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Home My WebLink About1982-11-08 City Council Summary MinutesITEM Oral Communications Consent. Calendar Referral CITY COUNCIL MINUTES' CITY OF PALO ALTO Regular Meeting Monday, November 8, 1982 PAGE 2 6 3 6 2 6 6 2 6 3 6 Item #1, Adult Crossing Guard Program - Referral to 2 6 3 6 Finance and Public Works Committee Action 2 6 3 6 Item #2, Golf Course Maintenance Building Project, (CIP Project 91-32 - Park Improvement Ordinance) Item #3, Policy and Procedures Committee Recommen- dation re Biographical Information Form for Appointed Boards and Commissions 2 6 3 6 2 6 3 7 Item #4., Policy and Procedures Committee Reconrren- 2 6 3 7 dation re Rotational Movement of Downtown Parkers Item #5, Council Chambers Audio System 2 6 4 1 Item #6, City of Pal o Al to Emergency P1 an - 2 6 4 2 Elimination of Nuclear War Provisions Item #7, C1 osed Surpl us School Sites,- Phase II 2 6 5 2 Recommended City Interest and Financing. Adjournment 2 6 7 0 2 .6 3 5 11 /8/82 Regular Meeting Monday, November 8, 1982 The City Council of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Council Chambers at City Hall, 250 Hamilton Avenue, at 7:30 p.m. PRESENT: Bechtel (arrived at 7:31 p.m.) , Cobb, Eyerly, Fazzi no, Fletcher, Klein, Levy, Renzel , Witherspoon ORAL COMMUNICATIONS 1. Rob Snider, 981 Oregon Avenue, spoke on behalf of his family and other applicants for overnight parking of commercial vehicles under residency hardship or temporary conditions. He asked that the City Council reconsider the ordinance which would prevent him from parking his truck in front of his home, which he had been doing for eight years.. Further, he requested that the Council consider specific requirements' for the acceptance of commercial vehicle applications under the hardship clause. He volunteered his time to research the applications in the event of a shortage of manpower at City Hall. He suggested the following contingencies for granting an exception for hardships: a. Neighborhood consent such as in the chicken ordinance where over six chickens were allowed only by complying with Ci -ey requirements and neighborhood consent. b. That the applicant would pose no obstruction to emergency vehicles or any other traffic through the particular street. There could be a stipulation limiting a permit to those residing on frontage roads where there were only residences on one side of the street. c. That the applicants reside in_ Palo Alto if it were to be a yearly permit. Should the applicant not reside in Palo Alto, a tide limit would be placed on the permit. 2. Dan Gernand, spoke regarding animals in Palo Alto and enforce- ment of the leash and dog feces laws. He was interested in pursuing a career in the City of Palo Alto and submitted his resume to City Manager Bill Zaner. He commented regarding the bus routes on Waverley. CONSENT CALENDAR MOTION: Council ■eaber . Fletcher moved, seconded b Fazzi no, approval : of the Consent Calendar. Referral ITEM #1 .ADULTS CROSSING GUARD PROGRAM REFERRAL TO FINANCE AND Cumr4f t rLt t tmx: So3 : t Action . ITEM '2 GOLF='COURSE MAINTENANCE BUILDING PROJECT, (CIP PROJECT It is recommended that Council approve the attached Park Improve- ment Ordinance. ORDINANCE FOR FIRST READING entitled "ORDINANCE OF THE PALO ALTO APPROVING AND ADOPTING A PLAN FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF PALO ALTO MUNICIPAL GOLF COURSE MAINTENANCE FACILITIES" MOTION PASSED unanimously ITEM #3, POLICY AND PROCEDURES COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION RE Councilmember Levy said that the Policy and Procedures (P&P) . Committee met on September 21, 1982, and discussed the Biographi- cal Information form used by applicants to appointed boards and commissions. A number of Committee members felt that the form was not extensive enough to get good information about the applicants prior to interviews. Since everyone who applied was oftentimes not interviewed, the Committee discussed how those application forms could, be made more Useful. Inquiries were sent to the existing boards and commissions and their responses .were taken into consideration. The application form originally in the packet was not accurate, and a revised application form was put at the Counci lmembers' places which reflected the findings of - the P&P Committee in its unanimous recommendation. The Committee's objec- tive was to provide better information to Councilmembers while not discouraging people from applying. MOTION: Councilmember Levy for the Policy and Procedures Com- mittee moved to adopt forms (as revised at places 11/8) and add an extra line or two under "Professional and/or Community Activi- ties.* 1 1 Mayor Eyerly said he had no problem with the new form, but it appeared to move toward tying down applicants' specific answers related to meetings attended, and particular amount of time avail- able. Council should be aware, when using the form for inter- views, that a lot of applicants might not have done some of those things, even though they appeared to be the type of person that would be helpful to a commission. He hoped .the Council would not weigh the applicants based upon the form, bAt rather based upon the interviews. Councilmember Fletcher said she appreciated the work Councilmember Cobb p"+; into revising the form as well es. the. r)rk' of the Archi- tectural Review Board, Planning Connmi ssion and fi stori c Resources Board. She thought the new forms would save the Council a lot of time in the interviewing process. MOTION PASSED unanimously. ITEM #4, POLICY AND PROCEDURES COMMITTEE RECOMMENDATION RE Councilmember Levy said that the Policy and Procedures . (P&P) Com- mittee discussed sleeper parking in the, downtown Brea on September 21, 1982. "Sleeper parking" was the name given to the practice of moving = a car from one parking place to another to avoid being ticketed for parking overtime in the numerous one and two hour spots downtown, both on the streets and in the lots. Staff expressed concern that it would be costly and - difficult to enforce prohibitions against moving cars from place to place and indicated that people could avoid almost any boundaries set up to contain the -problem. It was difficult to justify the expense; of enforce- ment because the end product was unknown, • a► d enforcement ..was not self-supporting. The Policy and Procedures Committee unanimously concurred in _ recommending that the Council not adopt a "sleeper parking" ordinance, and no action was recommended. Mayor Eyerly said that the assignment which generated CMR:487:2 and the rotational movement of downtown parkers, was the referral of a staff report to the Policy and Procedures (;-&P) Committee, regarding what resources would be needed to address sleeper parking --including revenues generated by the downtown assessment. He asked Mr. Zaner for the status of that ..report. City Manager Bill Zaner said that a portion of the assignment was inadvertently omitted. City Controller Al Mitchell prepared some material for the Council which confirmed the staff's recommenda- tion. The Traffic Parking Enforcement Program downtown generated a certain amount of revenue from citations --there were some expenses involved --but the net to the program was about $125,000 annually. Bill Byxbee, Downtown Palo Alto, Inc. (DTPA), said that the Execu- tive Co rmi ttee of DTPA was disappointed that the P&P Committee recommended recommended not to adopt a sleeper parking ordinance. Staff esti- mated that about 400 "sleeping/parking" cars rotated from one parking space to another within the assessment district of down- town throughout the day. Based upon the current costs to develop parking spaces in lots for short-term parkers, the City was losing about $3 million worth of parking spaces for shoppers in the down- town, not to mention the value of shoppers in attending stores and doing business. If the City had two more meter people within the assessment district, it could apprehend a percentage of the 400 people on a weekly basis. Over a period of time, the people in the area would get the message that they were unwelcome and would move .into other areas. If 40 citations per day were issued based on the rotation, at a cost of $5 per fine, it would cover the cost of two more meter persons. He understood that the City received a profit from fines and citations, and that .it was more than $125,000 per year. He felt that some of that money could be used to finance some form of program to discourage that type of parking; and, if additional funding was necessary, the assessment district could work out a program to provide some funds. Mayor Eyerly said that CMR:210:2, dated April 15, 1982, regarding downtown parking was generated in response to a Council request. That report stated that on weekdays there was a 25 to 30 percent sleeper parking :_problem, and on Saturdays, it was 35 to 30 per- cent. The curreht parking let ordinance prohibited returning to the lot parking within five -hours, and .because of it, the abuse level was .only about 10 to 15 percent in that area. License writing was done in the lots by a walker, and was the most effec- tive policing means. About 58,000 parking ,citations were issued yearly, and .the City recaptured about $4. of each $7.50 fine. That report presented the problems, but staff was not anxious torecom- mend anything to correct them. On June. 7, 1982, Council referred that report to the P&P Committee and asked for another report, which was generated on September 16, 1982, CHR:487.2. That report, less the information on the finances, again pointed out the restriction of five hour repeat parking in the lots, but said the ordinance _did not include any such restriction on the streets. To accomplish the program on the streets, staff recommended a bud- get of $82,000, which included two . parking monitors, six mini com- puters, change of signs, and certain miscellaneous equipment. The estimate of necessar resources was exhor.bitant and he could see a much more modest progran being enacted if the, current ordinance was changed _ to correct the problems pointed out by staff. Staff. did not feel that the "excessive nonrecoverable costs" could be recovered by an ordinance change. He was disappointed that the P&P .Committee did not have all the financial information available to _ them when ' the Matter was discussed. With a 30 percent abuse problem, it was inconceivable that staff had not recommended some way to correct the problem. The problem would be intensified once the restriction of parking in the residential areas was in force, 1 1 i 1 1 and that problem should be tackled now. The Council should change the ordinance to include on -street parking. As far as a budget amendment was concerned, the F&PW Committee wrestled with that during their budget discussions for next year, and the budget might be something like $35,000 to cover the program. MOTION: Mayor Eyerly moved, seconded by Witherspoon, that staff be directed to prepareanordinance change to include the prohibi- tion of sleeper parking on -street. Mr. Zaner said it was necessary for Council, to clarify its inten- tion with regard to the location of a reparked car. The present ordinance prohibited reparking a car, after expiration of the allotted time, within the same lot for five hours. If someone was parked in Lot J, they were prohibited from reparking anywhere in Lot J for at least five hours after the expiration. If that ordi- nance were applied to the street, it would be necessary for staff to know whether the Council intended that someone could not repark in that block; intersection, space, or elsewhere in downtown. In addition, persons with legitimate business downtown who moved their cars several times in the course of that legitimate business .night find themselves surprised by the provisions of the ordi- nance. Some person night have lunch downtown , and then drive a block .or two, park their car on the street, and go into a shop. If that was done within the five hour period and the di stances were not set properly, those persons would be caught in the ordi- nance. Mayor Eyerly said he was advised by the City Attorney that it would be impossible to put a reparki ng restriction over the entire downtown area. It would have to be a few block radius or some- thing which was reasonable to the staff. The movement from lots to the street could be addressed by the same distance from the lots. Staff had the necessary information to return with an amendment to the ordinance which would make sense, would be enforceable, and help the "sleeper" problem. Counci l member Wi thersp.pon commented that Sunnyvale's ordinance provided that someone had to move a vehicle at least across one intersection, which she thought was reasonable. She felt that the proportion of sleeper parking was greater than one-third in the downtown area because her fellow merchants and shoppers did it all the time. It was expensive because more and .more parking kept having to be added for shoppers under pressure from DTPA, and because of the long-term sleeper problems, the City was not taking advantage of the parking i t already had. If the City could make a dent in the sleeper problem with the addition of one or two per- sonnel, with a budget somewhere under $50,000 per year, she would support it. Counci lmember Fletcher said that the P&P Committee discussed making changes in the permit parkiszg.- system, to possibly open up new spaces by selling more :permits.: than were presently sold, selling them on a lottery basis, or -various other alternatives The Committee asked<, staff to explore various- alternatives with the downtown community and to `return to ;. the Committee with. a-- r.ecorr mendati4'n. It was felt that .there, might be an opportunity to pro- vide. spaces which Would then be used instead of the street. Counc:il e .her Witherspoon said- she agreed that, making the permit ,system open to all the lots would help, but the people she knew. who_..-`gi d 'Sleeper parking were tryi rrg to avoid. buying. a pearl t Counc i lMember Levy said he was .conce.rned that the people who` woul d be caught. were the -unsuspecting ,ones. Those' working in the down town area would 'fi d a - way - to evr#d` it, and from time:'. to fate would pay a- fi Fie. The -people shopping iv , downtown Palo Al to' Would be the ones 'nost affected. The purpose- of the law would: be to help those looki : fo;r custo_Mers- in' the downtown ~area, .but ,it.was those very.. people_ anck.their employees who' were guilty of violating 1 1 the ordinance. One way to attack the problem was for the employers , in the downtown area to become more sensitive and to sensitize their employees. Mayor Eyerly reemphasized that the sleeper parking problem in the parking lots with restricted times was about 15 percent, and the five hour sleeper packing problem on the streets was about 30 percent. He felt the problem could be solved, and it was not the customer that_ was the _ problem. Sergeant Ed Austin of the Palo Alto Police Department commented that the Santa Clara ordinance was developed for two specific problems: 1. Vehicles staying in one spot and, receiving only one citation. Palo Alto's ordinance provided that one could receive a cita- tion for each additional hour the vehicle was overparked; and 2. "Rollers," or the person in a vehicle who rolled over a chalk mark and . stayed in the same spot. - Palo Alto's erasure ordinance dealt with that, and it was esti- mated that about ten percent of .the 30 percent sleeper parkers, were the rollers. The City's enforcement had made a significant impact in that area. He said that the exact impact of the Urban Mass Transit Authority (UMTA) would not be known until it was in effect. Staff felt that i t would not bring more vehicles directly into the downtown area from the residential areas, The reason that cars were in the residential areas was because the downtown was saturated --there was no more room. He asked the Council to keep in mind that any reasonable ordinance would be circumvented because it was unenforceable. Santa C1 ara' s ordinance addressed that City's roller problem, but would not help Palo Alto's ordinance. Councilmetrher Fletcher said she sympathized with Mr. Byxbee's con- cerns because two merchants had already told her that when they cpened their shops early. on Saturday mornings, the streets were already filled with parkers. That indicated that the merchants and employees were doing it to themselves. She advocated the downtown getting together and hiring a transportation coordinator to work out the problems, and getting employers and empl oyees to see the self -destructiveness of their parking habits. Counci lmember. Renzel opposed the motion. She . agreed that sleeper parking was the problem, but it was a symptom of .the anachronistic mechanism the City hadfor providing parking in an intense commer- cial area. It also represented the fact that the City was per- mitting ":too much development in the downtown, and as a result, t• o much parking. The City already oversold its: permits for long-term parking, and there were people tu,'ned away who could not _ buy long-term Petmits . They would `, park somewhere they were sleepers --and there were those who did not _ wish to pay The City had to deal with the fundamental problem of land use'and providing a parking mechanism which would work. Mayor Eyerly said he surfaced the Santa Clara ordi nance for > the Council because staff had mentioned in a report that there were no cities with such an ordinance. :, Two cl ti es now had those , types ,of ordinances.. He diced not suggest that Palo Alto' copy the ordinance, and his motionwas intended to leave staff with the driver's hand as to what was reasonable and sensible in changing the, parking ordinance to includesleeper parking on -street. MATIQ$ -FAILED -10/.- a ; :vote` . of- 'X0,' ITEM #5, COUNCIL CHAMBERS AUDIO SYSTEM City Manager Bi l l Zaner said staff had a plan for upgrading the audio system in the Council Chambers. A number of complaints had been received in the past from both the public and members of the Council . Vice Mayor Bechtel said that $35,000 was a lot of money for the proposed systems She was also concerned about it being a "state of the art" system because she felt those systems tended to be the ones with the most problems. She did not want to see the City get a system that was so modern and futuristic that it would not work. She asked if the proposed system could be obtained less expen- sively. Communications Director Jack Atkinson said that the "state of the art" system, as used in the report, included most of the techno- 1 ogical developments made over, the last 30 years. The current system was developed in the early 1950's. Most of the systems developed over the past five to eight years included all of the items which were recommended by the engineer. Some of Alameda County's systems were in courtrooms, and portions of the recom- mended systems were in most of the newer City Council Chambers and Supervisor Chambers being built. Vice Mayor Bechtel asked what kind of microphones would be installed. Mr. McNeely responded that staff's microphones would be simil ar to what was currently being used except there would be a button on the mike itself rather than on the table. Part of the problem in the past was that the chairs with the way the mikes were situated, with the controls underneath the table, there was a lot of damage. The Council's mikes would automatically come on when spoken into. Councilmember Fazzino said he was concerned that any new system be compatible with radio, the existing communications system, and with a prospecti ve cable system. He wanted to avoid having to spend $30,000 more in a few years if the City decided to go with cable and broadcast Council meetings. In his opinion, the present system allowed much more flexibility than the proposed system, and, for: the most part, was a pretty good one. Mr. McNeely said staff had taken into consideration the fact that Council might approve a cable system, and the proposed audio system was compatible. Councilmember Renzel said she attended .a public meeting at the County as a citizen, and it was impossible for the public to know who was talking. She would hate . to see the City get that type of a system in Palo Alto, She preferred the hand-held microphones, and was not sure ;she wanted a voice activated system. Oftentimes, Counci lme+nbers had conversations among themselves duri ng a meeting. Mr. McNeely said that the Council could stick to the hand-held microphones if they desired. MOTION: Councilmember Renzel moved, seconded by Fazzino, that the City Council maintain hand-held microphones. Mr. Zaner said: staff was -trying to get one step ahead of a recur- ring problem. = The Council. expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of performance from the current :;system several times, and the. current :system had been maintained to the point where ; it could not be any l onge;r. Staff understood the .Council's concern about main- taining the - current flexibility, and that it 'did.s.rot want an experimental system.. If the' Counci l approved .the- budget -amendment . ordina ce, staff would endeavor, to ". provide a system with the desired features - making 'Certain it would not include the features described -at the County and other places Councilmember Renzel said she hoped that staff would determine the exact type of system at the County to ensure that the City did not get that kind. Councilmember Witherspoon asked what the City had spent over the last . two years on maintenance of the current system. Mr. Atkinson said he did not have the exact figures, but estimated that an average of one technician spent at least two hours once a week maintaining and/or repairing the system. That technician received about $15 per hour. Councilmember Fletcher asked if the voice activated microphones would have a control. Mr. McNeely said they would have a control. Councilmember Renzel said that as pointed out by Vice Mayor Bechtel, the ones that rotated around with a goose neck were difficult in terms of, people doing work on their desk. Councilmember Fletcher said she used the County system twice a month, and could not agree more with the comments made about it. It was the most unreliable system she had ever experienced. She asked why the proposal was not presented to the .Council at the budget process next year in order to have an overall priority system about where to place funds. Councilmember Levy said he would not support the motion. He felt that $35,000 was too much money, and that the City had more impor- tant things to spend its money on. In his opinion, the proposal should be included in the CIP. If staff felt the proposal was. worthy of inclusion in the CIP in about five years, that would be appropriate. Councilmember Klein said he agreed with Councilmember Levy. Although he was one who complained about the sound system in the past, he did not feel his aggravations were worth $35,000. The current system was now costing $15,000 per year in staff time to maintain, and he asked how much it would cost to maintain a new system. Mr. Zaner said there would be some maintenance, but did not expect it to be as high as the old system. Councilmember Klein said he would oppose the. motion. He opi ,led that the motion was out of order because it moved the .status quo, which he understood was improper. MOTION WITHDRAWN BY MAKER AND SECOND Mayor . Eyerly said the message he -heard from the Council was for staff to try and include the matter in the Capital Improvement Program for possibleconsideration during the budget process. MO ACTION _.TAKEN ITEM 6, CITY OF PALO ALTO EMERGENCY PLAN - ELIMINATION OF NUCLEAR • Assistant to the City Manager Charles McNeely. commented =that on May 24, 1982, the Council passed a motion for. 'staff to delete all references to survivability in the event of a nuclear War from the Emergency Plan. Staff completed the assignment, and ft was before the Council for consideration He said that if Council approved the deletions tonight, staff would return in thirty to sixty days with those amendments along with other changes to portions of the Plan for final approval. Councilmember "Witherspoon asked 1f there was anything n the Emergency Plan with reference to a radiation disaster, short of a nuclear war,. She saw that as a possibility, and asked if that was deleted from the Plan entirely. Mr. McNeely said no. The only deletion was with regard to a nuclear war. Councilmember Witherspoon clarified that in the event of a severe radiation hazard, the Emergency Plan did not assume that there would be no medical facilities, etc. Fire Chief Bob Wall said the City would maintain its ability to deal with radiation hazards and accidents in the future as in the past. The City woul d have radi ati on detection equi pment on emer- gency vehicles to handle and identify those hazards which may occur through industry. Mayor Eyerly asked what would happen if a nuclear bomb were dropped someplace i n Northern Cal forni a --not right on target to the Bay Area . Mr. Wall responded that the changes made in the Plan would not render the City incapable of acting in the event of an emer- gency --whether it be fallout or some other type of hazard . The Plan dealt with any kind of an emergency. The problem arose if it was necessary to move large groups of people out of an area, end that problem remained whether or not there was i n'ormati on rele- vant to a nuclear war. Mayor Eyerly asked if the Emergency Plan named certain types of emergencies, such as earthquake, flood, fire, etc. He asked if staff had any feeling that Plans for dealing with some level of radiation or fallout should be included in the Emergency Plan,. air. Wall said he did not feel it was paramount that radiation or fallout be addressed in the Plan. When the event occurred, what- ever it was, and if the hazard was fallout, that information would be dealt with by the City through the Emergency -P1 an just as if the emergencyb was tide waters rising or hazardous material that might be.. spilled. James Sal l i s, 2510 Greer Road, deferred to the next speaker Mi c hael Blake, 2397 Palo Verde, applauded the City Council for having agendi zed the matter in the first pl ace. The Couinci l had made an important first step toward a more salutary attitude, in terms of the .survivability of a nuclear war., by directing. staff to make the deletions . He pointed out that within the Counci ls packet, there was a proposal that an ad hoc group had provided for a concrete step to be taken in addition. lie asked that the formal motion be widened to include a concrete and positive step as an alternative to the repudiation of the Federal Emergency Management. Association's crisis relocation plans. He was concerned about the addition to the Emergency Plan on page 2, which stated "...that at Council's direction, staff. added a new part to the Emergency Plan." That new part would 'provide "that the City of Palo Alto did not believe it was appropriate to undertaken efforts to plan, for a nuclear attack." He thought that attitude toward emergency planning was disspiriting. Because the proposals :`*lade by the federal and state , government were ludicrous to . the point of ; caki ng nuclear war more `' 1 i ke y did " not : mean that : nothing ~ should be done. He presented a specific alternative to work toward the prevention 9f nuclear war by telling- the people of Palo Alto that by getting involved -in the political process they could act to Make nuclear War less l ikely ., The citizens should' be provided "' with the addresses of their representatives, the names of the organizations in the area working in one way or another, the cur- rent national and local moves that .had been made to try and stop the arms, race or to try and start a peaceful resolution of con - fl ict. He asked that the City of Palo Alto publish a booklet for di stribution to the people of Palo Alto providing that sort of in formation. Many towns had produced those types of booklets , and the responses were magnificent. He pointed out that the City of Palo Al to--i f it did nothi ng--was cheating the citizens. In his opinion, the county, state and federal governments supporting the crisis relocation plans were spending money on one attitude toward nuclear war, and he was concerned that it made nuclear war more likely. The City of Palo Alto and its City Council had clearly repudiated that viewpoint. Ralph Whitaker, 4003 Scripps Avenue, worked with .Mr. Blake on the Emergency Plan proposal . He believed that the authority of a City government on behalf of its citizenry would be valued by some citizens who could not take that initiative on their own. Those citizens were being given support, authority and a boost in a direction. The gesture might be seen elsewhere as Palo Alto's weight and that of its citizens by a plebiscite of ,some 50,000 ci ti zens without the imprimatur that the governi ng body could not achieve. He was worried about the word 'precedent," and whether there was precedent for local governments to work on something already preempted by the federal government. He was moved by the seriousness of the situation that faced soci ety--not as a Palo Al to, jurisdiction, county jurisdiction, state jurisdiction or as a federal one. No one should let procedural precedent of a body or a jurisdiction get in the way. He fel t that the best expression of a dernoc racy was to deal wi th eac h si tuati on on its merits. He would hate to see precedent, and the feeling for what was appro- priate or proper to a local government, stand in the way of deal ing with the meri is of a situation which was 1 ooki ng threateni ngly at everyonem-here, throughout the country, and throughout the world. . Marie McCabe, 59 Washington Park, Mill Valley said that .when the federal government requested that Mari n .County prepare ''or an. evacuation in the event of a nuclear disaster, the County took an open mind and the Board of ,upervisors designated the County Health Official to do a study on what -would happen if a bomb were to hit San Francisco. The report forced the Board of Supervisors to look at the situation and make a decision. It was easy to say there would be no evacuati on i n .the event of a nuclear disaster, and that the only thing to do was to work toward prevention. The Marin County Board .decided not to participate in creating the i 11 usion that - the ci ti zens could survive a nuclear war, and realized that not everyone knew how dangerous that event would be. The r Board deci ded to communi care the information they received to the citizens of Marin County via a booklet which was published. The Supervisors were on the line, in terms of stepping forward in their field, and became communicators on the grass roots form of government to others in their sphere. They advised the citizens of the danger and -provided a means for prevention. It was , a unique step because they had to ..make the deci sion, and spend the money. The Board sent out 85,000 booklets to each household;; -with a registered voter, and `received over 5',000 responses in favor of the booklet, and about 100 were not in favor of the County's taking on, that r4esponsibi l i ty. A citizens' . group worked with the Board of Supervisors in producing the booklet. The next to the last page stated, "i'f you would like to joi n the Board of Supervisors io a call for disarmament, fill out the card inside." That meant that those 5 ,800, people who responded - had' to cut the card out, put a Stamp on it, and go to all that trouble to make a public statement. The ratio was 50 to 1 that the people really appreciated what their Board had done. Mart n County had, looked beyond roads with -potholes because it realized 'that in - the event of a nucl ear disaster there might not be : any 6 tizens to use them. The County went forward with 1 is effort, and she;_ was -proud.. The bottom lire was that- people cared `about one another and wanted to 2 6 4.4 11/8/82 protect and care for one another, which was what government was about. The proposal presented by Mr. Blake would inform Palo Al to' s citizens, and could be a very positive, as well as informa- tive, statement. Renee Burgard, 160 Lincoln Avenue, represented . herself although she_ was the Chair for the Mid -Peninsula Peace Center in Palo Alto. She fundamentally agreed that it was inappropriate to prepare for a nuclear attack, but felt it was important to work to prevent a nuclear attack. Small Pox was a scourge for peoples and . countries worldwide for many years, and international public health work, specifically innoculation, relieved the world of small pox. That was one example of the importance of preventative efforts to improve the health of people all over the world. It was esti mated. that that effort cost roughly the equi val ent of si x hours of world wide military expenditures. Continued medical treatment would have been far more costly and less effective. If, when faced with ineffective strategies for treating small pox, the decision was made to ignore it,. small pox would have become more prevalent. Active prevention worked. She realized: her analogy was imperfect, but hoped it was helpful . - Prevents on of nuclear war was far less costly and far more effective than treatment of nuclear war.. More importantly, i t was not enough to say that i t could net be treated --it must be prevented. If the Council agreed with her, she urged endorsement of the proposal to begin the work to prevent nuclear war by teaching people in the community practical, simple and effective methods for having an individually small and cumula- tively magnificent effect on beginning to prevent nyclear war. The City of Santa Cruz recently put out a pamphlet and the Santa Cruz City Council made the statement that "The growing threat of nucl ear war and , the absurdity of civil defense planning to respond to that threat have lead members of the Santa Cruz City Council to feel a sense of disbelief, di spai r and anger, much the same feeling as you may have after having read this booklet. Members of the City Council felt a deep responsibility to make citizens of Santa Cruz aware of the chances for survival from a nuclear war and so ordered that this booklet be written and di strib uted." She urged that the proposed booklet be written and distributed. dames Lyttle, 930 Roble Ri dge, endorsed all the previous comments. He said that they were proposing that the Council , in revrevising the Emergency Plan, add a form of public education to fi 11 in another step to give the public more ideas on how to respond to the com- plex threat. A booklet, similar to the one published in Marin County and by the City of Santa Cruz, would be a good way to edu- cate the public, and was offered as a . tangible way to deal with educati on. He felt that Pal o Al to coul d get the booki et at a "bargai n" price because it- coul d draw from materi al used in other cities. The costs of , the proposed booklet would onl y relate to printing and physical distribution. Ali of the other work involved would be done by volunteers from the City He felt Palo Al to coul d get somethi ng for . wel 1 under $10 ,000 that might- have cost Marin County tens of thousands of dollars. Perrin French, M.0 . , 1240 Waverl ey Street, was a private psychia- trist and worked at the Veterans Administration, and was a member of the clinical faculty at Stanford Unversi ty. The, issue was proper for the Council to address. A fundamental obligation on the part of el elected representatives was to be concerned with life. or death matters regarding the constituency. He ;conducted: a locale survey which indicatedthat ci ti zens.-from Gunn and Palo Al to High Schools up _ through members _ :of ; Elks and Rotary--eiewed their own death through nuclear blast or fallout>: - as likely. The problem was not just with regard ° to nuclear weapons --the evol uti on of i ntei l ectwal development as a specs es reached the poi nt where people were, capable of producing weapons of mass destruction. , The. more the matters= were studied, the clearer it became that Civil defense efforts, and counter military efforts, were not the answer to what minds were capable of producing at this' stage of intellectual evolution. The capacity to produce offensive weapons swamped the capacity to create defensive ones, which was recog- nized in the SALT I Treaty, where the United States agreed with the Soviets not to attempt to produce anti -missile missiles to try and shoot down missiles coming at nine times the speed ofa bullet with nuclear warheads and so on. Those sort of measures could not be looked to to _survive as a species. The peoples' hope for sur- vival lay in attitudinal changes of a worldwide sort --specifically againstconsideration of the use of weapons of mass destruction. A worldwide attitude change might appear to be some kind of starry-eyed idealism, but the more the matter was studied, the more convinced he was that protecting the American way of life through a nuclear holocaust, by taking certain civil defense measures, was the starry-eyed unrealistic idealism. Widespread, quickly produced atti tude changes worldwide were possible as with the change in race relations in this County over the past couple of decades. Nuclear war presented a real threat to the lives of everyone in Palo Al to, and attitude changes, rather than ci vil defense improvements or specific military efforts, constituted the peoples' hope for survival, then he saw an obligation on the part of the Ci ty Council to take steps to promote that attitude change. The first step might be active education of all the citizens within the City by such means .as the proposed pamphlet. Mairn Macafee, 865 Ames . Avenue, said the Council should be proud of itself for its original decision to support a nuclear freeze. She thought it showed that the people of Palo Alto were forward thinking. To lend creditability to that decision, it was impor- tant to inform the citizenry of Palo Alto's vulnerability and what could be done about it. Hopefully that information could be passed on to the rest of the country and the rest of the world in order to save the planet; Anne M. Jaffe, Quillen 11-1, Escondido Village, Stanford, lived a'..ternately on the Stanford Campus and in Palo Alto for eight years. She intended to keep living and working in Palo Al to, and eventually purchase a home. She hoped the Council would reject, along with many other counties and cities in the United States, the nuclear war emergency preparedness proposals put forward by the Federal Emergency Management Administration. It would be irresponsible to reject crisis relocation plans and other nuclear :gar preparedness plans without addressing the very possible and statistically likely. scenario ;of nuclear war in the Bay. Area. Prevention of nuclear war was the only way to address those mat- ters without being ridiculous. Producing and distributing a book- let to educate citizens in the Palo Alto area as to what could be done to prevent a nuclear war, would be a positive action for the Council and would be an extension of its April endorsement of a nuclear weapons freeze. Robert S. Jaffee, Quillen 11-1, Escondido Village, Stanford, said that the point of the nuclear arms educational booklet was to edu- cate the people of Palo Alto to the facts of nuclear war. Hearing the facts from the City Council, would cause people to think, and be moved to take some action to prevent a nuclear eat. Dianne Dryer, 2631 El mdal a Court, said that last April the Council went on ` record endorsing the nuclear weapons freeze. Since that time, 73 percent of the ,voters supported Proposition 12. She. recalled that it was said in, April that the only way the nuclear weapons freeze could be addressed on a local level was when it came up as civil' defense planning. The_ only planning for that type of emergency was prevention. . Local governments had a respon- ;sibil'ity: to respond to the sentiments of the majority, and encour- age the use of thedemocratic, process, to help educate the citi- zens about how the `community could ".help prevent a nuclear disas- ter, and to give aonetary support for,, civil emergency - prepare- tion- prevention in :this case. Local governments issued `booklets of preventative measures for harm to themselves, their families,.. 1 1 1 1 their communities. She urged the Council to approve the com- mittee's informative and unbiased booklet, and to make use of the talented volunteers offering their services.' Stephen Burgess, 488 University Avenue, said he supported the past endorsement of the nuclear weapons freeze by the City Council, and also the deletion of references to nuclear war. He urged the Council to consider the proposals for an educational booklet, and that there appeared to be support by the citizens of Palo Alto for such an effort. The cost for such a booklet was minimal con- sidering what it would do. He had spent a lot of time and money on the nuclear weapons freeze effort over the past year, and con- sidered the money and time an investment in his future. The money that would be spent by the City would be an investment in the future of the City of Palo Alto. Mary Lundgren, 1907 Monteci to Avenue, said she endorsed the idea of a pamphlet and agreed with the comments of the previous speakers. Karen Weissman, 151 Waverl ey Street, said she supported the previ- ous speakers. She believed that the City should spend the neces- sary funds for the proposed booklet. The City was about to go on record as recognizing the absurdity of the federal government' s "nuclear war prepardness and population relocation plans" by deleting the mention of those in its Emergency Preparedness Plan. Palo Alto voters demonstrated their overwhelming support of the freeze and of arms control by voting three to one in favor of Proposition 12. The City could not stop here --they were a long way from achieving any arms reduction. The City must uphold the will of its electorate by doing more. Nuclear war was a global issue, but one which inescapably affects local communities. Change in national policy came about because the mass of people wanted it. Action started at the local level. By actively sup- porting a nuclear war education pamphlet, the City was acting as a model for other communities and showing its concern with the grave issue. More importantly, the City was raising the level of aware- ness from an already committed population. A good educational booklet could spur the citizens of - Palo Alto to a high level of activism on the issue and tell them what they could do. The more people to become active, the higher the probability that the insane arms race could be ended. She believed that the City should support the proposal of a Nuclear War Education Committee. The City could take a different tactic by having City staff pre- pare a booklet, but .the existing proposal had merit. The City could view the booklet as an unsolicited proposal from an outside consultant. The booklet, once written, could be subjected to a factual review by the City Council, staff and outside efforts in the field. It was an existing proposal on the - table, and given. the go ahead, it would be worked on without further delay, She was an environmental consultant and had written many reports , and knew that the level of funds being sought was extremely modest -- about 28 cents per cpy for a 12 -page booklet --implied a subsidy from a printer, and the labor was all volunteer. The comparable cost to have the City staff or another consultant prepare it could be far higher. While Mr. Blake's committee Could have taken a different tactic --written the booklet .-first and then gone _ to the City for printing acrd distribution funding --having City support right from the start would improve the overall quality of the beochure and the success of the project. She urged the Council to fund the proposal and give those people a chance.' Bob Moss, 4010 Orme, said that in order to put his comments in proper perepectivee he was the first person in the.. City of Palo Alto to post the "Vote Yes .6n 12" sign. He -urged that the Council not spend City funds to pdbl i sh the -booklet as proposed for the following reasons 1 1. There was a question about whether the City of Palo Al to should have a foreign policy. Former Mayors Sher and Carey both held that the City should not, but the current Council would have to decide whether to agree. 2. The City of Palo Alto should not pay for propaganda. 3. The C1 ty of Palo Al to should not put its name on someone else's work. - 4. The figures presented a figure of $5 per hour for the prepara- tion. That was grossly underestimated in his opinion, and if the City prepared the booklet with its staff, it would cost at least $20,000 in labor. Mr. Moss did not agree that the proposed draft was appropriate_. There was nothing in it about 700 years of Russian Imperi al i sm. It had nothing to do with ideal ogy or politics, but rather with the way the system had worked in Russia since the Twelfth Century. There was nothing in the draft about the current Russian use of poison gas in Afghanistan or in Southeast Asia, which was an even more severe threat to humanity and the environment than atomic weapons. Furthermore, he wondered whether the City needed to spend $8,000 to get Palo Al tans politically active and involved. He recall ed George Si pel , former Ci ty Manager of Palo Al to, talking about the hyperactivity of Palo Al tans . He suggested that if the City Council was going to do something effective, it bear in mind that not a single person who had spoken would have had the same privilege speaking to any public body in Russia, China, Poland, East Germany, or any of the other communist countries. They would have been seized and either arrested, sent to concen- trati on camps, or sent to psychiatric wards . The Council shoul d write letters decryi ng nucl ear warfare and chemical warfare to the members of the Supreme Soviet and the governing parties of East Germany, China, Russia, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, India, and the military staff of those countries. The pamphlet should be published in Russian, Czechoslovakian , German, Chinese, Hindi and Urdu. Those -,were the countries that were in clear and present danger to the peace and tranquility of the world and were the most likely to launch nuclear war. Len Cornell, 420 Adobe P1 ace, sal d the Counci 1 ' s rol e was well played --they gave of their authority and respectability to be a beacon light and a pioneer of the effort in this country. He 1i ked to think that the passage of the nucl ear arms frEeze resolu- tion had a real impact in the recent election. He hoped the Council would not vote to prepare the pamphlet. The City gave the authoritative backing necessary, but the people would be seriously denied an opportunity to express the gut feelings from the grass roots. 'Another pronouncement by the City of Palo Alto could not rival the dramatic effect of what was done when the issue was more controversial and more. di ffi cult to envision how the whole country was ab ut to move. It would be exciting for the community to join together and learn by putting forth ideas, organizing groups, and seeking' the financial support from the businesses and cooperation . Pal o Al to had the wealth and material resources to produce an expression of the wi 11 of this_. dynamic .community. It would be far more effective: -not only to Palo Alto -- to infect one. another with the spirit and knowledge of what could be, and what could be wiped out, by developing some product to fol 1 ow ::that which was al ready illustrated in movie form which would be, sent about the country for others to view. It could be brought to the City Council for autnori zetion but by that time, the entire community would have ai ready endorsed it and no one could disapprove it. That would be a 'true product of the people', which was apprepri ate at this time . Christopher. Booth, said he worked at a rally at Moffett Field opposing nuclear weapons, aril. pointed outt-:that_ null ear war was not possible forty years ago. 1't was made . possible by a lot -of money i n. this community ty and - the . rest of the people . .i n the country. 2 6 4 8 11/8/82 e 1 Over $100 million from citizens of - Palo Alto went into the devel- opment of the 30,000 nuclear weapons in this country, and a cor- responding amount was also spent in the Soviet Union to develop its 20,000 nuclear weapons. A few years ago, a couple of nuclear weapons fell off of a forklift truck at Moffett•Field. One of the weapons fell apart, and it was not known how to deal with it. Prior to a rally at Moffett Field, all weapons were put into an unmarked Winnebago truck with no license plate, and were driven down Highway 101. Nuclear weapons passed through the community all, the time. Since citizens of Palo Alto had spent so much money on the creation and possibility of nuclear war, it was appropriate to spend $5,000 or $10,000 towards its prevention. Don Surath, 1930 Ivy Lane, said he thought Mr. Moss made some good points. If something were written in English, the Russians, etc. would get it soon enough --and probably before it was published. He submitted that the people wanted the Russians to receive the message that we do not want to be bombed. A better way to do that was to express the citizens' interest in peace and adversity to nuclear war. He wanted the Russians to know that we did not want to be bombed and had no intention of preparing .or it. RECESS FROM 9:25 p.m. to 9:35 p,m., MOTION: Couhcilmember Klein moved, seconded by Levy, that Council accept the staff report and changes to the Emergency P1 an as set forth in CMR:S!.3:2. Counci l member Klein said he could not support the City's pub- lishing the proposed pamphlet. He appreciated the comments of the audience, and was struck by the comments of Perrin French. He agreed that the attitudes of the world needed to be changed, but did know how that could be done. He pointed out that the question was not whether the issue was a local one, and the Council was al ready on record as supporting a nucl ear freeze. The federally proposed relocation program was an insanity, and, thus, the City's Emergency Plan was changed to more accurately reflect the reali- ties of the world. There were principles in the world other than the need to prevent nuclear war --one being that local government should not use City funds to propagandize its citizens. He was among the 73 percent majority who voted in favor of Proposition 12, but was concerned about the other 27 percent. He realized there would be other issues on which he would be ain ng . the 27 percent, and felt it was inappropriate for Palo Alto, or any -other city, to use taxpayer's funds to try and persuade its citizens _to take a political position of one kind or another. That pri nc 1 P1 e was important to him because it was a protection against peoples' money being used to tyranni ze themselves. He felt he must stand by that principle, much as he would like to see the City do every- thing conceivable to try and prevent a nuclear war. Counci l member Fazzi no echoed Counci l member Klein's remarks. He said the Council supported a nuclear freeze resolution, and he was pleased that the California voters supported Proposition 12. The educational message on the part of the campaign proponents was successful, and the 3-I vote in Palo Alto clearly indicated the already he gh level of educational interest and knowledge of . the issue. He strongly supported the elimination of references to nuclear war emergency planning in the City's Emergency Plan, and thought the Council's next step was to communicate its views and emergency plan tO its elected Officials, which meant support of a freeze. The City's freeze support was the .basis of its response to the federal government`s nuclear war emergency pl a'n approach. Further, he believed it would be appropriate, in short -form to residents, perhaps as part of the City's' . annual report, to again communi ate the City's E mergency Plan, particularly as it related' to earthquakes, fire or gas explosion, and even the 'lunacy of, an emerygency plan in the event of a nuclear war. That type of 1 1 1 information was overdue and might serve to produce a useful annual report. He could not support the City's expenditure of dollars for an exclusive and special booklet outlining the City Council's political views, even on this important human issue. The City was better advised to communicate its ideas on the issue to federal officials responsible for the development of an arms plan rather than preparing the brochure for a public who already approved the nuclear freeze by a 3-1 vote. The City did not need to jump on the band wagon because Boulder, Marin County and Cambridge, Massachusetts chose a particular approach. He appreciated the interest of the people on the particular brochure b.ut believed there were. other ways to go. He had no problem with the communi- cation of the City's decision regarding the federal government's emergency plan, and personally had no problem with attaching his name to an educational document on the order of what was prepared in Marin County. Each Councilmember had that prerogative. Further, he would support and add his name to a fund raising effort in order to produce that kind of a document, and would con- sider attaching the Council's name as a co-sponsor of the document if given the chance to read the pamphlet beforehand. The City had always encouraged Palo Alto citizens to support educational brochures on various issues and he did not believe resources were lacking in the community to pay for the pamphlet. He thought such a fund raising effort would raise community consciousness on the issue, but felt it was entirely inappropriate ; for the City to spend, tax dollars on the brochure. He would support the main motion regarding the elimination of reference to the Nuclear War Emergency Plan, but would oppose any amendment regarding the brochure. Councilmember Witherspoon asked for some assurances that an evacuation plan was contained in the report or would be i ncl eded in the one mentioned as a supplement to the present plan. She was not concerned whether it was referred to ae in the event of a nuclear disaster, but felt it was important that semi:. type of evacuation plan existed for any number of emergencies. Chief Wal 1 said that the plan referred to "Shelter Annexes," which called for a relocation of people within the City. No plan existed, however-, for the relocation of large groups of people to areas outside the City. Councilmember .:Witherspoon asked if civil defense was an element which was deleted. Mr. Zaner said nothing by that name was deleted. He added that the Ce ty, had standard ongoing mutual aid arrangements with nearby cities If there were a disaster on the border of Palo Alto and Mountain View that might require Palo Al tans to evacuate into Mountain View, plans were in place. Councilmember Witherspoon : said she wanted the reassurances because some of the articles she read, and some of the speakers, appeared to be under the impression that one of the deletions was an elaborate civil defense evacuation of the City in the event of a nuclear disaster. Although she agreed that:.. evacuation in the event of a nuclear disaster was almost impossible, the experience last January in . Marin County and in the Community ,of Inverness. where their disaster plans, which were based on earthquakes, saved many ` lives during the three days they were, completely cut off from civilization because of the floods. One could never anticiapte what the emergency would be --'.the important thing was to have a plan which was flexible enough to take care of citizens under any contingencies and under any kind of emergency. She would support the motion based on that understanding. _Vice Mayor Bechtel supported the motion, and the . City's taking a position in support of -a nuclear freeze. She pointedout that the booklet for Marin County was published in May of 1982, and the one in Cambridge,: Massachusetts was published about a year. ago. At that time something was needed to raise the public's level of con- sciousness, and the booklet was effective. She was not convinced that' a booklet for Palo Alto was appropriate, at this time. The continued involvement of everyone was the most appropriate way towards eliminating a nuclear war. Councilmember Cobb agreed with Councilmembers Klein and Fazzino. He was struck by the fact that so much energy was expended on reinforcing opinions in Palo Alto, which were already strong, as evidenced by the vote on the nuclear freeze. He encouraged the people in Palo Alto working to the end, to use their considerable talents to try and find a .way to reach out to their counterparts in communities in other countries. People in those countries needed to reach out to their governments who were also involved in the arms race in order to deal with both sides of the.frightening situation. He suggested something like a Sister City for Peace Program, and thought that would be a far more constructive use of the energies, rather than trying to make the choir in Palo Alto sing ever so slightly louder. There were a lot of people in the world to reach out to, and if they could reach out to their governments, maybe something could be done about all of the parties involved in the arms race. Mayor Eyerly said he did not support the nuclear freeze either at the Council level or in the state voting. He felt the nuclear freeze was politically activated and that the City's change to its Emergency Plan was inclined that way also. He was concerned that the structure of the current plan did not specifically address the fringe fallout areas, and the possible need it could handle. He would not support the motion. MOTION PASSED by a vote of 8-1, Eyerly voting "no." Councilmember Fletcher said the Council could not ignore the fact that the area was identified as a prime target for a nuclear attack by state and federal authorities. An ever increasing amount of nuclear weapons surrounded Palo Alto, moved among,,and over the City, and were transported on the highways. She felt the Council was obligated to its constituents to reduce the chances of nuclear accidents or nuclear atttack by whatever means were available. She could not think of a more pressing municipal responsibility than to protect the citizens and save the City from what appeared to be an ever-increasing danger of nuclear disaster. Palo Alto was fortunate to have a very committed and capable group of citizens who came together to offer their expertise and services to produce an informational booklet which could very well contribute to the survival of Palo Alto. City sponsorship of such a booklet would be an appropriate public service, and how the City might be involved in such a venture deserved further exploration, NOTION; Councilmember Fletcher moved, seconded by Renzei , that the matter of exploring ways the City of Palo Alto might asslst in the educational and motivational efforts aimed at reducing the likelihood of nuclear disaster be referred to the Policy' and Procedures Committee. Councilmember Renzel said she would rather the City Council spend its time on preserving the natural areas in the Baylands and Foothills and sensible land use planning, but it was supremely appalling to think that all of the best efforts in those areas could disappear instantaneously. The citizens of Palo Alto did vote 3-1_`to'-' support the nuclear freeze. She believed that many people viewed a nuclear attack in an abstract sense, but it was important for Palo Alto's citizens to know in detail what ` would happen` to its . community in "the event of a ..: nearby attack. That information was not widespread among the community members, and it was important that they, have that information. She thought Councilmember fletcher's motion offered the Council an opportunity to, look at creative ways that such information might be disseml- elated to the citizens. It might: be construed as political information, but on the other hand, it was survival. She believed there was a point at which the Council went beyond politics and into distinct realities. She did not think anyone in the community wanted to be bombed, and she would support the motion. MOTION RESTATED: That the City Council refer to the Policy and Procedures Committee the matter of exploring ways the City right assist in educational and motivational effort aimed at reducing the likelihood of nuclear disaster. MOTION FAILED by a vote of 3-6, Bechtel, Fletcher, Renzel voting ITEM #7, CLOSED SURPLUS SCHOOL SITES PHASE II, RECOMMENDED CITY [ R:756T: Real Property Administrator Jean Diaz commented that there was an immediate concern regarding those surplus school sites that were 'misted in the October 5, 1982 Resolution of Intent to Sell by the School District, because staff needed to indicate some Council interest in those sites by December 28 in order to meet the deadlines of the Education Code. Staff suggested that the open space in those areas was necessary to retain the flexibility for athletic and other turf -related uses that would be lost if those sites were lost. The second phase was different in that the issue would not arise until 1986 87. It. was important to begin -surfacing the possible closure of a middle school and the impact that it would have on the City. Councilmember Fazzino said he was amazed about the logic used with regard to the conclusion that Wilbur was a more valuable facility than Jordan. In his opinion the document presented no evidence that Wilbur was in any way a more important open space or recreational entity for the City than Jordan. He asked for evidence to the contrary. Director of Recreation Paul Thiltgen said that the Wilbur site, adjacent to Mitchell Park, was a better choice because it tied closely to the park. It would make a nice expanded park, and would provide the athletic facilities that did not exist on Mitchell Park itself. If Wilbur were closed, the athletic facilities would not be there. "Councilmember Fazzino clarified that .the thesis used was based e upon an idea. of what would conceptually he better for the City han given geographic' considerations rather than a value judgement based upon usage of the two sites. There was no relationship of data regarding the usage of those two sites with respect to the report's final conclusion." M'. Thiltgen said there was' no question that both sites were heavily used. llinconada Park was within a short -distance from Jordan School and provided tennis, facilities, pool facilities, and some open space. Wilbur School was adjacent to Mitchell Park, and it made more sense to maintain those -facilities, which -dide not exist in that ' area, and retain them at that end of town. Councilmember Fazzino clarified that the decision was not based on usage. Mr. Thiltgen said that was correct. It was from a land planning position. Councilmember Fazzino said he was concerned about the viability of the development trade-off. The idea was exciting, and was looked at a couple of years ago for Terman, but poi itical ly it turned out to be . impossible_. to bring about. Consequently,: the site did not pay for itself. He recalled that during last year's campaign, Councilmember Cobb brought up the proposai to transfer development rights, and it was presented in the report as a concept. He asked about the kind of work that had gone into the concept, and whether it was viable from a planning perspective. 1 1 Mr, Uiaz said it was true that the concept was somewhat in line with Counci1member Cobb's proposal_ in terms of looking at the trade -off --the loss of open space versus transferring some of the development rights --as a way to acquire an interest in the surplus school sites which the City deemed to be critical to the com- munity. The concept appeared viable, but it would not be known for sure until it we- 3;etermined how specifically the sites could be divided, how much was needed in order to preserve the recrea- tional flexibility, the values at that time, and how the trade-off would work when the .Naylor Bill provisions were applied. The hypothetical example appeared to work, but would require the cooperation of the school district, the community, and the indi- vidual neighborhoods involved through the Comprehensive Plan zone change process. That way the Council would get a sense of the degree of support for that concept and how much the community was willing to trade-off for the preservation of the open space. Counci 1 member Fazzino clarified that the hope was that one part of the property would pay for the other. Mr. Diaz said yes, .in terms of the acquisition of those sites. Councilmember Fazzino said that the Utility User Tax was discussed before. The City could now identify the sites which would be available five or six years . down the road, and he did not have a clear idea of the need for a Utility User Tax. He was concerned that something specific needed to be on the ballot regarding the need for a Utility User Tax or else the City would be in for a defeat, which would prevent the City from seeking that kind of tax in the future. He asked if staff had a specific time line in mind with regard to the final conclusion of the Utility User Tax. Mr, Diaz responded that a lot of that depended upon the needs that wouldcome up to compete with school sites for City resources. It was difficult to predict exactly when it would happen. A lot depended upon the deci sions made by the School Board and the Council r•egardi.ng surplus school sites. The more the City was forced to acquire, improv.e and mai ntai n surpl us school si tes, the greater the fi nanci al burden. Counci1member Fazzino said staff allowed for the possibility of not proceeding with the Uti 1 1 ty User Tax i f a Transfer of Development Rights proposal could be developed which would allow the sites to pay for themsel ves He c1 ari fled tha t the recommen- dation was not iron clad regarding a Utility User Tax. Mr. Diaz said that was true. The best case scenario presented in the report did not in and of itself call for a new source of revenue. It would increase the strain on the C'tys capital and operating budget, but in and of itself would not be the deciding factor for a new source of revenue. The more the worst case situation was approached, the morethe picture changed. Council member Witherspoon said that Cubberley was not included in the figures. She suspected ` that the City would get strong pres- sure : from that community to do something about,Cubberley because it was probably the School District's most developable site in terms . of density and commercial . use. Although the chart on page 13 of CMR:561 :2 appeared to be complete, there were . no totals. She did not know whether the City Could sell: the total . concept of a Utility. User Tax and get the two-thirds vote it would need on the ballot, but it would put a severe strain on future cash flow. She thought it was hard to know, especially since Cubberley, which was the most expensive on the City's wish list, was not included. She asked how much the. ':.City would have to commit to the School District in good faith 2 6 5 3 11/8/82 Mr. Diaz clarified that there were no grand totals at the bottom of the report because. the last column or bottom half of the chart was not a cumul a tfves choice -it was an either/or. -The School District indicated that they intended to close: either Jordan or Wilbur. It would not be appropriate to add those up. Cubberley was not included because the School District clearly indicated that it had no intention of disposing of that site within the next ten year period. It was difficult for staff to conceive what would be done by them. Counci!member Witherspoon asked if the City would be obligated, if it indicated an interest now as a policy, and a future Council did n_otwant to afford it. Mr. Diaz said that at this point there was no need to express a formal level of i riterest i n Cubberley, Jordan or Wilbur. The City was obligated to express either an interest or disinterest in the elementary school sites listed in the October 5 Resolution of Intent to Sel l , which were dealt with separately in the report from Jordan or Wilbur. Councilmember Witherspoon clarified that the worst case scenario would total approximately $500,000 acquisition, and about $135,000 improvements, plus an ongoing cost of approximately $25,000 per year to maintain . City Manager Bill Zaner said that was the worst case. Councilmember Cobb said he felt strongly about the issue, and had a tremendous regard for the City staff and their work. He recog- nized that the the Council' s response had to do with the particu- lar elementary schools that were on the 1 i st of those to be sold, but page 11 and 12 of CMR:561:2, appeared to imply that the City could do without either Jordan or Wilbur, and ultimately without Cubberley . He found that to be shocking, and asked for cl ari fi ca- tion that his assumption was correct. Mr. Thi1tgen said Councilmember Cobb was not reading it incor- rectly. Staff looked at the two sites with the assumption that one of the sites would be closed and the other would remain open The recommendation was based on the park planning processes, and of either site which woul d be the best ac qui si ti on . He cl ari fi ed that the School District had not decided that it would close both school sites, and staff's report gave recommendations about what to do with whatever site they choose to close . If the School District decided to close Wilbur, and the City acquired all the property to tie into Mitchell Park, the issue would be raised about the val i di ty of ac qui ri ng all of Wil bur and then ac qui ring all of Cubberley. It was felt that the issue should be mentioned at this point. Councilmember Cobb said Councilmember Fazzino asked a question about use data., He did not understand whether the conclusions reached were based on what . the City thought it could do in terms of cutting deal s with the District, or trade-offs with -the community or whatever, or whether they were based on specific need data. If they were, based on specific need data, he asked whether the data was for today or some projection far :In the future when all the children had left Palo Alto. The report mentioned that the athletic uses currently on the. Ohlone site, which _ the staff recommended that the City was rot presently interested in, could be picked up by Cubberley and Wil bur. He coached on those fields, he knew how crowded they were, and he did not believe that state- ment was true. He asked, if the statement - meant that that was where staff felt the City would be in the future sometime, or did it mean that the City could absorb those uses on existing fields that were 'al ready ,° crowded. 2.6_$ 4 11/8/82 Mr. Thi1tgen said staff's basic opinion was that in that case, with both Wilbur and Mi tcnel 1 being adjacent, they could absorb the uses. There was no question that any major disposition of property would create an impact_ on the open space needs of the community, but some choices had to be made as to which ones were the best ones to keep and the best to serve the needs of the : com- munity. 1 1 1 Counci 1:member Cobb clarified that the data was based on current use and not some projected use in the future, and that staff felt they could accommodate those uses al though it seemed to recognize that there were some significant dislocations involved. Mr. Thi1tgen said that was correct. Counci1mmber Cobb said that ire reviewing the various trade-offs being suggested, in several cases on the various school sites on the list, the City had not gone to preserve maximum open space, but rather some optimized trade-off, He asked if that was based on what the City could do, and what the community would accept, in terms of the density and the density trade-off, or was it based on what those fi el ds could be converted into i n terms of 1 ea vi ng enough for a soccer fi el d or a softball di amond or snmethi ng of. that nature. Mr. Diaz said staff looked at the information generated from recreation and their observations of the use, and tried to deter- mine what was critical to preserve at the sites. From there, staff looked at the issue of transferring development rights, not vice versa. Counci 1member Cobb said that based on the fact that he walked most of the properties on Sunday •morning, he had a difficult time seeing how staff's recommendation would work as he visualized some of the sites. He asked what the City specifically had to accom- plish by December 28 --an indication of interest in the sites and how much of the sites, or was it necessary to conclude how much of each site the Ci ty wanted and negotiate that wi th the School Di etrict by the December 28 in order to press ahead. Mr. Diaz said he understood that the City must express its inter- est in all or a portion of the sites. He did not believe the City needed to have specifics of any particular agreement or the spe- cifics of any site or acreage resolved at that time. Council member Cobb clarified that the Council.- must come out of tonight's meeting with, what it wanted on a site by site basis. Mr. Diaz said yes. Director of Planning and Community Environment Ken Schreiber said the School District hired a consultant to assist in the process of deciding which sites to pursue through the City's Comprehensive P1 an zoning processes and i n the eventual disposition of the sites --sale of., site, and receipt of revenue. Staff was continually asked which site the School District should pursue immediately. An interest was expressed by the School District to sell two sites per year. One recent discussion at , a . City/School Liaison Committee meeting focused on ;•the value of the School Di strict ascertaining, as soon as possible, not only the sites the City was interested in, but also those the City was not interested in . Those sites not of interest to the City could well be the sites towards which the _,Sc hoal District would orient their initial., efforts regarding disposition The sense was that if ,a specific plan process had to be worked out, or a transfer of development rights, and they were talking about a near term sale, ` that would create a. difficult process and more time was needed to get some of the other land use issues resolved leading into the sale process, i 1 Councilmember Cobb asked if it —was reasonable to assume that if the Council could identify and agree on two Palo Alto. School sites tonight that should be sold by the District, that the City could get some time and the cooperation from the School District in order to deal with some of the more complex issues of the other sites. Mr. Diaz said staff's goal w.as for the City Council to adopt some recommendations that would also meet the desires of the School Board and which the Board would accept, If the Council expressed interest in two sites, or expressed no interst, and that was also acceptable to the School District, there was no problem. If the Council's recommendations were not consistent with the School Board's desire, - there could be a problem, and the scenario might not hold. Mr. Schreiber said that during discussions. wi th the School District .staff and the consultant, a legitimate concern was expressed on the part of the School District, that if they were in a situation where they only pursued two sites for an initial sale, and ran into a major problem in terms of the City's Comprehensive Plan, zoning process and subdivision process with regard to the saleability of one or the other of the sites, they would be in the position of not getting the ball back. He could not speak for the School District or the consultants, but felt that logical finan- cial planning in the process indicated that the School District should pursue more than two sites initially in order not to end up with only one site sold when revenue reasons required that two sites be sold. Mr: Zaner urged that the Council focus more closely on the sites they were interested in and not try and work out the School Dis- trict's strategy, The School District was capable of deciding what sites shoul d be sold fi rst--the City's plan. made a recommendation as to what the Council should request of them --but the District should make those decisions, and the Council should concentrate on the sites in which the City had interest, in order to meet the December deadline. Councilmember Levy said . that underlying his questions was a bias that the Ci ty was not in the process of trying to acquire enough open space. Regarding the Naylor Act, he asked for a description of the City's rights particuarly if it decided to express no interest in Crescent Park or Ross Road, lgoul d the City still have rights to those sites under the Naylor Act. e Mr. Diaz responded that as he understood the Naylor Act, the City had a right up to 30 percent of the total school site acreage for open space purposes. If the City chose not to exercise that right with regard to Crescent Park, it would become transferrable to another site, where the City might want more than 30 percent. The Naylor Act dealt with the total available surplus school site at any time that space was available, and staff's recommendation was for the City to acquire the maximum amount possible under the Naylor Bill provisions, which set a maximum price. for purchase. by the City for park purposes at 25 percent of the fair= market value. Councilmember Levy : asked if the City was able to purchase that percentage regardless of anyother sales that the School District might want to make. He clarified that no matter what else the School District did,' the City was entitled to acquire 30 'perc'ent of the site at 25 percent of its fair market value, if it were kept as open space. Mr. Diaz said that was trie . A prnri sion was written into the Naylor Act at the last minute which recognized that the School District might .require: some flexibility in determining, where that specific acreage should be, and provided` the flexibility for them to alter it. The District -could say that because of their ability to get a higher price by selling a .particlar piece, ,which 2 6 5 6 11/8/82. was currently open space, they would allow the City to buy some- thing not as marketable. They had that flexibility under the Naylor Bill. Councilmember Levy asked if staff's recommendations maximized the City's rights under the Naylor Act. Mr. Diaz said yes. The worst , case situation would he where the the School District decided to close Wilbur, and if the City decided it was necessary to preserve it all, as open space, they were talking about acquiring more than 30 percent of that particu- lar site. The City was exceeding its entitlement there, because the City had not exercised its full entitlement at Crescent Park or Ross Road. Councilmember Levy clarified that the City was thinking ahead, and among the eight schools durrently on the block, it would not utilize all of its Naylor space, but would bank some of it against Jordan, Wilbur and Cubberl ey, etc. Mr. Diaz said that was correct. Further, the City was banking some from the Te rman acquisition since it did not acquire a full 30 percent of that site under the Nayl or Act provisions. Councilmember Levy said there was some concern that should the law be changed over the years, the City would lose by not having exer- cised its ri g'ts immediately Regarding Jordan, he was always struck that the triangle bordered by Embarcadero, Oregon and the Bayshore had no park in it except the bowling green. He read the recommendation to mean that that was not a priority in staff's planning. Mr. Thiltgen said staff recommended the acquisition of one to two acres to provide a park site to deal with the neighborhood. Staff suggested that more district type activities --swimming pool and tennis --were close by at Rinconada and could be provided there. Councilmember Levy clarified that a. small soccer field was two acres. Mr. Thiltgen said yes. Vice Mayor Bechtel said the report indicated that facilities could be closed at certain sites because Rinconada could be used. Rinconada had swimming pools and tennis courts, but had limited space in terms of playing fields. She asked if a count was done of the number of playing fields, i.e., baseball and soccer fields, in all ends of town, including City facilities as well as District facilities. Mr. Thiltgen said he did not have that information. Vice Mayor Bechtel said that a fetter was received from the Palo Al to Little League desdribi ng numbers of avai 1 ablte fields in terms of baseball fields, and she thought that should be part of the City's report. She asked for clarification that the Naylor Bill included potenti al for negotiation between the City and the District in the case where there were other facilities, or open space in a City, and that the City would get the same maximum 25 percent reduction as they might if there were spaces further from the potential site, Mr. Diaz said he believed something like that was included in a clean up -\bill which was submitted, but not _ adopted. An attempt was made to try and tie it to standards, but he did not believe it was adopted: Mayor Eyerly said that regarding the funding sources for purchases recommended by staff, he believed that the Finance and Public Works (F&PW) Committee already had an assignment concerning finances and possible revenue sources, etc. Staff indicated in the recommendation on long-term steps that they favored a Utility User Tax as the source of revenue for the purchase of school prop- erties. Bringing it to the Council did not appear to be the right process because the Council had to wrestle yearly with an operating and captal improvement budget, and the capital improve- ment budget was a fi ve-year document, and then had to address revenues to see . if the budget could be made to balance. He did not think the Council should address extra revenues specifically for this item. Mr. Zaner said Mayor Eyerly was correct. The assignment was in F&PW and would be heard by them during the last session of the month. The recommendation with regard to the new source of revenue was more a comment than a commitment on the part of the Council and indicated that staff believed that a long range source of new revenue was required. He thought the Council would concur that over the long-range, a new source'of revenue would be needed. Staff felt further that the Utility Users Tax appeared to be the most logical source, but that was not a commitment on the part of the Council should it be adopted. Mayor Eyerly said the report recommended that the Council approve immediate steps regarding the purchase of certain school sites. He was concerned about whether that was the right procedure since the Planning Commission was not scheduled to address those school sites or the other school sites that the School District was declaring to be surplus. He understood that there was a shortage of time, and also that it would be possible to get an extension, and asked for some comments as to why staff did not feel that the Planning Commission should address the issue. It appeared to him that certain zoning matters and land uses needed to be addressed before the Council could make an equitable decision. Mr. Zaner said Mayor Eyerly was correct that there was a time con- straint, but that the District had extended its 90 -day limit once before, and might do so again if the Council requested an exten- sion. Seaff was not at a point where the Planning Commission's normal process came into play, but rather where Council was being asked, pursuant to a State law, to make a policy decision as to which sites it was interested in. Once that policy decision was made and the District subsequently decided to sell off and/or develop the balance of the property, the full planning process would come into effect and the District would operate through the City's planning process just like any other applicant, providing the City with the necessary materials, going through the. ARB, Planning Commission, and City Council, etc. The current step was merely an indication by the Council as to which < sites it was interested in acquiring as open space, Counci lmember Klein said that regarding the soccer field dimen- sions, he did not understand how it was determined that two acres were necessary for a soccer field. Kr. Thi l tgen said a soccer field was 60 yards by 120 yards --a little wider and longer i;han a football field --which totaled 64,000 square feet or 1.5 acres. Counci lmember. Klein said he wasconcerned not with the dimensions, but that thy' O'recise answer was no . contained in the report. When. talking about big dollars, it made a , big difference to him whether they were talking about 1.5 or two acres. Various statements were made that the Council had to decide tonight and he did not know why. 1 1 Mr. Diaz said that the. Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) Board of Trustees adopted a Resolution of Intent to Sell pursuant to the Education Code. That set forth a deadline, consistent with the Education Code, of December 28 for public agencies to acquire the sites under the Education Code provisions. Should the City Council not express an interest in the sites mentioned within that Resolution of Intent to Sell, the School Board can put the sites on the market and sell them to the private sector, having ful- filled their obligation to give the City the right: of first refusal, Councilmember Klein asked why they had to decide tonight when the report said, "this action requires .that the Council express its intent to purchase all or a part of these sites by December 28." He clarified that if the Council acted on December 27, and sent the Board a hand delivered letter, they would have acted in a timely fashion. Mr. Zaner said that was correct. There was no requirement that Council act tonight --they must act prior to December 28 or receive an extension —otherwise the District could sell to the private sector. Counci imember Klein said he received different messages between Mr. Sc hrei ber' s comments and Mr, Zaner's comments with regard to the type of action the School District would like the Council to take. On one hand, he heard that it would be a good idea for the Council to indicate which sites they might like the District to sell first, and on the other hand, he heard that they should not get into that, but just indicate which ones they were interested in and which ones they were not interested in. Mr. Zaner clarified that he hoped the Council would not enter into a discussion regarding the stre.tegy the School District ought to adopt internally. The packet recommendation requested that Council request that the School Board take the sale in a certai n series of steps. Staff hoped Council would adopt that recommenda- tion in order that the sale would come out to the City's benefit. He was concerned that the Council not spend a great deal of time trying to figure out whether the School Di strict ought to sel 1 Site A instead of Site B. Mr. Schreiber clarified that his intent was the same --that the Council should not try to identify two sites --because the School District needed the City's responses on all six sites in order to put together their strategy for not only the corning year, but the next years. Counci l member Klein said that regarding the language in the staff report, he did not think the Council was prioritizing which ones ought to be sold first. "A" recommended that the Council adopt a resolution that .the City had no intention to acquire . any portion of Crescent Park, Ross Road or Ohlone. He asked if that was the same thing as saying that they should sell those first. Mr. Zaner said it gave the District .the option of doing any one of those they chose to do. The City would be telling the Board that the Cityhad no interest in those four sites, so the District had the option of selling those first if they chose. Counci lmember4.=: Renzel said she . thought the staff did a super ,job on the report. There were a lot of balls to juggle and she thought it was clear that everyone would :like to preserve all the open space at all the schools, but the practical reality was that the City would have to pay the piper and had to set priorities. She thought that staff di_ d the best they could to suggest . where the Council's priorities ought to be. The. :Counci lmembers may indi- vidually have different ideas,,but on the .whole, the work done was quite good. If the Council indicated its interest in;a portion of a sit;!, would they have any option to later ''choose to purchase more than that portion indicated, or was it strictly a matter of amicability between the District and the City if it had not already been put on the -open market 2 6 a 9 11/8/82 1 Mr. Diaz responded that at that point, it would become a matter of negotiation. If a mutually agreeable plan could be worked out, he believed that the School District would be willing to work it out. One of the reasons the City left itself some room was because it had not had enough time to lay out a plan and impose a soccer or baseball diamond here and there, but it had an• idea --one to two acres. That could be done by sitting down with the School District and their consultants to figure out exactly how much was needed. That would be a decision that would come back to the City Council and whatever other bodies were deemed appropriate Councilmember Renzel said she assumed the recommendations were also based on the schools the School District was choosing not to sell , which would remain as playing fields and would be part of the City's planned open space throughout the community. Mr. Diaz said that was correct. Councilmember Renzel said that a slight implication came out of the Jordan versus Wilbur discussion that if Jordan were closed, then Wilbur would remain a junior high school and the City would not be required to acquire any of that. She asked if that in any wayaffected what the City might do with respect to Cubberley. It was clearly indicated that if. the City had to acquire Wilbur, that would cause the City to reassess whether it needed additional major facilities at Cubberl ey. She asked what would happen if the City acquired portions of Jordan. Mr. Diaz believed that gave the City more flexibility in dealing with other sites that were around that area, and one was the Cubberl ey-Greendel l site. Councilmember Cobb asked Lanie Wheeler if i t would be conceivable for the Planning Commission to get involved quickly in order to get some more information and input if the Council decided that was necessary. Planning Commissioner Lani e Wheeler said yes . She estimated, in response to Vice Mayor Bechtel's question earlier regarding numbers of fields in various portions of town, but could not vouch for the absolute accuracy of her estimate, that north of Oregon Expressway, there were currently eight soccer playing fields with the possibility of setting up one or two more on the Palo Alto High School property if necessary. South of Oregon Expressway, and east of El Camino, there were 15 soccer fields either set up or potential; south of Page Mill Road and west of El Camino there were seven soccer fields currently set up with the potential for an eighth. Regarding ,Councilmember Cobb's question, the Planning Commission had meetings set up every Wednesday between now and December 28 with the possible exception of the evening before Thanksgiving. She believed the Commission could probably find time on one of those agendas`to address the question. She had strong personal feelings about the a whole _ issue of school sites, and: thought that many of the other Commissioners would welcome the opportunity if the Council deemed it advisable to ask the Planning Commission to tackle the question. Knowing the Council did not have to refer the question to the Planning Commission, and that the Council could conceivably take action on the item tonight, in addition to reading the staff report, she had reviewed the section of the .Comprehensive P1 an which rel ated to schools and parks. The entire section was relative to the Council's discussions, but in particular, Policy ;One of Program One said "to establish a process with the school district to decide on and implement the reuse of specific closed school sites. This process should have full citi- zen participation throughout." _ That quote addressed the fact that the Council received the report on Friday, and .many citizens had not yet received i t . "Under 1981 law, school districts may sell or lease, and other public agencies may buy or lease up to 30 per- cent of the surplus school sites at costs substantially below market for recreation and open space use." The City should take 2 6 6 0 11/8/82 full advantage of the new law to acquire surplus school. proper- ties. Further, parts of the Cubberley, Terman, Ventura, Ortega, - and Garland sites had high open space and recreational priority based on City and community use of closed school sites and poli- cies of the 1969 Parks and Recreations Policy Study. Finally, the acreage of City parks and school. play fields met the neighborhood and district park standards, but the location of City parks and school play fields meant that certain areas depended upon school play fields alone. For example, school play fields provided athe only neighborhood park near San_ Antonio Road between Alma and Middlefield. Councilmember Levy asked if under the Naylor Act, tennis courts and swimming.. pools were considered to be open space. Mr. Diaz said that City staff considered it to be open space, but the School District did not, based on the experience at Terman. That issue was disputed on the Terman acquisition. Linda Crane, 140 Lois Lane, represented the Palo Alto Athletic Council, which was a voluntary coalition of the amateur youth organizations which operated within the City of Palo Alto. They requested that the Council delay action for a period of at least two weeks on the staff recommendation relating to the closed surplus school sites. While they recognized the need for timely Council action regarding the six elementary school sites which were officially declared surplus by the School District, they asked that the Council continue the item for the following reasons: 1. The report became public only last Friday. Many of the mem- ber organizations had not had time to acquire nor react to the report. 2. While there was reference in the report to sparse public attendance at the School Board Subcommittee's discussions, the staff report. represented the first governmental indica- tion of specific long-term uses for the sites. The public was more likely to respond to concrete proposals than to a general invitation to speak in a theoretical sense to future use of the land. 3. Those who had read the report were concerned about .the suffi- ciency of the data base on which the conclusions rest. For instance, they did not feel that the information regarding use of the turf areas was either accurately or adequately pre- sented. Additionally, the report failed to address a current or future ievel of usage of the surrounding facilities which would be expected to absorb the activities displaced by redevelopment of the sites not earmarked for City acquisition. Furthermore, some of the facilities assumed by the report to be able to a `comrnodate the displaced activity were designated City -neighborhood parks. It would require changes in City policy, and i n some cases park renovation to allow organized athletic organizations to erect goal posts, implant home plates and pitching rubbers, mark field areas, and have issued to them exclusive use permits. The. Council was being asked to make decisions that were among the most critical and irrevocable land use decisions that would be made in the next decade. They would do the current and future citizens a great disservice if the decisions were made in undue haste. Stuart Green, 4074 Ben Lomond Drive, President of the Greenmeadow Community Association, -said that the Association was concerned about the preliminary observations and recommendations made by the City t.y staff with regard tO. the Cubberl ey-Greendel l site. They thought that the existing recreational facilities at that site were vita -1..= to the enti re City of Pal o Al to, and should be. 1 8 1 maintained in . their entirety regardless of the disposition of the Wilbur site. They recognized that City financial resources were limited and that difficult decisions must be made wi th respect to any deserving programs. The City staff correctly recommended that faced with the closure of Wilbur, the City should "act to preserve the pool, gymnasium, tennis courts and open space areas as a necessary adjunct to the adjacent Mitchell Park.". The City staff also made the • incorrect assumption that the "necessity to act to preserve portions of the Cubberley-Greendell sites would be logically terminated upon closure of the Wilbur site. The Association disagreed completely with the staff's conclusion that the remoteness of the Cubberl e.y-Greendel 1. site was an issue. On the contrary, it was patently obvious that participants and spec- tators alike constantly used the Cubberley-Greendell recreational facilities, and did so despite the presence of the Wilbur facili- ties as th(•y now exist or given their incorporation in the future as part as an expanded .Mitchell Park. The Cubberley-Greendel l sites were currently utilized by the following organizations: 1) Little League Baseball for practices and games in March through June; 2) Babe Ruth Baseball practice and games from March through July; 3) Bobby Sox Softball practices and games from March through June; 4) City of Palo Alto Adult Softball games from March through September;_ 5) Industrial League Softball games from April through August; 6) Pop Warner Football practices from August through October; 7) AYSO Soccer practices and games from September through December; 8) CYSA Soccer practices and games year round; 9) Palo Alto Adult Soccer League practices from September through May; 10) Palo Alto Grasshoppers Semi --Professional Men's Soccer team practices from September through May; 11) Harmony Adult Men's Soccer Club games; and, 12) Palo Alto Cricket Club games from June through mid - September. Mr. Greene said that the --Cubberley-Greendell sites provided joggers the use of a track, open field area, and par course. The tennis courts were in constant use from individuals .as well as being regularly reserved by the Palo -Alto Tennis Club for tourna merits. Previous informal- users included the City of Palo- Alto Firefighters which were stationed at the Mitchell Park Station, and Mayfield Continuation School!e It was. apparent that the. Cubberley-Greendel.1, site was heartily utilized even in the presence of the Wilbur Facilities. Should residential. development of--Ahe present. surplus. school °sites become a reality as concluded by the- taffe report, the maintenance and preservation of the Cubberley-Greendell site 'would become more necessary. The Association .felt. that the -City of. Pala Alto could not absorb- the. losses -.of -the , Cubberl "y-Greendell facilities . even if .Wilbur Were closed. They: thought that the City of Palo Alt should not con- si de`r -'any, plan teat wopl d:.-3eopsrdi ze those itaportant fac_i�l i ti es because: their loss weuld,4iVeificently damage Palo Alto'<s reer a : ti ona 'pr /gram find under ai ne..the quality of -,11 fe that Palo` Al`tans had ,come- to cheriW.--_pd: .t.. J__._ J: .`i_ _ a . a - Jacques Wol gal er tee . 768 Paul Avenue, represented the Palo Alto Chapter of 'the American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO). AYSO was the largest and most popular volunteer Organization in Palo Al to which provided soccer activities to youth between the ages of 7 and 17 years. They had 2,100 children in the regular program that ran from Labor Day to Chri stmas. Occasionally, they spon- sored other soccer activities when vol unteers were found to run them. After reading the staff report, he was concerned about the loss of the playing fields in the north part of Palo Alto. AYSO had had serious problems this Year- with scheduling a practice field in that area. They had to send some eight, nine and ten year olds from that area to other fields. They had to cross Oregon Expressway and Embarcadero. It was highly unpopular with the parents and presented a safety problem. He did not see Eleanor Pardee Park absorbing the five teams that now practiced at Crescent Park because Eleanor Pardee was fully used already. AYSO wanted to see some open space preserved for recreational use at Crescent Park. In North Palo Al to, the problem would only qet_ worse if Jordan closed, and a major portion of the open space were not preserved. All three Jordan fields and the Garland field were used every day during soccer season. The fields were al so heavily used throughout the year by other organizations. The Ohl one site was exclusively used by AYSO for seven year olds. They would hate to see them play at Wilbur or Cubberley and mix with the much older children. Those children were just starting in the world, and mixing seven year 'olds with seventeen year olds was intimi- dating . If it was impossible to keep Ohl one, he suggested that the City and the School Di strict exchange 1 ands, under the .trans- fer and development right concept, and allow AYSO to use Ramos Park if an arrangement could be made with the School Di strict to exchange some land with Ortega. AYSO involvement closely paralleled the school population. Over the past few years, their involvement was between 25 and 28 percent of the school ` s involve- ment. His figures were based on the School District projections based on their long-range planning committee report. In 1982, AYSO had 2100 players representing 26 percent of the school popu- lat on. They used 32 fields for practice, and 23 of those fields for games on Saturdays and Sundays. In. 1985, they expected 2,025 pl avers --30 fields would be used for practice and 22 would be used for games. In 1990, they expected 1,750 players and would require 26 practi ce fi el ds and 19 gale fi el ds. He urged that the Council delay voting on the issues until more data was available. He believed that the staff report was incomplete. Jim Skoog, 3974 Bi bbi is Dri ve, represented Palo Al to, Little League, who was currently facing a\crisis in that with the' cl osure of Hoover, they no longer had a place to play. They noted in the plan that their need for fields was addressed in that it recom- mended that Hoover be purchased and that a Little League field be put there. However, they were concerned that that only addressed two fields, and they needed three to run their program. The Little League organization had 750: children last, year, and they ran about 55 teams. They had children ranging from ages 7 to 12 years, and presently were able to provide a program, wherein anyone who signed up could play. Presently they used one field for games--Mi ddl efi el d --which they _ owned, and they used the two Hoover fields which they helped to maintain. Their concern in the game fields was that for the 11 and 12 year olds, for which there were 28 teams, safety becomes a factor in baseball. The children could start hitting theball hard `enough that screens were needed around the fields to protect the spectators and the children in the dug- outs so that they would not get winged by a foul ball. A playing surface was needed which would give a reasonably true bounce -- those who were hit by baseballs would understand. If you play on a field which was tractored over by a herd of adult soccer players, the ball no longer bounced correctly, and it became a danger. They`. were concerned thatthe plan did not address a third fiel_ dl, and they had approached the City and School District and had not been able to resol-ve where the third field would be. They 2 6 6 3 11/8/82 were also concerned that they were tight on fields in the north end of town for practice, and 55 teams required 22 practice fields. About half the children were in the north end of .town and they needed about 10 or . 11 practice fields in the north end of town. Five of those practice fields came out of Jordan alone. They ran direct competition with Palo Alto Girl's Softball at the north end of town and were having to have kids cross Oregon to come south and practice at Hoover and Wilbur. Any loss of fields on the north end of town would cause problems for Palo Alto Little League and Palo Alto Girl's Softball. They would love to regain both fields at Hoover and continue to play there. It was an ideal arrangement for Palo Alto Little League. Other alternatives were to acquire a third site on Ortega or DeAnza including converting a softball site, but that would mean displacing someone else. Vice Mayor Bechtel asked if Little League participation had been declining. Mr. Skoog said no. He said the Little League tended to run with the Giants --when they had a good year, enrollment went up. Counci1member Levy asked what acreage was requi red for a practice field. Mr. Skoog said it depended upon the age grouping. A major league team, which was 11 and 12 year olds and some younger children, required a field which was approximately 180 square feet. The younger children could get by with 140 square feet. They used Ohl one for the 1 i ttl e children because it was nice and protected and they did not have to worry about the big kids hitting the ball by them. Frank Patitucci, of 1437 Dana. Avenue, across the street from Crescent Park School said that for the last year the neighborhood had been dealing with the closure of Crescent Park School and what woul d happen wi th that school site from a nei ghborhood poi nt of view. He requested that the Council consider zoning Crescent Park School immediately from the PF zone to R-1, and that it be placed on the agenda in the near future in order to prod the School Board to deal with that site a 1 i ttl a mere qui ckl y than some of the others. He appreciated the discussion of the need for open space, and understood that only the City Council, P1 anni ng Corn i ssi on or the property owner could request a zoning change. The Crescent Park School had been closed permanently. It was also clear that the Ci ty had a low priority for that school bei ng an open space -- possibly a soccer field. There was extra development of space possible at Eleanor Park and one might be able to squeeze a couple of soccer fields there. They expected that the City had. a low priority for Crescent Park as open .space. The various committees who looked at the issue from the City. School District, and nei gh- boyhood standpoint all agreed that the zoning.. shoul d be R-1 . It was surrounded by R-1, there were no col 1 ector streets, and no rationale for any other use. . However, there were problems of uncertainty and questions about what would happen in the interim. Currently, there was complete canfl ict beween the neighborhood and the,. current use for one of the lessees at that site. The School Disposition .Committee chose `to take a market approach to throw all the sites open and see which ones went. That could lead to other sites being more attractive in the market and Crescent Park sit - ti ng there as a derelict school site with a lot of interim uses which conflict with the goals and the historic use of that site. He felt the City should establish the_ :: `priorities for the School. Board. The City had no interest` in Crescent Park and he thought they should get on with it. It would _have the affect of accel era- tfng the process for the School ' Board. He- did not believe that if the City Council initiated the process, the School Board could object. .:He believed that the School Board was looking for sites that would move quickly and therefore generally agreed with the zoning and the idea -of an early sale. .�Yhey needed- the moneyand a decision needed to. be made. 2 _S 6 4 I-1/8/82 1 1 1 Bob Moss, 4010 0rme, said that. the Council was being asked to take a no -cost, no -obligation option on property. By the same token, if the Council chose to extend that and ask the School District to essentially reserve all of the open space on all of the sites, the City was not obligated to spend a penny in the near future.. The six grammer school sites --the open space --in Table 4 on Page 9, added up to about 8.6 acres, The staff recommendation suggestd that the Council buy, or at least express an interest in buying three to three and one-half acres or perhaps 40 percent of the available land. If the City were to express an interest in all of the open space in all of the sites except . for Crescent Park and Ross Road, the City would be optioning 5.8 acres. Under the Naylor Bill, the City could buy that for approximately $500,000 to $600,000 given current land values. He asked the Council to bear in mind that the School District had no interest in selling all six of the properties at one time and would not want to sell more than two at a time. Further, there would be.a.lot of push whether to sell _ Crescent Park as one of the first sites. .Chances were that the City's obligation in the first year would be to buy no more than two acres maximum for $200,000 Most probably the City would be asked to spend between $75,000 and $125,000. That was something that could be handled in the unappropriated capital reserve if necessary. . Even though the school population was decreasing, the number of adults using the facilities was increasing. There would always be a need for the recreational facilities. The worst that could happen would be that the City would end up buying some of the land and in due course decided that they did not need all the land they optioned or purchased. That would put the City in the position of 'owning prime develop- ment land in the flatlands of Palo Alto. He did not think the City could lose. He believed that under the Naylor Bill, if the City decided to sell off the land for development, it would have to give the School District whatever was recaptered above the 25 percent of fair market value at that time. That was fair enough because the City would be paid more than that. He suggested that if the City did anything before going back to the Planning Commission or the public, that they express an interest in all of the open space. Another reason for expressing interest in the approximately 1.5 acres at Ohlone was that would be tied to what happened at Wilbur and how Wilbur, Fairneadow, Ohlone, and tai t;chel l' Park would be used as an entity. If the City gave up its option for that open space, if would remove flexibility when the School District decided what they want to do with Wilbur or Jordan. It would not cost anything to preserve that flexibility. The worst that could happen would be that the School District would sell Ohlone first and the ..City was asked to put. up $150,000 for about $600,000 worth of open market land. He did not ,think the City could go wrong. it. was worth pursuing and the Council should accept., the options. Vice Mayor Bechtel said that Mr. Noss summed up her feelings quite well that of the six sites, the Council .should keep its options open on DeAnza, Hoover, Ohlone and Ortega. AYSO members pointed out that if the City was not going to use the Crescent Park _ site as open space, they should work harder on Eleanor Pardee Park to try and _devise some sort of soccer .fields. She heard a numberof members of the, public request a two week continuance. She under- stood that in two weeks the Council had a number of planning items on its agenda, and she asked about the Council's schedule for December and whether the item should be continued. Mr. Zaner said the Council me.eti ng coon ng up for November _ 22 was extremely heavy. A Council meeting was not anticipated for November 29: because it was the =fifth Monday. On. December= 6, the Council would be asked to _Lome to, the meeting early in order to get .a briefing on .the Hazardous Waste Ordinance which was working its way through the lhC, and which required Council comments_ :in order to get' adopted in January. Evergreen Park was scheduled for December 13, and Planning ' Cotmi s si on items on NOecember 20. There was a possibility " of a provision in the Nayii r Bill which would 2 6 6 .5 11/8/82 only allow the Council 60 days instead of 90 days. If that, was true, the Council must take its action not later than December 11. He suggested that if the Council had any kind of a delay that they move to continue_ to December 6. City Attorney Diane Lee said the City received one notice, but under the Naylor Bill, if the City wanted to exercise its right to purchase certain types of land from the school district at the lower price, then the City only had 60 days from the date it received notification of the intention to sell. She thought it was confusing to staff that they referred to other sections pur- suant to which the District was giving notice and setting their date. If the City wanted to take advantage of the lower price, it had to do it within 60 days. The City could still purchase, but not at the lower price. Vice Mayor Bechtel thought that the Council complicated the issue for themselves when trying to get into the issue of Cubberley and Jordan -Wilbur. She thought Ohlone was going to be tied to that. It was far easier to make some decisions about the el emeotary school sites. MOTION: Vice Mayor Bechtel moved, seconded by Fazzino, to con- tinue the item until December :.6. Councilmember Cobb said he hoped that the Planning Commission could get involved and have a chance to have an extraordinary session to deal with the issue. Mr. Zaner said he had _ no problem with the December 6 date, but asked to be authorized to request the District to extend the time. He thought the district believed it had a 90 -day time frame. Councilmember Cobb said he understood one Councilmember would be gone on November 29, and he thought the Council needed to spend a good chunk of an evening on the subject. He wanted to find some way to clear the decks in order to do that. Vice Mayor Bechtel said that the item on hazardous waste, which was a workshop study session proposed between 6:15 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. would be finished by 7:30. Mr. Zaner said that was correct. The two items for action on the November 29 agenda would be the Grecian Heal th Spa, another reasonably heavy item, and the Bike Boulevard, which should not be terribly controversial . The Grecian Health Spa could be shifted off if the Council desired. Councilmember Cobb observed that this was the beginning of a set of decisions that were the most important land use .-decisions the Council would make in this decade. He thought the decisions should be given the time and attention they deserved even if it meant moving other things out of the way. The consequences in the long-term were so profound to the community that an . agenda needed to be cleared. If December 5 was a night it could be done, fine. The agenda should be cleared in order to do a proper and thorough job.` Councilmember Klein agreed with Councilmember Cobb . He thought the matter deserved a great deal o& attention. SUBSTITUTE MOTION: Councilmember Klein moved, seconded by /Witherspoon , that the item be continued to November 29 and that a special : meeting be scheduled, .for it. Fur-,ther, that the matter be referred to the Planning Commission for a report prl er to November 29,- and that _: the -'.City Manager ..be authorized. to request an exten- sion from the School District on - the bails of the 90 -day Schedule. 2 6 6 6 11/8/82 Ms. Lee commented that the School District's notice was under pro- visions that did not relate to the Naylor Bill. The Naylor Bill provisions did not appear to require or allow the School District to give the City an extension. She thought the City was on its safest course if they acted within the days provided in the bill. Counci 1member. Klein asked if it was correct to say that all the City had to do was give notice within the 60 days. Ms. Lee responded notice of intention in writing. Counci 1 member Klein asked ab out the time limit for working out an agreement on the purchase price. Ms. Lee said no time limit was specified in the Naylor Bill. Council member Klein thought the City could protect itself if they were really concerned by indicating that it wanted to negotiate with regard to the maximum amount of open space. He asked if that would protect the Ci ty' s legal position. Ms. Lee said yes. Council member Klein said that later on they could decide that perhaps they were not interested in school site "x" or "y." He did not see a time problem in that sense. Ms. Lee said that another requirement of the Naylor Bill was that the Ci ty have a p1 an to desi gnate the surpl us school sites, or portion of those sites the City desired to purchase, at the prices established i n the Naylor Bi 1 l . The City had to designate at least 70 percent of the property available as bei ng non-Nayl or Bill purchasable. Counci 1 member Klein asked if the staff report would constitute a plan. Ms. Lee responded that it would with the right title. The Council should be aware of the requirement under the Naylor Bill that by two-thirds vote they must make a finding that public lands in the vicinity of the school site were inadequate to meet existing or foreseeable recreation needs. Council member Witherspoon said she supported the motion. She was concerned that the only constraint on the City would be financial. I f the City wanted all of the sites, how would the Counci 1 decide among them except financially. She thought the City would need some indication from staff how it would be pulled off. Counci1member Levy said staff had done a commendable job even though he was still concerned with a lot of pieces. The motion was to continue the meeting until November 29. He was concerned because Counci lmember Fazzi no would not be available on. November 29, and he thought everyone should be there. He preferred that the Council meet on the issue on December 6, and that the Grecian Health Spa items be moved to another date. He would not support the amendment. Counciimember Fazzino said he agreed with Council member Levy. It was important that all Councilmember s be N._ in attendance. He was disconcerted by aspects of the report. While he recognized that Jean Diaz did outstanding work on the entire school site issue, he had difficulty moving from the facts and data presented in the report to the proposed recommendations :..He had serious, concerns about the political viability of development on parts of sites with the protection - of ::open space :;.given the Terman precedent. Terman was not paying for itself and , he doubted that many . sites would be able to given the desire._ of neighbors to retain both open space and low. density housing on the sites. In fact, he was 2667 11/8J82 i a 1 unclear about the kind of development which would be necessary for the sites to pay for themselves. He would like to have more information and some results of the Cobb proposal as presented in the 1981 election campaign. He was very disturbed by the conclu- sion that Wilbur was more important to the community than Jordan. He thought both facilities were extremely important to Palo Al to and the i doss of any open space at Wilbur or Jordan would be extremely harmful. It was important for the Council to go on record in order not to give any contrary impression, or the staff opinion to the School District as they prepared their decision with regard to closure of any additional middle school. He could not accept. the Utility User Tax until a statement of needs was clearly indicated. The voters would smashingly reject any general tax raising proposal unless they were convinced of the overriding need for specific school sites, He wanted to see the longer list on the ballot rather than the Council setting themselves up for a ballot loss and additional difficulty in raising money later on to purchase the very important open space area. He agreed with Vice Mayor Bechtel that there was little problem with the specific elementary school. proposals before the Council and he had no prob- lem moving ahead and supporting those. He wished that the matter had gone to the Planning Commission before it reached the Council. He felt the Council was grasping at straws the entire evening. Some careful Planning Commission review of the issue would have given the Council a much better, more reasoned opportunity to evaluate the issues in the report rather than the unfocused dis- cussion had tonight. He encouraged that. the issue go to the Planning Commission and be back to the Council for final review prior to December 6, and a statement of intent to the School District be issued at that time. Councilmember Cobb said the Council might want to consider meeting on a night other than Monday. The issue was important enough that the Council could meet any night of the week. Further, the Planning Commission should be given a little time to. work with the issue because more information than what they had now would be needed if they were going to be able to sort the matter out. In addition to the referral to the Planning Commission, instructions needed to be given to staff to get additional data wi th a Bard to recreational uses, the nature of trade offs that would be made, etc. Mayor Eyerly said that in looking over the staff recommendations, there were parts under long-term steps that perhaps should not be referred. He clarified that he was thinking more about the financial objectives and the long-term steps i.e., (a) that the City's recreation and financial objectives could best be met by the closure of Jordan rather than Wilbur. He did not think the Council wanted to refer those financial objectives to the Planning Commission. Further, (c) the long-term source of funding, etc., should al so no.t be referred. Councilmember Klein agreed. He thought that only the imkediate short=termsteps should be referred. Mayor Eyerly said that with regard to the price of the elementary schools which were feasible to the City, the Finance and Public Works (F&PW) ' Committee, within their capital improvements program operating budget' and new revenue, could handle that without . the necessity of recommendations from staff concerning_ funding sources. He was not concerned about needing . further fi nanclal input from staff for the F&PW when it came back SUBSTITUTE MOTION RESTATED That _ the matter be . -continued-' --to December 6; that the short -terra, Immediate.„: steps '.portion.. of. CliR:551 Z be referred to` -the Pl aeai ng - C rf sstoi- `_rite_ the = grmde schools and elementary schools to be addressed by the Planning Commission; and that staff be di rectrd _-to .doh..- for a-° clear 'state-- meat of Ike time. -allowance from the School°Oistrict. VICE MAYOR BECHTEL AND COUNCILMEMBER FAZZINO AGREED TO INCORPORATE POINTS OF SUBSTITUTE MOTION INTO THE MAIN MOTION. Councilmember Levy suggested that the Planning Commission investi- gate the possibility of achieving the density transfer by the con- sideration of a new zone' with a density slightly more than R-1 provided that a portion of the existing school site open space was maintained for public use. That kind of trade-off would enable a developer to have the same economic return as if it were strictly 8-1, and at the same time would give the community, on a given site, the opportunity to safeguard open space. That. concept was not so significant right now given the six gramrner school sites being looked at. In the future,: the Council would look at indi- vidual schools sites —Jordan, Wilbur, and Cubberl ey--and given the individuality of those sites, the opportunity won't . be available for the Council to trade-off open space as they did now. Having a. zone that would do that in the residential areas, and assuming that that zone would be the standard zone for those school sites within residential areas, would be beneficial to the Council in deal ing with the School District and from a -political standpoint in dealing with each neighborhood as they go along. AMENDMENT: Councilmember Levy moved, seconded by Fazzino, that the Planning Commission consider a new zone that could be imple- mented for existing school sites in residential areas in order to maintain at least some of the open space currently being used for community recreation purposes. Councilmember Cobb thought the concept was interesting. He was concerned that the Planning Commission needed to meet in an emer- gency session in order to get their work done before the Council met on December 6. He opined that the Planning Commission did not need to address the amendment on the same emergency basis. He suggested that the amendment be handled as a separate assignment to be handled on a somewhat more deliberate schedule. Councilmember Levy commented that he did not think the Commission needed to report back to the Council with the same speed, but that it should go along with the current assignment, and the Commission could decide when to address it. Councilmember Cobb said he would support the amendment on that basis. He suggested that the motion also include a request for staff to provide the Planning Commission with specific information regarding existing and projected recreational uses of the prop- erties in question, and at .least some preliminary information as to the nature of the density trade-offs involved in the density trade-off concepts. Vice Mayor _ Bechtel commented that the recreational information could be obtained quickly, and that it was already understood that the Commission was meeting in a special session. . She was not sure whether it was possible .to get all of f the density transfer infor- mation that quickly. She would rather not have it formally incor- porated in the motion. Mr. Schreiber said , the matter would be discussed with the Commission --and the information contained i n this Friday' s packet. He would get the current information, plus whatever other informa- tion the Council felt was necessary in terms of the use of the sites to the ' Commission. Additional, information —development transfers, new zoning concepts, etc., was beyond what staff would be capable. of Dicing with that time. Vice Mayor Bechtel said that essentially they were ;lncorporati::tg into the motion a request for as much recreational information as to fields and uses of fields as staff could pull together. 2 6 6 9 11/8/82 Cvuncilmember• Levy said that given the time constraints, he and Counci lmember Fazzino would withdraw the amendment for the time being. AMENDMENT WITHDRAWN Counci l member Renzel commented that the City had a certain allocation percentage of the Naylor Bill, and that was shifted around among sites. As far as the development transfer was concerned, that was on a site by site basis and basically a financing mechanism. She was concerned that a zone which attempted to accomplish that financing might result in the City's not being offered the particular land it wished on any given school site. MOTION PASSED unanimously. ADJOURNMENT Council adjourned at 11:52 ATTEST: APPROVED: 1 2 6 7 0 11/8/82