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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1986-12-08 City Council Summary MinutesCITY COUNCIL MINUTES PALO ALTO CITY COUNCIL M E ETINGSARE BROADCAST LIVE VIA KZSU-FREOUENCY9O.1 ON FM DAL Regular Meeting December 8, 1986 ITEM Minutes of November 10, 1986 Referral 1. PG&E Gas Transmission Agreement - Refer to Finance & Public Works Committee Action 2. Contract with El Camino Cleaners to Provide Cleaning Services for Police Uniforms 3. Ordinance for Second Reading re Change of Zoning Designation from R-2 to PC for Property Located at 922-924 Bautista Court 4. Request of Councilmember Fletcher re Route 101 Widening Adjournment to Study Session re Priority Setting at 8:00 p.m. 5.s National League of Cities Conference Report from Councilmembers Final Adjournment at x.0:25 p.m. PAGE 7 9 1 6 7 9 1 6 7 9 1 6 7 9 1 6 7 9 1 7 7 9 2 0 7 9 2 0 7 9 2 1 7 9 1 4 12/8/86 Regular Meeting Monday, December 8, 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 Mayor Cobb announced a Closed Session re Litigation to discuss Century Federal v, City of Palo Alto pursuant to Government Code Section 54956.9(a), was held in the Council Conference Room at 7:00 p.m. APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF NOVEMBER 10, 1986 MOTION: Councilmember .Sutorius moved, seconded by Fletcher, approval of the Minutes of November 10, 1986, as submitted. MOTION PASSED unanimously. CONSENT CALENDAR MOTION: Vice Mayor Woolley moved, seconded ,..,, by . Sutorius, approval of the Consent Calendar. 1. PG&E GAS TRANSMISSION ION AGREEMENT -o REFER TO FINANCE AND WORKS COMMITTEE CMR s 84:6 ( 12 PUBLIC 2. CONTRACT WITH EL CAMINO CLEANERS TO PROVIDE CLEANING SERVICES FOR POLICE UNIFORMS (CMR:585:6) (500 Staff recommends the City Council authorize the Mayor to execute the agreement with El Camino Cleaners, contingent on approval of funds, to provide uniform dry cleaning and/or laundry services during the period December 1, 1986 to November 30, 1989. Funding will be included in the Police Department's annual budget during each year of the contract. 3. SECOND READING OF ORDINANCE 3726 entitled "ORDINANCE OF THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PALO ALTO AMENDING SECTION .04 OF" THE PALO ALTO MUNICIPAL CODE THE ZONING AP TO CHANGE THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE PROPER Y KNOWN AS BAUTISTA COURT FROM R-2 TO PC (1st Reading 11/24/86, PASSED 7-2, '` Sutorius, Pat tucc no. ) (300) MOTION PASSED unanimously. 1:9 1 5 12/8/86 1 AGENDA CHANGES, ADDITIONS, AND DELETIONS i Councilmembers Klein, Fletcher, and Levy re the November 29 -_ December 3, 1986 National League of Cities Conference in San Antonio, Texas. 4. REQUEST OF COUNCILMEMBER FLETCHER RE ROUTE 101 WIDENING 101.9) Councilmember Fletcher -followed the progress of increased rider- ship on CalTrain over the years, and there seemed to be promise for meeting the 40 percent farebox return. Because State law stated that CalTrain would lose State funding if it did not meet the 40 percent farebox return by the coming year, Senator Morgan sponsored a bill to allow the service to -continue if the local agencies paid the difference. The onus would be on the three transit agencies involved --Muni, SamTrans, and Santa Clara Transit --'to come up with the funding if ridership did not reach 40 percent; and, when the two extra lanes were built on Bayshore Freeway, predictably the ridership would drop considerably. The environmental assessment did not make any mention of the pos- sibility. MOTION* Couriieilaeeisber Fletcher waved, seconded by Menzel, that a letter be sent to Caltrans expressing that the environmental document sheeld analyze the likely extent of the ridership decline, the resulting financial impact on the local agencies, and the effect possible elimination of the CalTrain service will have on Fair quality and highway congestion. Councilmember Bechtel asked if the motion implied Caltrans would have to prepare an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) or simply a few pages of explanation. Councilmember Fletcher purposely did not specify but said the environmental document should have an analysis. She was not sure of the legal requirements, but people should be fully aware of the impact the highway expansion would have on the CalTrain service. Councilmember Patitucci was not clear how an EIR was supposed to address what basically was a public policy and economic issue. He queried Council's intervening in a problem which would get worked out in the process anyway. He could not support the motion and requested if a letter was sent, the vote of the Council be shown. Vice Mayor Woolley asked if all three pieces of the request were equally reasonable. - 7 9 1 6 12/8/86 0 Director of Planning and Community Environment Ken Schreiber understood the motion did not include an inherent call for an EIR, but simply responded to comments. Caltrans would hold a public hearing on December 10, 1986, and the public review period continued until December 24, 1986, and the motion would be a submission of comment in the review period. The impact was the type reviewed by most agencies as discretionary under California Environmental Quality Act (CIQA). Agencies would have an obligation to respond to the City, but he did not see an agency responding in tremendous depth. City Attorney Diane Northway said the real question was whether there was an environmental impact, and she believed it was at least arguable there might be if CalTrain was eliminated. ;Mile there were social and economic intervening factors, ultimately there was the environmental issue of whether the alternative form of transportation would be available and, if it was not, how that would affect the model being undertaken or future transportation systems in the county. Vitae mayor . Woolley agreed with Councilmember Patitucci that Council's action that evening would not .ha ve an impact on the final outcome of what would happen on Route 101 but believed it was worthwhile to stress the point that building more and more highways and lanes did not address mass transit as well as they night. She supported the motion. Councilmember Renzel said City Attorney Northway expressed her point of view, that there was ultimately a major impact if the underpinnings of CalTrain's finances were destroyed by the changing ability of the roadways to put traffic through, and it was important to make that information known. Councilmember Klein asked staff if the points in the motion could be studied given the state of the art. Mr. Schreiber said from .staff's understanding of the process, it would be difficult to respond to the motion in precise detail given the state of the art of the analysis techniques available to Caltrans. Staff were not aware of a technique that could give detailed precision in decline of ridership, for example. Councilmember Klein asked what staff would do if the motion was adopted. Mr. Schreiber said adoption of the motion would force the agency to at least confront the question. Councilmember Klein believed the issue was serious, but he had problems with spending public money on something that, could not be studied. He asked what the staff would do along those lines. Mr. Schreiber sensed staff would provide a general response noting that a great number of factors impacted CalTrain and its rider- ship. Mayor Cobb shared Councilmember Klein concern. kMUNDMB T: Mayor Cobb moved, seconded by Sisterly*, that the letter ask Caltrans to consider the likely extent of ridership declin* and delete the language saying the environmental document should analyse. Councilmember Fletcher said Caltrans requested comments on the environmental document. Number 46 of the Environmental Signifi- cance Checklist, queried whether the project would result in alterations to waterborne, rail, or air traffic, and the response was "not significant." She opposed the amendment because she believed No. 46 was directly related to the environmental docu- ment. She took issue with Mr. Schreiber's comments because there were people familiar,. with the interrelationship between the traf- fic lanes on a highway and the impacts on mass transit. She attended the Interstate Commerce Commission and Public Utilities Commission hearings when Southern Pacific made application to withdraw service where exact figures were presented in terms of how much ridership went down when Bayshore was expanded to Bayshore Freeway and again when Interstate 280 was built. She believed there were precedents which related the two issues. Councilmember Sutorius seconded the motion because he believed the distinction was neither as dramatic as Councilmember Fletcher per- ceived nor as dramatic as Councilmember Klein would like. He believed it was a reasonable compromise for consideration. He preferred the legitimacy of the question to be without inclt:Pies of the Council's vote. Councilmember Levy opposed the amendment because Palo Alto always tried to interrelate all of the factors of a decision. A highway decision affected land use and other modes of transportation. The basic language used by Councilmember Fletcher more accurately reflected the type of planning Palo Alto did. Caltrans should be requested to analyze the matter as much as possible rather than summarily consider it and reinforce the no which was already included in the environmental checklist. 7 9 1 .8 12/8/86 As Corrected 1/05/87 Councilmember Klein opposed the study because he believed it was a waste of public funds. On the other hand, Council needed to give stronger criticism of what Caltrans was doing. He supported the concept of CalTrain and other forms of public transit and did not like the idea of building additional freeway lanes and not doing anything with _regard to rapid transit. People always talked about doing something with regard to public transit on the peninsula and nothing happened, but somehow more freeway lanes could be built. MA CER MW SECOND AGREED TO WITEDRAW AMENDMENT SUBSTITUTE MOTION: Councilmember Klein moved, seconded by Patitucci, to direct staff to draft a letter to Caltrans indicating that Council deeply regretted their reports to date which expre*sed no attention whatsoever to the impact of the additional freeway lanes on CalTrain and other forms of public transit and request they take seeh actions as are necessary to prevent the negative impacts on CalTrain and other forms of public transit. Councilmember Fletcher believed Caltrans's response to the substitute motion would be that they were doing all they could to boost CalTrain ridership. She was convinced an analysis could produce a range of figures for the Counties to come up with in order to keep the service running. She wanted the Counties to know what they were taking on if they approved the extra lanes on the highway. She did not believe the substitute motion would achieve anything. SUBSTITUTE MOTION PASSED by a vote of 8-1, Fletcher.. voting *no.r° ADJOURNMENT Council adourned at 8:00 p.m. to a Study Session re Priority Setting in the Council Conference Room. RECONVENTION Council reconvened at 10:15 p.m. to regular meeting. 5. NATIONAL LEAGUE OF CITIES CONFERENCE (1540-08) Councilmember Klein indicated the NLC Conference was exceptional. There was a lot of focus on the drug abuse problems everyone faced especially the young people. Councilmember Levy said the NLC Conference was valuable, and he toured the Lyndon B. Johnson Library and was impressed with its massiveness and that it was tastefully- done. He compared it to the proposed Ronald D. Reagan Library at Stanford. 7 9 1 9 12/8/86 Councilmember Fletcher said the Transportation and Communications Committee discussed the transportation of hazardous materials and believed the Federal Government should create uniform national truck licensing and training standards for drivers of interstate and intrastate vehicles transporting hazardous materials. Shippers should be required to give notification to cities along a prospective route of such shipments, and the Federal Emergency Response authority should provide accurate information to State and local governments concerning all hazardous materials ship- ments. The Federal Government should set minimum insurance requirements on all large• quantities of radioactive materials. The Committee also spoke to an increase in gas tax with revenues to go to the Highway Trust Fund for transportation purposes only. The NLC opposed allowing the longer combination trucks, believed Dtate and local, governments should retain authority over truck access to pick-up and delivery points. The Committee also discussed a local authority to regulate telecommunications policy and cable television systems, and believed the Federal Government should not preempt or restrict local zoning laws which regulate location, placement, size, or siting of satellite facilities such as satellite dishes, radio towers, etc.` FINAL ADJOURNMENT AT 10:25 p.m. ATTEST: APPROVED: Mayor 7 9 2 0 12/8/86