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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1987-08-10 City Council Summary MinutesCITY COUNCIL MINUTES RALOALTOCI YCOUNCILMEETINGSARE BROADCAST LIVE VIA KZSU-FREQUENCY90.1 ON FM pm. Regular, Meeting August 10, 1987 ITEM Oral Communications Minutes of July 13, 1987 PAGE 58-122 58-122 1. Resolution 6632 Recognizing the Presence 58-123 of and Welcoming to the City of Palo Alto Representatives of Enschede, The Netherlands Consent Calendar 2. Contract with Dick Whitmore for Labor Relations Legal Services ,3. Resolution 6633 Amending Section 517 (a) of the Merit System Rules and Regulations Resolution 6634 Amending the Compensation Plan for Confidential. Personnel' by Deleting Language that Reduces the Manage- ment Leave Hours Credited if Martin Luther King Day is Recognized As a Municipal Holiday Resolution 6635 Amending the Compensation Plan for Management and Council Appointees by Adopting a New Salary Table for Council Appointed Officers and by Deleting Lan- guage that Reduces the Management Leave Hours Credited if Martin Luther King Day is Recognized as a Municipal Holiday Ordinance for First Reading Amending Section 2.08.100(a) of .the Palo Alto Municipal Code with Respect to Regular Holidays by Deleting Admission Day and adding Martin Luther King Day 58-123 58-123 58.123 58-123 58-123 58-124 ITEM 4. Contract with Santa Clara County for Social Worker Services 5. Agreement with Cooperative Library Agency for Systems and Services for Library Cataloging Computer Services 6. Contract with Towne Ford Sales for Auto- motive Body Repair Services 7. Contract with Zongar Johnson Construction for Park Equipment Repair and Maintenance 8. Contract with Raisch Construction Company for Reinforced Fabric Pavement 9. Contract with Joseph J. Albanese, Inc., for Sidewalk Replacement 10. Policy and Procedures Committee Recommenda- tion re Revised City of Palo Alto Emergency Plan PAGE 58-'124 58-124 58-124 58-124 58-124 58-124 58-124 11. Ordinance 3759 Amending Ordinance 3266 58-124 Regarding 27 University Avenue 12. PUBLIC HEARING: _ Resolution 6637 Confirming 58-125 Weed Abatement Report and Ordering Cost of Abatemenf to be a Special Assessment of the Respective Properties Herein Described 13. Proposal on Senior Housing - Mu1"ti-Use 58-125 Development Parking Lots S i L 58-145 Recess 14. Ordinance for First Reading Amending Chap- 58-153 ter 9.10 of the Palo Alto Municipal Code to Change Noise Standards for Cleaning of Pub- lic Parking Lots 15. Ordinance 3760 Amending the Budget forthe 58-156: Fiscal Year 1;47-88 to Provide an Addi- tional Appropriation for the Treasury Division, Revenue Collections Program, to Contract for Bill Collection Services with the Credit Bureau of Palo. Alto and Profes- sional Recovery System 58-120 8/10/87. 17. Ordinance for First Reading Amending 2 04.010 of the City of Palo Alto Munici- pal Code to Provide an Annual Vacation for the City Council Regular Meeting Monday, August 10, 1987 The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council Chambers, 250 Hamilton Avenue, at 7132 p.m. PRESENT: Bechtel, Cobb, Fletcher, Klein, Levy, Patitucci (arrived at 7:40 p.m.), Renzel, Woolley ABSENT: Sutorius ORAL COMMUNICATIONS 1. Sophia Drymes, 485 Hawthorne Street, introduced Sandy Cooley, 600 Olive Street, Menlo Park, and spoke regarding her quest to find her mother. 2. Jack Otto, 3157 Louis Road, suggested the City Council agenda be available on the first floor of City Hall. On June 6, 1987, at 6:15 p.m., he was traveling down Bayshore Freeway. As he moved into the center lane, a Porsche, traveling about 75 miles per hour, came up behind him honking. The car moved abreast of his and the driver threw a can half full of beer in his side window. He attempted to report the incident via 9.1-1, and after two and one-half hours he found out that if he went to Redwood City, the California Highway Patrol would take a report. The report never was taken and he was concerned about highway safety. 2. Harrison Otis, 2721 Midtown Court, was also concerned about highway safety. MINUTES OF JULY 13, 1987 Council Member Fletcher submitted the following correction: Page 58-34, 13th line down, "a series of signs" should read, "was a sign.' Council Member Klein had the following correction: Page 58-34, second paragraph, ninth line from the bottom, word '"Council" should be The country." LION: Council !leer *eck* 1 paged, aecoadod by Levy. approval of the oinetes of Jell 13; 19$7, ascorrected. Id X0111 PASSED by a vast. of 7-0-1, Reuel 'abstaining, r N is. absent. 58-122 8/10/87 1. RESOLUTION WELCOMING REPRESENTATIVES OF ENSCHEDE, THE. NETHERLANDS (701-04) NOTION: Council Member Levy moved, seconded by Bechtel, approval of the `resolution. RESOLUTION 6632 entitled °RESOL.UTION of THE E CITT Or PALO ALTO RECOGNIZING THE PRESENCE OF AND WELCOMING TO THE CITY OF PALO ALTO REPRESENTATIVES OF ENSCHEDE, TOE NETHERLANDS'S NOTION PASSED unanimously, Sutorius absent, Mayor Woolley said cultural exchange resulting from people - to -people communication was the foundation of the Sister City Program which attempted to further international under- standing, and the City of Enschede was Palo Alto's Sister City in The Netherlands and had honored Palo Alto by sending its representatives to visit the City. Palo Alto welcomed Martijn Wildeboer, Violet van Heek, Martijn Hohmann, Astrid van Ardenne, Diederik Van zuylen, Eugenie Winkelman, Marloes Oude Bos, and Michiel van Ardenne. Mayor Woolley presented each representative of Enschede with a copy of the resolution. CONSENT CALENDAR MOTION: Council !Member Bechtel moved, seconded by Klein, approval of the Consent Calendar. 2. CONTRACT WITH DICK WHITMORE FOR LABOR RELATIONS LEGAL SERVICES ( 516 3. RESOLUTION 6633 entitled "RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PALO AL AMENDING SECTION 5 7(a) O THE HE MERIT SYSTEM RULES AND REGULATIONS N ( (CMR:402:7) (501/701-04) RESOLUTION 6634 entitled "RESOLUTION OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PALO ALTO AMENDING THE COMPENSATION PLAN FOR CONFIDENTIAL P RSON. EL BY DELETING LANGUAGE THAT: REDUCES THE MANAGEMENT LEAVE HOURS CREDITED IF MARTIN LUTHER KING DA 18 . _ R i 1ZED AS A ICIPAL - H LIDAY TNR70171) (50117b1-04) RESOLUTION 6635 entitled *RESOLUTION OF THE 'COUNCIL TUE CITY OF PALO ALAANENDIN THE 9mpl &i ATIO1 PLAN FOR ANAGEMENT AND CON A OI r ADOPTING A NEW GEM � b ETING LANGUAGE � EAT REDUCES THE MANAGEM NT LEAVE HOURS CREDITED it MARTIN LUTHER KING . DAY IS REaCOGNIZED AS A MUNICIPAL HOL O1 l - _-. CONSENT CALENDAR (Cont'd) ORDINANCE FOR FIRST READING entitled "ORDINANCE OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PALO ALTO AMENDING SECTION 2.08.100(.0 OF THE PALOALTO MUNICIPAL CODE WITH RE PECT TO REGULAR HOLIDAYS BY DELETING ADMISSION DAY AND ADDING MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY" (CMR:402:7) (501) 4, CONTRACT WITH SANTA CLARA COUNTY FOR SOCIAL WORKER SERVICES NOT TO EXCEED $23,087 (CMR:303:7) (1202) 5. AGREEMENT WITH COOPERATIVE LIBRARY AGENCY FOR SYSTEMS AND SERVICES FOR LIBRARY CATALOGING COMPUTER SERVICES IN THE AMOUNT OF 39,000 ANNUALLY (CMR:394:7) (1342) 6. CONTRACT WITH TOWNE FORD SALES FOR AUTOMOTIVE BODY REPAIR SERVICES FOR ONE YEAR IN AN AMOUNT NO7 TO EXCEED $.25,000 (CMR:393:7) (603-01) ,. CONTRACT WITH ZONGAR JOHNSON CONSTRUCTION FOR PARK E'UIPMENT REPAIR AND MAINTENANCE FOR ONE YEAR FOR $36.00 PER HOURS NOT TO EXCEED $1 ,O000 (CMR: 399: ) (132 _/. 03 ) 8. CONTRACT WITH RAISCH CONSTRUCTION COMPANY FOR REINFORCED FABRIC PAVEMENT FOR ONE YEAR IN THE AMOUNT OF $332,103.25 (CMR:338.7) (802/1010-01) 9. CONTRACT WITH JOSEPH J. ALBANESE INC. FOR .SIDEWLK REPLACEMENT IN THE AMOUNT OF $174,264.21 (CMR:397:9) (802/1011) 10. POLICY AND PROCEDURES. COMMITTEE RECOMMENDS TO THE CITY COUNCIL THAT IT APPROVE THE REVISED CITY OF PALO ALTO EMERGENCY PLAN (201/701-04) RESOLUTION 6636 entitled "RESOLUTION OF. THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PALO ALTO APPROVING THE REVISION OF THE PALO ALTO EMERGENCY PLAN' 11. ORDINANCE 3759 entitled "ORDINANCE OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PALO ALTO AMENDING ORDINANCE 3266 REGARDING 27 UNIVERSITY AVENUE (lst Reading 7/20/87, PASSED 9-0) (701-05) NOeIcn PAssig0 vismairouslys Seto/rims absent. 58-124 8/10/87 12. PUBLIC HEARING: RESOLUTION CONFIRMING WEED ABATEMENT R CART AND ORDERING COST ,.OF ABATEMENT TO BE A SPECIAL ASSESSMENT OF THE RESPECTIVE PROPERTIES HEREIN $INSCRIBED (CMRt395: (1250-01/101-04) Mayor Woolley, asked if\the City Clerk received any written objections. City Clerk Gloria Young .said no. Mayor Woolley declared the public hearing open. Receiving no requests from the public to speak, she declared the public hearing closed and asked that the record show that no persons appeared or filed written objections against the weed abatement proceedings, and that any resolution passed by the City Council would reflect that finding. MOTION* Council Member Pletcher moved, seconded by Levy, approval of the resolution,. RESOLUTION 6637 entitled "RESOLUTION or THE MaNCIL OF WITrtITT OF raw ALTO -MING WEED ABATEMENT REPORT AND OtDMING COST or ABATEMENT TO SE A SPECIAL ASSESSMENT OF THE RESPECTIVE PROPERTIES HEREIN DESCRIBED* MOTION PASSED unanimously, Sutorius absent. 13. PROPOSAL ` ON SENIOR HOUSING - MULTI -USE DEVELOPMENT i. CMRs Council Member Cobb asked what the estimated total cost was to the City of the proposal. City Manager Bill Zaaner said if the land was valued in accordance with the proposal and "contributions" from the Assessment District and Housing Improvement Fund were included, the cost would be somewhere between $4.5 and $5 million. Council Member Cobb asked for a. comparison of the gain in parking places in the subject project --which was about 15Q7to what the City would get :if they just went ahead with the parking structure by itself. Mr. 'Zaner aaid the proposal would be subsantially smaller and deferred to Chief Transportation Official Marvin Overway for an estimate as tto how many parking spaces the City might get on Lots S & L if a structure` was built : similar° to the one at :Webster and Cowper Streets. 53'125 8/10/87 Mr. Overway said if the structure were the same five stories, they could get 600 spaces on the combined pieces of property. Council Member Cobb asked what the impact was, if any, of the commitments with respect to any other ongoing projects in the City. Mr. Zaner said, as indicated in the staff report (CMR:401:7), there was some question as to how much addi- tiaanal burden the Parking Assessment District could with-, stand downtown. If the project went ahead, it could delay any further project the Council had in mind and would -fore- stall the use of the property for the level of parking referred to by Mr. Overway. There would be some use of housing mitigation fees which could be used for other proj- ects as they came along --one was not waiting at the moment. Council Member Cobb said there had been some suggestions as to how the City might engage in various kinds of bond financing, etc., and asked for Mr. Zaner's comments on his feelings with respect to those suggestions. Mr. Zaner said in order for the City to participate in the financings -of the project, which was somewhere . in the $12 million range for the total project, the City would have to show substantial public purpose in order to issue bonds of their own which might be a little difficult. The additional parking obviously was a public purpose, but he was not sure that could be extended to most of the rest of the project. If they tried financing with some other mechanism, such as the way the City financed reconstruction and repair of City Hall, he believed they would probably run into even more problems with certificates of participation. The difficulty cif ,identifying the project as a public purpose for the full $12 million would be just as bad and, in the case of certi- ficates of participation, if revenues did not cover costs, the General Fund would have to stand behind it. The General Fund would be risked with a certificate. Council Member Levy asked how many parking spaces would be required, not by City ordinance but by the conventions of the market industry, if the City were to build a 15,000 square -foot market there. Director of Planning and Community. Environment Ken Schreiber estimated the figure to be somewhere in the range of 75 to 100. The 100 would be at e parking space per 150 square feet, which might be a little high. Council Member Levy said the last time the Council con- sidered an air rights program was on Lot Q. At the time, the City did not nave an open process because it was the first air rights project with which they were involved, but he asked what steps could be taken to assure there would be an open process in connection with the subject development. Mr. Zaner confirmed the Lot Q project was negotiated. It would be very difficult to do an Request for Proposal (RFP) bid process for a project of that kind where they were trying to deal with air rights. Writing an RFP and covering the major contingencies would really be difficult. He would hesitate to attempt it and believed the City would be better off doing a negotiated arrangement. However, such a proce- dure would be relatively complicated. Council Member Bechtel asked about the usage of Lot Q parking lot underground and said Council received a series of letters concerning safety and cleanliness. Mr. Overway said Lot Q was an all -permit parking structure, and at present there was a waiting list so it was being fully utilized. As staff walked through and took surveys of the lot, vacancies were noted; and they recently decided to raise the number of permits, but that still did not exceed the number of people on the waiting list. Council Member Bechtel clarified there was more demand for the permits but people were not actually using their space all Of the time. She asked the number of spaces. Mr. Overway said 132 spaces. Council Member Bechtel believed three of the condominiums remained to be sold or rented. Council Member Renzel did not see anything in the conceptual plan that indicated how big the buildings would be or their exact location, and she asked if the Council should presume housing was above the areas marked retail with open parking in the middle. Mr. Schreiber said the proponents needed to answer that question. The design details staff had seen were extremely schematic and sketchy. Council Member Patitucci was interesting in separati►g out the intrafunctional subsidy. In other words if they took how much rent they would get for the housing component, what was the subsidy for the housing and was the land subsidizing that. It appeared part of the internal subsidy was $2 30.-127 $/i0/87 million to subsidize parking over and above what the dis- trict was paying, and then there was retail. If each component had to stand on its own, he asked what they would look like. Mrs Zaner suggested the developer might be in a better posi- tion to give a quick answer. Staff had not attempted to do that kind of an analysis but had tried to look very quickly at the project and determine what level of commitment would be required before delving into any kind of detailed analy- sis. Council Member Patitucci asked about scheduling He referenced the Downtown Design and Amenities Committee, when the Council spoke to a two-phase process for a Planned Community (PC) zone whereby someone mild go forward at a conceptual level, and the Council would give the go ahead as to whether to invest a lot of time and energy at the detail level. Currently, to get the PC approved, one had to go into great detail. He appreciated that dealing with the process at the conceptual level would be helpful for them all and would save a lot of dollars and energy in the long run; however, he found dealing with the process in one night was a problem. He felt the Council could articulate the relevant questions by the end of the evening, and if the developer . could then return with some of th'e answers, he believed the Council would be prepared to make a decision. He asked if that was a schedule staff could live with. Mr. Zaner had no problem from a scheduling point of view. Council Member Cobb said if he took the $5 million cost for roughly 50 subsidized units, and took out parking at $15,000 a space for roughly 150 spaces, he came up with a unit subsidy" ofa little over $50,000 per unit. Realizing the simple arithmetic, he asked how that compared with what the City normally put into subsidized housing projects. Mr. Schreiber replied if the question of subsidy correctly assumed land write -down as part of the subsidy, the level of subsidy in order to achieve true low- and moderate -income housing might not be unrealistic. Whether the subject housing achieved the objectives sought for other projects, such as Webster Wood or those to be pursued in the California Park area, was a second question because they were different types of housing with smaller units. Robert Medearis, 858 Arbor Road, Menlo Park, said Chuck. inhey was with him, and they would like to develop their proposal in four stages: The conceptual need; the mar- keting; the structure of their organization; and the project itself. The need was pretty evident. They were approaching the project from four perspectives: 1) there was a signifi- cant need for additional housing of market and below -market rates for the elderly in the community; 2) they felt, and it had been demonstrated, there was a significant expression of need for a market in the community in the downtown core, and the market would serve an area of significance to the elderly population; 3) there was a need to provide an aes- thetic treatment to an otherwise "drab* parking lot develop- ment, and they believe it would be beneficial to the downtown core, and 4) there was an evident need to provide some additional parking, and he believed it could be.pro- vided at significantly less cost than it had been provided for- in previous areas. Chuck Kinney, 4242 Manuela Court, spoke to the needs_ and the reasons for the particular components of the development. The waiting lists at the various senior housing developments were significant. Lytton Gardens alone had a list of 800 people which, at perhaps 200-250 strong candidates for housing, was very significant. The grocery store hadbeen talked about for some time. His personal beliefs as to why markets had gone out of existence in the downtown were basically economics. Their development attempted to provide the economic base for a market to succeed. Lot 0 was well utilized with parking, underlining there was a need for additional parking, especially in the core area. If they were to consider a six -level garage at that location, he would equate it more like a black hole. A lot of parking would be accommodated but at that location might not be the best service for the City. In regard to Council .Member Patitucci's questions, the financing make-up was like a puzzle with a lot of parts, and individually each part probably could not paint the whole picture. Each part could not stand by iteif,* for instance, they were going to raise up to $500,000 from private sources and were looking for. housing funds for $750,000. Together those funds perhaps would not support all housing itself. The Parking District would be called upon to contribute up to $1.5 million, and that in itself would not provide the public parking. A com- bination of the components together, along with what income structure could be made up for the project, would make all the parts fit. They could do more research, but it was dif- ficult to analyze what each contribution could sustain by itself. Mr. Medearis said the structure they chose to form to develop the project was basically a 503(c) nonprofit corpo- ration, and they had applied for the relief under the federal tax laws. The initial organizers ' were Mr. Kinney and himself, Reverend Douglas Norris,Senior Minister of the 58--129 8/10/87 First United Methodist Church of Palo Alto, Conrad Gullixson, a distinguished attorney on the Board at Lytton Gardens, and Bill Floyde, current President of Lytton Gardens. Most of them had been involved with Lytton Gardens almost since its inception. Lytton Gardens played a rather important role in that they would be the operators of the housing. Having a distinguished record of operating quality senior citizen housing in Palo Alto, they could find no other finer association to be tied into. They would combine the programs Lytton Gardens already had underway. There would be no central dining room in the development. They would exchange the people between the two locations by jit- ney and would also take advantage of the location of the Senior Center across the street which had a terrific capa- bility of helping serve the elderly and had done so for many years. He emphasized a nonprofit institution was starting the project because the question was asked about what the design characteristics looked like. If the project was one in which the developers would . be extracting some form of profitable operation, he could expect the City Council rightfully would demand elaborate architectural plans and designs. They would not do that until they got some direc- tion from the City so they knew the project had some chance of being a viable project, because those kinds of drawings and that kind of predevelopment work would take significant amounts of front-end funds. It was his second attempt to do such a thing in Palo Alto, and he :was pleased to say the first one was extremely successful. Mayor Woolley wanted to know in more detail what the rela- tioneh.ip between the 120 units on the property would be with Lytton Gardens. The proposal mentioned independent and mobile seniors, which sounded like someone who wascapable of living by themselves. Mr.•Medearis said that was absolutely correct. The Council should know that when one got into th discussion of mobility and ambulatory living, one became subject to a variety of state requirements on what was independent living. If one developed certain programs and did not have that independent living, one came; under the auspices of cer- tain regulatory requirements. It was the intention in the mixed -use project to have housing for market and below - market -rate seniors. They were not going to have within the confines of the facility any programs for medical care, or 'congregate" care where they would provide food, etc., but the therapy that revolved around all the social community aspects at Lytton Gardens would be made available to those seniors& It was interesting to note the average age in Lytton Gardens was now 87 years old, which somewhat testi- fied to the fact they had taken people who could originally qualify for housing at 57 years old and the average age had now been increased. 58-130 8/10/87 Mayor Woolley was thinking particularly of the market -rate units, not the below -market -rate (BMR) units, and she asked how paying $1,100 to $1,400 a month in the facility would be different from renting a condominium in the downtown area for independent, mobile seniors. Mr. Medearis said there probably would be relatively little difference although they hoped to almost reverse the ratio of 40/80, which would be a function of what kinds of sub- sidies were made available. They would make the number of BMR units as high as possible, but they recognized inherent in the program there had to be some market -rate units to help "subsidize" the cost of the BMR units. He could not contrast that price per square foot or month to other condo- miniums other than to say they were rental units and not for -sale housing. Mayor Woolley asked if any work had been done to :determine whether there was a market for the units since they were not really any different from other rental units in the 'cwntown except they would have homogeneous tenants. Mr. Medearis said the homogeneity of `,the project in and of itself was one of the most significant differences, and .the fact the programs were going to be much more carefully administered by virtue of the fact they had the tie with Lytton Gardens. and, hopefully, would have a significant number of BMR units. Two student groups from his class at Stanford did some reports which indicated there was still a fairly good demand for that type of market -rate housing within that area. He believed those statistics were avail- able to the Council. Council Member Renzel referenced the market -rate units and asked if those people would also be availed of all the ser- vices at Lytton Gardens. Mr. M.edearis said yes. Council Member Renzel asked to when extent there was cur- rently excessive capacity at Lytton Gardens to handle a midday meal or other social activities that might be shared with the proposed facility. Mr. Madearis replied in terms ° of the provision of a food service, there ; was not a lot of excess capacity, particu- larly when one addressed the _ evening dinner. There was available capacity in the kitchen for noontime meals, recog- nizing that Lytton Gardens currently served the skilled nursing facility :as well as the intermediate .and independent 58-131 8/1,0/87 care. There was quite a bit of capacity in the programs in terms of the therapy --social programs, arts, etc. --but that capacity was very flexible and snare of a 'function of instructor level and availability of talent rather than restriction in space or time. In talking to staff there, he believed there was a strong desire .to add on to those pro- grams providing there was that kind of a need. Council Member Renzel clarified the proposal was not seen as perhaps lessening the opportunities of people currently living in Lytton Gardens in terms of the facilities being available to them. Mr. Medearis said no; in fact, they could expand on the already excellent services and make them bigger and better. Many things they would like to do could be carried on in grea':er variety. Council, Member Renzel said there was a PC zone on Lytton Gardens which fairly carefully proscribed how much activity could go on there, how much parking was required, etc., and she recalled the parking was being utilized much more than had been anticipated in the original design. If people failed to use the jitney and drove, she asked how they fore- saw dealing .with the PC zone. Mr. Medearis believed first they would have to address the parking and what the actual parking needs were versus the perceived need. The reason why parking became somewhat restricted in Lytton Gardens was because they increased the staff levels and,= with the development of the skilled nursieg home, there was a lot of staff parking. Actually, some individual people were parking in the downtown area so they went to a sticker mechanism and more control. In terms of the housing parking, he did not believe they were under utilized or under designed. With the parking availability perceived and the S & L parking lots, he believed the jitney would adequately handle that. If they increased staff, obviously there would be a little more parking but maybe that could be made up by having the people park at the S & L areas which would be expanded and jitney them to Lytton. Gardens. Council Member Renzel said Lytton Gardens still was a non- profit project and intended for low- to moderate -income people. She asked to what extent there were any limitations on how much non low- and moderate -income people could avail themselves of those facilities before it was no longer within the keeping of its original purpose. With about 315 units at Lytton Gardens, they were speaking to about a 50 percent increase ofthe independent living people who might 58-132 8/10/87 use the facility, and of those two-thirds would not be people who could of themselves qualify to get into Lytton Gardens. Mr. Medearis clarified the question was whether the imposi- tion of additional people on the Lytton Gardens staff was fair to address in terms of the burden it could consequently have on those currently being serviced by the staff. Recog- nizing the income that would come, they figured a budget that :would fully and adequately cover'the costs of any addi- tional staff and would more than adequately cover the wear and tear and replacement value on the facility itself. In fact, he almost looked at it as , a supplement income so Lytton Gardens could even do more things. He saw it as an ability to earn some additional funds to further help the moderate to low income. Council Member Renzel referenced the fact Mr. Medearis hoped the percents would change and it would be two-thirds BMR and one-third market rate, and asked if they expected to phase that in over time or in the conceptual development of the project. Mr. Medearis said the latter. They did not know what that number would be until they got approval to do the further studies and to go ahead and carry out the work. He refer- enced the time line and said over the. 9-12 months a lot of the questions would come out. During the original discus- sions at Lytton Gardens, they did not know how many units there would be and it just started out that they would opti- mize that development. Had a lot of people known they would have 100 units an acre, he did not believe they would have nearly gotten the number of units they did at Lytton Gardens. They wanted the same kind of approach with the subject proposal. Council should recognize that in the service of anything in the moderate -to -low-income area, it was a very hard group to get around. There were, in fact, probably sow middle -income elements within Lytton Gardens because of the way the government structured the programs. He believed it was good to have the mixed elements. Clearly, they had to start out saying what percentage they would have that was truly moderate--to-low income, and they were going to start with the 40/80 and hopefully would get it to 80/40. A lot depended on how much the costs came down. It was suggested the cost of the parking. lot .was about $15,000 a stall, and he believed that was a ridicu- lously high. number. There had been a significant number of multi. -level garase facilities at a substantially less number. 58-133 8/10/87 Council Member Renzel said the Abitare project, which was a sale project as opposed to rental, projected a certain num- ber and the developer ultimately revised both the income levels that would qualify and the number of subsidized units. Mr. Kinney said when negotiations began, they had five BMR units and ended up with nine. Through the design process, some of the unit sizes changed and he believed they ended up with three units at 1,015 square fee_ t where they had three at 950 square feet, and two at 820 went to 775. It was basically a balance but the numbers did change. There was an increase in total numbers of BMR from five to nine. Council Member Renzel recalled a change in the price or finances of that project _ in some way. Mr. Kinney said the price change reflected the square footage of the large unit, and they also provided the financing and the developer paid for the bond fees. Council Member Cobb asked about the importance of the nexus between Lytton Gardens and the proposed project to the mar- keting of the units and the impact on the project if Lytton Gardens could not have that kind of relationship with the project. Mr. Medearis said the relationship was predicated on about 27 percent of gross revenues --the cost of administering and handling the project. Staff was in place. In terms of what would happen should Lytton Gardens say they were through, the organizing body--Florenza House, a nonprofit company -- would then hire private management or do it themselves, as they had in Lytton Gardens. The contract would be on a year-to-year ,mype of basis. Council Member Cobb clarified`. there was skepticism that a market could be part of the project because the economics did not seem to work out without a subsidy. Mr. Medearis said not quite. The whole project should be recognized as the subsidy. There would be four subsidies. He referred to the subsidies at Lytton Gardens. Subsidy No. I originally was the FHA 221D3 program which was a i percent interest rate on the full mortage. Subsidy No. 2 used the original development of some land bank funds in the City of Palo Alto. When they went before the City Council, they worked on a program where the City Council bought the site from the Palo -A.1 t* Unified School District (PAUSD) and then sold it to Comet r*ity Housing Incorporated at : a reduced price, which reduction was funded out of land bank funds. Subsidy No. 3 was a ."rent supplement" at both a county and a federal level. Those funds were not too available. They had raised about $2.5 million of contributions from the time Lytton Gardens was started. Originally in terms of subsidy, they were looking at community contributions of about $500,000, which would be augmented by contributions as the years progressed; some form of a housing fund_ out of the in lieu payments; and some contributions in terms of the land itself. Subsidy No. 4, depended on whether it was a bond participation program or a program utilizing some funds and an annexation district for the development of parking. The programs were intermingled, but separate. They were inter- mingled because if they did not have them, the project 'would not_go ahead, but they could be itemized, broken out, and accounted for separately so the project could go on. It boiled down to whether there was a need for the proposed housing and for the market. He believed there was a strong need for a market. Presently, the Senior Center had a bus that allowed seniors to go shopping but it was a costly sup- plement and he believed a quality market in the downtown area could be funded without an ongoing burden to the City. If not, it could be closed down and used differently, which was the beauty of a well designed mixed -use project. In terms of being a give ;and take project, he did ;got want to give up the proposed market in terms of whether he would give it up to get the other housing accomplished was a dif- ficult "yes." Council Member Levy clarified three Ci ty. subsidies sought by the proponents: 1) $750,000 for housing mitigation; 2) $1 million to $1.4 million in parking district assessments; and 3) $4.3 which was the value of the land. He also asked . if any other subsidies were requested. Mr. Kinney said the last subsidy was based on the value of the land predicated upon what the development was. The value would vary if there_ were less units, or :less or more retail. No other subsidies were requested from the City and they were not asking the City for operating subsidies. Council Member Levy asked if the proposal was predicated on subsidies coming from the federal government. Mr. Kinney said no. Council Member Levy saw the City receiving somewhere between 107 to 148 more public. parking spaces. He asked how many low-income units the City received. Mr. Kinney said .pre ent1y the proposal was 40 units. 58-135 8/10/87 Council Member Levy asked if the City received any other direct public benefit not counting a market. Mr. Kinney said the long-term benefit was the City would receive the option to purchase the entire development for $1 once the permanent financing was retired. The City would receive the ownership of the public parking, In addition to the 107-148 net new spaces, the City would also own the existing 113 spaces. Council Member Levy clarified the City had that ownership to begin with. If the project was housing for the elderly, the proponents were calculating the parking need at between one-half and three-quarters of a space per unit. Mr. Kinney said that was correct. Council Member Levy queried whether a decent average for the parking requirement if the project were normal housing would be one and one-half spaces per unit. Mr. Schreiber said essentially, yes. Council Member Levy calculated if the project were normal housing rather than senior housing, it would require another 120 parking spaces, which would use up essentially all of the additional spaces. He asked what the fallback position was if either the project did not succeed as senior housing or if the City found the seniors did more driving to a later age than contemplated. Mr. Kinney said if senior housing failed and the project became market housing or housing for any age group which might entail more driving, he referred to Abitare where they had 44 units and one private space per residence. A level of the public parking garage was made available in the off -hours for. 22 additional spaces. Of the 41 move -ins to date, ten residents used the public garage in the off -hours for their second car, He believed they had an opportunity, with a multi -unit development, to follow the same format as a fallback position and, with certain parking restrictions, additional parking could be accommodated within the develop- vent without adverse affects. Mr. tledearis-said there would be certain size restrictions automatically in designing the project for the elderly. He did• not see efficiency units and one -bedrooms commanding a 1.5 or 2 parking ratio per unit. Even in units designed for market rate, -an efficiency unit seldom had more than one person living in it and not more ricers. One way to handle 58-136 8/10/87 such a situation was to allocate out 0.5 cars per unit. However, with the level of demand, he did not see the development going from a low-income senior housing project into market -rate housing. Council Member Levy said the proponents indicated it was a nonprofit project; however, he assured the development would bea for-profit endeavor. Mr. Medearis said the project would be handled exactly the same way as Lytton Gardens. Council Member Levy understood there was a $500,000 project management. Mr. Medearis said yes, there would be a project manager. When they developed Lytton Gardens, they were fortunate to have Mr. Martinis time. He would propose to the Board that they hire Chuck Kinney as a project paid ;-professional because he believed the project would be cheaper by doing so. The $500,000 figure was shown on page 12, and related expenses would not go into his pocket but was for telephone,, car, expenses, etc. Council Member Fletcher referenced the arrangement at Lytton Gardens and the cost to provide additional services to the residents. It was mentioned there might be a benefit to Lytton Gardens and she asked where the funds would come from, and also for the cost of a shuttle. Mrs Medearis said the allocated cost of management was out. of the rent charged people. Any operating program of a multi -family nature had gross income coming in from rental, and they estimated 27 percent of that would be the cost of administering the project. Since Lytton Gardens was the administering wing of the project, they . received the funds for such programs. Council Member Fletcher asked if the cost of a shuttle service was. built in. Mr. Medearis said no. While Lytton Gardens already had a shuttle service capability, there was a jitney there, and, the 120 -unit facility could handle the cost of a jitney. Mayor Woolley was confused as to the relationship between the new project and Lytton Gardens. She asked exactly what services Lytton 'Gardens would supply to the new project. 58-137 8/10/87 Mr. Medearis said Lytton Gardens would be the on -site management of the facility and would have an administrative capability. Mayor Woolley believed the project was no different from any other rental unit in downtown except all\the tenants would be seniors. There would be no more services provided than would be in any other apartment in the downtown area. Mr. Medearis believed that since Lytton Gardens would be the managing wing of the project, the kinds of facilities included the cievelupment and management of Lytton Gardens would be made available to the project. Mayor Woolley clarified they were primarily social activi- ties. Mr. Medearis said yes. Mayor Woolley believed if one lived in an apartment down- town, one could take advantage of the Senior Center and keep pretty busy. Mr. Medearis said absolutely, and he would expect those people to take advantage of that. Mayor Woolley said when one was no longer mobile a.nd inde- pendent, especially in a market -rate unit where one did not qualify financially for Lytton Gardens, one was in the same position as any senior living in one's own home or in an apartment who had to find some kind of additional care,, and there was no connection between living in the subject unit and moving into the assisted -living unit at Lytton Gardens. Mr. Medearis said that was right, but by virtue of the kind of capability nurtured at Lytton Gardens, he believed they would have a more aware management so that as that person became incapacitated they would be more sensitive to his or her need. If there were units available and if they quali- fied with the moderate and low income, they would certainly have the opportunity to move them in. There was not going to be.a mandatory tie. They would be two physically sep- arated and operated units. Mayor Woolley retrenced themarket and queried the words "without an ongoing subsidy ;from the City.' She asked if the proponents thought the City would subsidize the Ongoing operating cost of the market. 58-138 8/10/87 Mr. Medearis said no. When listing the subsidies in reply to Council Member Levy's questions, it was natural some of that subsidy would be applied to the 15,000 square feet of market space. He did not want to stand before the Council and say there was not a subsidy in the market. There would be, but he did not believe there had to be an ongoing sub- sidy. Mayor Woolley clarified that more low/moderate housing units and no market would be\ a kind of policy decision which the proponents would bring to the Council to make. The propo- nents spoke about the parking and the situation at Abitare where ten residents used the City parking, and asked if they had considered that in terms of seniors who were probably not working any longer and had their car to park at the same time the City needed the spaces for the downtown shoppers. Mr. Kinney said their analysis of seniors was that a number of the 120 units would be occupied by people who would not have cars, so they were not looking at any overlap in the public parking during the normal. workday. Diana Steeples, Director of Planning and Development for the Senior Coordinating Council of the Palo Alto Area (SCC), said on April 8, 1987, their Board of Directors adopted the following position relating to the proposal before the Council: "The SCC supports the concept of housing for seniors, a grocery store and public parking on the site of Parking Lots S & L. The SCC is actively interested in taking part in any planning process for this site." The SCC had a long-standing commitment to the need .. for a full - service market in the downtown area. In 1980, the SCC organized the Downtown Market Community Committee (DMCC) when the last two grocer} stores in the area began to dis- appear. Their goal was to insure the availability of gro- ceries and household supplies at affordable prices to down- town Palo Alto residents. Their initial concern for the elderly and mobility -impaired quickly expanded as they realized in order to be successful in meeting their .. full needs, a market must serve all residents of the greater downtown area as well as persons working in the downtown area and people attracted to it. The DMCC conducted three surveys to determine shopping patterns, preferences, and needs. In the September 1980 survey of 600 downtown .resi- dents, three-quarters felt the lack of a full -service market would be.a serious problem. It turner out that 37 percent did not get to their market by driving their cars. They walked, bicycled, used the bus, or depended on others to drive them. Two other surveys were made in 1985, one of them among Norm's Starlite shoppers and the other through 58-139 8/10/87 the Palo Alto Weekll. Eighty-three percent from the Palo Alto Weekly said they would shop downtown if a new full grocery store were opened. They particularly commented on the need for produce, meat, poultry, and fish, which were not available through convenience stores. For sometime, it was clearly economically unlikely that anyone would under- take to acquire land, build, and operate a free-standing market. The development of a downtown would require some aid from the City in the form of air rights, lease or rental of City -owned land, cooperations and some planning flexibility, etc. The SCC concluded a market of 12,000 to 15,000 square feet in a multi -use development, plus additional parking, would contribute significantly to downtown vitality, serve those who lived and worked in the downtown area, and attract consumers from a wider geographic area as well as benefit downtown merchants and the community as a wholes The SCC urged the Council to make the provision of a grocery store a condition for any development 'on the site under discussion. The need for rental housing for Palo Alto senior citizens, particularly for those with low and middle incomes was a continuing challenge, and the SCC believed the proposal before the Council was exceptional. Its location across from the Senior Center and close to all the amenities in the downtown area as well as the Palo Alto Medical Clinic was ideal. They were also excited by ;the potential for apartments for low and moderate income seniors without the usual reliance on federal subsidies. Last year their Senior Center handled 1,650 requests for housing informatit , and referral alone. Sixty percent of their housing clients had very low incomes • and 20 percent -were lower incomes. Other facts available in her statement (on file in the City Clerk's office) showed that the income levels in the 1986 study of the elderly in Palo Alto bore out the fact there was a need and a substantial segment of the low-income population could be served by the rents suggested by the developers. Mayor Woolley did not believe Council needed to be convinced of the need for housing in the $490 to $650 a month cate- gory. She asked if any of the studies pointed to a need for housing at $1,100 to $1,400 a month. Ms. Steeples said their study showed 45 percent of Palo Alter seniors had annual incomes between $20,000 and $50,000, plus many above. In terms of what they were presently paying for housing, it appeared ronsistert with what was proposed by the developers. The SCC's strongest interest was in the lower and very -low income groups but an appreciable percentage of the population had incomes which made the kind of market rents suggested by the developers realistic. 58-140 8/1.0/8.7 Mayor Woolley asked if the SCC surveyed current Palo Alto residents' incomes and spending habits. Ms. Steeples clarified the SCC's 1986 study was of persons 60 and older living in Palo Alto. Over 5 percent of the senior population were interviewed. Council Member Fletcher 'referred to increased service demands if new senior housing was provided across the street from the Senior Center and whether they had the funds to expand those capacities. Ms. Steeples said the Senior Center had additional capacity in some areas, e.g., if ,people living across the street found it difficult to cook three meals a day, they could accommodate more in the lunch program. They had activities and classes which could accommodate more people. They would look creatively at what kind of staff would be needed, and what kind of volunteers they could draw upon to use the center in the evening, for . instance, which they did not do presently because many seniors did not wish to go out..in-the evening. With people .living across the street, they could develop some later afternoon or evening programming and activities. They always responded; to need and demand as creatively as possible. She was excited at the possibility of having housing directly across :the street from the Senior Center, and the SCC would welcome the challenge of incoc- porating their needs. Council Member Fletcher asked if Ms. Steeples thought the seniors who were looking for parking spaces now inthat lot would park in the parking garage rather than on a surface 'I lot. Historically seniors did not want to park at City Hall because they did not like to park underground. Ms. Steeples .believed if the parking garage was across the street, seniors might be more apt to use it. The SCC sup- ported the concepts and would be pleased to see other pro- posals. The Kinney/Medearis proposal was not necessarily the proposal. Mayor Woolley believed almost everyone in the City would support low-cost senior housing and a downtown market, but they were groping for the hard facts and whether the numbers ran. In regard to the Downtown Market Community Committee's conclusion that a 12,000 to 15,000 square -foot market would be the best for the downtown area, she asked whether that wassomething that was economically viable, and something on which they had run numbers and knew they could find someone who could run it, make a profit, and be willing to keep going at it. 58-141 8/10/87 Ms. Steeples said having talked to many operators and having done some studies, the Committee believed 10,000 square feet would be the absolute bottom line and 12,000 to 15,000 square feet would be adequate. Anything larger would prob- ably not be financially feasible for any multi -use project in the downtown area. A very small market or a convenience type store would not meet the needs of seniors or downtown residents. Council Member Renzel asked how far was too far for a senior to walk to a market. Ms. Steeples said it varied. She was sure there would always be a need, but it could not be met by driving people to grocery shopping, as the Senior Center did using the lift -equipped van, or by the Co-op market taking groceries to people's homes. The economics were such that it was very difficult to do that for more than a small population. Tony Badger, 381 Hawthorne Avenue, believed a downtown market was needed. He was somewhat alarmed at how cavalier Council was regarding air rights over the parking zones, which was publicly owned property and represented a tremen- dous opportunity to do something for public benefit. Mr. Kinney believed a market was a good idea but was concerned about the numbers. Everybody knew a market had to be sub- sidized in some way. A well-balanced community must have a place to buy food for its citizens. The City had zoned such that rents were $2 a foot or better so a market could not afford the rent. The last of Palo Alto's four markets, Norm's Starlit:, went to a large bank, and now the seniors had no place to walk to buy their food. He believed it was a City responsibility to make sure the zoning encouraged a balanced development. If Council made a. mistake whereby people could not even buy food in their own city, the City had a responsibility to correct the mistake. The oppor- tunity existed on the S & L site. He did not have a problem with the subject proposal, but it must include a market. When he went through the Webster/Cowper four -level parking garage, the top level was entirely vacant which was a 25 percent disuse in parking that the City paid for. They should make that parking place work. There was a 20 to 40 percent vacancy on all the . lower levels, and that was unacceptable. Such a project should be open more to the public since it was a public resource, and there should be .a lot thought put into `° how the parking air rights were developed. The City had a responsibility for not just accepting a plan, but deciding what was needed, and then having the developers came up with :.a proposal to satisfy the greatest need. 58.142 8/10/87 Council Member Renzel queried to what extent Mr. Badger believed the City should be involved in trying to find alternative markets or encourage an alternative market for instanceif the Lucky Store on Embarcadero went out of business. Mr. Badger believed the City had a responsibility in planning a well-balanced community to make sure that certain essential services and functions were available; water was one and food another. Jim Morley, 160 Waverley Street, agreed whatever structure was built above parking lots S & L, should contain a food market. If only a parking garage was built, part of that space should be devoted to a market. Air rights belonged to all of them, and it was a market's last chance for downtown. The downtown study file in the City Clerk's office was full of requests for such a market, and what the local people wanted might bear on what would happen in another neighbor- hood; it was their City. He quoted from the file, "I and my wife are senior citizens. Please start a grocery shop." "I find it an extraordinary situation to have a City developing in which the residents can't even purchase the food neces- sary to live," and "I was shocked as a resident to find. that we can pass off the need for a market and substitute 7-11s. I don't think most of the people in downtown Palo Alto want to buy at 7-11s as their market." The file also included a petition which read in part, 9'Je the undersigned Palo Altans demand the resolution of the problema in parking and traffic in the Palo Alto downtown core and the continuation of essential, local, retail/commercial services within the downtown core and peripheral service areas." The petition, which could be carried to the idea of having a market, carried 583 signatures. As to the current proposal, in the list of those who reviewed the proposed concept he did not see any citizens ' group, and. he asked how that could be for such an important issue and why the word did not get out. Apparently the idea had been around for a long time and the proposal itself was several weeks old. The staff report (CMRs401; 7) was dated August 6, 1987, which .was not much time for the public to review it. If the proposal was the onlyplan that would get a market, it. should be supported even though the rental prices seemed high. They needed an urban ministry; the person sleeping on the bench in the winter cold might be one. of them . some day. If staff had pr °ob1ees with the location, alternative suggestions would have been helpful. In a way the ministry idea was connected td the idea of a grocery store. :It was about human needs, about caring; a turning away from banks and offices back to everyday community living. Think market. Bob Moss, 4010 Orme Street, calculated that 40 units at an average of 550 square feet would be about 22,000 square feet net which did not include hallways, elevators, or any other facilities. Sixty units at an average of 900 =.,square feet would be another 54,000, plus 22,000 retail would be again about 98,000 square feet for the structures, not including any ancillary facilities. They were probably speaking to a structure of about 110,000 to 120,000 on about a 43,000 square -foot lot, part of which would be vacant or left open for parking, which was a fairly sizable structure. The 120 units would be the highest housing density anywhere the City. Less than 120 units .did not work out economically. Senior residents would have cars, and he saw no practical way to say only ha1.f the tenants could own a car to justify a parking ratio of 0.5. Other senior developments in the City had already found they needed at least a 0.75 parking space per apartment. There would be a fourth possible sub- sidy as it was requestd that Florence be closed to traffic, and the abandonment of a street had an economic value. The value of the parking lot, as a parking lot and not a developed site, based on .what the City just paid for the Keystone lot on California hvenee, would be at least $2.9 million. In regard .to the market, the Downtown Study Committee found a 15,000 square -foot market was marginal at best. They talked to a number of grocery store chains, and the only one willing to even consider a small market on the fringe of downtown was Co-op, and they said they could not make, it. Stores like Safeway and Lucky were going for at least 40,000 to 60,000 square -foot superstores, and 40,000 was the minimum they liked to put in if they went for new construction. There was an illusion to the urban ministry and the facilities for the homeless, and he believed they would find the seniors--especially those paying market rates --extremely unhappy with sharing their facility with the homeless. When he was president of La Comida, there were many complaints about the people in Cogswell Plaza. Many seniors were reluctant to go down to La Comida and the Senior Center even during the day because they felt threatened. In regard to the use, of the senior facilities, not many of the seniors living in the new housing would be able ' to eat: lunch at the Senior. Center. At La Comida, they could serve between 165 and 175 people at lunch. He under- stood currently they served between 130 to 140 lunches which did not leave much capacity. If the Council looked at the figures on page 14 and cut the number of subsidized units to 30 and the number of market -rate units to 60 and used the same calculations, they did not have enough income to cover the cost of carrying the project and the $21,000 shown as. maintenance and operations would not cove_ r the entire cost of operatingthe facility. Richard Elmore, 819 Guinda Street, wholeheartedly supported the idea of the Florenza House concept and its four prin- ciple$; Additional housing for the elderly; a market for downtown; additional parking; and the improvement of an unsightly area in the downtown .core. As to housing for the. elderly, the Cfty had to do everything possible to help. He believed Palo Alto had and would continue to do wise things and hoped the project was one more of them. In regard to the market, he had designed up to 14 different supermarkets and depending on how they were facilitated and designed they could be a great waste of space and equipment. He was sure if the. right individuals. learned about running markets and about current industrial design, they could get together under the umbrella of the City staff or a committee, and an efficient market could be made and could sustain itself longer financially. The market should carry all the com- modities but there were many other ways to market food to make it interesting and which drew more people than just those going to a grocery store. He would love to be a part of trying to help. They all knew additional parking was badly needed. How the project looked would be an important part of its overall success. If it was as beautiful as the Lytton center they would have something very fine. He hoped it would be a little warmer and more humanized than Abitare. COUNCIL RECESSED FROM 9:30 p. m. _ to 9:44 p.m. Council Member Bechtel.. believed the City vas being asked to give too much of a subsidy. She was concerned about the economics They were essentially being asked to turn over a $4 million property for a potential of 100 additional spaces that might or might not be attractive, certainly not as attractiveas a street level lot, and potentially. 40 sub- sidized housing units, and possibly a market. She did not want, to burden the staff with an additional assignment when the Council had not made up its mind, and she knew some members of the Palo Alto Housing Corporation (PAHC) had not had a chance to look at the proposal. She preferred to continue the item. She did no.t want to forget it, nor refer it to staff, but wanted to hear more public discussion, to see the figures evaluated more thoroughly, and for the PAHC to look at the proposal and comment. Kr i tans r clarified the issue could be referred to PAHC. if the Council wanted thus to comment on it. NOTIONs council Somber bocatel . meted, secondod by Petit*cci, to rater, at loest t boeeieq aOmpem.at at : the proposal to tho Pala kite Mousisg CorporatiOs tor its cos-- its *ad rotors to Coulson, and for further cessosts from members, of tAe public ► '58-145 8/10/87 Council Member Patitucci asked about the allocation of the $750,000 housing fund and, as one of the questions referred to PAHC, whether it •was the most effective application of that fairly scarce resource. He knew there were no other projects being considered at the moment. He asked the developer if it would be possible to see an analysis that showed the four components of the project--themarket, the retail space, the parking, and the housing --with the costs and how the subsidies were allocated to each, or which ones internally subsidized another. Mayor Woolley queried whether Council Member Bechtel would expand the motions to refer the item to the PAHC and also to the developer to answer further specific questions from the Council. Council Member Bechtel was sure that was fine and would be up to the developer to provide that if they wished. Council Member Fletcher was reluctant at that point to vote for the motion because the kinds of concerns she had, and she suspected other Council Members had, could not be answered by the PAHC, or maybe even the developers. One question was the amount of, parking being allocated to the project. She noticed not only was it 0.5 to 0.75 spaces per unit but no allocation was made for guest parking. She referenced the viabileity of renting retail at the level of the market rate prevalent downtown and said the last report she remembered seeing from the Planning Department staff was that there were vacancies which the property owners were not able to rent to retail. There was not enough demand at that rent level. She wondered whether they would be stuck with having more offices rented out in the downtown, which was not one of their goals. Finally, much as she would like to see a market downtown, she was concerned what would happen if it did not fly financially. From what she remembered, Starlite was able to continue downtown because they were on a ten-year lease and paid something like 35$ a square foot. If that rental was the only reason they could stay as long as they did, the rental projected for the project was 60c per square foot which was quite a jump. If the market was only 15,000 square feet, it would not have the general attractiveness of a larger market to people who did have cars becauae it would riot have the amount of choices of the large Safeway in Menlo Park. If the market only catered to a small number oZ customers, the prices would be quite high. All the economic and ,parking questions made her very skeptical. She was not prepared to support the motion because the referral would n.t answer the questions but she did not know how to find the answers. 58-146 8/10/87 Mayor Woolley suggested some of Council Member Fletcher's concerns might be addressed to the developer, if the developer wished to respond to the Council at a later time. Council Member Cobb said his first concern was that the pro- posal was the day care center at a different age group. The Council just had the lest chance to get a day care center downtown and were starting to press ahead on that with some very substantial commitments of money. The City's coffers were not infinite, and at, some point they had to start being realistic about what the City could and could not do. He was not sure of the limit with respect to that kind of a proposal, but he was becoming concerned they were taking on an Awful lot of social. goods and at some point were apt to overcommit to what they could do well, The broad concern might suggest that such a proposal needed to go somewhere besides the PAHCe-maybe the F&PW Committee --to be considered in the context of all financial commitments. It was a sig- nificant financial` commitment just itself because a lot of City resources were involved which needed to be considered by the people who worried about such things both at the Council level and staff _in terms of whether it was- the right way to allocate those precious resources. Once it was done, the resources were. gone and the land resource certainly could not . be recaptt red for any other use. They had before -them an answer which might: well be the best answer for that particular property, but he was not sure what the City wanted to do with that piece of property. He was concerned it was an issue for the Policy and Procedures (P&P) Cc=nmittee. The proposal was an attempt to spread the vari- ous subsidies over a lot of audiences: The need for senior housing was one which they all -recognized and supported; the need for parking was.one which they all recognized and sup- ported; the desire for a market was -one -which they would all like to. have if it could be made feasible, etc. He queried the best mix of such things on the property. Because of the PAHC's focus and interest, he believed it would return with something that probably put more emphasis on housing. qie could imagine places that would put gore emphasis on the market,.`and others that would put the - r emphasis on parking, etc. The PAHC's input would be useful, but he wanted to know how staff and others felt about the issue of parking atd horn it fit into the larger picture, and how realistic they were about whether a market could be subsidized. The Council had a lot of questions before it. All the questions should be studied before cowing down on a particular answer. He would appreciate some counsel on how to arrive at -that point Perhaps part of the issue should go to F&PW Committee, part to .-P&P Committee, and input should be - invited from the various inteo°ested patties like the PAHC. 58-147 8/1.0/87 Council Member Klein agreed with Council Member Bechtel's first statement that the Council had before it a proposal which had too many subsidies to it, but he was not in favor of referring the matter to the PAHC for a variety of reasons. First, Mr. Badger worried the process was not sufficiently public and someone else raised the question of whether the Council was proceeding too hurriedly, and he pointed out it was not the City's but a private citizen's proposal and the City was responding. Frankly, the answer was there would be extensive public process before they did anything with a very valuable City asset. He thanked Mr. Moss for his comments and map which were very helpful for his analysis. Orwell always said to explore the words being used when trying to analyze political problems, and one word they had been misusing that evening was "developer." He did not regard Mr. Kinney, Mr. Medoaris, and whatever nonprofit organization came forward as a developer, because usually when talking about a developer they were talking about some- body using their private resources on land they bought or on which they had an option. Here they were being asked to come forth with a variety of public subsidies which made it a very different idea. He wanted to get away from the idea of "developer because legally they had to respond to devel- opers, but it was the City's land and the City's funds they were asking to be used, so he did not feel the Council was under any obligation to respond in quite the same we_y as to a true developer. The Council was being asked for up to seven subsidies, and the areas he believed were potential additional subsidies were: 1) that the City make the land available, which was the biggest; 2) that they might be asked to help acquire the land on the corner of Lytton and Florence; 3) $750,000 from<.the housing fund; 4) that mer- chants in the Downtown Parking District be asked to cover the new public parking --and they should keep in mind two other financial demands going to downtown merchants were the increased assessments on the Cowper/Webster garage, and that the City had encouraged citizens to try to raise the money from downtown merchants with regard to the child care center --5) the development` would be very large, so there was a Subsidy that it was far• more development than the Council would allow if the property were privately owned; 6) he worried if there was a downtown market that the City would be called upon for some type of continuing subsidy, although that was questionable; and 7) the suggestion that the City abandon Florence Avenue and use it ae part of the project, which also was a valuable piece of property that could be used in a variety of ways. They were talking about a variety of City assets and, by referring the matter to the PAHC, they were almost letting private citizens drive the budgetary process, which roe not correct. The issue con- cerned them at the child care center and most of them -felt it was a unique opportunity with which they had to go for- ward at the time, and he felt very comfortable with the decision, but there they were dealing with `a developer and a private piece of property that might disappear without action. Lots S & L were not going anywhere; the City owned them, so he did not feel a need for rushing out to do any- thing. The type of proposal should go through the normal budgetary process. Council Member Patitucci earlier raised the question of the RFP. He was not sure that was the right process but believed they should be referring the use of S & L and air rights in general to one or both of the two policy committees. The problem should be attacked far differently. The Council should be asking itself, first did they want to use the air right s which were an asset and worth something. They knew from the Arbitare development that they could develop the air rights commercially and receive various benefits or even straight cash. He asked if they wanted to do that with S & L given the likely visual impact downtown, and traffic, parking, etc. If so, how did they go about it. Did they solicit proposals. A key question was what bene- fits did the City want to get out. An easy way to look at the issue was to say if the r_iry ju t e' the air rights to a private developer and raised "x" million dollars, what would they want to use that money for. They had to ask themselves whether housing for the elderly was a priority, and he believed the answer was *yes," but whether it was their first priority was a far harder question and one ne was not ready to pass on that evening, but it had to compete with other demands on their resources. There were all types of concerns that were pressing needs in the community and the question always before the Council was which one came first. It was certainly a .very difficult question, but he did not believe it should be decided just because a group of citizens came before Council with , particular idea. If the motion was defeated, he would be prepared to move the ques- tion of the use of the air rights and the use of any proceeds developed from use of air rights to the F&PW Committee. Council Member Levy thanked the speakers who proceeded him at. the Council because he concurred with their comments. However, he was not prepared to vote positively on any motion that came before the Council because it was pre- mature. The process concerned him. The first question raised by his colleagues was what they should do with Lots S & L, and obviously they had to decide that. The question came up of whether the proposal was the right one, and they really did not know that until they knew the context of what they wanted to do and their goals. The next question was when did they deterMine what they wanted to do with Lots S & L, and he did not believe he was ready to make that 58-149 8/10/87 determination. The proposal before the Council would not go away. As Council Member Klein said, the "developer" had not made any significant investment in land, for example, and the proposal would be available at such time as the Council decided what they wanted to do. He believed the Council had taken so many actions recently in the downtown area that he was not prepared to add the subject proposal when there was no other time pressure to do so. As pointed out by Tony Badger, they had the Webster/Cowper garage with 20 percent nonuse. He could vouch for that because his office over- looked the top floor which had never been occupied for parking. There was not at that paint in the larger picture, a critical demand for the additional parking. There was the question of the child care facility and the amounts of money the City had to come up with. There was also the fact the Council recently rezoned the whole downtown area and were still considering the question of amenities. They were also considering the question of a downtown urban design. All those questions led him to the feeling that the timing was premature; that tie Council should not proceed at that time. Just because something had reached the Council level, it was not necessary to refer it or continue it to a time certain. They could continue it to a time uncertain in the future and at that point they should, sitting as a Council of the Whole, determine what they wanted to accomplish with Lots S & L overall, and then go out to the community --and he believed an RFP was the right kind of concept --and solicit a response to that overall comprehensive plan for Lots S & L. At that point, he was inclined to simply let the whole issue ride until a more appropriate time. Council Member Renzel also thanked those who proceeded her. She agreed with Council Member Cobb that they needed to do more planning as to exactly what they wanted to have happen, and also Council Members Levy and Klein in the same vein. The piece of land was going to be there for a long time, and there were many projects in the hopper that had not yet been fully utilized or built out. Until they knew what was going to happen from tLe demographics of downtown, t:he traffic and other issues, it seemed premature to make any 'kind of a com- mitment of the particular parcel, which was in a key loca- tion not only in terms of being in the center of downtown and it was opposite the. Senior Center, which was a very fine facility and benefited greatly from the surface perking presently there. They should recognize if they' were to intensively develop the air rights over the surface parting, the current people who drove to the Senior Center might not find it convenient to do so any more and: the Senior Center would basically be serving the facility across the street from it. That might be fine, but they should recognize that change could take place. Likewise, they had yet to see all 58--150 8/1/87 the traffic that would be,seen downtown, particularly with the revival of the Willow Road concept.,.. She believed it was possible there were some 3,000 trips that would be rerouted through downtown, and the open area might be needed as a relief valve for all the intense activity in downtown and the surroundings. The planning issue was important., The other thing that concerned her about the proposal before the Council was that basically the public purpose aspects brought forward were the 120 new parking spaces, 40 rentals which would be below market --albeit somewhat expensive for the small size --and possibly a grocery store, although that was on the edge as to whether or not the City would, in fact, get it out of the proposal. From a land use point of view, they ended up with an additional 80 units of market rate housing plus another 7,000 square feet of retail use, and obviously a major high rise building in an area that currently was very low rise, The Council had to question whether the amount of subsidy asked for, both in dollars and in land use, was really what would benefit the community in the long run, and whether they should be seeking ways, for example, to provide just 40 units of housing, a market, and parking, and boil it down to what the City needed rather than 41 the other things that put together a package. They might need to look for more creative ways to finance exactly what they needed and not a lot more land use they did not need. Sho was not ' suggesting they did not need housing for the elderly, but rents of $1,100 to $1,400 a month were fairly stiff, and people who could afford to pay that kind of rent had a fair number of options available. For all those reasons, she was concerned about going forward with any proposal such as the subject one. She preferred the referral to the F&PW Committee over the referral to the PAHC because she assumed at some point the Council would receive. input from the PAC as the issue moved forward. She believed it was premature to go forward with any referral without having some better idea from a planning perspective of what should happen. Council Member Bechtel said her motion was made with the purpose of not sending something to staff for a lot of addi- tional work, feeling they had expects in the PAHC. Council Member Klein jade fairly ` strong arguments as to their looking at an overall policy. If the Council referred the issue to the F4PW Committee, she was sure the PAHC would be happy to respond in any case as they were interested in any issues related to housing* NOTION WITNDLANN DT NAM AND SBCOODIR. Council Member Klein said Council Members Bechtel and Levy had almost persuaded him that it might be better to do 58-151 0/10/87 nothing for a while. He agreed with Council Member Levy's comments that they had a lot to digest in the downtown area, and he was also concerned about the large number of assign- ments given to staff over time. However, the public had a right to help the Council think through what they wanted to do with the air rights.. MOTION TO REFER: Council Member Klein moved, seconded by Cobb, to .refer the policy questions re the issue of air rights and the questions of what to do with the proceeds to the Finance and Public Works Committee with two provisos: 1) That this not be a priority item; and 2) That staff work be kept to a minimum for the next six months to a year. Council Member Cobb asked how his colleagues felt about adding to the motion a parallel referral of some of the policy questionsto the P&P Committee --with the same caveat that it not be a high priority item --to let them take a look at the issues of what they really wanted to accomplish down- town, whether it should be parking, housing, senior housing, or just looking at the financial equation alone and how that fitted in. There were some issues that went beyond dollars and cents. Mayor Woolley believed the issues beyond dollars and cents preceded the dollars and cents, and it would make More `sense to go to P&P Committee initially to discuss what they wanted to do with the air rights, followed by the F&PW Committee. Council Member Cobb believed the issue needed to go to both Committees. There were some broad policy issues that should be looked at, and they could not be looked at absent the financial considerations because the City had a lot of com- mitments right now. MAKER AND MOOD AGREED TO REFER THE BROAD ISSUE OF THE AIR RIGHTS TO MC POLICY AND PROCEDURES COMMITTEE AND THE ISSUE OF THE PROCEEDS TO THE FINANCE AND PUBLIC WORKS COMMITTEE IN THAT ORDER [4ayor. Woolley said excellent comments had been made by all her colleagues. Her major concern with the project as pro- posed waz she was not sure they were providing the kind of housing for seniors that was really needed. Someone who could afford to pay $1,10►0_$1,400 a month probthly could find housing, because that kind of . housing did not provide any care with it. It had nothing special that went along with it except the social activities which one could get at the Senior Center. A greater concern for most seniors who went into a__situation like Lytton Gardens was that when they began to be in the position when they did get sick and needed extra care, it was not going to come through that kind of hou3ing. She was not sure the 80 units of market - rate housing were something the Council really wanted to be providing in the first place. She supported the motion. Council Member Levy said his predilection was to do nothing, which put him at a disadvantage because one could not make a motion to do nothing. The tendency was to make a motion to do something. He was not comfortable with the motion before the Council which said to refer the issue to both the F&PW Committee and the P&P Committee. Unsaid was that the Planning Commission should take a look, but he believed it was quite important for the Planning Commission. As he thought _about it, the Architectural Review Board (ARB) also had an important say. He was not trying to complicate things, but to illustrate what a significant issue it was. It was almost a full square block right in the heart of town, near a park, near the Senior Center, and he believed they were not quite going about it the right way because they did not know what to do. The final element of the motion was that it should be an extremely low -priority item, which meant it was vaguely in the future. A better course of action might be to continue the concept of a referral, and to take the concept up again in a couple of months after the Council had an opportunity to consider where they were_ going and after staff also gave input based on all of the things they were doing at present, to get a comprehensive way of looking at the issue. It seemed to him that imple- mentation of the motion to refer would need a fair amount of staff support, . and none of the wanted to do that at present. He regretted Vice Mayor Sutorius was not present because he had been the strongest advocate of the urban design concept, and obviously Lots S & L would be pivotal in the whole idea of an urban design. It might be very helpful to get the urban design in front of the Council before they moved into the whole consideration. He would be interested in hearing his colleagues' comments. NOTION! TO REFER PASSED by a vote of 7-1, Lett 'toting *no,* Siatoriux siaisat. 14. ORDINANCE AMENDING CHAPTER 9.10 OF MUNICIPAL CODE TO CHANGE NOISE STANDARDS FOR CLEANING OF PUBLIC PARKING LOTS (CMR:39 :7) 140 - ) THE PALO ALTO lIO t Council Member Mcbt.1 moved, seconded by Klein, approval of the Ordinance. 58-153 8/10/87 MOTION CONTINUED ORDINANCE FOR FIRST READING entitled "ORDINANCE OF THE COUNC1`L 6F THE CITY OF PALO ALTO AMENDING CHAPTER '9.10- OF THE PALO ALTO MUNICIPAL CODE TO CHANGE NOISE STANDARDS FOR CLEANING OF PUBLIC PARKING LOTS" Mr. Zaner called attention to the fact that staff had passed out to the Council a new environmental assessment set of papers due to a minor error. Council Member Patitucci opposed the motion because of his general feeling that the original noise ordinance in Palo Alto was adequate and that the City should not itself be exempt from trying to meat the highest noises standards. He believed operating leaf blowers at night was inappropriate. Council Member Levy referred to the last paragraph on page 1 of CMR:392:7, and asked what it meant that, 'Police person- nel will enforce the amended ordinance on a complaint basis consistent with established call for service guidelines.N Police Chief Chris Durkin said the Police Department's res- ponse to calls started with emergency calls, followed by priority calls and nonpriority calls. The amended ordinance could have a response time of as much as one hour. Council Member Levy hypothesized that the Police Department received a call that the noise was excessive at a particular location on a Monday night, and obviously the City was making the noise. The police went on Monday night to the location and would then stop the person from making the excessive noise. Chief Durkin said that was correct. Council Member Levy assumed the person cleaned the same lot every day so would return on Tuesday, and he asked if the police would stop him .from doing that unless they got another call. Chief Durkin believed that on Tuesday the Police Department would be talking to the Director of Public Works to let him know of the complaint and that some action would be taken. Council Member Fletcher could not support such an ordinance. The only thing she would consider was if there were some distance requirements from residential structures, and the ordinance did not give any protection to where the parking lots were in close proximity to where people slept. Council Member Renzel agreed with Council Member Fletcher. She did not know what would be an appropriate distance, but in reading the supplementary environmental impact assessment (EIA) received at places, it was seen the leaf blower noise might be considered a nuisance by residents within hearing range, but the noise was not considered significant because it was not at such a volume to cause hearing loss or impair- ment. If she was asleep at night and somebody turned on a leaf blower 25 feet away at 86 decibels, even if only for 15 minutes, she would not like it very much and did not believe the noise had to cause hearing impairment to be a nuisance. She believed Council Member Fletcher was quite right that in the particular instance where they were talking about doing it at night, there should be some limitation within 100.150 feet of residential. areas. AMENDMENT: Council lenber Renzel coved, seconded by Potitucci that the ordinance apply only when the parking lot was 1.50 feet frost a residential structure. Mayor Woolley believed the reason the Police. Department probably did not get involved with the kind of detail in the amendment was that the staff report (CMR:392:7) stated there had only been one complaint regarding nighttime use of leaf blowers to clean public parking lots. With that level of problem, and with Chief Durkin's explanation that a com- plaint would be brought to the attention of the Public. Works Department, she believed the schedule could be reworked so the person wouldnot be disturbed again. Rather than get into the complexity of measuring 150 feet from their various public parking lots, and then trying to deal with those areas in a different way, it would be better to try the ordinance and, if it was truly an enormous problem, they would have to make some changes. Harrison Otis, 2721 Midtown Court, was cognizant of the amount the City of Palo Alto expended on modern equipment to alleviate the parking lots of debris. He said more people complained when the debris piled up like it did in Midtown. They had Nome fantastic modern equipment and the City crew had their hands tied if they were not allowed to operate properly. People downtown wanted better utilization of equipment to clean some of the debris downtown, Council Member Renzel realized at present they had-- only one complaint in a I2 -month period, and apparently staff had been operating under a schedule similar to that proposed in the ordinance. Nevertheless, the Council did not know exactly how much of their sweeping of parking lots had been at night and how much had been deferred because of the previously -existing noise ordinance, so she did not know the 58-155 8/10/87... historical record was necessarily what would be found once the Council passed an ordinance saying it was okay to do so from 11:oo p.m. until 7:00 a.m. While it would be nice if Chief .,Durkin were the person handling the complaint and saying they would certainly pass the word to the Public Works Department and see it did not happen again, she could foresee it was as likely that people would be given a bureaucratic answer that the City Council had passed an ordinance that permitted it. It was not fair to put people through that in their homes at night. Council Member Fletcher asked whether Communications kept a record of the nature of all the calls received, and whether Chief Durkin would automatically get a report from them if somebody did call in the night. Chief Durkin replied that Communications kept a log of all. calls, and they documented in a formal report all calls about noise complaints. They were referred the next morning to another manager. A$ NDMEMT FAILED by a vote of 3'S, Patitucci voting aye,' Sutorius abeeut. NOUNS PASSED by a vote of 5-3 p Patitucci voting 'no," Sutorius absent. Renzel, Fletcher, Renzel, Fletcher, 15. ORDINANCE AMENDING THE BUDGET FOR THE FISCAL YEAR INI=8H TO PROVIDE AN ADDITIONAL APPROPRIATION FOR THE TREASURY DIVISION, REVENUE .COLLECTIONS PROGRAM, TO CONTRACT FOR BILL COLLECTION SERVICES WITH THE CREDIT BUREAU OF PALO ALTO AND PROFESSIONAL RECOVERY SYSTEM (CMRz3 6: 5 Mayor Woolley drew the Council's attention to the correction at places (on file in the City Clerk's office). MOTION* Counc i 1 EeNAber lea t i tOCc i meeed. seconded by Pletcher, to adopt staff recommes44tiom to authorize the 4*gor to sign the agreement, with Credit Soma of Palo Alto and Professional Saccvery System for (o% Uoctioa Service, and approve the Isdoet Amendment Ordi c•. ORDINANCE 3760 esti tled 4 RUN q COUNCIL 6, t E CITY or PALO AL ET y�{ P TM I- Is --ifsf"i ., , i 1-J6 e PRO 3. A ' . T_� � r r s .. * ENO COLUCitk P rE }. _ a AiiL 58--156 8/10/87 Council Member Levy understoo amendment because they were c tices. He asked if it was change their accounting pra budget amendment. Financial Planning Admini correct. Council Membe Levy cla money but to t,hange the Mr. Zaner said techni all done with it, t They would simply would show all the ledger and all the d the City needed the budget hanging their accounting prac- correct that if they did not ctices they would not need the strator Gordon Ford said that was rified staff was not asking for more accounting practice. cally that was right. When staff was he effect would be exactly the same. e accounting for it differently. If expenditures going outon one side of the revenues coming in on the other. Council Member Levy was a little concerned the matter was happening one month after the beginning of the fiscal year, and he asked why the, issue was not brought to the Council during their discussion of the budget. Mr. Zaner sai situation it it was impo seemed to secondly, present --a would be was quit month of where s Nov st tics, than went ,used tha st its c d there were a couple of reasons. One, the had not risen to a point where staff felt rtant to deal with the particular firm, which be having some financial difficulties; and the accounting process staff used up until the nd continued to use on some other contracts; they changing it as they continued the year --staff felt adequate. The contract just happened to occur a ter the budget and was the first large contract taff had used a net system that came into question. aff recognized it was not the best accounting prac- they wanted to make a correction at the time rather allowing it to go There would be some others as time on. Staff was uncovering a number of contracts that the net procedure, which incidentally was a procedure t was legitimate, but the one proposed was better and aff would like to switch :over. ouncil Member Levy believed what was before the Council was the wrong issue. What was before the. Council was a $40,000 contract which actually •staff could go ahead with without a budget amendment. The Council needed to tace the accounting change head on, make ' sure they understood what it involved, arks endorseit. SUBSTITUTE 14/1011 TO REP$I: Comma *ember , Levy moved, that the issue be referred to the Finance mad Public Works Committee. 58-157 8/10187 SUBSTITUTE MOTION DIED FOR LACK OF A SECOND Bob Moss, 4010 Orme Street, said reading the staff report (CMR;376:7) raised a concern in his mind. There was a com- ment about referring paramedic bills to a collection agency after between 30 and 90 days. He had an experience with a paramedic bill that year and if the bill had been referred to a collection agency because he had not paid after 30 days. he would have been very annoyed because that, in fact, was what happened. It happened because the hospital did not process the paper and . his insurer refused to pay the claim without the proper paperwork. His «other -in-law had a simi- lar experience where she was attended to by paramedics, Medicare was slow in processing the claim, and as -a result she was nominally delinquent by several months in paying the bill. The City had a lot of paramedic calls, many for seniors, many on [Medicare, and they would, in fact, take longer than 30-60 days to pay the bills. He would hate to have .a lot of people referred to and harrassed by a collec- tion agency just because_ their insurer or the hospital was slow in responding. Furthermore, if the Council adopted the ordinance ar.d started referring collections to a collection agency, they would lose 35 percent of the money because that was their fee. He wondered how much that would cost the City net compared to thepresent way of operating. P Mayor Woolley clarified the staff report said 30.90 days and many of them having had experience with the billing from hospitals knew it could take a long time, especially when involved with Medicare or Med.tcal. Staff had heardthe con- cerns. Council Member Bechtel said a series of letters had gone back and forth between a member of the putAic who had a Medicaresituation and the City Manager. The person con- tactedher four or five times, and had contact Mr. Ford and other members of the staff. It took over a year before Medicare paid and she was very upset that the matter was sent to a collection agency. She believed Bob Moss.- had some good points and asked what• they would do to ensure► that did not happen. Mr. Ford said that was an error and should not have been. referred to the agency. .If Medical had recognized that individual, which they should have, staff would not have had a problem. Unfortunately, even though she was a registered Medical individual, their records did not show the indi- vidual. Even though the City billed Medical four times, they rejected it each time. The cpse was very unusual ; and he did not expect to see that often. 58-158 5/10/87 Council Member Bechtel asked if staff expected to get Medicare payments funded within the 90 days so there would not be a problem. • Mr.. Ford said yes, by and large. Council Member Levy asked exactly what the accounting change meant. Mr. Zaner said, in nontechnical terms, the present system used by the City was a net system, i.e., the only figure the City reported was the difference between the expenditures made and the revenues collected. If one looked at the books, all that would be seen was the difference. If one went back two years from now and tried to analyze how much money was taken in and how much money was spent, one would not see that, only the net. The practice was a common one, especially where the contract was fairly small or where the contractor worked on a percentage basis, but it was not the most accurate way to do things. The proposed procedure would eliminate the net system, and they would now set the system up with two sides of the ledger," showing all the expenditures made in the program and all the revenues received. One would see them recorded and could then do the subtraction and end up with the net figure. Council Member Levy clarified the net funds flow of the City would not change. Mr. Zaner said that was rights Council Member Levy said the City was going to reduce its unappropriated capital reserve. Mr. Zaner said that was correct, by $40,000. Council Member Levy believed the amount should not be taken from the unappropriated reserve but from some kind of revenue statement. Mr. Zaner said Council Member Levy was correct and that was what was going to happen. The unappropriated capital reserve would not be written down. They would reduce it by $40,000 but turn rfght around and increase the revenue by a like amount. Council Member Levy asked why the Council, in adopting the budget change, did not take :the $40,000 against revenue and keep the capital reserves the same. 58-159 8/10/87 Mr. Zaner said that was almost exactly what the Council was doing. The correction passed out that evening related to Item 15, and put in the ordinance exactly what Council Member Levy was saying. It put in a paragraph that said the sum of $40,000 was added to the Paramedic Services Program revenue of the Fire. Department and the Reserve for Capital Projects was correspondingly increased. MOTION PASSED unanimously, Sutorius absent. 16. REMOVAL OF EUCALYPTUS TREES ON ARASTRADERO ROAD (CMR:404:7) (1014) Council Member Patitucci said the stretch of Arastradero Road was decimated by the fire, and subsequently the removal of trees had greatly changed the landscape. The area used to be quite attractive for bicycle riding, hiking, and driving through and was not now as attractive. Most people did not like eucalyptus trees but some did. He feared the trees would be removed along a stretch that was fairly close to the Alpine Beer Gardens around a number of residences. He knew people who lived there and asked them to find out if anybody had been notified and was told they had not. There was only a big orange sign',. that said there might be delays as a result of work over the next month. From the map, the location where the trees would be taken out was next to a large stand of trees, and he understood only a few of the trees would be taken out immediately along the road, which would not. be nearly as noticed as the other place, which seemed more acceptable. However, he still believed the people who used the road and the immediate neighbors, whether in Palo Alto or not, should be notified as to exactly what was going on before the project commenced. Mayor Woolley asked whether the Council needed a motion simply to have staff notify the residents. Mr. Zaner said no, staff could do that. He was not sure who staff would notify. There was no one livings in the immedi- ate vicinity. Council Member Patitucci asked if that meant staff would notify the people who lived along that road. Mr. Zaner said, aside from the Bressler property, he did not know of anyone who lived along, Arastradero Road who would be affected by the trees. Mayor Woolley said part of that land was County, part of it was Los Altos Hill*, part of it was Stanford. It was not the City of Palo Alto. Council Member Patitucci understood that, but also believed they were treading on some fairly sensitive areas. It was one thing to take out trees with the justification they had been destroyed because of a fire, but it was another to take out trees because there happened to be three fairly skinny power lines going by and someone was worried about the low probability event that something would fall on them. That was not in the spirit of the way they in Palo Alto treated their trees, and along that stretch, even though the people did not necessarily live in Palo Alto, they should at least alert them to the limits of what was going on so they would not start to think all the trees were coming out, etc. • Mr. Zaner said staff would make an effort to notify persons who lived along Arastradero Road that they had work to do with the trees. The trees were going to fall. They were on an embankment that had been erroded, and another rain storm or two and the trees would go down and there was no question from the way they were leaning but that they would .fall across the roadway and knock the wires down, which could start a fire and certainly Palo Alto would have crews out there to put wires back Lid.. They had already done it before on Arastradero Road. Just limbs falling down caused a prob- lem, not to mention they could end up blocking the roadway. They were not talking about simply removing trees because they believed there was a small chance 'of their falling; they believed the trees would probably fall fairly soon, in the next rainy season or so. In addition to having the City's own people go out over the week, they had an indepen- dent person take a look at the trees and had,,a report that concurred that the trees should come out asa safety factor. Staff continued to recommend they be removed. Tom Fischer, 643 Channing Avenue, only recently found out about the removal of the trees. On finding out he -contacted three people who lived on Arastradero, and he was asked by Mr. and Mrs. Watson at 11 Arastradero; Mr. and Mrs. Loftus at 7 Arastradero; and Mr. and Mrs. Brown at 5 Arastradero to. let them know what would happen, He was related to the Browns, drove along Arastradero and road his bike quite a bit in that area, and since the removal of all the trees there was a lot of concern of the people in that area as to taking the trees out Just informing and letting the people get involved might be a good idea. Al_ l they asked was that the. program be . postponed to 1et people knot. ieyor Woolley believed the Council, did not need to take further action since staff had agreed to notify the people along Arastradero Road, 58-1.61 8/10/87 Mayor Woolley believed the Council did not need to take further action since staff had agreed to notify the people along Arastradero Road. 17. ORDINANCEEAMENDING 2.04.010 OP THE CITY OF PALO ALTO MUNICIPAL ,, CODE TO PROVIDE AN ANNUAL VACATION FOR THE CITY COUNCIL (701) NOTION* Council Member Klein moved, seconded by Woolley, approval of " the Ordinance. ORD NAVCE FOR FIRST READING entitled "ORDINANCE OF COUNCXL OF THE CITY OP PALO ALTO AME,DING 2.04.41E OF /HE 'CITY OF PALO ALTO MUNICIPAL. CEDE TO PROVIDE AN ANNUAL VACATION FOR THE CITm COUNCIL" Council Member Klein recalled his motion a few weeks ago included the schedule "'ar 1988, and he asked if the Council was deemed to have ac',ed already for 1983. City Attorney Diane Northway said since the Council acted before the Ordinance became effective, she would say so. The Council had already done it and staff would take care of the formalities. Council Member Levy could not find a sentence at the begin- ning of the underlined portion. It seemed to him that "provided that" should not be in the Ordinance and the por- tion should start "each year." Ms. Northway believed the language was a proviso. In other words, the Council was stating it would have meetings at certain. ti es. during the year and "provided that was the exception. `ION PASSED unanimously, Sutorius absent. ADJOURNMENT Council adjourned to two Closed Sessions to discuss litiga- tion in progress pursuant to Government Code Section 54956.9(a) rev 1) Phiiade1 phis Geer v. City and 2) Donahue _ -.r� +w `.�rrri"err-w r v. City at 10:55 p,m« FINAL ADJOURNMENT Final adjournment at 11:22 p.m. ATTEST: APPROVED: 58.-163 8/10/87