. Ms. Johnson did not believe staff could provide a good answer
because of the unknown number of vehicles per household in the subject area. One of the things discovered during the survey was that some homes had up to eight vehicles associated with it. It
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would be difficult to use the Grecian Health Spa example at that
point because in that instance, one permit per household plus up to four for guests were issued.
Council Member Schneider clarified in the Grecian Health Spa area, staff issued 4 per household, and of that only 27 permits were
applied for. Ms. Johnson said that was correct. There were 17 households from
which 27 permits were issued. In the subject downtown area, surveys were sent to 35 households. It was a large area stretching
north to the City limits and south to Embarcadero. It depended on how great an area the City wanted to encompass.
Council Member Rosenbaum clarified the new data suggested that 58 cars were there permanently and not related to visitors. He
assumed that did not affect the accuracy of the data provided earlier which indicated there were 1,300 to 1,400 cars which could reasonably be considered to be non-visitor cars. City Traffic Engineer Ashok Aggarwal said that was correct.
Council Member Rosenbaum referred to the potential program formats on page 7 of the report (CMR:392:96). When the item was before the Council in September 1996, Irvin Dawid submitted a packet regarding a parking benefit district. The one which seemed relevant was
format No. 3, Nonresident Permits, which indicated that some cities had actually sold permits to nonresidents and allowed them to park in residential areas. He queried any further thoughts on that particular potential program format.
Police Lieutenant Don Hartnett believed the program had only been used in a limited number of cities, and he did not believe
nonresident permits would be the direction the City wanted to go. Staff did not want to advocate one position over another without receiving more input from the residents.
Ms. Johnson said based on information received from the few cities
which had tried the nonresident permits, the program was based on the theory that nonresidents would pay for permits to park in the residential areas. However, if ample free parking existed
elsewhere or if parking permits were less costly elsewhere, those areas would be used first, and it did not necessarily resolve the
residential parking problem. Council Member Fazzino did not sense a lot of enthusiasm on the
part of the Police Department or the Traffic Division to move ahead with the program. The narrative of the staff report (CMR:392:96)
seemed to reflect staff's perception that there was not significant
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support for a residential parking permit program in the
neighborhoods. However, as he looked at the parking survey results, under question 9, on page 2, in Area 1, 56 percent of respondents were either supportive or open to the concept of a
permit parking program; in Area 2, 61 percent were open or in support; in Area 3, 48 percent were either open or in support; and
only in Area 4, the area furthest removed from University Avenue, was there clear opposition to a permit parking system. He queried the degree to which staff believed there was neighborhood support
for a residential parking permit program. He asked for staff's perception regarding the degree to which there was support for the
residential permit program in the neighborhoods. Ms. Johnson believed that in core areas 2 and 3, there was a high
level of support for some type of program because those areas had seen the greatest impact over the years as a result of downtown
parking issues. Further out, it was clear both in the survey results and responses received at the meetings that there was less support. The responses should serve only as trend indicators. Staff determined through its efforts that while residents strongly believed a parking problem existed, they did not necessarily see a
residential parking permit program as a resolution and that it might make matters worse. The responses were mixed, but the areas most impacted were the ones with the highest level of support for a residential parking permit program.
Council Member Fazzino queried whether staff opined there was any practical way of addressing the passionate concerns of the core areas as opposed to the lack of passion on the part of the non-core areas, or whether the areas had to be addressed as part of one group of neighbors.
Ms. Johnson said one of the issues staff constantly encountered
with the parking problem was the balloon effect. There were "x" number of cars that had a need to park downtown. Over the years and as a result of the color zone parking, cars had moved into the
neighborhoods. If the cars were pushed out of the neighborhoods, the question was where they would go. She did not believe there
was a place for those cars to go in the immediate future. If Council determined the feasibility of the downtown parking structure, that would alleviate part of the problem. Once the Palo
Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF) moved, and depending upon what went in on its site, it might be another opportunity to help alleviate
the parking problem. Council Member Fazzino asked whether consideration was given to
alternative transit, such as CalTrain or the possibility of an extension of the Marguerite Shuttle system, and further removing
downtown employees= cars from the downtown area.
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City Manager June Fleming said within the scope of the assignment, staff did not report back on every facet. Staff had concluded there was not one single answer to the problem. There were many
obvious pieces to review, and as she and Mr. Overway had discussed on several occasions, there were some basic things the City needed
to do. The last time a similar issue was before the Council, Council Member McCown talked about the planning, mapping, and the need to know where to go with certain pieces first, and staff was
doing that. Council Member Fazzino identified a number of key elements which needed to occur.
Council Member Andersen recalled some years before that space was available in the permit parking area of the Cowper garage. He
queried whether all the permit parking spaces were taken.
Mr. Aggarwal said all the permit parking spaces were taken. While there were about 1,000 people on the waiting list, some people waited on more than one lot. The actual number might be closer to 600 or 700.
Council Member Andersen clarified the cars on the waiting list were parking in the residential areas. Mr. Aggarwal said that was an assumption.
Council Member Andersen asked whether, notwithstanding the balloon issue, if the City put in place a nonresident parking permit system in the residential neighborhoods, people might not be motivated to carpool.
Ms. Johnson hoped it would serve as some type of motivation.
Council Member Andersen asked how many spaces the City could get if it went to the maximum on the proposed new parking lots.
Mr. Aggarwal said about 700 spaces were on sites S and L and another 210 on site R, which was behind Blockbuster Video.
Council Member Andersen asked for a sense of how many cars parked in the neighborhood areas were nonresident parking and whether an
assumption could be made that a large percentage were downtown employees.
Mr. Aggarwal said the studies reflected that the nonresident parking was between 1,300 to 1,400 vehicles for the area bounded by
Alma Street to Palo Alto Avenue to Lincoln Avenue to Middlefield Road. The number was not all downtown employees. It also included
employees from the Palo Alto Medical Foundation and businesses from
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south of Forest Avenue, as well as people who visited the various
households, such as gardeners, nannies, or other household people. Council Member Andersen said one of the comments suggested the
concern that the 72-hour rule already in effect might complicate the issue. He queried to what extent staff believed the 72-hour
rule might actually contribute to the problem. Ms. Johnson said the fact that 58 vehicles had not moved in over
eight days indicated the 72-hour rule contributed significantly to the problem.
Council Member Kniss queried whether the ten cities contacted for information were chosen because they were similar to Palo Alto or
whether they were random selections.
Ms. Johnson said the cities contacted were chosen because staff heard they had a permit program in place for some time. There was no scientific method utilized in the selection. Council Member Kniss queried whether cities generally indicated the
permit parking system had been a positive move. Mr. Hartnett spoke with the representatives from most of the listed cities, and they were not fond of the residential permit parking program. However, he noted the smaller the area in which a
residential permit system existed, the more positive the city's feedback was about the program. It appeared if a program could be administered with existing staff, e.g., if a residential parking permit area existed next to a business district where an enforcement officer could check the one or two block area as part
of the normal beat, it was more positive for the city.
Council Member Kniss clarified the smaller the area, the better. Mr. Hartnett said it was also interesting that many of the cities
still received complaints that people could not park in front of their homes or on their own block because the programs did not
necessarily guarantee the problems would be alleviated. Council Member Kniss asked whether, if Council continued to
consider such a program, it might be better to look at a residential parking permit program in small segments to see whether
support existed in a particular area. Mr. Hartnett said that was possible. Staff would not want to
implement a program which did not have neighborhood support. Most of the cities contacted indicated the need to identify an area
larger than where the immediate problem existed because once the
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problem was solved on one street, it moved to another. One city
designated a fairly large area for permit parking so that when it received a petition from two-thirds of the neighbors on a particular street, it could add the street later on without having
to go through the whole process again.
Council Member Kniss clarified that conversations occurred primarily with the enforcement group, not the participants.
Mr. Hartnett said that was correct. Usually, the conversations were with the Public Works Department people or with the Police
Department for the smaller programs. Council Member Kniss clarified the core of Areas 2 and 3 was
historical and had few garages, which probably exacerbated the problem.
Ms. Johnson said many of the homes within and outside the core area did not have garages, and on-street parking was their only availability.
Council Member Simitian referred to the comment that the Cowper Garage was fully subscribed and queried who subscribed to the top floor of the structure. Mr. Aggarwal said the top two floors were private pursuant to a
lease agreement. He believed Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) was the lessee, and after so many years, the top two floors would become the City's. Council Member Simitian referred to a meeting he recently attended
where he could see the top floor of the Cowper Garage and noted no cars were parked there. He queried why 35 to 40 spaces were empty
there while people were backing their way into the neighborhoods. He was concerned about the possibility of a residential parking permit program when Lot S was largely unused and a whole floor of
the Cowper Garage was not being used. He queried the priority ranking of the different approaches put forth in the report
(CMR:392:96). Chief Transportation Official Marvin Overway said staff's priority
was always to try to best utilize the parking spaces available. The top two floors of the Cowper Garage were literally empty all
the time. While staff had approached DEC, it had a card/gate system at the lower level of their two floors which they purchased for the remainder of their lease. Until they were ready to
negotiate some other kind of use, the City could not use DEC=s spaces.
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Mayor Wheeler said while each home in her neighborhood had a two-
car garage and a two-car or more driveway in front of the garage, either the garages were filled with stuff which did not include vehicles or people did not want to park their own vehicles in the
driveway behind a car that might be parked in the garage because they might have to do a reshuffle. While lotting patterns and
construction were different in the downtown area, she tended to think the behaviors of residents were similar. She queried whether staff had observed that to be true.
Mr. Aggarwal said staff did not necessarily observe the residential
parking behavior but did ascertain how many residents parked on the streets. While he deferred response regarding what occurred at 6 a.m. or at noon, staff observed approximately 400 to
500 residents parked on the street.
Ms. Johnson said staff received a few comments regarding the behaviors described by Mayor Wheeler, which added to the parking problem not only in terms of the number of vehicles for some households but the fact that some preferred to park in the street. She would not say, however, that a number of similar type comments
were received. Susan Frank, Executive Director, Chamber of Commerce, 325 Forest Avenue, said the Chamber did not believe Council should pursue a residential permit program at that time. There was a divided level
of interest among the residents, and without a consensus even on what the problem was and when it was worst, it would be difficult to implement a successful program. The Chamber believed the divided level of interest was due to the mix of people who parked in the neighborhoods. A more correct term to describe those who
parked in the neighborhoods would be "non-downtown residents" because many who worked downtown might be residents of the
community, just not residents of the downtown. The Chamber did not believe a residential parking permit program could co-exist with color zone parking not only because of the current parking space
deficit but also because there was no place for those cars to go. There was also an evening parking problem which meant the color
zones were not the only source of blame for what was going on. Many people believed the problem was worse on the weekends and on game day. The Chamber advocated the building of two parking
structures as something which would ultimately have the most impact on removing cars from the neighborhoods. The downtown and the
adjacent residential area created a unique situation because one flowed into the other and back again, and as long as the uniqueness existed, parking would intrude on the neighborhoods. The long-term
solutions consisted of the Palo Alto Medical Foundation=s moving out of the downtown, building parking structures, looking at SOFA as its own distinct entity and not as a part of the assessment
12/02/96 81-18
district, exploring the alternative transportation measures like
shuttles, and education which the Chamber committee continued to work on. She urged Council to wait on the residential permit parking until it was known where the cars would go and a better
plan could be established.
Patrick Burt, 1249 Harriet, represented the Board of Directors of the University South Neighborhood Association (USNA). The USNA believed the color zone parking compounded the parking problem.
The geographic area of Attachment C of the staff report (CMR:392:96) extended from High Street to Middlefield Road, and if
the date were interpreted according to Attachment C, there was the split level response. In Attachment D, in the core block of Area 2, 83 percent of the respondents favored or were open to a
residential permit parking system. Some communities had successful permit parking systems, and the possibility deserved
greater exploration. Stanford viewed its permit parking program as a necessary component to its overall trip reduction program because without it, the shuttle system would not be as effective, and paid parking for its core areas would not be as effective because there would be an escape valve. In the subject instance, it had been
argued that there could not be permit parking because there was no relief valve. It could not be both ways. The paid permit parking system might be just the thing to bring the neighborhoods back to where they were before color zone parking and create a balance until other solutions were found. USNA believed the residential
permit parking consideration should be one component of a multi-faceted approach which included a comprehensive parking and transportation program with land use considerations, a shuttle system, parking structures, trip reduction coordinator for downtown, improved pedestrian access, and inclusion of SOFA parking
issues. USNA recommended Council assign the permit parking issue as a task for the SOFA coordinated area plan which was intended to
address all of SOFA, not just the PAMF site, and that representatives of Downtown North be invited to participate in that portion of the coordinated area plan.
Jeanne Moulton, 319 Addison Avenue, associated with the comments of
Mr. Burt. Linda Cohen, 935 Scott Street, lived in a high density
neighborhood, and her two-car household did not have a garage. She associated with the comments of Mr. Burt. She agreed the parking
problem in her neighborhood was exacerbated by the color zone parking.
Don Fitton, 821 Waverley Street, was a member of the USNA, and endorsed the comments of Mr. Burt.
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Mark Nanevicz, 228 Waverley Street, lived in the Downtown North
area and supported a permit parking plan. His neighborhood was so filled with cars that he could not go home for lunch because he would not be able to get close to his home. He did not know
whether the eight-hour parking plan would satisfy most of the areas because of the night life in Palo Alto. He was confused by
comments that there were mixed support levels in certain areas. None of his neighbors were against permit parking, including people who lived six to eight blocks away from University Avenue. If
those who lived closest to University Avenue were given permits and the cars were pushed out another four or five blocks, he believed
there would be full support from those people who were presently unsure about permit parking. Without permit parking, paid parking would not be effective because people would see there was free
unlimited parking in a safe neighborhood. He recommended an off-site parking lot with a shuttle bus might alleviate some of the
problem until structures were available. New offices were being constructed on University Avenue, and he did not believe the City could ever catch up with the mess it created and with the number of cars that would be coming to Palo Alto in the next five years.
Council Member Schneider asked if Mr. Nanevicz would be willing to pay for a permit to park in front of his home and what a reasonable amount might be. Mr. Nanevicz would be willing to pay to park in front of his home,
and he believed the $35 to $50 annual fee was fair. George Varian lived at the corner of Addison Avenue and Scott Street. His neighborhood did not have a lot of off-street parking, and it was hard to find parking spaces. He suggested there be a
target for general parking density in all neighborhoods of the City.
Council Member Simitian understood Ms. Cohen to say she had a driveway, and he queried how many cars she had.
Ms. Cohen said she had two cars. She had a driveway but no garage,
and only one car could fit in the driveway. Council Member Simitian asked Mr. Nanevicz how many cars he had at
his home.
Mr. Nanevicz had two cars and one garage in Bryant Court alley which was presently under construction. When not under construction, one car could be parked in the garage, but nothing
could be parked in the driveway.
RECESS: 9:25 p.m. - 9:40 p.m.
12/02/96 81-20
Council Member Rosenbaum believed Council had the opportunity to consider backing up its rhetoric about reducing parking demand and encouraging alternative transit, and the key was to start reducing
the availability of free all-day parking downtown. MOTION: Council Member Rosenbaum moved, seconded by Fazzino, to direct staff to study the feasibility of a parking permit program in the Downtown area with the following elements: 1) An annual fee
for an all day nonresident permit; 2) Provide for free short-term parking for up to two hours for nonresidents; and 3) Provide for no
cost parking permits for Downtown residents. Council Member Rosenbaum said the motion was somewhat of a
compromise among many different viewpoints. About 1,300 cars were parked in the neighborhoods everyday, and the question was where
those cars would go if Council simply adopted a residential permit parking system that did not allow cars to be in the neighborhoods at all. Council clearly wanted to discourage people from parking in the neighborhoods, and to some degree money should do that. With regard to the Cowper-Webster situation, it did not make sense
to have all those empty spaces, and Council should increase the demand for use of that space. He was influenced by the discussion about 525 University where the owner of the building had 700 employees and 450 parking spaces which were not being used to capacity; therefore, the spaces were being leased to other people.
The employees were presumably parking in the neighborhoods because free parking was available. While he was sure there were all types of complications, he wanted to keep the matter moving and encourage further consideration.
Council Member Fazzino supported the motion. The problem in downtown neighborhoods was serious and had become much worse over
the past couple of years with the adoption of color zone parking. While there had been some debate over the degree to which residents both north and south of University Avenue supported a residential
permit parking program, the fact was there was tremendous support in the heavily affected areas. Council needed to move forward and
address the concerns of the downtown neighborhoods and the larger area. Residents should have primary access to parking in front of their homes, and Council made a terrible mistake 15 years prior
when it abandoned the overnight parking program at the Police Department's recommendation. He voted against it then and he was
right. Council presently had an opportunity to address a problem that was becoming worse for downtown residents, and it was important that whatever program was put in place be simple. City
Manager Fleming was right on target when she concluded the problem was not one which could be solved simply through enactment of a
residential permit parking program. In terms of 525 University,
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Council took a step in addressing the long-term problem downtown by
expressing its concerns about impacts the additional square footage would have on parking and traffic problems. He suspected Council would continue to look cautiously at square footage increase
proposals in the downtown area if they increased traffic and parking problems in the larger area. While he supported the
concept of a downtown parking structure, it alone would not solve the parking problem. There needed to be some disincentives to parking in the downtown residential areas. To address the problem
long-term, it was important to consider transportation alternatives such as transit, shuttle, more carpools, etc. He was excited about
the prospects of a shuttle system and believed it would greatly assist in solving the problems. His vision was a system like that of the Stanford Shopping Center wherein many downtown employees
would be parked in areas removed from the downtown, perhaps even near the Municipal Service Center (MSC), and shuttled to the
downtown area and their jobs. Short of that, an alternative to move ahead and consider enactment of a residential permit parking program as part of the broader planning efforts in the SOFA and other downtown areas was sound. He urged support of the motion and for staff to return with a specific plan.
City Attorney Ariel Calonne alerted Vice Mayor Huber and Council Member Fazzino that when a more specific proposal was returned to Council, it would likely raise some conflict of interest issues not currently present.
Council Member Fazzino understood a conflict would exist if any action Council Members took conceivably had a $10,000 impact on their properties.
Mr. Calonne was not prepared to respond, but the threshold might be lower when the property was directly within an affected district.
Ms. Fleming asked that to the degree possible Council provide some direction to staff in terms of area to be covered, whether the
permit program should be in effect seven days of the week, etc.
Council Member Kniss asked whether the free two-hour parking was to be within the area included in the report (CMR:392:96).
Council Member Rosenbaum said his interest was to charge for all-day parking, not charge for the shopper or someone going to the
restaurant, and provide free permits for residents. He was happy to leave the details of how many days and questions of that sort to staff. If Council really moved forward, there would be more
surveys of the residents, and eventually the matter would be figured out. He had no preconceived notions.
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Council Member Kniss said Council was looking at some dramatic
changes in the downtown. With Stanford=s proposed project and with the restaurants in the area all doing rather well, Council needed to take a long-term look at the issue. Clearly, the biggest issues
in the downtown were traffic, running red lights, and parking. She supported the motion. Council Member Schneider supported the motion. While she advocated paid parking in the downtown area and that Lot S be paid parking
all day long, including the evening hours, when the rest of downtown was quite busy, she was still concerned about chasing
people away from the downtown area because they felt neglected in favor of others. She hoped that when the recommendation returned to Council, weekends would not be included in the program. The
color zone parking was not in effect on the weekends, and there was unlimited parking in the downtown area on the weekends. She was pleased there would be no cost permits for residents. Even though residents expressed a willingness to pay for a permit, it seemed inequitable to make residents pay to park in front of their own
homes.
Ms. Johnson clarified part two of the motion indicated free short-term, two-hour parking for nonresidents as opposed to residents.
Council Member Rosenbaum said his intent was to duplicate what already occurred in the downtown where people who parked all day
received permits and paid for them, and everyone else was free to park for up to two hours. Residents would presumably have a permit which would enable them to park all day. The two hours referred to non-downtown residents.
Vice Mayor Huber believed it was necessary to keep the matter alive and factor it in with all the other things being done with regard to parking. He was still not sure whether the residential parking permit system would be done separately or in conjunction with something like the SOFA project. It did not matter to him as long
as Council kept looking at the problem, and Council Member Rosenbaum's motion was reasonable to consider. He encouraged the involvement of those neighborhood groups that spent time on the matter and suggested that staff contact those neighborhood groups and involve them from day one.
MAKER AND SECONDER AGREED TO INCORPORATE INTO THE MOTION that the
staff contact the neighborhood groups in the affected areas and include their input in the study.
Council Member Simitian supported the motion as a way to provide some additional information. He remembered the effort Council made to satisfy the requests of neighbors who came forward and wanted a
12/02/96 81-23
restroom in Johnson Park. Council moved ahead and took steps to
get a restroom in the park only to discover the other half of the neighborhood did not want a restroom. The basketball hoop instigated the same kind of neighborhood debate. They seemed to be
simple, straightforward, either-or propositions with none of the complexities of issues before the Council. The survey was sent to
over 3,500 residents, and undoubtedly others did not receive a survey. If each household had two cars, that would be about 8,000 permits to be processed through the City's bureaucracy
whether the City charged for them or not. The level of enthusiasm might dwindle when those downtown residents all had to obtain
parking permits when they were accustomed to being able to park their car without having a permit. Enthusiasm might also wane when a friend's car was ticketed and that friend had only brought a
child over to play with a youngster for two hours and fifteen minutes. It was premature to say people were open to the idea of a
residential permit parking system. He agreed with Council Member Fazzino that the program needed to be simple and limited. The real impact of the ballooning issue was that all of a sudden, everyone wanted a piece of the action. Staff, the community, and Council needed to keep the solution in a limited area and then stick with
it and try to keep it simple. He preferred to see Council solve 80 percent of the problem with a limited and simple approach rather than make it three times as complicated to get another 10 percent of the problem solved. He did not deny the scope of the problem. He knew it was tough, and those with friends who worked in San
Francisco knew what the problems looked like in neighborhoods there when a person could spend an hour trying to find a parking space to visit a friend in a residential neighborhood. Council Member Andersen appreciated Council Member Simitian's
cautions. He supported the motion but hoped staff would feel free to approach the problem in ways that might not simply be the items
as the motion directed. He had great confidence in the creativity of the staff in the area of transportation. If there was a new twist that Council needed to consider, he hoped staff would present
it.
Council Member Rosenbaum said Council always respected the judgment and wisdom of staff.
Council Member Andersen believed it was time to look at the 72-hour rule. There were many positive aspects of living in the downtown
area, but there were some downsides. Council would not stop all the downsides. While he did not anticipate Council would resolve the parking problem, he was interested in seeing whether some
disincentives might be provided for those who worked in the downtown area not to park in the residential areas. Until there
was some cost associated with parking downtown in a residential
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area, it was hard to imagine people changing their behavior. He
believed the City could use the model of the Stanford community and gain a great deal. Real motivations were provided to Stanford employees, and he encouraged consideration of the shuttle concept
and the possibility of giving people opportunities where it would be in their economic interest to park in areas other than in the
residential areas downtown. AMENDMENT: Council Member Andersen moved, seconded by Kniss, to
amend the motion to reevaluate the 72-hour regulations for overnight parking restriction.
Council Member Schneider opposed the amendment. The issue was downtown parking, and while overnight parking might well be a
problem throughout the City, she did not believe the amendment was appropriately a part of the issue before the Council.
Council Member Simitian said while he sympathized with the intent to some extent, some residents would have a problem of not being able to park in front of their house for more than 48 hours. The conversation started out being how to make life easier for local
residents, and at present they were talking about when residents could not park in front of their houses. While it might well be the right answer, it was a perfect example of how complicated the issue was in terms of the impacts on people in the neighborhoods. He opposed the amendment.
Council Member McCown agreed with Council Member Simitian's policy reaction. She and Council Member Fazzino recalled an indication from staff that the time period could not be shortened to something less than 72 hours.
Mr. Calonne said that was correct.
Vice Mayor Huber queried whether the 72 hours and the distance the vehicle had to be moved were statutory.
Mr. Calonne said staff worked on the process for tagging the
vehicles and towing them away and found that 72 hours was the time necessary to make it work. He did not believe it would be a big deal to take another look at the matter. The local ordinance
specified a vehicle had to be moved 1,000 feet. He did not believe that figure was imposed by state law.
Vice Mayor Huber said while he was interested in what Council Member Andersen offered, he believed it was more an enforcement
issue than anything else, judging from the complaints received. AMENDMENT WITHDRAWN BY MAKER AND SECONDER
12/02/96 81-25
Council Member Kniss recalled many cities had a rule that a car had to be moved every so often for street cleaning, etc. She queried how that tied with the 72-hour rule. Many cities prohibited
parking between certain hours on certain days for various reasons.
Ms. Johnson believed the California Vehicle Code precluded the City from towing a vehicle which had been on a street for more than 72 hours, but it did not preclude the vehicle from being cited. Those
cities which posted for street cleaning were required to have appropriate signage regarding the specific day and time the street
would be cleaned to give the residents proper warning. The street cleaning then had to occur during those specified times in order for any enforcement to occur.
Council Member Kniss said apparently the laws existed and the issue
was whether to enforce. Ms. Johnson said that was correct. Mayor Wheeler said while some took Council Member Simitian's
cautionary comments to heart, she was probably the one member of the Council who had lived in an area subjected to residential permit parking in another state. In the end, the reactions would be similar. While the program sounded appealing because there was pain in the neighborhoods, the first time a guest received a ticket
because the visitor's permit was not in the car, or a resident had a party and invited five sets of friends and the City only issued two visitor parking permits per household, the program would look a lot less attractive than it did on paper. While it was very "Palo Alto" to keep studying the issue, she believed law enforcement and
transportation staff had full plates. In the end Council would wish it had not burdened staff with one more piece of work to
study. She opposed the motion. Mr. Calonne emphasized for conflict of interest and Brown Act
purposes that the direction to staff was to do a feasibility study not to return with a residential parking permit program. Council
would not see anything more than the feasibility study. Council Member Andersen presumed the motion would allow staff to
explore whether to take the 72-hour program and go beyond the complaint basis approach.
Mayor Wheeler did not believe the 72-hour program was in any way a part of the motion.
MOTION PASSED 7-2, McCown, Wheeler Αno.≅
12/02/96 81-26
REPORTS OF OFFICIALS
7. Contract with Randazzo Enterprises, Inc. for Arastradero Preserve Structure Removal and Agreement with Bay Area Action
for Reuse and Recycling of Materials from the Arastradero Preserve
Senior Engineer James Harrington said the first part of the action related to the contract for structure removal which consisted of
the 4,200-square-foot main house, the 1,000-square-foot cottage, and an alternate item for the barn removal and miscellaneous items
such as water tanks on the Arastradero Preserve. The second part was the agreement with Bay Area Action, a nonprofit organization to reuse and recycle the materials at the three sites. The first step
would be to remove certain materials identified in the agreement and stockpiled on the Preserve, and the second step would be to do
recycling of the three sites. The items consisted basically of tiles and other materials, siding, bricks, and flagstones, as identified in the agreement. Council Member Simitian noted previous discussion on the larger set
of issues regarding the ability of Bay Area Action to petition for the use of funds from the larger fund, and he queried whether anything in the agreement precluded Bay Area Action from requesting funds to use as part of the recycling effort.
Deputy City Manager, Administrative Services Emily Harrison said the contract before the Council did not preclude the request; however, the terms of the fund itself precluded any organization other than the City of Palo Alto from being a recipient of the funds or else the tax deductibility of the funds would be lost.
Council Member Simitian queried whether anything precluded Bay Area
Action from asking the City to use some portion of those funds to pay the costs associated with its recycling effort.
Ms. Harrison said no.
City Attorney Ariel Calonne said Bay Area Action was signing an agreement which said it was not going to request those funds. While Bay Area Action might ask, there would not be any legal
obligation on the part of the City to comply. By the same token, there was nothing in the agreement which precluded Bay Area Action
from selling recyclables other than those identified for the City. Council Member Simitian asked if anything precluded Bay Area Action
and the City from reaching an agreement if there was a meeting of the minds about the desirability of some City funds being used in
the process at a later date.
12/02/96 81-27
Ms. Harrison said the current agreement did not go through the City's normal contracting and procurement process which would require the City to at least obtain quotes or bids or go through a
request for proposal (RFP) process. If the City compensated Bay Area Action, it would need to follow those processes.
Council Member Simitian queried what would happen if the City were not going to compensate Bay Area Action but used some of the funds
to defray costs associated with the recycling effort.
Mr. Calonne said that was not what the contract was about. It might be feasible, but the contract would have to be redone.
Council Member Simitian said it would require an amendment to the contract, but nothing precluded it. If Council took the requested
actions that evening, he asked if it would foreclose the possibility of some funds being forthcoming. Mr. Calonne believed Ms. Harrison's caution about competitive bidding was well taken, but there might be a route to amend the
contract to provide compensation in some form if that was Council's desire. If Council wanted to go that route, he did not suggest having the recycling agreement approved that evening but recommended that it be returned to staff with appropriate direction.
Council Member Simitian queried what happened to the materials when the structure was demolished. Mr. Harrington said the demolished materials would go to a landfill
site. The materials Bay Area Action would be working on would be collected and stored on one part of the Arastradero Preserve for a
few months in anticipation of the Gateway Project, and the remainder would be removed from the site.
Council Member Simitian asked to which landfill the demolished materials would go.
Mr. Harrington said the contractor could take the material to any landfill site.
Council Member Simitian asked about the trade-off in the City's
view between the value of recycling the materials and diverting them out of the waste stream and into a landfill. He presumed that was part of the reason the City thought it was worth pursuing the
recycling effort. It did not appear there was much value directly to the City in terms of diverting the materials from the waste
stream, and there was some recycling benefit. There was a good
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behavior value in terms of encouraging the recycling of materials
but no more tangible benefit. Mr. Harrington said that was correct. More than likely, it would
cost more to recycle if the City were doing it.
Council Member Schneider asked whether any trees or plants in the vicinity of the house would be destroyed.
Mr. Harrington said there were many short shrubs near the site, but they would not be in any jeopardy of being destroyed. Staff was
comfortable that the amount of damage to the environment would be minimal.
David Smernoff, 340 Palo Alto Avenue C, Mountain View, represented Bay Area Action. He believed overall the agreement was a good one
which accomplished the preliminary objective in the work plan. While Bay Area Action supported the recommendation, the recommendation that the City Manager or her designee be authorized to negotiate and amend the agreement was also useful. It seemed there were three options for Bay Area Action: 1) they could
renegotiate the agreement with some funding agreement, but that would delay the process; 2) it could go ahead with the agreement as it stood and attempt to raise funds in order to do the maximum recycling effort within the time frame allowed; or 3) it could find a way to utilize the City Manager's recommendation to amend the
agreement after it was signed to work something like that in. Short of that, Bay Area Action would accept the agreement to keep the process moving. With the Council's understanding, the recycling effort would probably be less than it could be. Bay Area Action had an opportunity to do a good job of diverting as much
recyclable material as possible from the landfill and using it in exciting and innovative ways. In the absence of enough funding to
pursue the effort fully, the amount recycled would be understandably less. While Bay Area Action would do a good job with the agreement and raising its own funding, Bay Area Action
could do an excellent job if it worked with City staff to come up with some way to utilize some of the City's funding sources to
maximize efforts. Council Member Kniss knew the kinds of materials that were in the
house, and she queried whether the contractor anticipated using the materials from the house in the modest facility.
Mr. Smernoff said there were many materials in the home that could be used in a gateway facility, and if they were not used in the new
facility, they could be used elsewhere in the community. Part of the barn proposal was to use the barn as a recycled building
material center where such materials could go and be purchased by
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contractors or homeowners in other facilities. There were
questions of lead and asbestos in the main home which would necessarily limit the amount of materials they might be able to remove.
Council Member Andersen asked whether amending the agreement would
give the City Manager the authorization to provide some additional compensation for what the work would involve. Mr. Calonne said in order to form a contract, there needed to be
mutual assent as to all the material terms. The price of the contract was a material term, and if there was absence of agreement
as to a material term of the contract, it did not make sense to go forward as if there was a contract when there was not. He hesitated to read the amendment language as authorizing anything
more than what Council specifically wanted to spell out. The signed agreement that evening said there would be no cost to the
City for the services. If that was not what Bay Area Action was willing to agree to, he believed it was better practice to give staff a week to try to work it out. Staff debated removing the item from the agenda, but the contract was signed at the last minute, and he believed the discussion was perhaps a consequence of
trying to be a little too accommodating to get the matter on the agenda. If there was not agreement on the price, there was not a contract. City Manager June Fleming said she was cautious about changing the
purpose and intent of contracts. Even though language existed for her to amend the contract, she would not go beyond the bounds of the contract. She would not make any amendments such as those suggested without consulting and getting approval from the City Attorney. She did not believe the contract was as flexible as a
reader might want it to be.
Council Member Andersen queried whether, if there were some interest in providing compensation for some element of recycling, the best way would be to go out to bid. He queried whether that
should be done as part of a motion to ask that staff receive bids for the work that would be done to get the recycled materials.
Ms. Fleming said she would be extremely uncomfortable without getting some comparative information and allowing others to have
the same option.
Ms. Harrison had not discussed any of the issues with Bay Area Action, but she assumed it requested compensation for services, not materials. She had no idea what the dollar amount was, but
depending upon what it was, there were procedures to be followed which ranged from informal quotes to an actual RFP process. Not
12/02/96 81-30
knowing exactly what they had in mind, it was difficult to know
what the process would be. James A. Steinmetz, 886 Loma Verde Avenue, Bay Area Action, said
there was no doubt that other materials in the building could be used in a public facility. The question was to what degree, and
much of that depended upon the design of the future building and how it would be built. Reuse was the optimum achievement with regard to the structures generally or any old home in Palo Alto.
EPA Can Do, a nonprofit in East Palo Alto, wanted to use the barn as a facility to recycle lumber for use in the surrounding region,
which would assist Palo Altans in selling, exchanging, or donating recyclable materials in exchange for a tax write-off to a nonprofit, and those building materials would then be reprocessed
and could be reused or resold. It would also create three or four new jobs. Bay Area Action hoped to apply to the fund for
assistance in dismantling the barn in its entirety so it could be rebuilt, but it might be more difficult than it was worth. Bay Area Action did not want to delay the process and would make every attempt to move the barn in its entirety without assistance from the City if necessary. The creation of a facility that recycled
lumber was the solution to global warming because it dropped the demand of forests and forest products. Ms. Fleming understood the goals and objectives and the larger issue, but she did not believe the contract met them. If Council
wanted to pursue the larger issue of recycling, the item needed to be withdrawn. She did not believe the magnitude of the objectives could be met within the confines of the contract before the Council that evening. Further, based on what she had heard, she believed the City needed to go out for bid, and staff was willing to take
that direction if Council desired. She agreed many items in the house could be reused, but how much depended on the size and type
of the project built. Council Member McCown understood if Bay Area Action left a lot of
material on the site and did not recycle it, the demolition contractor would take care of hauling it away. If volunteers under
the Bay Area Action agreement took the barn down, and there was an opportunity to move it to a location in East Palo Alto, she queried whether the City could provide the moving services under the first
contract. She also asked whether it was contemplated that Randazzo Enterprises would have trucks and facilities to move the barn. If
Bay Area Action were asking to be paid compensation for services, there was no question Council would have to direct staff to go out to the competitive bid process. The question was whether moving
costs could be covered by the City, for example, if Bay Area Action decided it had a specific location to which the recycled materials
could be moved.
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Mr. Harrington said funds were not available for that level of work. While there were contingency dollars, they were well below what staff believed to be the needs for the barn.
Mayor Wheeler clarified the CIP contained a certain amount of money
for the demolition of the property. Bids were solicited under that CIP, and while the bid did not represent all the costs, it was substantially below what was estimated. She queried whether with
the remaining dollars in the CIP the City could go out for another bid to provide the moving services alluded to by Council Member
McCown. Ms. Harrison did not have the CIP before her, but staff would need
to be sure the scope of the project covered recycling and movement of the barn to another area. Council could amend the CIP project
itself, or Council could go through another procurement process in which movement of the barn could be made the scope of another contract. Ms. Fleming believed the CIP was for demolition, and remaining
dollars returned to the fund. Council could establish another CIP for movement of the barn. She did not believe there was a rush, and she did not believe the contract before the Council was appropriate to complete the project correctly. She recommended staff go back and put the item out to bid to correctly carry out
Council's policy direction. Council Member Andersen asked how the contractor felt about the discussion.
Mr. Steinmetz said the contractor would reluctantly agree to go out to bid again.
Ms. Harrison clarified they were not talking about the Randazzo contract.
Council Member Andersen said that was correct.
Vice Mayor Huber said Council started out with wanting to demolish some structures and said if some stuff could be recycled, that
would be great. He clarified if Council executed the contract with Randazzo, Randazzo would demolish and take away everything Bay Area
Action did not want. Mr. Harrington said that was correct.
Vice Mayor Huber clarified Bay Area Action could recycle one nail
or an entire barn under the contract, and it did not matter for the
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City's purposes because whatever Bay Area Action left behind, the
contract with Randazzo would have it removed. Mr. Harrington said that was correct.
Herb Borock, 2731 Byron Street, appreciated Vice Mayor Huber's
focus on the issue. Council had two different agreements before it. The standard contract with Randazzo Enterprises contained a paragraph 4 for amending it, and the other contract with Bay Area
Action for the recycling contained no such paragraph 4. He was confused when he heard the previous speakers talk about the
recycling contract as if it were the other one. The issue was a recycling contract that did not go out to bid. It was a sole source contract, and the parties signed it. If the concern was
whether Bay Area Action should receive money and how it should occur, it would be cleaner and easier to proceed in that direction.
Otherwise, Vice Mayor's approach was sound. If the City went back out to bid, he was unclear about the scope of the bid. The question was whether the City would be asking how much money it should pay in order to get the bid. It sounded like the reverse of how a bidding process normally went. Attachment C to the staff
report (CMR:476:96) listed the items of value which should be saved. If those items had value to a recycler, he suggested Bay Area Action might remove those items from the Preserve, sell them, and then have the revenue. That could occur that evening and any future proposal for a modest structure would have to be built
around something that had eight doors and not much else. It was not good policy for an agreement to be signed with the City, and then have last minute changes. MOTION: Council Member Simitian moved, seconded by Schneider, to:
1. Approve and authorize the Mayor to execute the contract with
Randazzo Enterprises, Inc. in the amount of $27,190 for Arastradero Preserve structure removal.
2. Authorize the City Manager or her designee to negotiate and execute one or more change orders to the contract with
Randazzo Enterprises, Inc. for related, additional but unforeseen work which may develop during the project, the total value of which change orders shall not exceed $6,000.
3. Approve and authorize the Mayor to execute the agreement with
Bay Area Action for reuse and recycling of materials from the structures to be removed from the Arastradero Preserve.
4. Authorize the City Manager or her designee to negotiate and amend the agreement.
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Contract between the City of Palo Alto and Randazzo
Enterprises, Inc. for Arastradero Preserve Structure Removal Agreement between the City of Palo Alto and Bay Area Action
for Reuse and Recycling of Materials from the Arastradero Preserve
Council Member Simitian believed the follow-up question to Vice Mayor Huber's question was whether the City wanted to let someone
do a modest job of recycling because that was the socially beneficial thing to do and accommodate it at no cost. On the other
hand, he asked whether the City wanted and was prepared to pay some extra money for a contractor to do a more aggressive job of recycling because that had an even greater social benefit. He
believed the sense of the Council was with the modest approach. If staff believed there was value in adding the list of items
referenced from Attachment C to the staff report (CMR:476:96), he would be open to it, but he did not believe it was necessary. Mr. Harrington said Attachment C to the report (CMR:476:96) identified what staff believed would be the most likely and
suitable materials for the future gateway facility. Council Member Simitian believed it was a question of accommodating what Council believed was a modest recycling effort and its inability to go the extra step and put additional funds into a more
aggressive project. To those people at Bay Area Action, there were
times to bring focus to one=s purpose, and while the departure might be worthy, it did not bring focus to the fundamental purpose of stewardship. He hoped for participation in the modest gateway structure.
Council Member Kniss intended her vote as a protest only. To Bay Area Action, there were companies who specialized in recycling, and she suggested if it was going to be involved in recycling, it should get some good professional help. There was no need to
reinvent the wheel. She remained puzzled about the use of many of the rather lovely home structures because she was not sure it befitted a modest structure if the City was really headed in that
direction. She was not sure about the net gain of the City=s taking down a structure in one area and putting it up in another.
She had objected to demolition of the house from the very beginning. While she saw the project as a compromise, she was not comfortable with it, and she would not support the motion. Council Member Andersen sympathized with the intent of Bay Area
Action to make it possible to perhaps have an entirely new facility in East Palo Alto.
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MOTION TO CONTINUE: Council Member Andersen moved to continue the
item for the purposes of allowing the staff to work with Bay Area Action on the issues. MOTION TO CONTINUE DIED FOR LACK OF A SECOND MOTION PASSED 8-1, Kniss Αno.≅ 8. Council Direction to Staff on the Procedure for Filling the
Council Vacancy Which Will Be Created When Council Member Simitian Joins the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors
City Attorney Ariel Calonne said the City Clerk, the City Manager, and he solicited early direction on how to go about preparing
Council for the process of filling the expected Council vacancy. Two options were in the City Charter. One called for a special election. In that case, when and if the vacancy occurred in January 1997, Council would have 60 days to call a special election. If Council preferred to appoint someone to fill the
vacancy, the period would be from the date the appointment became effective to January 1, 1998. An election would be necessary in
November 1997 to fill the remainder of the unexpired term. If Council chose the appointment route, staff requested direction on both scheduling and application requirements. While he did not
believe Council could formally establish the appointment process before the vacancy occurred, it was appropriate for Council to
provide direction on how it wanted to proceed. On the assumption the appointment process was Council's preference, the City Clerk prepared a pro forma schedule to provide some opportunity to discuss options for the Council.
City Clerk Gloria Young said the pro forma application was attached to the report submitted to the Council. The tentative schedule was based on the premise that Council might want to move toward an expeditious appointment process. The advertising period would be from December 16 through December 30, 1996. On Monday, January 6,
1997, Council would need to reconfirm its appointment process because the vacancy occurred on that date. If Council followed the procedure, applications would be submitted to the City Clerk's Office on Tuesday and Wednesday, January 7 and 8, 1997, respectively, the deadline being 5 p.m. on January 8, 1997. On
January 9, 1997, the Clerk's Office would forward the applications to the Council. Saturday, January 11, 1997, would be an all-day
interview process with the appointment at the conclusion of the day. Monday, January 13, 1997, would be the swearing in of the successful appointee.
Mr. Calonne emphasized the schedule described by Ms. Young was the fastest possible schedule which made sense. There was nothing to
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preclude Council=s directing staff to return after the vacancy occurred and to discuss the appointment process at that time.
Council Member Fazzino supported the concept of Council=s
appointing a new member. The policy had been followed ever since 1909 when the Charter of that year was approved. He encouraged Council to maintain the tradition. There would be a special
election in November 1997, and the voters would have the opportunity to vote on the two-year seat as well as the five four-
year seats. It was great that the City Clerk, City Attorney, and City Manager had a proposal to start the process. He was concerned
he would not be back in town until Monday, January 13, 1997, and he wanted to participate in the process. He was also concerned the process was taking place to a significant degree during the holiday
season, and it might be appropriate to extend the process by a week and possibly look at having the application deadline of January 10, 1997. He was also concerned about the Saturday interviews and appointment. The interviews on Saturday did not bother him as much as the appointment process occurring that same day. He suggested
the interviews be on Saturday, January 18, 1997, and the appointment be the first order of business on January 21, 1997. He
assumed Council could appoint and then swear in an individual on the same night.
Ms. Young said that was correct.
Council Member Kniss believed the precedent for the process was well established. An all-day Saturday interview session seemed a bit much. She queried how long interviews would last. She could
not believe any of the applicants would be so unknown to Council that they would be interviewed for an hour. She believed an
interview longer than thirty minutes was unnecessary. Mayor Wheeler said it was impossible to determine in advance how
many applicants there would be. In terms of the interview sessions for boards and commissions applicants, Council always rushed by the
ten minutes, and not each Council Member had an opportunity to ask questions. She believed there should be a sufficient amount of time so that each Council Member would have the opportunity to ask
questions of an applicant. She believed they were looking at anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes per candidate.
Council Member Andersen asked if people could apply for both the
two-year and the four-year terms. Council Member Fazzino said the person appointed to the special
seat could run for the four-year seat.
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Vice Mayor Huber did not see the Council's selection of whom it
wished to interview. Ms. Young said the process was a combination of ones that had been
done in other cities. In both cases, the Council interviewed all of the candidates.
Mr. Calonne said to accomplish Vice Mayor Huber's desires, there needed to be another public meeting for Council to select which
candidates to interview.
Mayor Wheeler asked whether the process could be similar to those used for the Architectural Review Board and other boards and commissions. When the packet of applications was forwarded to the
Council, the City Clerk provided the Council with a checklist of whom it wished to interview.
Mr. Calonne deferred response until he and the City Clerk had an opportunity to discuss the matter. Mayor Wheeler said Council Member Fazzino's suggestion was to do
the interviewing on a Saturday and the appointing the following Tuesday. She knew in the Mountain View precedent, it did both the interviewing and the appointing on the same day. She believed a portion of the rationale was that it was a sensitive issue in a community, and if all of it occurred in one day, there could not be
any accusations made that Council went off in the two-day interim and conferred with each other and came to some sort of a collusive agreement. If the process occurred on the same day, it would be open and clear that people made up their minds on that day. Because she had confidence in the way the Palo Alto Council behaved
itself on Brown Act issues, she was not personally afraid, but there might be some community sensitivity. Council should think
about that as it formulated a motion. Council Member Simitian believed it was preferable to have a few
days between the interview and the actual appointment of a candidate. First, it gave Council time to think which on such a
decision would be good. Secondarily, Council was more likely to raise public doubts about the genuine nature of the deliberation process if some people rolled in for a 20- or 30-minute interview
and five seconds later Council was ready to cast a vote. Thirdly, if applicants made representations to Council about who they were
and what they were about, Council might want a few days to do individual reference checking.
Mayor Wheeler said in many ways the application sample mimicked what Council Members filled out when they applied for elective
office. While it was basically an excellent form, she was
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concerned about the 250 word limit. While she did not want a
treatise from any of the applicants, she believed 500 words was more appropriate since applicants were being asked to give their views on the current issues and challenges facing the Council.
That would be very difficult to do in any kind of meaningful way without having two typewritten pages of space in which to comment.
MOTION: Council Member Fazzino moved, seconded by Kniss, to: 1) Appoint a Council Member to replace Council Member Simitian, 2)
Adopt the tentative schedule as revised to advertise the appointment from Monday, December 16, 1996, through Monday,
January 6, 1997; 3) Reconfirm the appointment process on Monday, January 6, 1997; 4) Set the deadline for filing of applications for Thursday, January 9, 1997; 5) Forward the applications to the
Council on Friday, January 10, 1997; 6) Council to decide on whom to interview on Monday, January 13, 1997; 7) Interviews to be
scheduled on Saturday, January 18, 1997; and 8) Appointment/swearing in of the new Council Member on Tuesday, January 21, 1997. Further, that the pro forma application package
be amended to include a 500-word count Candidate=s Statement.
Council Member Kniss indicated her preference for a ballot style approach to which candidates were interviewed similar to the style used for the boards and commissions process.
Mr. Calonne preferred the interview selection process be open and
public. Without having conferred with the City Clerk, he assumed Council delegated to the City Clerk who was interviewed for boards and commissions. Council Member Simitian said someone then could move approval of
the consensus choices for interviews. Council Member Andersen said in effect Council was representing the people in its selection of candidates, and for that reason he saw the process as being different from the boards and commissions
process. MOTION PASSED 9-0. COUNCIL MATTERS
9. Council Comments, Questions, and Announcements
City Attorney Ariel Calonne read a public report on the action taken in the Closed Session on November 25, 1996, Glenbrook Court
v. Luo, et al., SCC CV 758834.
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Council Member Kniss said she would attend the National League of
Cities in San Antonio, Texas, and would report upon her return. Council Member Rosenbaum said the City of Palo Alto had made a
reasonable proposal regarding the Shoreline Amphitheatre to the City of Mountain View City Council on Tuesday, November 26, 1996.
The Mountain View City Council was not supportive on a vote of 5-2. Mayor Wheeler announced that the meeting would be adjourned in
memory of Maria Holt, who for more than a quarter century in Palo Alto directed the West Bay Opera as a dress rehearsal for singing
success. ADJOURNMENT: The meeting adjourned at 11:40 p.m. in Memory of Maria
Holt.
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.