HomeMy WebLinkAbout1986-04-14 City Council Summary MinutesCITY
COUNCIL
M INUTES
Regular Meeting
April 14, 1986
CITY
of
PAIO
ALTO
ITEM PAGE
Oral Communications 7 0 5 2
Consent Calendar 7 0 5 4
Referral 7 0 5 4
Action
7 0 5 4
Item 01, Capital Improvement Program - Refer to 7 0 5 4
Finance and Public Works Committee
Item 02, Reinforced Fabric Pavement 7 0 5 4
Item 03, Utility Control Center 7 0 5 4
Item #4, Contract for Workers' Compensation Claims 7 0 5 4
Administration
Item 05, Planning Commission Recommendations re
Alternative Development Scenarios for the Next
Phase of the City-wide Transportation and Land Use
Study
Recess
Item 06, Policy Issues Discussion - Referral to
Appropriate Committee(s)
Item #7, Contract for Thermal Energy Storage
Utility Program Evaluation
Item 08, Request of Counci lrnember Bechtel and Vice
Mayor Woolley re Sound Barra ^r Wall Along Route 101
Item 09, Request of Councllmembers Klein,
Patitucci, Bechtel, and Vice Mayor Woolley re Oral
Communications Procedures
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7 0 6 4
7 0 7 4
7 0 7 4
7 0 7 5
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Adjournment: 11:10 p.m. 7 0 7 9
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4/14/86
Regular Meeting
April 14, 1986
The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the
Council Chambers, 250 Hamilton Avenue, at 7:30 p.m.
PRESENT: Bechtel, Cobb, Fletcher, Klein, Levy,
Patitucci, Renzel, Sutorius, Woolley.
ORAL COMMUNICATIONS
1. Miguel, through a translator, said he was ` a refugee ' from El
Salvador. He left his country because of the war. Military
forces went to his town looking for arms and left a bomb
behind in his house which his father picked up not knowing
what it was. The bomb exploded and there was nothing left of
his father. It was hard to see his father die like that. He
left the country because the military tried to force him to
enter the army, and members of the security forces beat him
when he refused, In his country people were persecuted either
by being forced into the army or by being tortured. In Palo
Alto he was helped by different churches which belonged to the
sanctuary movement and different committees that worked with
the. sanctuary. They helped him with food, clothing, and even
to learn English.
2. Raymond Giraud, 2200 Byron Street, urged Council to consider
the resolution making Palo Alto a Sanctuary City andeto agen-
dize the item for a future meeting. Some Councilmembers
believed a vote on the issue was wrong because sancturaries
were illegal. It would be contrary to the Reagan Adminis-
tration's policy, bu'.. it did not make the vote illegal. The
resolution clearly specified, "it is resolved that to the
extent legally possible the City of Palo Alto..." Every term
proposed in the resolution contained language which stated the
City Council would only undertake action that was riot illegal.
Sanctuary was offered in the United States to Salvadorans,
Guatemalans, and others accused by the Immigration and
Naturalization Service (INS) of being in the country illeg-
ally; whereas, in reality both the United.Staces and inter-
national law justified those refugees being' sheltere'd in the
United States. The present Administration refused to abide by
the law., He quoted from a 'recent Stanford Dail +phi ch
referred to details of the 1980 Refugee —Act anu he Refugee
provisions of the Geneva Convention' adopted by the Act which
provided asylum for foreigners being persecuted or fearing
persecution in their CSuntries. Present enforcement of the
Act by the ISIS heavily favored refugees from Marxist and
Eastern Bloc' countries and uniformly ignored the pleas-- of
people fleeing violence in countries allied to their present
government like El Salvador and Guatemala. That morning's
Chronicle referred to secret, illegal military aid to the
Contras in Nicaragua provided by the CIA and he was reminded
of another article in -1M about illegal funding and organi-
zation of Death Squad activity in El Salvador by the same CIA.
Information appeared: almost daily in the mainstream press
about the illegal activity and total flouting of American
international law by the United States government. The act i v-
ities in El Salvador, like the aerial bombings of houses,
individuals, and hospitals in various provinces of =the
country, .were all funded by United States tax dollars and
occurred in areas presumed to be under the control of peop l e
struggling to create a democratic society in El Salvador. The
immediate benefit to Salvadorans and Guatemalans of a resolu-
tion' for Sanctuary would be minimal, but the effectiveness eof
a public d€claration of sanctuary as _a symbolic gesture should
not be underestimated. A vote of sanctuary could give hope to
victimized people i.n El Salvador struggling to survive.
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3. Glenn Fuller, Pastor, First United Methodist Church in Palo
Alto, said the question was a religious and moral one. At the
last Council meetin;;, the seven speakers were full of truth
and gave much background. They vdiew 50,000 El Salvadorans and
150,000 Guatemalans died by the Death Squad in the last six
years. There was a lot of evidence of the truth from the
Roman Catholic Church, Protestant churches and Witness for
Peace where thousands of observers went down from Amnesty
International. They spoke out of the Christian tradition
where Jesus was a refugee in Egypt and where Catholic cathe-
drals housed sanctuary people who ran from certain death.
They spoke out of the American tradition of their Pilgrim
parents seeking refuge from famine and oppression into New
England and the Statue of Liberty. He supported Palo Alto's
being a Sanctuary City to abide by the Refugee Act of 1980 and
the United Nations Protection of Refugees adopted as part of
their national policy in 1956. He did not want anybody picked
up on Palo Alto's streets and- flown back to their countries to
face certain death or torture. Hospitality and generosity was
part of Palo Alto's way of life.
4. Constance Kuruppu, 3221 Ross Road, was a member of the
Peninsula Branch of the Women's International League for Peace
and Freedom (WILPF) which had about 200 members. Since its
foundation in 1915, the WILPF sought ways to establish peace
with justice throughout the world. The League was distressed
and appalled by the United States government's policies in
Central America. Like all Americans, they paid taxes which
subsidized Reagan's program of atrocities and violations of
international law in Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador.
The Peninsula WILPF enthusiastically endorsed the campaign to
make Palo Alto a City of Sanctuary. The destructive State-
supporced violence in El Salvador was a direct consequence of
the United States government's assistance to the Duarte
regime. The pilots and planes used in the daily bombings were
supplied by the United States. Without telling the American
people, the Pentagon unleashed an air war in El Salvador. The
flying Death Squads of the Salvadoran air force bombed citi-
zens and combatants alike. In civilian areas planes supplied
by the United States indiscriminately bombed .three to four
times daily. . A nun wrote on her return from El Salvador there
were many people including children with napalm and white
phosphorous burns which covered their entire bodies, pen-
etrated to the other side, and somehow traveled under the
skin. The United States transferred to El Salvador tie
infamous C47s known during the Vietnam 'War as *Puff the Magic
Dragon." For all Central American brothers and sisters, Palo
Alto must offer refuge and friendship. As honorable
Americans, WILPF could help the refugees to survive in the
United States until they could, without fear, return to their
homes.
S. David Schram, 302 College Avenue, intended to speak on things
in his neighborhood and in the last 16 minutes he realized how
easily people got caught up in their own way of living in Palo
Alto. Though many of his friends were connected with the
sanctuary movement, and he traveled in Latin America and
taught there himself, he . forgot there were refugees who lived
among them. Some of the Councilmembers played in a well-known
video tape, which made the rounds of . the schools of America,
called *World Peace is a Local Issue." He remembered Council
member Levy's performance in the film particularly well
because of the way he changed his initial position after
hearing the issue openly discussed by the people who elected
him. Council was only being asked to open itself up to the
issue and decide on . the basis of all the evidence. A lot of
his work in his neighborhood and that of his neighbors was to
enable them to live in Palo Alto well with less demand on
people elsewhere. Everything they did in Palo Alto that
enabled them to enjoy the life quality they wanted at a lower
cost in terms of natural resources and human labor was a
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way to make more. for people elsewhere. Council was probably
familiar with the idea that Americans as four percent of the
world's population were said to consume something on the order
of two-thirds of its resources. Recently Council helped its
neighborhood take a step toward enjoying a high quality of
life on fewer resources by helping them make some changes in
the streets. The proposal the neighbors put forward was
dramatically superior in terms of cost and benefits easily
measured as well as many subtle costs and benefits like beauty
and aesthetic enhancement that were more difficult to measure.
He would be grateful if Council agendized the natter, directed
staff to report back on the proposal's merits relative to the
proposal being carried forward, and make a decision to enable
them to live better for less.
6. Jim Wake waived his time in deference to the time already
spent on the sanctuary issue. He thanked Mr. Schrom for
taking time out from his purpose in attending the evening to
talk about the sanctuary issue.
CONSENT CALENDAR
MOTION: Cooaciimewber Sutor.us moved, seconded by Klein„
approval of the Consent Calendar.
Referral
ITEM 01, CAPITAL IMPROVEMENT PROGRAM - REFER TO FINANCE AND PUBLIC
WORKS COMMITTEE (FIN 3-2) (CMR:245:6)
Action
ITEM #2, REINFORCED FABRIC PAVEMENT (PWK 2-5) (CMR:218:6)
Staff recommends Council:
1. Authorize the Mayor to execute a contract with Raisch
Construction Company for $249,663.90, for the base bid work,
add alternate and additional repairs.
2. Authorize staff to execute change orders to the contract of up
to $37,000.
AWARD OF CONTRACT
kaisch Construction Company
ITEM #3„ UTILITY CONTROL CENTER (UTI 1-8) (CMR:240:6)
Staff recommends Council:
1. Authorize te Mayor to execute a contract with Page
Construction Company for $l,'81,944,
2. Authorize staff to execute change orders to the contract of up
to $162,000.
AWARD OF CONTRACT
Page Construction Company
ITEM 04 CONTRACT FOR WORKERS' COMPENSATION CLAIMS ADMINISTRATION
(PER 2- J (CMR: X44 :6 d
Staff recommends Council authorize the Mayor to execute the agree-
ment with Greenfield -Thompson Associates, Inc. for workers' com-
pensation claims administration services.
AGREEMENT - ADMINISTRATION 'OF WORKERS' COMPENSATION PROGRAM
Greenfield -Thompson and Associates
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4/14/86
I u E J U$ PASSED unanimously.
ITEM #5 PLANNING COMMISSION RECOMMENDATIONS RE ALTERNATIVE
DEVELOPMENT SCENARIOS FOR THE NEXT PHASE OF THE CITY-WIDE
TRANi RTATTON AND LAND USE STUDY (PIA 5-16) (CMR:241:6)
Planning Commissioner Ellen Christensen said there was probably an
infinite number of ways to fiddle with all the alternatives in
various areas. The Planning Commission's goal was to develop a
reasonable range of alternatives for each area. Build -out was a
bad scenario as an outside limie, and studying it would give
necessary documentaeion for changing and lowering the intensity of
development in all parts of the City. The Planning Commission
also tried to incorporate suggestions which came from the public_;
Director of Planning and Community Environment Ken Schreiber said
the overall City-wide stedy was authorized in the 1985-86 City
budget. Council approved a consultant contract and transportation
and air quality data were collected over the past fall and winter.
Staff also worked on identifying existing levels of development
and projects in process as well as alternative development
scenarios, which was the phase before Council that evening. The
role of alternative development scenarios was to create a backdrop
to rest behind the more detailed alternatives to be analyzed that
summer. The methodology involved identification of six alterna-
tives for various commercial, office, and other portions of the
community, including secondary school sites. The analysis of
those levels of development would then be input the Planning
Commission and City.Council would consider the coming summer in
identifying specific land use policies and levels of development
Council wanted to see as the main project in an Environmental
Impact Report (EIR). The data developed as part of the analysis
of the six alternatives would be important background information
that would find its way into the EIR in the alternatives' section
as well as, perhaps, the main part of the document. Staff ven-
t-ured tut in February with two reports to'the Planning Commission
with some trepidation regarding how the information on alternative
development scenarios would be interpreted. Staff's concern was
alternative development scenarios could be interpreted as develop-
ment proposals or potential zone changes, which was exactly oppo-
site of where staff was. The alternative development scenarios
noted in the February 14, 1986, staff report to the Planning
Commission on secondary school sites were not redeveloped as
proposals. One of the purposes of analyzing traffic and other
impacts of alternative development scenarios was to identify a
wide range of potential impacts and the relative difference
between existing conditions and any new use of the site. Staff
was not looking at development proposals nor zoning. The Planning
Commission took action on the two February. 14, 1986, staff reports
on two different evenings which were merged into the April 3,
1986, report contained in the Council's packet. The Chamber of
Commerce submitted a recommendation that higher levels of develop-
ment be considered for . the neighborhood commercial and service
commercial zones. He stressed the development scenarios -repre-
sented a range of development; however, in putting them together
staff was mindful--and-the Planning Commission concurred on.muCh
of it add in some areas went beyond yt3ff--of the objectives of
the Cit =wide study which included reduced excess development
potentialsin areas where the current uses were considered desir-
aole and were inconsistent with the scale of permitted develop -
lent. Another objective was, to the extent reasonable, to bring
the development potential of each commercial area into accord with
.the existing and expected traffic conditions which affected the
area,. Thus, the devel-opment altere tives tended to cluster around
the lower end of the development- range, The Chamber of Commerce
.suggested intermediate development levels be _considered. If that
was the desire .of Council all the details did not have to be
worked out that evening, but staff could be directed to, and
COu l d , adjust the sce'na ri os to incorporate one or both of the
Chamber's -suggestions. The suggestion was- an. 0.75 floor area
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4/14/86
ratio (FAR) for the neighborhood commerical and 1;1 in the CS
zones. At places that evening was a letter from ,Citizens for
Sensible Pla'ri1ng, Mr. Robert Ekedahl, (on file in the City
Clerk's office) which noted concern about. t:anford West and the
build out of 800 units, a level they found totally unacceptable.
The letter staff had not considered a "no development" alternative
and suggested they do so. The maximum of 800 units for Stanford
West represented a new refinement on the part of Stanford as to
the maximum development for Stanford West, and the development
alternatives considered a range of development as low as 250
units. The six alternatives would be evaluated against existing
conditions in terms of what was on the ground presently plus what
was approved throughout the City. For Stanford West it equalled
no development. Mr. Ekedahl's request for consideration of no
development would be considered in establishing the base condi-
tion, which was the existing condition, because it was no develop-
ment and traffic would then be analyzed for it as well as the
various development alternatives. The information would also be
available to the Commission and Council in setting out specific
policies Council wanted to see considered in more detail later in
the study. There was also a letter from the Palo Alto Unified
School District (PAUSD) (on file in the City Clerk's office). The.
issues contained in the letter were discussed at a City/School
Liaison Committee Meeting. The letter requested that for Jordan
Middle School, leasing of the entire building space for adminis-
trative And professional offices be considered, and reference Was
made to "as determined by a performance zone." PAUSD was pur-
suing, and City staff was cooperating in the effort, a detailed
analysis of the Jordan site including the development of a per-
formance zone which might expand the range for office uses per-
mitted within the public facilities zone. The difficulty with
i ncl ud i ng _the specific concept in the work staff would do for the
Citywide study was staff had no way of assigning a level of
traffic at that point to a performance zone. One of the purposes
of a performance zone was to identify the amount of traffic the
neighborhood would; accept, and staff did not know what that was.
If staff considered administrative and professional offices, he
suggested it would be as allowed in the OR zone, or a commercial
district, which might or might not be too intense a level of
development for consideration at that phase, which was something
Council should discuss'. Far the Palo Alto, Cubberley, and Gunn
High School sites, request was made for an alternative development
scenario to be included which recognized the adjacent commercial
for Paly and-Cubberley, and the limited manufacturing zone for
Gunn and the ,adjacent non-residential zoning. Reference was made
to the Seymour bill, and he deferred to the City Attorney to
comment. Staff did not believe inclusion of commercial or limited
manuf acturi sag alternatives were necessary under the Seymour bill,
but the alternative could be considered within the wide range of
developments alternatives. Regarding Gunn High School, the
Planning Commission included a restriction of access from the Gunn
site to Los Robles, Paradise, or Georgia, and the PAUSD requested
references to the restriction he deleted. Regardless of whether
-the references were there, in the traffic analysis, staff wpuld
not assume traffic would use Los Robles Avenue, Paradise Way, or
Georgia Avenue. He ,bel ieved the PAUSD's concern was' too early in
the .process to Wee spec fi c site decisions regarding access.
Counci lmember i(enzel asked whether projects in the pipeline were
included under existing development, build out options, or where
they occurred.
Planning Administrator Lynnie Melena said projects in the pipeline
would not be included under the options nor under existing devel-
opment. There would be ' a seventh alternative which WAS the base
or existing condition plus pipeline. The pipeline would include.
projects approved but not built, and some projects which were
actually built but not occupied at the time the traffic counts
were taken, so staff could accurately assess the impact of what
would happen when those projects were occupied.
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Councilmember Renzel assumed there was a good likelihood that
pipeline projects would be built at the maximum allowable or close
to it. Under the current zoning the base could be quite a bit
larger than what Council saw as existing.
Ms. Melena said the list of pipeline projects compared to the
number of parcels available was not that big of an increment. Not
all the projects were built to the maximum although a few were.
Councilmember Renzel asked if it was fair to assume most of the
pipeline projects would be built above the lower FARs that were
somewhere between the low and high range for those considera-
tions. She clarified projects might be below the higher one being
considered.
Ms. Melena believed some of the projects would be above the lower
two FARs, out projects might be below the higher one being con-
sidered.
Councilmember Klein was not clear on staff's position with respect
to the PAUSD's request that Council add alternative developments
with respect to Paly, Cubberley, and Gunn.
Mr. Schreiber said if Council wanted to consider alternative
developments with respect to Paly, Cubberley, and Gunn High
Schools, it was appropriate but not required under staff's inter-
pretation of State law. The Planning Commission tended to focus
school site redevelopment potential upon residential and lower
density and not commercial and office. In terms of whether it was
desirable for Council to study alternative developments, it was
basically a policy question. Staff recommended to the Planning
Commission it would be desirable to look at a broad range of
redevelopment uses including commercial, e.g., Paly, and commer-
cial on a portion of the Cubberley site, and some limited manu-
facturing on Gunn. The Planning Commission did not make the
recommendation and staff was comfortable with that decision.
Councilmember Klein asked staff if Council would learn some
information. Council tried to learn what happened if things were
developed one way rather than another, but Council could not study
everything and were not going to study 50 -story office buildings
nor turning Gunn into a farm. Within those broad ranges, he asked
if the investment of staff time was worthwhile if Council gained
useful information in planning the community.
Mr. Schreiber said staff believed it was a worthwhile investment.
Councilmember Klein referred to the information included at the
back of the April 3, 1986, staff report (CMR.231:6) which
reflected the letter from Mr. Peterson dated February 5, 1986,
from Stanford asking Council to change certain .'spects of the
scenarios and asked if staff believed the City adequately
responded to Stanford.
Mr. Schreiber said for 1050 Arastradero Road, staff was looking at
a research park alternative. Powers Lab site was outside of the
study area. The El Camino frontage, which was the Mayfield School
site and the corner properties down to El Camino and Mayfield, the
alternatives recommended by the Planning Commission were less than
requested by Stanford; higher density ws requested by Stanford.
For Stanford Shopping Center, the alternatives basically followed
what the University asked for in the range of square footage.
Essentially, the changes were incorporated.
Vice Mayor Woolley asked when Council looked at different areas,
whether it was all right to arrive at some different FARs for the
CS zone or different FARs for the CN zone, or whether Council
would get into trouble at the end of the line because it wanted a
uniform CM zone for the City or a uniform CS zone.
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Ms, Mcicna believed it :as fine to look at different CS FARs in
different areas of the City. Council did not have to look at the
same tines for each area because the study considered whether there
were certain areas of the City which could absorb more traffic
than others. Therefore, Council should look at FARs somewhat
individually.
Councilmember Sutorius was impressed with the process, the public
meeting activity, Planning Commission activity, and the thorough-
\ ness of the staff and consultant -produced materials to date. I«
recognized the original intent was not to have the alternatives go
to Council, but rather to proceed from the Commission level to the
next scheduled step. He asked if there was a particular bril-
liance or insight staff anticipated Council could offer at that
stage.
Mr. Schreiber said of course. Staff decided to insert a Council
review at that point to allow for additional public review and
because the alternatives world become a point of discussion in
later ane y si s. Staff believed it was appropriate for Council to
have an opportunity to influence the range and specific alterna-
tives to be looked at.
Councilmember Sutorius asked if he could assume all the caveats
offered in the staff materials, and repeated many times, still
cbtained. He clarified they were not development determinations
but might include alternatives which one or more Councilrnembers
might find abhorrent and were provided for the opportunity to test
possible outcomes under different situations.
Mr. Schreiber said Councilmember Sutorius' understanding of the
process was absolutely correct.
Mayor Cobb clarified the PAIJSD points 2, 3, and 4 related to the
interpretation of the Seymour bill. He clarified it was useful
for Council to look at the Seymour bi 1 l end if its interpretation
was different or not upheld, Council would be in a position to
deal with some factual data.
4se Melena believed Council's position would be upheld with
respect to the Seymour bill because of the language the legisla-
ture chose to describe Council's particular powers. Essentially,
the only limitation was Council could not rezone a site to park,
open space, recreation or .a similar designation unless it was
adjacent to that type of property and unless it acquired it in
some manner or the School District requested or agreed to the
designation. Other than that, Council had to zone a site to be
compatible with surrounding property uses. The term "compatible"
did not say "identical" or *the same," which she took to mean
residential would not be put next to industrial. "Compatible* was
a flexible term, and she believed it was chosen because it was
compromise legislation.
Mayor Cobb referred to the performance zone concept being con-
sidered at Jordan and clarified staff did not believe there was
any way Council could consider it because there was no way to
frame the problem. It seemed like a real possibility and Council
should have some data.
Mr. Schreiber said the Jordan performance zone concept was going
ahead with its own EIR and would move through the process, so a
lot of the data should be available that summer. At that point,
the data could be incorporated into the City-wide study, but it
did not presently appear feasible to add the performance zone as
one of the development alternatives since staff could not identiey
a level of traffic. Staff did not want to start making assump-
tions about level of traffic in the - Jordan neighborhood. The
public process was t.o start a week from April 17. The parallel
effort to specifically look at the issue would answer Council's
concerns.
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Mayor Cobb clarified before Council was a series of altalteenetives
which provided._a data base upon which to draw when Council finally
started making decisions with respect to which alternatives would
be kept and which would not be. He asked staff to explain when
the winnowiny down to fewer alternatives would properly take
place.
Mr. Schreiber said it was hoped the narrowing process would start
at the Planning Commission in June and move on to Council by July
or August.
Mayor Cobb clarified if there were unacceptable alternatives, the
time for him to deal with the question of unacceptability was
during the summer time frame.
Mr. Schreiber said that was correct.
Councilmember Renzel assumed when Council got to the winnowing
down process, it could use the data derived from that stage of the
process and perhaps refine additional options which might be more
or less restrictive than those outside the upper or lower bound-
aries of that study.
Mr. Schreiber said that was correct.
Councilmember Renzel said in Area 6 presently there were 1,170,000
square feet of existing space much of which was in hotels. She
understood 3,288,000 square feet could be added under current
zoning, which was a FAR of 2:1 in the CS and 1:1 in the CH.S The
reports discussed reducing the FAR to 0.35 in both the CS and CSI
zones, but she did not believe there were totals for how much
space could actually be built in the hotel area of Area 6. There
was a figure for the Traynor' property but not for the two general
zones. She asked if that figure was available.
Ms. Melena said the computer printout from which the figure came
was not 100 percent accurate. Staff did the hared work for the
Traynor property, but otherwise the figure was not available.
Councilmember Renzel tried to compile all the numbers to get an
idea of the framework in which Council was comparing things. She
asked if it was fair to say they were talking about something like
500,000 square feet ae an outside figure under the scenarios being
looked at instead of .x,000,000 square feet since it went from an
FAR of two to one-third.`
Ms. Melena said she had a printout and, under Alternative 5, the
figure came out of 628,000 square feet.
Councilmember Renzel clarified there would only be one alternative
with that FAR. Most of the other areas had a range of high and
low with some in between, and the particular area did not seem to
offer any numbers for the ranges, just assumptions.
Ms. Melena said a certain number of parcels were computed by hand
because of their unique situations, i.e,, the Traynor parcel, and
she did not feel comfortable with them at that point. In fact,
the .numbers she just quoted she would not count on 100 percent,
but they were good numbers to use for_ a _high point.
Councilmember Renzel understood there were almost 24 million
existing square feet of non-residential development in the City,
and the present build -out potential was somewhere between 24 and
26 million additional square feet, doubling the present figure and
the high and low scenarios. Columns 2 and 5 of the minimum build -
out column seemed to total up to approximately 3,000,000 square
feet and almost 5,000,000 square feet. She asked if that was the
range in those parameters exclusive of housing.
Ms. Melena could not confirm that figure. She had not totaled up
the areas.
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4/14/86
Counci lmember Renzel assumed about four employees per thrrirsand
;yuere feet, which seemed to be the way they allocated parking in
a tot of areas. In the framework of the minimum estimate, it
meant ul, to the high estimate 12,000 to 20,000 more cars.
Helene Wilson, 3650 LaCalle Court, referred to the Gunn lands and
urged Council to cross out options such as manufacturing and
industrial park. If any residential development was put there, it
should be no more dense than the surrounding area. Open land once
developed was gone forever, and the land adjacent to Rol Park was
a lovely corridor. She invited Councilmembers to bicycle through
the area. It was an oasis in the midst of the industrial park and
dense housing tracts. -
Bob Moss, 4010 Orme, spoke as Chairman of the Land Use and Zoning
Committee of the Barron Park Association and also as President of
the Palo Alto Civic League. The Civic League did not take a
specific position on school sites. Its position on the CS and CN
zones and the FAR was the FARs should not,be greater than 0.5 in
either zone, and Council should take a strong look at a lower FAR.
The office limits of 5,000 square feet per parcel should' be
retained. The Barron Park Association had some specific sugges-
tions which were adopted and were part of the Planning Commission
recommendations to Council. Addressing first the staff report
(CMR:241:6), on the bottom of page 4, Item 4, it clear stated
the through traffic •contribution to traffic in Palo Otto was
probably no more than 20 percent. It was a significant difference
from what the public, the Commission, and Council were told for
more than ten years. When Ted Pioguchi was Director of Traffic and
they were doing the Comprehensive Plan in the mid -1970s, the con-
stant complaint was between 40 and 45 percent of the traffic on
the major arteries: Alma Street, El Camino Real, and Middlefield
Road, was due to through traffic and no matter what Palo Alto did,
it could not get all the traffic eff its streets. The City
Council and Planning Commission could do something about the traf-
fic mess in Palo Alto, and the suggestion for a 0.75 FAR in the CN
zone was too high. It allowed more than double the existing FARs
in all the CN zones. There were CH zones, specifically in Area 6
along El Camino, which could not accept the amount of traffic they
had presently, and to increase it was unconscionable. He proposed
the FARs in both the CS and CN zones be 0.25 not 0.75. In the
case of the CS zone, there were some zones which would be tripled
if Council went to a 1 : 1 FAR. Regarding the issue of Gunn, the
basic question was expanding industrial and commercial uses on the
school sites. It was hardly profitable to spend staff, Council,
or Planning Commission time studying things which would never
happen. He assured Council industrial park development on the
Gunn site would never happen. The PAUSD request to keep open the
possibility of access to Gunn via Georgia Avenue, Los Robles
Avenue, and Paradise Way would not happen. ...Ernen Commissioner
Hirsch suggested studying a 7,000 square -foot lot size on the Gunn
site because it was what the adjacent properties were, it was only
true of his neighborhood. In the area north of Barron Creek, the
adjacent properties were R -I(929), 10,000 square foot minimum lot
size. Those lots' were all in excess of 10,000 square feet. Just
across Matadero Creek was the RE neighborhood of Roble Ridge, so
the actual adjacent residential properties were between 10,000 and
20,000 square -foot minimum lot sizes, which was what Council
shoisld be studying i.f it considered development at Gunn. When
Council selected alternatives for study, he suggested it remember
the Comprehensive Plan precepts not to expand industrial and
commercial use and to retain open space and parks in the City.
John Tow, 5110 W. Cypress Avenue, Visalia, with the firm of Quad
Consultants, was retained by the Traynor and Hill families to
monitor the Land Use and Transportation Study; to advise the
Traynors regarding the substance And direction of the study; to
represent their' interests in dealing with City as the study pro-
gressed and decisions were made with regard to the study's
outcome. He echoed Councilmember Sutor#us" comments. Coming to
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the community from outside he was impressed with the scope and
comprehensiveness of the study and the quality of the work he saw
to date. Council was familiar with the characteristics of both
the Traynor find Hill properties and the extent and scope of devel-
opment surrounding the properties. Mr. .Schreiber`s disclaimer
echoed by several Councilmembers taken into account, they were
still concerned ultimately Council would rezone as an outcome of'
the Land Use and. Transportation Study. The alternatives based on
the data base generated during the study, during the summer delib-
er4ti ons of the Planning Commission and Council,- might not neces-
sarily indicate less restrictive alternatives but he and his
clients would like the opportunity to discuss the different alter-
natives based on the data the City generated through the study
process. He requested serious consideration be given to alter-
natives at both extremes of the six scenarios outlined for their
project area. They hoped given the history of the property, the
build -out alternative would not be treated on a cursory or pro
forma basis as part of the study process; that the data and data
base associated with the alternative be as comprehensive as some
of the lesser intensive development scenarios included in the
study. Most Councilmembers were aware the Traynor and Hill prop-
erty was predominantly zoned CS until 1978, and there was a
compelling argument which said the build -out alternative appro-
priately studied for the property would be full CS development
rather than a mix of CS and various residential tones, which cur-
rently comprised the zoning on the property They were interested
i.n insuring the build -out alternative in its present form and
configuration be studied seriously and data be generated which
reflected the consequences of development of the property to that
intensity. Referring to Councilmember Renzel's comments, it was
important since he ' -recently became involved in the process, that
as they developed additional information on their own, it be given
access to staff and to the consultants .through staff to provide
them the benefit of analysis and some information which might be
helpful to them, the Planning Commission, and to Council as they
ultimately made decisions regarding the disposition of the Traynor
property.
Ellen Wyman, 546 Washington Avenue, said at a time when everyone
from the Downtown Study Committee, the Planning Commission, the
community, and Council seemed to agree, it was time to cut back on
build -out potential. It was important what they did City-wide be
consistent with what was being considered for Downtown. It wad,
urgent Council retain the lower limits of growth` as options in the
study. It made no sense to downzone Downtown where the most dense
development should be and then have inconsistent levels of devel-
opment elsewhere in town. Two examples were Stanford Shopping
Center and Town and Country Village, both of which were interested
in much more density then they currently had. She believed
Stanford started talc Ong about 20,000 additional square feet, or
50,000 or 100,000 additional square feet, and now said to look at
200,000 to 500,000 square feet. Since it was unknown what would
happen Downtown, there could be greater development potential
there than in all of the Downtown core. Traffic continued to be
the main problem in Palo Alto and dictated there not be a lot more
density at Town and Country, Stanfdr,d, or elsewhere. City-wide
was all inclusive and she urged Council retain its lower limits as
options in the study. She hoped that what Council believed might
be the r.i ght limit not be the lowest l i mi t studied. It happened
in the Downtown Study Committee's report when the lowest level it
considered was the one it chose. That which seemed .to be the
ideal should be a mid -point in the study in order :to know what
more and less development would do. It was imperative the lower
limits be retained as options in the, study,
Julian Cracker, Superintendent, Palo Alto Unified -School District
(PAUSD), referred to the performance zone and said the initial
concern involved the Jordan School site. The concept seemed to be
compatible on the surface regarding the Jordan situation where one
of the possibilities was to lease the entire site, but it was not
mentioned as a possibility. PAUSD wanted the possibility to be
7 0 6 1
4/14/86
recognized in some way. They were also discussing the possibility
of the other school sites being under a performance zone. Even
though data might be generated for the Jordan site, before the
completion of the study he urged Council consider the possibility
of the performance zone for the other secondary school sites.
Regarding the Seymour bill, the basic interpretation was probably
correct. Council was not required to permit zoning exactly com-
patible with the neighboring property, but PAUSD . raised the issue
because there was the question of the intent of the legislature to
serve as a balance between the Naylor legislation, which allowed
cities to purchase school district property at reduced prices, and
an attempt to give the school districts an opportunity to be on
equal footing with neighboring zoning. Although the driving
concern was the issue of downzoning in the particular situation as
it related to school district property, there was an additional
element of the Government Code which was, at best, questionable.
If the City and PAUSD got into a situation of disagreement, liti-
gation would have to proceed. Regarding access to the Gunn High
School site, it seeped premature to have a degree of specificity
having to do with access to the Gunn site for the purpose of the
study. PAUSD asked Council to delete the access portion and when
a specific project was presented to the City, it would be the
subject of an EIR. PAUSD did business with the City often based
on an appraisal. When interested in purchasing school district -
owned property, he asked Council to consider in the winnowing down
of the alternatives, if it was a downzoning or a lesser develop-
ment '.scenario. When they decided to talk about purchasing prop-
erty, the PAUSD was at a disadvantage because an independent
appraiser would put great stock ,i n what kind of scenario was used.
It was more than just a theoretical issue although he understood
the intent. PAUSD was pleased with the assurances of Council, but
there were some real financial concerns.
Vice Mayor Woolley referred to the Jordan site and said one of the
alternatives seemed to be close to what PAUSD requested with its
No. 1. It involved the PAUSD using the offices and 15,000 square
feet of private office for the building part of the site. She
clarified it would be similar to administrative and professional
offices to the extent they did not know the specific occupant.
For. Crocker said for the 15,000 square feet it was probably right.
The entire site contoi nett 95,000 square feet.
Vice Mayor Woolley said the PAUSD offices would occupy 70,000 to
75,000 square feet which would be the remainder.
Mr. Crocker said PAUSD also wanted to test the alternative of the
PAUSD occupying some of the site and the entire site being leased
for administrative or office space to the private sector.
Vice Mayor Woolley asked if the traffic generated by the PAUSD
using the Jordan site as offices be. appreciably different from
professionals using it as offices.
Ms. Melena did not believe there would be a big difference. Staff
would have to look at the kinds of general offices and go with the
trip rate, but she believed the traffic was comparable.
Uon Klages, owned 281 University Avenue and was president of the
Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber of Commerce submitted comments
to the Council (on file in the City Clerk's office) and : did not
endorse any specific level. It believed there were other sce-
narios to be considered when doing a drastic downzoning. The
Chamber requested Council consider a 1:1 FAR in relation to .every-
thing else. He would be pleased to see the City's study of 0.25
FAR and objected to an attitude which told him or the Council not
to consider something because it would never happen. The Chamber
of Commerce believed there were eiraerati c differences and requested
Council study somewhere in between in order to have the frame of
7 0 6 2
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reference to say 3.5 was correct or D.5 was correct and to know
that 1 :1 may or may not be correct. There was such a difference
from 3:l to 0.5 the Chamber recommended it be studied. The,
Chamber was interested in being a part of the meetings in order to
provide input, but Council needed the information to make a bal-
anced decision.
David Schrom, 302 College Avenue, said Palo Alto was dramatically
imbalanced with respect to employment and the availability of com-
mercial services relative to the amount of housing. He could not
imagine contemplating building one square foot more commercial
space. More commercial space would lead to greater demands for
housing and commuters pouring into the City and a general degreda-
tion of the quality of life accompanied by a higher per capita
cost and higher unit cost of municipal services. If anyone
doubted his concerns, he suggested a study of what those things
were like, and what they cost five or ten years or several hundred
thousand square feet ago. The information should be available in
order to contrast what was contemplated with what was done at some
point in the past. Stanford University was an advocate of exam-
ining possible scenarios where there was additional commercial
space and the PAOSD had its representatives similarly advocating
the contemplation of further commercial space. People who studied
the relationship between living things and the environment in a
scientific fashion said 20 years ago to shut Palo Alto to more
people. It was time to draw the line. To increase the range of
study, he suggested what was in existence be considered as the
mid -point and for every additional square foot contemplated in the
scenario of commercial space, he suggested converting one square
foot of commercial space under some amortization plan to residen-
tial space until the people who worked in the community were able
to live there without adding to the amount of building and pave-
ment and thus adding to the cost everyone needed to bear in order
to have the necessary municipal services.
John Mock, 736 Barron Avenue, generally supported examination of
the alternative development scenarios. He wanted to see a -compu-
tation of cumulative traffic in each scenario to help define what
was needed in terms of roads and intersection improvements in
order to support the traffic in each scenario. Global traffic
considerations would also help to define floor area ratios for
each of the specific areas. He hoped Council would consider minor
zoning changes in addition to redefining some of the zonings. He
suggested subzones more app=ropriate to particular areas.
Regarding the sub -area including Rickeys, Elks Club, and Dinah's,
he did not feel expansion of hotel facilities belonged in alter-
natives one and two. He believed Council should look at the
scenario involving eventual conversion to residential use, i.e.,
to allow existing uses and minor changes to those uses, but if
redevelopment occurred, it should be in the direction of
residential --not additional commercial. Regarding the Gunn High
School road situation, the roads were basically residential and
almost rural in nature and he did not believe they should be used
for access to the Gunn area. Information received from the pro-
cess should be used as guidelines and it should be the burden of
the applicant to slow they should be used otherwise. He did not
want to see a project go to the Planning Commission under the
assumption the _ Gunn High School roads wool sl . be used. After cared
ful study of the development alternatives, he hoped the Citywould
decide minimum development was the- best for Palo Alto. He
believed it was. If Council decided to modify some of the devel-
opment alternatives such as those recommended by the Chamber of
Commerce, he suggested Council consider a development scenario
which involved minimum commercial development and a moderate, but
sensible amount of residential development in the hopes of
resolving a long-standing- problem.
7 0 .6 3
4/14/86
Lo=s Vanderbeek: 736 Barron Avenue= suppnrted the Barron Park
Association's alternative "G" and believed it was a clear state-
ment of what the majority of Barron Park residents wanted. She
hoped Gunn High School would remain status quo, but the area
behind Gunn should be preserved with minimal , if any, development.
Barron Park suffered many losses and was continually threatened
with noise from surrounding areas and oversized houses being
built. Natural factors should be weighed in any land use study as
well as how the residents felt about more development She urged
Council support what neighbors wanted for their own neighborhood.
E. Cal Boyle, 70 Homer Avenue, owned an acre of land in the Urban
Area 2 of the study. He owned a party rental store which was ` off
El Camino Real and a homeowner equipment rental store. For the
preservation of the CS areas, it was to retain the services. FARs
of 0.4, 0.5, and 0.75 were going to be studied in the CS areas
with office limitations. The present build out potential was 2:1.
He did not intend to build a 2:1 FAR on his property because it
did not fit the character of Palo Alto, even though it was an out
of the way spot and traffic could not be increased. Traffic at
the El Camino section was not a problem in front of the Area 2
portion. There was a severe limitation from a 2:1 FAR to the 0,5
FAR. He suggested Table 2 be changed to delete some of the office
areas and increase the office size to 12,000 square feet. In Area
2, it was not practical to put up a two-story building, retain a
small footprint, have 25 percent landscaping, about 20 percent
parking area, and still build a building with only 5,000 square
feet of office space on a piece of property over 40,000 square
feet in size. He wanted to see some office limitation but 5,000
square feet was arbitrarily chosen in the beginning and in a
practical sense it should be increased to about 12,000 square
feet.
James Witt, 722 Chimalus, lived in Barron Park, and urged Council
consider only the first three alternatives from the staff report
(Ci1R :231:6) . FIe believed the present use of school sites was
satisfactory and probably best in the future in that the school
system could probably derive enough financial benefit from leasing
the sites in the long run as opposed to developing them and
putting the moneys into the next year's budget and spending it.
He saw no reason to specifically exclude access to Gunn High
School from Los Robles Avenue, Paradise Way, or Georgia Avenue.
There was access from those streets but not by car.
COUNCIL RECESSED FROM 9:1U p.m. TO 9:25 p.m.
RETURN TO ITEM #5, ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT SCENARIOS FOR CITY-WIDE
TRANSPORTATION AND LAND USE STUDY
Mr. Schreiber asked the record to reflect a reaction to dr.
Crocker's indication that failure to consider commercial or other
higher density zoning somehow constituted a downzoning, and that
downzoning could be construed to be related to establishing the
purchase price for future City acquisition of open space. Neither
implication was valid.
MOTION: Mayer Cobb moved, seconded by as*lley, to adept the
!'lar ain� ,�.rbli issiea recaa.$wdati.as codified by staff to lacer -
prate into the Asst a*alycis pease of the City-wide Land Use and
Traffic Study the alternatives for each . of the wine study areas
and five soiree] sites ldeetified in the staff report (CMIt:231:C)
Mayor Cobb suggested going through the motion area by area with
the caveat no area need be belabored without a specific reason.
He presumed when Council finished, it would vote on the Planning
Commission recommendation as areaded by staff with Council
amendments.
7 0 b 4
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1
i
1
Councilmember Klein stressed the issue was a study, end 'ome
members of the public seemed to misunderstand what was being done.
Council was not setting policy or making decisions It was impor-
tant for the study to be as comprehensive as possible in order for
all segments of the community to have confidence lo the decisions.
There were limits on the City's resources, but the idea of
restricting or ruling out some studies because people believed
they would not like the conclusions seemed to echo, "I have my
conclusions, don't bother me with ' any facts." He wanted to know
the facts and waited the entire community to -know the facts.
Those worried about studying the various alternatives should want
them studied because if the alternatives were bad, the facts would
show it. He did not want the community to be a know nothing com-
munity which went on gut feelings and an unwillingness to study
thinys. He intended to support amendments which expanded the
scope of she study rather than ones which narrowed it.
AMENDMENT: Councilmember Klein moved, seconded by Setorl us, to
add to the study a review of an alternative with an FAR of .75:1
for -all Ch zones and -an alternative with an FAR of 1.00:1 for all
CS zoes with the understanding that staff report back on the
method to include the alternatives at the least possible cost.
Further, that this recommendation is: in no way intended to drop
out any of the lower FAR alternatives. Also, recognizing the pbs-
sibility of collasping the alternatives to fit is the new ones.
Councilmember Renzei said the scenarios were gradations, and if
the amendment proposed a new gradation, she asked whether it was
added to the existing six or substituted for one of the existing
six.
-Councilmember Klein said it was added.
Mr. Schreiber said the City's consultant contract called for
analyzing a specific number of bite+natives and there was some
impact on the consultant's work load and a potential cost for
adding more alternatives. If Council wanted to add an alterna-
tive, he recommended staff be directed to add it and make adjust-
rsents in the other alternatives to fit it into the gradation of
the range.
Councilmember Sutorius asked if tite staff's latitude might be
illustrated in Area 2 which presently had as Alternatives 3 and 4
0.5:1 and 0,'i:1 so the only difference was how the PC was looked
at. Alternatives 3 and 4 seemed to neatly collapse into one, and,
therefore, the amendment was not a seventh alternative. As
Council went through the other alternatives, the same type of
latitudes were facilitated by certain of the recommendations which
might collapse.
Mr. Schreiber said that was staff's objective.
Councilmember Renee] referred to items 3 and 4 collapsing and
asked if the Holiday Inn would be incorporated within the 0.75
rather than as a separate square footage.
Councilmember Sutorius assumed the Holiday Inn was an isolated
situation, which could be looked at in and of itself.. If it were
on a piece of paper, somebody _yould look at it and cite the
impacts of 64 additional_ rooms plus 4,200 square feet of
restaurant.
Councilraembe►� 'Renzel understood staff would also' :look at the
effects' Of the cumulative changes on the levels of service 'at
various intersections.. Saying there were "X" number more cars
would net show the same interrelationship she understood would
return from the study.
7 0 6 5
4/14/86
Mr. Schreiber said the effort was to get as much differentiation
among the various suh-areas of each land use study area. Some of
the alternatives wore close in order to pick out one difference to
analyze. There might be other ways to incorporate besidee col-
lapsing Alternatives 3 and 4. If staff collapsed Alternatives 3
and 4, the objective would still be to try to separate the Holiday
Inn, if possible, to allow some differentiation and analysis.
Mayor Cobb said the proposed amendment coupled with staff having
the flexibility requested would not result in eliminating some
lower development alternative. If there were ways to streamline
the process staff would do so, but staff would not take out any
important lower development alternatives in which Council Might be
interested.
Mr. Schreiber said that was correct.
Councilmember Renzel understood the amendment included 0.75 in CN
and 1.0 in CS throughout all nine areas where they occurred.
Councilmember Klein said that was correct.
Councilmember Renzel realized Council were directing staff to
interrelate, but there might be options that were important to
analyze in the upper range. The amendment was broad and could
make drastic changes in the options.
Councilmember Klein did not agree. It was suggested staff be
directed to return to Council with a method to include the alter-
natives at the least possible cost, but not to rule out the pos-
sibility of making a seventh alternative because the amendment was
not intended to drop out any of the lower FAR alternatives already
included in the study. The alternative was meant to be an addi-
tional 'item of study with the proviso staff could return with
recommendations how to best include the item by doing such things
as collapsing the studies in Area 2,
MAKER AND SECOND AGREED TO INCORPORATE LANGUAGE THAT STAFF
REPORT BACK ON A METHOD TO INCLUDE THE ALTERNATIVES AT THE LEAST
POSSIBLE COST, FURTHER, THAT THIS RECOMMENDATION IS IN NO WAY
INTENDED TO DROP OUT ANY OF THE LOWER FAR ALTERNATIVES. ALSO,
RECOGNIZING THE POSSIBILITY OF COLLAPSING THE ALTERNATIVES TO FIT
IN THE NEW ONES.
Vice Mayor Woolley said the answer to Councilmember Klein's first
question seemed to be that staff was not going to add a seventh
alternative because the City already had a contract with the
consultant. She asked if it meant amending the contract with the
consultant.
Mr. Schreiber said probably. Staff was reluctant to expand the
contract amount. '
Vice Mayor Woolley said at least two zones had a little CH or CS,.
and some of the zones had no 'CN or CS. The greatest concern was
along El Camino Real, No. 2, 7, 8, and 6; the El Camino corridor.
Midtown had some C.N but so little it was not really worth the
trouble of rearraaging the categories in the study, and the same
was true in the San Antonio Road area, which was already carefully
studied.
SUBSTITUTE AMENDMENT: Vice Mayor Woolley moved, seconded by
Levy, to apply tkt study of .75:1 for all CN zones and a FAR of
1.00:1 for all CS zones to the El Camino Corridor including Areas
Z, 7, 3, and E�
Vice Mayor Woolley asked whether it was possible in those four
areas to accommodate the additio al information without having a
seventh alternate category.
Ms. Melena opined staff could look at the alternative within the
six. One of the present alternatives would have to be deleted,
but it would probably be the office development limit. In the El
Camino area, Alternatives 2 and 3 in the CS zone were similar, and
were the special zone area at the south end of El Camino. The
only difference was in one case staff grandfathered uses and in
the other case did not. She believed those alternatives could be
condensed to one alternative. There were ways of doing so which
really did not affect the FAR Out rather looked at uses. It was
different for each area.
Vice Mayor Woolley asked staff tc comment on the Midtown area and
the ,importance or lack thereof of examining the CN at a 0.75.
Ms. Melena was reluctant to encourage 0.75 in the Midtown area
because of the large amount of development which recently
occurred. The community was not receptive to much additional
development, and 0.5 seemed to be high enough for the area.
Vice Mayor Woolley asked if staff's recommendation not to make the
CN 0.75 in the Midtown area was based more on what they believed
the ultimate outcome would be, or that it would be hard to work it
into the study without creating a seventh alternative.
Ms. Melena believed it could be worked into the study, and staff's
recommendation was based more on the outcome concern. An FAR of
0.5 might be more than enough development.
Vice Mayor Woolley wanted to include that area if the seconder
agreed.
Councilmember Levy believed if the substitute amendment included
Area 3, Council returned to the original amendment.
Vice Mayor Woolley said San Antonio was left out.
Ms. Melena said the Charleston Shopping Center was in Area 5.
Councilmember Levy suggested returning to the original amendment
as a good overall view, and Council could amend as they went
through each area.
SUBSTITUTE AMENDMENT WITHDRAWN BY MAKER AND SECOIII
Councilmembee Levy also believed Council should Study extremes to
get to the middle ground. In many cases the built -out scenario
was unrealistically extreme, and 'ie agreed with the amendment
because he wanted to bring the extreme down to a level to shed
more light on the likely scenarios, e.g., Area 2 jumped from an
0.75E FAR to a 2:1 as Scenario 5 in the CS zone, which was too much
of a jump. A jump from 0.75 to 1.00 was satisfactory to give
Council a better perspective on the total development envisioned.
Bringing in the 0.75 for CM and the 1.0 for CS was appropriate,
and it might also be appropriate to bring in the 1.0 fcr CC in
the area which was the one place it occurred.
Councilmember Fletcher referred to the deletion of office uses it
the study in order to add the new dimension. She asked if it
meant there would be no analysis .of the impacts of office uses.
Ms. Melena said staff would keep office uses in. It would be more
difficult to identify the traffic that went with the offices.
Staff would probably have to combine the traffic issue with an
increase in another sub -area, so it might be harder to pull out
the effect of the office limit in an alternative,
Councilmember Fletcher wanted to concentrate on the impact of
offices in the City, which she believed were, significant, and it
would-be good to have it documented. If office uses were deleted,
she would vote against the amendment.
Ciunciiiiembee Renzel said excess capacity existed ire the areas
where there were CS and CM_ zones, particularly the CS zones.
Area 2, Urban Lane, had about 500,000 existing square feet and a
build -out for five times as much. A major shift was needed from
the 2:1 FAR in order to avoid a major impact, and an FAR of 0.75
ellowed for a middle range. Because some areas had remaining
street capacity did not mean citizens wanted to bring those
streets to level -of -service "F" by concentrating development
there. Everyone wanted to get through one or two intersections in
a smooth -flowing pattern, and it was foolish to look at numbers
higher than those recommended by the Planning Cvmmissfon which
alone would allow the City anywhere from a 15 to- 20\ percent
increase in development over the present. The citizens were not
happy with where the City was presently and she opposed the amend-
ment.
Mayor Cobb believed Councilmember Klein was correct to make the
study as inclusive as possible. Because a Councilmember supported
an amendment hardly meant the amendment would be supported as a
formal alternative downstream. An amendment which broadened the
scope of the study might provide the data base for rejecting an
alternative, whereas Council's would not have the data base if it
did not look at the alternative. There were many alternatives he
found unacceptable, but Council's reviewing them would make it
easier to point out why they were unacceptable. The inclusive
data base was important and would enable Council to winnow the
alternatives down to the kinds of modest -growth alternatives
everyone wanted.
Councilmember Renzel said Council hoped to encourage particular
uses in the CS and CM zones, and those uses became less economic
the more Council raised the FAR, which defeated a Council objec-
tive to preserve service commercial uses.
AMENDMENT PASSED by a vote of 7-2, Renzei s Fletcher voting
"no..
Mr. Schreiber clarified staff would modify the scenarios and
return to Council with an informational item rather than an agenda
item. If it became an agenda item, staff would automatically have
to stop some of the consultant work and add approximately six
weeks delay into the process.
Mayor Cobb clarified Mr. Schreiber's interpretation was correct..
Area 24 The Urban Lane
Councilmember Levy believed it would be a good idea to have an
0.75 FAR in the CC zone as an alternative, Council was limiting
itself to 0.5 FAR and he saw two scenarios with some degree of
probability --the 0.35 and 0.5. In order to •get a better fix on
the two scenarios, he suggested an 0.75 FAR as an extreme rather
than a 3:1 FAR which was out of the ballpark.
AMENDMENT: Councilmember Levy wowed, seconded by Woolley, to
direct staff to add to the study s review of an alternative for a
.75:1 FAR for the CC Zone Area 2 - Urban Lane Area, at the least
cost possible.
Councilmember Patitucci referred to the 0.75 FAR and clarified in
a . residential zone on a single-family lot, if one built a two-
story house with 35 percent coverage, it was actually an 0,7 FAR.
Council was rot talking about'a range of alternatives which
amounted to massive amounts of.,development on property. It was
simply an alternative Council wanted to look at given the 0.35 to
0.75 FAR was a perfectly reasonable range.
04,4
Councilmember Renzel said residential zones were residential and
there was - a lot of difference between residential and the kinds of
uses which attracted commerce. The intersection of El Camino Real
at Embarcadero Road was already at level -of -service (LOS) "E" and
was protected to yo to LOS "F" If Wi 1 l ow Road ever went through.
It was foolhardy to go to limits higher than those set by the
_Planning Commission.
Councilmember Fletcher noted the higher the FAR the more offices
would be built. If Council wanted to keep things retail, lower
FARs would more likely produce retail construction.
AMENDMENT PASSED by a vote of 6-3, Menzel, Bechtel, Fletcher
rotting 'ono," '
AMENDMENT: Councilmember Klein moved, seconded by Patltucci, to
direct staff to add to the study a review of an alternative con-
sisting of the CC zone accompanied with the multiple family resi-
dential zones for Palo Alto High School site in Area 2 - Urban
Lane Area,
Councilmember Renzel assumed the amendment spoke to the Palo Alto
High School site.,
Ceunt'ilmember Klein said yes.
Councilmember Renzei understood Paly High was On Stanford land,
and if the Palo Alto Unified School District stopped using it as a
school, the land would revert back to Stanford.
Councilmember Klein assumed PAUSD and the University had a variety
of contractual arrangements which were modified since the con-
tractual arrangements rent back more than 50 years. He pointed
out Council was only deciding to study. His amendment was to
respond positively to Dr. Crocker's letter of April 14, 1986,
with respect to Area 2 to include an alternative for the Paly High
site to include a CC zone in combination with a multiple family
residential zone, etc.
Councilmember Renzel clarified the Palo High High School lease was
,not that different from the Gunn High School lease, and if the
use terminated, the land automatically reverted to Stanford.
Mr. Schreiber said the reversion of the sites to Stanford at the
end of school use was correct, but Stanford representatives also
indicated the issue might involve some negotiotions over compensa-
tion, use, etc,, and to not assume it was an automatic reversion.
Councilmember Renzel clarified the response was in regard to open
space and not commercial questions.
Councilmember Levy supported the amendment in the spirit of
studying alternatives although he found it hard to `conceive he
would ever approve the FAR on a specific project.
Mayor Cobb associated with the remarks of Councilmember Levy.
Councilmember Patitucci said when a major political public insti-
tution like the PAUSD asked Council , i r its process of collecting
information, to include a study it believed was an important .and
possible option, deciding on the underlying land lease was not a
relevant • point, nor was excluding it a relevant way to approach
the matter. Council needed to include the option to collect the
information if for no other reason than to help decide it was not
acceptable find to communicate it to the PAUSD and the rest of the
community who supported the PAUSD. He supported the amendment.
7 0 6 9
4/14/86
Councilmember Fletcher would support the amendment because she
believed it would prove commercial was out of the question et the
location. There were few locations in the City more congested
than Embarcadero Road.
Mayor Cobb also associated with Councilmember Fletcher's remarks.
Councilmember Klein said while he supported the PAUSO, with all
due respect, he wished it presented the information to Council
earlier than 7:30 that evening. It would have been helpful since
the issue had been pending a long time.
AMENDMENT PASSED by a vote of 8-1., Menzel voting "no.'
Area 3 the Midtown Area
Councilmember Fletcher was concerned the retail use would be
eroded in' Midtown, e.g., the Cornish & Carey office took over
three stores, and the particular section of the commercial area
was now mostly offices. She wanted to see retail retained at the
ground level on the Middlefield Road frontages in Midtown.
AMENDMENT: Councilmember Fletcher moved, seconded by Levy, to
direct the staff to add to the study a review of an alternative to
allow retail only on the ground floor in the CM zone area in Area
3 - Midtown Area, Middlefield frontage area.
Councilmember Klein was not opposed to the amendment but did not
understand how it worked in with the other alternatives. He asked
if it was in addition to, or would be worked into, each of the
existing six.
Councilmember Fletcher looked at the amendmente as an addition,
:e.e., in regard to Town and Country in Area 2, there were various
uses being studied.
Mayor Cobb asked whether staff viewed the amendment an addition or
something to be folded into the existing material.
Ms. Melena believed the amendment was seen as an alternative to be
fit into the six. It would not be a seventh alternative. She
asked whether the objective was to not have any new offices or to
have only retail.
Councilmember Fletcher clarified the objective was to have only
retail, but present used could be grandfathered or amortized
because the shopping neighborhood was a nice one. If Council
eroded the area with more offices, the usefulness of the retail
would be reduced, and gradually the area might all turn into
office use.
Councilmember Renzel was trying to understand how staff would dif-
ferentiate the traffic. Where there were presently officesr she
asked if the retail traffic count would be attributable to the
area.
Ms. Helena said staff would look k at increases in '+evelopment. For
example, if 50,000 square feet were allowed, one alternative would
say it would all be used for retail, and another alternative would
assume more of a mix `including some offices.
AMENDMENT PASSED onanimousiy.
Mayor Cobb wanted to ensure the Jordan performance zone was not
lost in the process. If staff would assure him the separate EIR
would cover it and go with the study, he would notmake a specific
amendment.
Mr. Schreiber said the matter would not be lost. A separate EIR
would cover it, and staff could add the data later in the City-
wide process.
7 0°7 0
4/14/86
Mayor Cobb clarified there were no timing problems in terms of the
performance zone.
Mr. Schreiber said not at that point.
Mayor Cobb said based on Mr. Schreiber's statements he would not
make a formal amendment.
Area 4, the East Bayshore Area
Councilmember Renzel referred to the Geng Road parcel and asked
about the FAR the City assumed for the site prior to the
election.
Ms. Helena. said prior to the election there was no FAR. In the
study, staff assumed an FAR of 0.3:1,
Councilmember Renzel clarified the 4,900 square -foot office
building was calculated on 3.54 acres, and she assumed it
reflected some FAR.
Ms. Melena said yes, 0.3:1
Councilmember Renzel clarified LM -3 was the expected zoning. She
asked why the particular site was not being evaluated with the
same criterion as the other LM -3s in the report.
Ms. Melena said it was being evaluated with the same criterion.
The site was separately called out because it was unique, but
staff assumed an FAR of 0.3:1.
Councilmember Renzel clarified there was a gradation in GM(B) but
not in LM -3.
Area 5, the Southeast Area
Councilmember Fletcher believed the study was to identify possible
new housing sites. She; did not know the lot adjoining Mayfield
Mall on San Antonio Road was designated as parking for the
Hewlett-Packard development and asked if it might not be con-
sidered for housing in the long -tern because the lot next to it
we ` zoned for housing,
Mr. Schreiber said the site could be considered for housing. The
site was occupied by an automotive service until recently and was
presently part of a unified site plan where the City approved the
parking, but Mountan View app^oved most of the development plan.
Councilmember Fletcher clarified the lot in question was on the
other side of the driveway., It was a long vacant lot, and she saw
by the zoning map only a part of it was zoned for multi -family
housing, and the part adjoining the driveway, on the east side of
the driveway, was zoned commercial.
Ms. Helena believed Councilmember Fletcher referred to a :,mall
parcel. The longer int next to it was zoned RM-4,
AMENMIiE$T Ceraci lmewber Klein roved, seconded by Patitecci, to
direct the staff to add to the study a review of an alternative of
the CE aoa* Accompanied with the multiple family residential zones
fer the Cabberley Nigh Sche•l site io Area 5 - Southeast Area.
Councilmember Levy supported the amendment. Council could take it
as a given that in no _ area of the City would the public look
favorably upon much development. It . was clear the community
wanted minimal development. He •made the point in connection with
any review Council made of Cubberley„ but Council should be clear
Cubberley was not, a special situation.
7 0 7 1
4/14/86
Councilmember Renee) said when she campaigned _for City Council
people were interested in what Council wanted to see on school
sites and seemed_ satl_sfied_ school sites would generally -be looked
upon as reflecting their neighborhoods. In the case of Cubberley,
residential was across the street and over the back fence across
Nelson Drive. It was ironic in a City-wide traffic study where an
attempt was made to minimize the future impacts of development;
particularly in non-residential zones where there was peak -hour
traffic, Council was taking zones not previously considered for
commercial use and considering adding commercial in. It was a
step in the wrong direction.
Mayor Cobb said since it was his neighborhood, the alternative has
about zero chance of getting his support in the long run, but in
the spirit of being inclusive And getting tee data needed to
shoot down what he believed was a bad idea, Council needed to
include the alternative in order to prove they should not do it
later. He would support the amendment.
Councilmember Fletcher clarified the Middlefield Road frontage
would be studied for commercial.
Mr. Schreiber said that was correct.
Mayor Cobb said the commercial study assumed open space acquired
by the City had multi -family on a portion of the developed part of
the site, and commercial zoning --if Council looked , at the alter-
native --on the part which fronted on Middlefield Road.
Mr. Schreiber said that was correct.
NOTION PASSED by a vote of 8-1, Re*zel voting "rte."
Area 6, South E1 Camino Real
Vice Mayor Woolley said for the CS area staff suggested there be a
special situation, and an FAR et 0.35 be considered for all devel-
opment excepting hotels and existing housing uses. Hotel develop-
ment would be studied at the 0.5 instead of a 0.35. She wanted
staff to also study the hotel at 0.75 if it could be worked into
the options.
AMENDMENT: Vice Mayor Woolley saved, seconded by Klein, to
direct staff to add to the study a review of an alternative of
.76:1 far hotel only uses=
Vice Mayor Woolley said when Council chase the 0.5 last summer,: it.
did so in less thane a clear fashion. Staff originally recommended
0.75 because of a belief ..hotels did not generate traffic at the
same rate as other commercial concerns.
Councilmember Renzel said the staff recommendation of 0.75 for
hotels referred to hotels used exclusively as hotels, which would
not apply to Rickeys, Holiday Inn, and Hyatt Palo Alto. Anything
with convention facilities and restaurants was not in the same
traffic generation pattern. She asked if staff was going to
`i sure the 0.75 on a hotel only use, or 0...75 where half, or all
but a little. could be restaurants and convention facilities.
Mr.. Schre1 ber said hotel only.
Councilmember Renzel said there was a diversity of other alterna-
tives for some of the acreage in the area, and the impacts of
changing one of them from 0.5 to 0.75 for hotel would make it
harder to compare with some of the _other options within those
development scenarios to see . .+ that was causing : the problem. She
was concerned about toomany variables from scenario to . scenario
and whether it would be possible to pull out , what caused the
chew. She asked whether such a scenario could be included and
whether it was possible to independently assess the impact.
7 0 7 2
4/14/86
Ms. Melena referred to the CS area and believed Alternatives 2 and
3 could be collapsed into one. She recommended Alternative 3 be
used eliminating Alternative 2 which was similar except for what
the grandfather provisions would be.
Councilmember Renzel agreed Alternative 2 had R-1 (or R-2), RM-1,
RM-2, etc., and Alternative 3 had all RM-3, so they were going to
be different.
Ms. Selena focused on the CS line and was concerned staff had to
also add in a 1:1 FAR for the CS zone and would be adding two to,
what they presently had. It would be difficult, but staff would
let Council know if it would change the number of options looked
at if they included the 1:1.
Councilmember Renzel said initially a lot of the areas with hotels
on them were zoned residential which permitted hotel use as a
separate conditional use. A large area of residential was built
as hotels, and she was not sure it was productive to intensify
them and questioned whether Council was getting objective infor-
mation from staff,
POTION PASSED by a vete of 8-1, Renzel voting 'no:"
Area d, El Camino/Stanford Research. Park
A$E$9$E$T: Coenci lmeaber Klein moved, seconded by Patitecci , to
direct staff to add to the study a review of acre alternative .of the
LM zone accompanied with the miltip =a family residential Luncs or
the Gan Nigh School site in Area 8 - El Camino/Stanford Research
Park,
Councilmember Fletcher reminded Council of the Ccmp F eilens i ve P i are
policy to reduce employment potential. If there was not much
employment there now, there was no point in looking at more
employment.
Councilmember Bechtel was willing to go along with Councilmember
Klein to expand some of the alternatives to include some of the
wider ranges, but there was no way she supported those extremes
and did not want to consider the amendment as an alternative.
Councilmember Klein did not disagree with his colleagues''surpr1se
at the PAUSD request to include the LM zone in the study and did
not know why it was requested. He felt strongly about comity with
other governmental jurisdictions and preferred to go along and
study the alternative. Once the alternative was out on the table,
he believed the PAJSL) would recognize it was not a good idea. It
was important to remember it was a study not a decision -making
process, and ,Council should include as much as possible in the
study, -He deliberately did not include the second part of the
:PAUSO's request referring to .Los Robles, Paradise, and Georgia
streets because it did` not give rise to what the study was at that
point, and was not necessary for Council to worry about.
Cgoracilise ber Fletcher, clarified the intent. of the study was
traffic .:generation --riot to analyze employment figures of all the
di fferent zones. The study would give Council partial aresr,:ers to
the uses and would be limited to -traffic. Council also needed to
be concerned about th3 housing generated by increased employment.
She saw no point in adding it as a study factor when it would not
give the -information Council needed.
11t1EXONEXT PASSED by a vet_e of S-4, Bechtel, Cobb, Fletcher,
!teazel rattail *sax.'
Councilmember Sutorius agreed studying an extreme or putting in
something -which appeared to be an encouragement toward development
was in no way a long-term decision. He was pleased when citizens
cited particular reasons why Council needed to closely control
development. He agreed with Councilmember Renzel with respect to
the CS and CH zones, particularly as applied to the CS. He
believed everyone in Palo Alto agreed there were services typ-
ically in the CS area which they wanted to retain and enhance
because those services characterized Palo Alto's vitality and
importance. The focus 'was on traffic in the study, and if Palo
Alto lost the opportunity for those kinds of services, there would
be a negative impact, on traffic, and Palo Altans would go out of
town to obtain those services.
Mayor Cobb thanked Commissioner Christenson for the extensive work
of the Planning Commission, staff for a thorough and well -
organized report, and Dr. Crocker. of the PAUSD for its
cooperation.
MOTION AS AMENDED PASSED unanimously.
ITEM 06, POLICY ISSUES DISCUSSION - REFERRAL TO APPROPRIATE
COMMITTEE(S)-CVO 4) (CMR:225:6)
MOTION: Vice Mayer Woolley moved, seconded by Bechtel, to adept
staff recommendation to refer the appropriate issues to the Policy
and Procederes (P&P) Committee and the Finance and Public Works
(F&PW) Committee.
Councilmember Fletcher said under the P&P Committee referrals,
No. .1 was Hazardous Materials, the original topic referred to the
P&P Committee. The Committee voted to retain the transportation
of hazardous materials in Committee. If Council went back in the
Minutes, they would see the P&P Committee believed the matter
needed to be studied further.
Acting City Manager June Fleming said that was correct. It was an
oitstanding assignment for staff to return with the specific part
of hazardous materials to the Committee. Transportation of
hazardous materials was a general update of the larger topic of
hazardous materials.
OT iO4 umaaiweesly.
ITEM 07, CONTRACT FOR THERMAL ENERGY STORAGE UTILITY PROGRAM
EVALUATION (UTI 3.6) (CMR:231:6)
MOTION: Counci lmember Levy maved, seconded by Sutorius, to
/IOW staff recommeadat$ to:
1. Aethorize the receipt of contract moneys threughi acceptance
aril signature by the Mayer of the contract awarded by Western;
144
2. Approve the Budget Amendment Ordinance to reflect receipt add
disbursement of contract moseys for teat race work performed.
AGREEMENT MORONIC ANALYSES FOR CONSERVATYer
ANO RENEiiAE'LE ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES
Wester' Area Power AUUi bi strat 1 es
ORDINANCE MO entitled 'ORUI NANCE OF THE CONNC I L OF THE
CITY O ALTO AMENDING THE BOBGET FOR TIE FISCAL
YEAR 19$ 5-$16 1 TO MOM AN A#OITIONAL APPROPRIATION ` FOR
THE ENERGY SERVICES POOORAM Of TOE. ELECTRIC OTILITY AND
TO P*OY1OE FOR NECEIPT. OF *ITEM FROM WESTERN AREA
POWER ADMINISTRATION*
7.4 7 4
4/14/86
Councilmember Patitucci clarified the budget amendment was the
direct re.;ult of the money received for the project, so was a one
for one den', -
Mr. Young said that was correct.
MOTION, PASSED unanimously.
ITEM #8, REQUEST OF COUNCILMEMBER BECHTEL AND VICE MAYOR WOOLLEY
RE SUUND BARRIER WALL ALONG ROUTE 101 (ENV 5-1)
Councilmember Bechtel said things were moving along with the sound
barrier wall along Route 101. The item was to respond to the
requests from residents along there and ensure Council support to
CalTrans that a sound barrier along 101 was important.
MOTION: Ceenciiaeaber Bechtel moved,-,secooded by Weelley, that
Council indicate its support for inclusion of- the sound barrier
wall in the Route 101 wi dens'ng project.. Ferteeer, that Cal Trans he
advised to keep the City and interested residents folly informed
of progress on the project and, the date(s) of the public
hearing(s), providing •pp•rtuaities for comment and reactions to
the proposed placement and design of the walls.
Councilmember Patitucci asked if Council would have input into the
design of the .wall. It was going to be an ugly wall.
Councilmember Bechtel believed CalTrans would work hard on it.
Councilmember Renee] was sorry it was necessary to have concrete
walls on every road in the state. They were a blight on the
scenery, but when the freeways were adjacent to peoples' homes,
the people deserved protection.
MOTION PASSED unanimously.
ITEM #9L.REQUEST OF COUNCILMEMBERS KLEIN, PATITUCCI, BECHTEL AND
VICE MAYOR KUULLEY RE ORAL COMMUNICATIONS PROCEDURES tCOU 3-5S
MOTION: Councilmember Kleia moved, seconded by Woolley,
amend Z.04.06O(2) •f the Municipal Code to provide:
a) That there b* an overall time limit of 30 minutes on Oral
Communications;
b) If mere than six individuals indicate a desire to speak during
Oral C•omuni cat i vas,; the Mayor shall select six at raued•i. If
those six use less than 30 aiaeetes, atbers,may speak until the
30 minute tine limit is •xhoested; - and
c) Any members •f the public desiring to be heard during Oral
Comaioeicatians, but who are not heard at the --start of the
Council meeting due to the 3$ minute time limit, shall[ he
heard after csapl et i are of the agenda. :
Jim Wake, 244 Robin Way, Menlo Park-, assumed the motion responded
to strategies of sanctuary advocates to use Oral Communications to
further their efforts. he did not object to the motion and under-
stood Council's- wanting- to limit Oral -Communications' to expedite
meetings and have control over what happened at a City Council
meeting. 0n the' other hand, there was an interest on the part of
the public, --to have Council discuss a particular- issue, and Council
failed to respond. Some issues were not viewed as "local" issues;
however, if an issue was a global one but concerned the local
population it became a local issue. The frustration felt by the
public regarding the sanctuary movement, was Coureci'i did not
respond to their concerns. The public _wanted`' some pPocedure by
which Council _ would respond to requests to address issues. -of
concern so people did not have to return week after week and take
up the amount of time already taken with the sanctuary issue.
7 0 7 5
4/14/86
John Mock, 736 Barron Avenue, did not oppose the sanctuary move-
ment and took no position as to whether it was an appropriate
issue to be discussed by the City Council. He wanted to see a
procedure adopted which was legal, judicious, and polite which
allowed members of the public to speak on issues and. not have to
speak at 11:00 p.m. or 12:00 a.m. when nobody was listening.
Councilmember Levy believed the motion before Council 143S judi-
cious, polite, realistic, and fair. The key business of the
Council was its agenda and Council owed it to the public to move
i ahead with its agenda n a positive way, and delaying the movement
by no more than 30 minutes was appropriate Oral. Communications
was an importantmechanism to hear those members of the public who
had difficulty communicating with Council in any other way. He
was concerned there could be evenings when there would be many
speakers on one issue and those speakers would crowd out those few
who might want to speak to some other. issue. Oral Communications
issues often involved important local items, and often Council
acted, on the issue the following week. Sometimes Council
agendized a problem the same evening.
AMENDMENT: _Coenci lmember Levy moved, seconded by - . Srtorirs,
after tltt cards are submitted, if there is more than one person
wanting to speak on a subject, the Mayor shall randomly select one
speaker on each subject until the 30 -minute period is exhausted.
Councilmember Levy suggested Council us' the random drawing out-
lined in b) of the main motion, but there be a separate drawing
for each subject matter so the speaker in the minority with an
issue would not be crowded out during the first 30 minutes and be
forced to wait until the end of the evening. The practical result
of the motion, since few people would wait until the end o.f the
evening, was 0rai Communications would consist of 30 minutes or
less at the beginning and those who did not speak then,woulde in
fact, not be heard.
Mayor Cobb asked for clarification about how the amendment dealt
with the situation of eight different subjects, whose discussion
would take more than 30 minutes.
Councilmember Levy said there was never such an occurrence in his
tenure, but if there were six different subjects, the first six
speakers would each cover a different subject. If there was any
time left in the 30 minutes, they would go on to the next subjects
available.
Mayor Cobb clarified the 30 -minute limit still obtained.
Councilmember Levy said yes.
Councilmember Renzel said when she was a citizen who spoke wider
Oral Communications, she wrote "oral Communications"- for the
subject, and a lot of people might do that. Many who spoke under
Oral Communications did not understand the process or know how
much information to ck:lvey. It was highly discriminatory to start
picking and chosing, and she would not support the amendment,
Councilmember Klein agreed with - Councilmember p'enzel. He
struggled with the amendment -because while was a good idea, it
would be difficult to enforce. People were unclear as to what
they were going to speak on and sometimes the subjects they spoke
on turned out to be not what they specified on their cards. With
regard to that evening's Oral Communications, some of the people
who spoke on the sanctuary issue might have been speaking about
the present Administration' -s Central American policy, which could
be one, two, or'three subjects. Rather than giving the Mayor a
10t of discretion, he preferred to see the . six speakers selected
at random.
7:0.7 6
4/14/86
Councilmember Patitucci shared some of the concerns of Council -
member Levy., He wanted to see Council go ahead with what it
currently had and see if it became a problem. If it happened some
subjects were not covered, Council could return and modify the
rules as easily as it made tnem.
Councilmember Sutorius said over the years he learned the combina-
tion of the City Clerk and the incumbent Mayor did a good job with
respect to Oral Communications. He wanted to see Council support
the amendment because he believed it was workable, and for the few
occasions where it went awry, nothing was really jeopardized. The
purpose behind the amendment was positive.
Councilmember Levy believed Council could deal with the Oral
Communication problem by having the slip request specificity as to
subject. He was concerned if Council had an organized crowd, 15
people might submit cards to speak and one member of the public
with a garbage collection problem, which was important for Council
to hear, might be crowded :out He wanted to try the =concept , to
see if it was workable.
Councilmember Bechtel concurred with Councilmember Levy. There
could be an organized yroup which believed if only six or eight
people spoke under Oral Communications, they wanted to be sure _ at
least some of them got to speak and put a lot of their names in to
increase the odds of being called out. It would not happen often,
but Council wanted to be sure they heard from people with legit-
imate City concerns.
Councilmember Fletcher asked Mayor Cobb how he would chose the six
at random if the amendment failed.
Mayor Cobb said he would get the famous basket the City Clerk had,
throw the cards in there, shake them` wel l and ask somebody else
to pick the six names out.
Councilmember Patitucci asked if it was possible to make sure
there was a° legitimate subject on them when the slips were handed
in. There was a need to hear everybody who could be heard.
Mayor Cobb said there was an inherent problem of unfairness. He
supported the main motion before Council, but unenthusiastically.
Local business was pushed off later and later into the evening.
While he did not like to see the public ever not get a chance to
speak on whatever issue, one gentleman went before Council on
many occasions: requesting action on .a particular item and Council
had not done that. The message was the particular Council would
not take action on the item. It was unfortunate Council had to go
to such as extreme, but it was necessary and on those rare occa-
sions when organized groups squeezed out the lady whose street was
flooded, he believed the public would react negatively .to that
kind'of organized, pushing aside of important but not exciting
local issues, and perhaps in the long... run would make the. point
_ that needed to be made. He would vote against the amendment and
for the main motion. Although he sympathized with the thrust of
the amendment, he did not see how to do it.
AMENDMENT PASSED by a vote of 6 3, Cebb* Klein, Menzel voting
ae .�"
Councilmember Renzel said when she . first followed _ Council issues,
Oral Communications was at the end of the agenda. After some
years when patient members of the publicwaited until 11.00 ..p.m.,
12:01 a.m.; 1:00 a.m. in the morning, Council decided to put_ some
Oral Communications at the beginning of the meeting. .Previous
Councils were also concerned about whether to delay getting down
to rey ul arlyeagendi aced business and established a policy of . 15
minutes at the beginning of the meeting and the rest of the Oral
;Communications 'at the end. There was no problem with Oral
Communications delaying the business of the City. In Council's
7 0 7 7
4/14/86
recently f udi f ied procedures Orai Communications was put at the
beyi nni ny of the agenda with no limit. Oral Communications was
the part of the agenda ,where the * public, was invited to address
Council on issues not on the agenda, was a forum. for ci ti tens i to
speak on whatever issue was of interest to them, and was a way for
Council to receive information. In the event Council was over-
whelmed under Oral Communications, Council had the option to con-
tinue the item to the end of the agenda, or to move some other -
items up at some point in Oral Communications in order to get
business done.whiie Council was fresh. .The simple way to not have
to make decisions about who got to speak at the beginning of the
meeting was to not pass the motion and change of procedures.
Council's tradition was to welcome and be open to members of the
public.
City Attorney Diane Lee noted the ordinance would not he effective
for 45 days from' the date she returned the ordinance to Council,
Which would be either the next week or the week after. She would
return the ordinance on the Consent Calendar.
Councilmember Sutorius supported the amendment but would not sup-
port the main motion because he shared a lot of Councilmember
Renzel's comments. Even with the amendment, which was a signifi-
cant improvement, he was concerned the luck of the draw would not
necessarily distinguish there was a seven -year -old or thirteen -
year -old student who wanted to speak either from a school nature
or issues they were interested in, and they would not be able to
stay until 11:00 p.m. It was a shame to shut off that kind of
communication by inaccessibility.
Councilmember Fletcher believed :Oral Communications exceeded the
half-hour rule once since she had been on the Council. She did
not see it happen often enough for Council to change the rules.
If people wanted to speak, they arrived at 7:30 p.m. and expected
to speak during Oral Communications
Councilmember Klein said .if the.problem ever -occurred :again, it
was ,suggested the problem could be cured by making a motion at the
time to change the rules. He reminded his colleagues when Council
had the problem a few weeks ago, several Counci lrnembers pointed
out it was unfair to change the rules at the time of the meeting.
It could not be both ways. When the sanctuary issue wes heard
under Oral Communications tho first time, a motion was made to cut
nff Oral Communications after one-half hour, and several:Council-
members said it was unfair because advance notice was not given.
Now it was suggested it could be done when Council wanted and
Council did not need to change its rules. It was far better to
have procedures clearly in place so people understood what to
expect. He did not want Council to be put in a position where an
organized group could in effect filibuster the Council. Council
was obliged to take care of a variety of City business and while
it was one thing to hear the public, it was another for Council to
put itself unwillingly in a position where a small organized group
of people prevented Council from doing what it was sworn to do.
He believed the ,motion before the Council struck a fait balance.
Council would hear some of the public at the beginning' of the
meeting and if there was not enough time, the rest would be heard
at the end 'of .the ateeti n9. .11f' the people wanted to • con* ni tate,
they needed to take on some obligation as well. it was not . just
Council's obligation to sit and hear the public --it was the citi-
zens' obligation to wait until after Council took care of what it
had to take care of. Council's main obligation ;was not to sit -as
a debating society but rather to take care of the afendized items.
He urged Council support of the motion,
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1
Councilmember Levy agreed with Counclfinember Klein that it could
not be both ways. He did not want to be in a position where he
had to vote on the people speaking about one issue or another.
There needed to be rules. He did not want to lose sight of
Council's obligation to the public which went beyond the few
members of the public who attended City Council meetings to speak
under Oral Communications. Those people were the minority. The
majority were the people who listened either directly or indi-
rectly to the actions Council took on its agenda. Those people
often thought about an issue or worked with an issue for weeks and
looked forward to. Council dealing with the item on the agenda.
Council owed its primary allegiance to those people and it was
unfair for Council to begin that public discussion at 9:00 p.m.
It happened rarely, and would probably never happen again if the
motion passed.
Councilmember Patitucci said the fact Council never exceeded the
one-half hour indicated to him the motion was a good rule.
Council could always change the rule to make it more than one-half
hour to let more people speak as opposed to forcing a newly -
established rule restricting whoever happened to be out there. To
him. it made sense Council had options which were hardly ever
enforced. There was also personal accessibility of a Council -
member, and he knew of no member of the Council who did not answer
telephones, return calls, and spend hours with members of the
public interested in pursuing navy issues. There was plenty of
accessibility and he did not believe the Oral Communications rule
would diminish accessibility in Palo Alto. He supported the
motion.
Councilmember Fletcher was convinced and would support the
motion.
NOTION PASSED by a vote of 7-2, !teazel, Setori es reti ag moo,"
ADJOURNMENT
Council adjourned at 11:10 p.m.
AITEsT:
APPROVED:
7 0 7 9
4/14/86