459.

Um so thank you for being here.

And it's five o'clock.

All right.

Um, good evening, everyone, and welcome to the City of Alameda City Council meeting.

Tonight is Tuesday, January 20th, 2026.

And I would like to call this meeting to order.

This is the special city council meeting.

We're about to go into closed session.

Madam Clerk, Laura Weisiger, would you please call the roll?

Council members bowler.

Yeah.

Day Sugar.

Prior.

Here.

Mayor Ezy Ashcraft?

Here.

For president, and hopefully Councilmember Jensen will be here shortly.

Thank you.

So next we go to the consent calendar.

These are, and this is a consent calendar for the closed session.

These are routine items that will be approved by one motion unless removed by council members.

Madam Clerk, we just have one item on the consent calendar.

Could you introduce that, please?

Yeah, that is the item to designate negotiators for the real property that you're negotiating on known as NL terminals.

So that goes with item 4C.

Okay, and that is um who again that we're approving.

You're approving interim city manager, base reuse and economic development director, planning and building and transportation director, base reuse manager, special counsel, deputy city attorney.

Thank you for that.

And then I need a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar.

Council Member Desig, was that nodding of the head of motion?

Yeah, right.

Moved and seconded.

See how we do it?

Um so quickly.

I mean it's been moved by Council Member Days I seconded by Council Member Bowler.

All those in favor, please signify by stating aye.

Aye.

That passes with um four to nothing.

And so, Madam Clerk, do we have any public comment on the closed session?

We do not.

All right, so then we are about to adjourn into closed session to hear the following three items that I'd like to ask the clerk to please introduce.

Four A is conference of labor negotiators pursuant to government code section five four nine five seven point six, the city negotiators and the interim city manager, human resources director, Jack Hughes from Liebert Cassidy Whitmore and the assistant city attorney, the employee organizations are the International Association of Firefighters Local 689 and Alameda Fire Chiefs Association, and a negotiation or salaries, employee benefits in terms of employment.

For B is conference with legal counsel potential litigation, potential initiation of litigation pursuant to government code section 54956.8 property is assessor parcel number 72-382-9.

City negotiators are the interim city manager, base for use and economic development director, base reuse manager, planning building transportation director, and special counsel, and deputy city attorney, negotiating parties are the city of Alameda and Bayview Landing and Sublease R capital under negotiation or price and terms of lease.

And with that, we will adjourn into closed session.

Could I have all the staff involved on item four A to please join us in room three.

Okay.

Okay.

do we give us a h do we give us a hug All right, everyone, we are back.

Um good evening, everyone, and welcome to the city council meeting.

Um, this is the City of Alameda City Council meeting for Tuesday, January 20th, 2026.

Council has I'm catching my breath, has just returned from closed session, and I'm going to ask our clerk Lara Weisinker to please report out any actions that were taken in closed session.

Madam Clerk.

Um regarding item four A, which was uh labor negotiations, uh staff of righteous information and council provided direction.

Two votes were taken, both carried um by four one with council member Desog voting no.

Regarding 4B, which was potential litigation, staff of righteous information and council provided direction, which also carried by 41 with uh council member Jensen voting no, and regarding 4C, which was real property negotiation, staff of right information and council provided direction, which carried by five eyes.

Thank you, madam clerk, and with that, I will adjourn the special council meeting for closed session, and I will call to order the regular council meeting.

I would like to do it by the night, and I have to do the recovery, which is a nation, and you die.

Thank you, Vice Mayor.

Um Madam Clerk, would you call the role, please?

Councilmember Spoiler?

Here.

Jensen?

Prior.

Here.

Mayor Ezy Ashcraft.

Here.

Five presents.

Thank you.

Um Madam Clerk agenda changes.

So as I look out into the um, into the uh chambers, I do see young people.

We love all our participants, but young people have bed times.

Older people should too, but young people they need to get to school and whatnot.

You heard it from the mayor.

So what I would like to do is I'm going to move up after we get through um the consent calendar, everything, the consent calendar, then I'm going to move up um to after item 7A, because we have a um uh adoption of a resolution appointing a commission member, but after 7A and before 7B, I would like to call item 10A because as I understand that we have some speaker slips from young people, is that correct?

They submitted for oral communications, not an agenda, but I think some of their families submitted for that item.

So, let me just have a little clarification by show of hands.

If you're a young person, which is to say 18 years or younger, I'm not checking IDs, but I can kind of tell.

If you're a young person, um, and you're here to speak.

Are you to here to speak on oral communication, which means an item that's not even on the agenda, or are you here to speak on item 10A, which has to do with McCartney Road and some street work?

So, first of all, here to talk about um 18 and under, talking about McCartney Way and street work, raise your hand.

I am not under 18, but raise your hand.

I see one, two, three, four, five.

Um, under 18.

This is the honor system.

Um, okay.

I'm okay.

So maybe, and then the the others under 18s are here just to speak on other items.

Oh, well, um, that's okay.

We can have our cake and eat it too because I think we'll wrap up our young people and and near the top of the agenda.

All good.

Um, okay.

So here's what we're doing.

Um just stay with it.

Whoever's here for oral communication, non-agenda item.

That's one of the first things that comes up, and then we are gonna move up 10A instead of being way at the end of the agenda, we're gonna move it up after 7A, right, Madam Clerk?

Yes, that's it.

Well, we got through that.

Okay, um, we have no proclamations or special orders of the day.

So then we will move on to oral communications, and this is when speakers may address the council about matters that are not on the agenda.

And um they we take 15 minutes now at the top of the agenda.

The clerk will tell you how much time you have.

It depends on how many speakers we have, and then we have another oral communication non-agenda item item at the end of the regular agenda.

So, madam clerk, um, how many speakers do we have under item four?

We have seven, so they'll get two minutes each.

Um, and the first one is Alan Tubbs, then Cora Piper, and then Jacob Moore Motis.

Okay, um, all right.

Well, Alan Tubbs is over 18, but that's okay.

We welcome him too.

Hello.

Well, and I because I know he's a grandfather, so he's got little ones, right?

Four.

Okay, uh, so uh I just want to bring something to the council's uh uh information.

I'm a volunteer at the Alameda Naval Air Museum out at Alameda Point.

It was formed in 1996 after the base close, lots of support from local government, Senator Diane Feinstein and others.

Uh what I want to bring your attention is we're we're about in a world of hurt.

Uh COVID kind of took out a lot of our visitors that paid as they came in.

Uh we've currently had a lot of issues with a building that you own uh in maintenance, paint peeling, uh sewer lines that we've had to replace out of donation dollars.

People donate to keep the museum going.

So I'm looking for help uh from the city and how to handle this.

Uh, I'm fearful.

I I am the youngest volunteer there, by the way.

Uh I'm fearful that one day we may lose the museum.

We currently pay uh $700 a month to the city for common area maintenance, which it doesn't benefit us at all.

So we're looking for relief from that, and we're looking for relief for a lease.

Uh one of the things that really hurt us bad is uh last year one of the fire main sprinklers uh pipes inside the building just went off and broke on its own while we were closed and flooded.

We had to have pay that get fixed.

We had insurance come in.

It cost the museum about 10,000 dollars of our own money, plus the insurance paid another 30.

And right after that, the insurance company turned around and canceled us.

Without insurance, we cannot be open, so we have not been open since mid-October trying to find insurance in the states pretty hard.

Our premium went from six hundred dollars a month to 38,000 a year.

With a little amount of donations that we receive and people that come to the door, we can't afford to stay open.

The $700 a month we pay to the city for common area maintenance actually exceeds what we take in at the door.

Yet we provide a valuable service for the city.

We have volunteers that come from the local schools, help out in the library, uh, prepare and maintain all the books and the study and the history of why NES element is here.

Built in 1942.

Here we are, 2025.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Cora Piper, then Jacob Moore Mortice.

Hello, Ms.

Piper.

And for all the speakers, bring that microphone down.

It's very flexible.

You can be gentle with it.

Bring it to where you need it.

Yeah, that looks perfect.

Hello.

Hello.

Good evening, Mayor Mayor Ashcraft and City Council members.

I'm Cora Piper, a fourth grader at Bay Farm School on Auginball Way.

I absolutely love riding my bike to school, except when it's cold.

We ride on the road sometimes because we went to a bike camp and know how to do it safely so we can get to our friend's house and be safe and not die.

But we don't want cars to make everything unsafe for us.

I want to be able to do things independently and safely.

I want to be able to ride my bike to school safely, ride to Safeway safely, and ride to my best friend's house near High Street safely.

But my parents will not be able to take me all the time.

Driving is also impacting both children and the planet.

Driving causes pollution, which is bad for children's lungs.

Electric cars are also a waste of electricity, and their batteries require a lot of mining.

The cars are super heavy, which is more dangerous to kids when or if they hit the child.

The car could also hit the road, making a pothole, and any children could slip or on their bike and injure themselves.

I also think that the wooden bridge for bikes to ride on is lousy and unsafe.

And I ask you very politely to make it better for us to ride on when I and everyone else who lives on Bay Farm Island goes to middle school.

Thank you for making the bike path safer for everyone.

Thank you.

Our next um speaker, Jacob Mora Mortice.

And then Lisa Roach.

Okay.

Welcome.

Ah, welcome, Speaker Mora Mortice.

And again, same advice.

Make that microphone yours.

Hi there.

I am uh Jacob More Matisse.

And I like to bike or walk to places, such as like if I want to go get groceries at Safeway, and uh the new changes uh that made it uh safer for bikers, was helpful.

And it's very good to be able to buy places safely.

Thank you so much, and for being a biker.

Um our next speaker, Lisa Roach, then Josephina Renon.

Hello.

Hi, good evening, mayor and council members.

My name is Lisa Roach and I'm a seventh grader here in Alameda.

I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight.

I ride my bike everywhere to school, to ballet, around Bayfarm for my dog walking job.

Biking gives me independence and helps me stay healthy, but I don't just ride for fun.

I ride because I have to, and that means I spend a lot of time on our streets.

Every time I have to go to the main island, I have to ride over the the insufferably bumpy bridge.

And it's um very difficult for non-accessible people to traverse, and I would just like you to um resurface it as soon as possible.

Additionally, there have been times when drivers haven't seen me, gone too fast, or pulled into the bike lane, and I have and I have had near misses that made me think what if next time isn't just a near miss.

I want I don't want to stop biking.

I just want to be safe when I do it.

You've already approved projects that will make streets safer for people like me.

Projects that include better bike lanes, traffic calming, and safer crossings, so bikers don't have to fear the road just to get where they need to go.

These kinds of improvements reduce crashes and help all of us get around safely.

Please don't delay the bike and safety projects that have already been approved.

Delay means more kids, parents, and neighbors are writing and walking in unsafe conditions while waiting for changes that could prevent harm.

They all deserve safe streets.

I love riding my bike, and I want to keep doing it.

Not just for freedom and independence, but without fear.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, uh Josephina Ronald, and then Josh Altieri.

Hello.

All right.

Um, good evening, Mayor and City Council.

My name is Josephina Renat, and I am a ninth grader at the nearby Ensanel Junior Senior High School.

Today I would like to speak about the importance of implementing stronger measures to ensure cars slow down in school zones.

Let me share a personal experience to you.

One morning, while I was walking to school, I had to stop and wait for the crossing guard to let me cross the road, as I do every single day.

She has stepped forward and held up her sign.

A car drove straight past her without stopping.

It came so close that it almost hit her and me.

In that moment, I wasn't just scared for myself, but I was also scared for the person who shows up every single day to protect students like me.

Crossing guards give their time to keep children safe.

Ignoring them isn't just breaking the rules.

It's disrespectful and dangerous.

When drivers speed through school zones, they aren't just risking a ticket, they're risking someone's life.

School areas are filled with students who may be distracted, tired, or simply just trusting adults who keep them safe.

Enforcing slower driving speeds in these areas would greatly reduce the risk of serious accidents and help prevent situations like the one I witnessed.

For the sake of my classmates, my school staff, and the crossing guards who work to protect us, I ask that stronger measures be taken to ensure cars slow down in school zones.

This small change could make a huge difference.

Thank you for listening and for helping keep our community safe.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Josh Altieri.

Welcome, Speaker Altieri.

Who I have it on good authority is over 18, but hi.

Good evening.

Uh good evening, council members.

Thank you for your time and service.

My name is Josh Altier.

I'm the community relations manager at the Housing Authority City of Alameda.

Just wanted to share a couple of updates.

Uh last year the housing authority celebrated its 85th anniversary because the city council passed a resolution creating the housing authority on August 8th, 1940.

So we're taking want to take an opportunity at the beginning of year 86 to acknowledge and recognize the partnership and the support from the city throughout the years because without it we couldn't create affordable housing solutions here on the island.

So thank you so much.

Um to get a sense of what that looks like today, we have over 1,800 voucher holders.

We uh partner with over 400 private market landlords.

They participate in our housing choice voucher program, and then we have uh, you know, roughly third three a little over 3,000 city of Alameda residents per uh in voucher households across the island.

So beyond that, we try to layer on social services, and I wanted to highlight a couple of city partnerships that benefit our uh housing program participants.

One, um, Alameda Wreck and Parks has been out to our senior properties, all four senior properties, the Mastics Senior Center staff have tabled educated our residents senior residents on all the programs and services at Mastic.

We have Wreck and Parks Mobile Recreation Unit at our Esperanza, which is our largest family property.

Instead of coming twice a month, they're now coming four times a month, which is great.

We thank them for the partnership.

And then also working alongside uh public sports department, the Zero Waste Program.

Uh, they visited 11 properties to date.

Um, they're passing out recycle totes, uh, compost spins and educational materials.

Um, and it's resulted in actually uh, you know, obviously reducing waste is the most important, but that's also result uh resulting in a property operation savings about sixty-five thousand dollars, which we can focus on on our more programs and services.

And then lastly, I just wanted to touch on we're gonna be opening property-specific wait lists for two properties in the coming months.

One is Rosefield Village and one is Everett Commons.

Um more information can be found at AHA group, www.aha group.click.

Thank you.

Thank you, our next speaker.

That was our last one.

Okay.

Did we get through all of them?

Yes, yay.

Very good.

Um, thank you for all the speakers, especially the kids, you did very well.

Thank you so much.

Um, so with that, we move on to the consent calendar.

These are routine items that will be approved by one motion unless council members remove items for discussion.

Any items removed from the consent calendar will be heard at the end of the regular agenda items.

And council members may speak for up to three minutes on consent calendar on the consent calendar.

So, first off, are there any um consent calendar items council wants to pull?

But remember you don't have to pull an item if you just want to ask a clarifying question on it.

Any questions on consent calendar council um vice mayor pulling it just question oh it's your question.

Which item uh 5H.

5H is the Madam Kirk do you want to read what 5H is 5H is final passage of the ordinance for the um CSI mini storage that we did last yeah wait this is a second maybe a different one yes okay take a minute anybody else because that's just the second reading uh council member Jensen question I would like to ask some questions about 5D.

Okay and Madam Clerk can you write well I'll come back to you Vice Mayor can you um introduce 5D to us madam clerk just 5D is uh surplus lands act properties okay all right um and um who do we have who do we have coming up for that okay walker toma with the pen in his mouth looking very official come on up yeah don't run with that in your mouth going into mother mode in my twins are 34 just for the record you never get out of mother mode hi want to introduce yourself and uh council member jensen maybe has some questions on 5D okay I I'm Walker Toma community development manager with the base reuse and economic development department thank you um and thank you for bringing this forward I um I have kind of a general question uh and it it's in the report but I just would like to hear it um and so I can add a follow up um why is it necessary that we take this action right now?

Sorry five D is the surplus lands okay um yeah so uh we got direction from the city attorney that uh based on the way that the surplus lands act is written um prior to engaging in any kind of negotiation uh that we as uh we should ask the city council to uh consider exempting land as uh exempt surplus um so we are taking action and staff is bringing forth uh number of properties to um have council uh pass a resolution to have them be exempt surplus before we are to enter into any kind of negation negotiations for a long-term lease or a sale and so I understand and that's a um thank you for that answer since these properties have been part of uh could were conveyed to the city in 2012 why is it taken so long to ask for this conveyor ask for this um exchange I think there there have been recent changes in the law itself um and so there were a number of resolutions that were brought to council uh several years ago that covered certain properties um but it wasn't done in a kind of holistic manner and so we're kind of redoing some of those earlier efforts as well as including additional properties so that we are kind of covering all of our bases so that we can enter into negotiations on numerous properties and be flexible and opportunistic.

Madam Mayor if I may please um city attorney Ibn Shin yes okay council member just to add I I agree with everything Mr.

Thomas said I just wanted to share a little more information especially with respect to the your second question that the surplus lands act changed substantially in 2019 which placed greater burdens on the city to comply by surplusing the property before engaging in negotiations and with respect to timing our advice has been that we don't surplus property until we're really ready to engage in negotiations so that our so that our uh surplusing declarations do not become stale this is why I think staff is bringing them to you as you're ready to engage in pre-negotiations.

Great and that's very helpful and my last question is with regard to um another state law which is called the California environmental equality act is this it's it says in the um in the in the staff report that this is not uh necessarily to be um addressed under the sequest so can you can you address that sure uh I'm I'm happy to uh madam Mayor and councilmember.

So the this is the first step of the disposition process.

The city will engage after if the council adopts this res resolution, staff will engage in preliminary discussions.

Only when there is a concrete project in front of you, would we ask the council to conduct more in-depth SQL review?

And therefore um we do stand by staff's recommendation that this is uh there's no SQL implications for this action at this time.

Thank you.

Thank you for for the responses.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Toma.

Um Vice Mayor Power, did you have any anything you wanted to ask on the no?

Thank you.

Okay, okay.

So then thank you.

You can sit down at ease.

Um so therefore I am looking for um, oh no, I'm not.

Um, so no other council questions on consent calendar items.

Madam Clerk, do we have speakers on the consent calendar?

We do not.

We will close public comment on the consent calendar.

Any further council comments?

Seeing none, may I have a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar?

Um so moved.

Moved by Vice Mayor Prior, seconded by Councilmember Bowler.

All those in favor, please signify by stating aye.

Aye, okay, that um five five eyes that passes.

Okay, we move on now to um the um regular agenda items, and um the and you know what?

I forgot to read my um operating instructions for council meetings.

So let me just go through this really quickly because I know we have a few um speakers, public speakers coming up.

I just like to remind people at the outset that the this is a city council meeting, which is a business meeting, it is not theater, it is not a sporting event, therefore we do not applaud.

I always say applaud in your heart because we definitely have heard some impressive speakers, but we don't applaud out loud, we don't boo, cheer, jeer, do the wave.

Um, and the reason for that is a it keeps a meeting moving along more efficiently, but also public speaking can be very stressful.

It can be one of the most stressful things people do, and I never want anyone to feel inhibited.

Like someone as young as some of our speakers today felt safe enough.

Um, it was really impressive to get up and speak in front of a lot of people, and also we just want everyone to to know that you have a right to speak, we want to hear from you, and we're all gonna be respectful and listen.

When our time is up, we sit down.

Everybody has done that this evening.

And I also like to set a good civic example for young people.

Sometimes they're in the audience with us, sometimes they're watching remotely.

We should just remember that we're especially those of us in the dais, we're setting an example, but I most of all I want to create this as a safe place.

This is the town hall for um our residents and visitors to speak their mind and listen and be listened to.

If you have signs to hold, that is certainly your right under the first amendment.

I just asked if um, unless you're sitting in that last row against the wall, don't hold the signs over your head where you would block someone's view.

Just hold them up to your chin or something.

We can still see them, and that's how we conduct our meetings.

And I always read this language that I'm sure is not necessary, but um, California Penal Code Section 403 states that it is a criminal offense for any person to without authority of law willfully disturb or break up any assembly or meeting that is not unlawful in its character, other than an assembly or meeting referred to in Penal Code Section 302 or elections code 18340.

First violations will receive a warning and continued violations will require additional action, which could include police intervention.

I just want to note that the city clerk could have said that twice as fast, but try as I might, I cannot get up to that speed.

So with that, Madam Clerk, will you introduce item 7A, please?

Adoption of resolution appointing Yatin Shastri as a member of the golf commission.

All right, and so council, um, this is what I'm looking for, and we're about to meet our um hopefully new commissioner.

I'm looking for um a motion and a second to adopt this resolution, and then we will have a new golf commission member.

It's been moved by council member just and seconded by council by vice mayor prior.

All those in favor, please signify by stating aye.

Aye.

That passes unanimously.

Welcome, nice to meet you in person.

We've met on a screen.

This is our city clerk, Laura Weissinger.

I think you've already um spoken with her.

Did you hear that?

Baba.

And by the way, um, photo opportunities are welcome.

So if a little person wants to come up and have dad hold um them, that is, we're family friendly.

Mama can come too.

Oh my goodness.

I will just say that this is about to be our new golf commissioner who's told me that his score has suffered a little bit recently, and for a good reason.

Hi.

How cute is that?

And then we'll be able to try to do this for the practice.

So cute.

You can sign it later.

Welcome.

And would you like to tell us a little about yourself?

Yeah, certainly.

So I'm very excited to be part of the golf commission.

I'm I've seen the wonderful things that have happened at Krika Park and hope to continue to serve not only the golfing community of Alameda, but the community as a whole, and especially our youth and the great youth programs at Krika.

Yeah.

And when I interviewed you for this position, you told me what motivated you to become a young golfer.

Yeah, I mean, it was Tiger Woods, so watching him win the 97 Masters definitely inspired me to go out into my backyard and swing the club.

And here I am, you know, 28, 29 years later now, still golfing.

And with the next generation of golfer with you.

Well, thank you all for coming.

It's great to see you and then thank you.

You wave bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Thank you so much.

All right, that's our new golf commissioner.

All right.

Um, yeah.

This is family night at City Council.

All right, um, Madam Clerk.

So this is where we're gonna slip um item 10A in.

Okay.

Uh consider directing staff to place the issue of reconfiguration restriping of McCartney Road on a future council agenda to allow councils to provide and put this item was placed on the agenda at the request of council member Desog.

All right.

Um, um council member, she wants to come back to the microphone.

So um Madam Mayor, I have a point of order.

Um, sure.

Did we take a motion to have an agenda change?

Mayor and the mayor announced it under agenda changes.

I didn't hear any objection.

So, okay.

Sorry.

Okay.

It's yeah, I generally do it that way, um, as the one conducting the meeting.

Do you have to do you object?

Do you want a motion, Councilmember?

Well, we always have a motion.

When when there's an agenda change, you what you do normally in my experience, has been to ask for an agenda change.

I don't really care, and I would support it, but I was just curious why.

Of course, happening differently.

Practice has been a little bit mixed, and I think that you know the mayor sometimes makes the announcement and it just happens, and sometimes the council has voted.

So I think it definitely has been mixed, but typically the council does, I mean the mayor does announce it, and sometimes you know, then it leads into a discussion, but it didn't I'm happy to have a motion.

Would you like to make a motion?

Sure.

Motion to uh amend the agenda.

It needs a little more specificity, council member.

So uh move the referral item 10a to my wherever um 5A.

Right after 7A, I believe.

Right after that.

Alright, we've had a motion.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Thank you.

All those in favor, any further discussion, all those in favor signify by stating aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Was that unanimous?

Uh, yeah.

Great.

Okay, so um this is a council referral brought by council member Daysog.

So I am going to turn the floor over to you, Councilmember.

Okay, well, thank you very much.

Um, beginning in the month of uh December, um, perhaps even in November, uh, we received a number of emails from residents uh concerned about the project that has uh since um been completed on McCartney Road uh regarding uh restriping um the project and looking into it further in in addition to um comments made by the public.

I'm not too sure that the city council had officially um approved um the lane change.

And I think we did that in December 2024, but but whether or not there was actual guidance with regard to switching of the um lanes as has since been done.

And I know for sure it would have been a concern of mine because when you look at um uh Bay Farm Island slash Harbor Bay Isle using Google Earth, or if you just know the place, the area is basically designed in kind of a suburban style um uh city planning in terms of having basically all most of the main roads south of uh Del Valle, Camino Del Valle Val, Del Val.

All the roads south of Camino Del Val basically feed into McCartney.

So that's so the design of Harbor Bay Al Bay Farm, especially south of Del Valle, is very different from the rest of the island.

The rest of the island were designed in your typical grid style that allows for cars to move in different directions in many different ways to get to the same point.

Um whereas in 94502 south of Camino Del Valle, you all have to feed into McCartney Road.

And I know that that would have been a concern given that you know, um, in places where there have been um severe fires that you know um cars being blocked, all of them trying to get into the same road has been a concern.

So I'm pretty sure that that would have caught my attention.

Um but nonetheless um this is um an issue that um that uh is before us.

Um the resident many residents have raised some concerns about it, and um and what I would like to do uh ensure is that the public gets input on the um approval or disapproval of the uh roadway redesign of McCartney, the um re uh the um paved restriping.

So um what I'd like to definitely do is hear from the staff as well as from the public about this.

Thanks, Councilmember Days I and so we have with us this evening our Public Works Director Aaron Smith and our city engineer Scott Wickstrom.

I would like to invite both of them up to just give an overview of this item that Councilmember Day Said brought and um just any input.

Um I know you had notice of this, so come on up one or both, you can delegate, but it's always good to hear from both of you.

I think I'm seeing delegation by uh Public Works Director Aaron Smith to City Engineer, tag you're it welcome.

Uh good evening, Madam Mayor, members of the city council, Scott Worksham, City Engineer.

Uh in I think it's worth having this discussion, and I think it's gonna be valuable for us as a group and uh community um trying to get an understanding of what level of involvement we want to have in projects going forward.

I think if we step back a little bit and look at this project as a as specifically and Bay Farm Island paving and the stripe that was done there, we could probably break down the issues into three different levels.

One is the technical, that would be me as a traffic engineer looking at numbers and counts and level service and backups.

The other would be a level of in uh public engagement.

Uh, what is appropriate level of public engagement?

Can we do more?

Should we do more?

What is the the amount that we should do?

And then lastly, what is legal authority?

What does council have to prove and what uh what what has been delegated to staff?

So I think those are the three kind of big buckets to put in there.

Um, I really don't have a formal presentation prepared tonight.

I can add lib a little bit about each of those if that would be beneficial for you.

Um, well, tell us about this particular um area, because that's the one that's came on the attention.

Yeah, the issue at hand is really the restriping of McCartney from Fortman Way to Island Drive, and then Island Drive, one block past if you will, all the way to County Road, which is just past the Starbucks there.

Um last year, before we went ahead and did this project, it was a four-lane road, two lanes in each direction.

With this project, we narrowed down the capacity the lane with to a single lane in each direction.

It's very critical to understand that we did not modify curb widths or anything else, so the width of the actual asphalt is the same as it was before during an emergency or during times of crisis.

Uh vehicles could get through in the same manner they can right now.

Okay, that's the big thing.

The second thing we did is we made a couple modifications at the island and McCartney intersection.

Uh most notably, we eliminated the double right turn that existed at the stop sign.

Um, it's a very unusual movement, it's rare.

I don't think you can really point to another one in the state of California where you have a double right on a stop sign.

You see it fairly often, or not fairly often.

You see it commonly at a stop sign as or sorry, a traffic signal at a stop light, but it's very rare to see it at a stop sign.

So it when cars go at different uh times, it's a little bit awkward, creates a little bit of confusion.

Uh that was a recommendation from a traffic engineer to kind of promote safety.

It also helps pedestrians as they cross that intersection as well.

Fewer uh approaches to pass.

Uh the other change on the eastbound direction, there were two through lanes.

Now there's clearly only one through lane going through the intersection.

Those is those were the changes at the intersection.

Our analyses showed that post-project, that there was not a significant uh impact.

There was a slight increase in the southbound island drive traffic turning right onto McCartney.

Uh, and it was, you know, the level service added, I think four or five seconds or the delay four or five seconds.

The backup during the peak afternoon time uh went from about 80 feet to about 130 feet.

So you're basically adding on three to four cars, not very significant.

Uh coincidentally, the eastbound McCartney going left northbound onto island, right?

Which is a very heavy movement as well.

Um, we the the analyses suggest that and basically say that the uh the backup and the delay would be reduced.

Um it's a little bit counterintuitive, but what what we've done to that intersection is was previously there were 10 different approaches, 10 different lanes that funneled into that single stop sign.

Um that's very difficult for any driver to kind of come to that stop sign and look around and try to make eye contact with those other people to kind of acknowledge who has right-of-way, whose turn is it to cycle through.

Reducing the number of approaches simplifies those interactions, and we believe it should actually increase the uh the efficiency of that intersection.

Okay, um, yeah, those so those are those are the main changes that we're talking about.

Thank you so much.

Um, Council, before we go to public comment, um thank you for that.

Do we have any um clarifying questions for our city engineer?

Well, yes, I'll start with Council Murda.

So, um, is there a specific authority that you could point to that council gave you to make the different kind of changes that you had um articulated?

Because I don't recall that.

There are several different plans and policies that have been adopted by council.

So I think the most notable one is a vision zero uh uh policy, which basically admonishes staff to consider safety as the highest priority when looking at all transportation improvements, right?

So that's our number one thing of safety.

So our judgment that the safety would be improved by going from the four lane configuration to two lane configuration, additionally with the changes at that intersection as well.

There's also in the active transportation plan, um, uh uh McCartney is identified as a neighborhood greenway.

Uh neighborhood greenways you would typically think as that kind of thing is going to be a a a two-lane road and not a four-lane road.

It's not explicit, you are correct in that, but it but it's certainly implied.

Uh general plan street classifications, and even in the most recently adopted strategic plan, there's a there's an item in there.

Uh uh transportation item number six, uh, assess the bed bike and ped safety improvements on McCartney Avenue.

So there's a number of kind of policies and uh documents that speak to safety on McCartney.

Nothing specifically that council said about removing the laying.

Now, if we go a step further in the Alameda Municipal Code, Section 8 uh-1.1, um, the authority is delegated to the city engineer to develop transportation implementation plans, standards, procedures based on generally accepted transportation engineering and planning standards and principles to ensure the orderly operations of the city's transportation systems, right?

And so when we're looking at this area, and this is more than just the quarter, the corridor and the intersection is really what we're focused on.

Um, from from my judgment, with our consultants uh providing some detailed analyses, that the traffic operations are not negatively impacted, and and in some ways they're actually even improved while providing this a discernible safety benefit to the public.

So that that was kind of thing, but to your point, directly and specifically, council never explicitly stated that we should remove that we should go from a four-lane road to a two-lane road from the the four block section there on McCartney.

So, follow-up question.

So at some point in time though, you um you took out your plan to I believe the Harbor Bay Business Association uh Harbor Bay Homeowners Association.

Is that correct?

That is correct, yeah.

And they had voted uh to oppose the idea of changing the lanes, as I understand it.

So my and if you can tell us a when was the date when when you took it and when you found out that they opposed it, B, and C, in light of opposing it, why would you not then ask City Council or work with the city manager to ask city council to I that part I don't understand.

Yeah, and I always Harbor Bay, I get lost in the alphabet with all the names, but it's uh community of Harbor Bay Isle Homeowners Association.

Um they passed a resolution, um, and they that so let's go back in timing.

Um in January of 2025, uh I went in front of the transportation commission and presented the project along with our consultants, and we walked through each of the steps and each of the proposed uh changes and modifications.

That was in January.

We did send an emails out to uh members of the public.

We did uh let uh members of the the Harbor Bay Isle Association, their board members and others know that this was coming to the Transportation Commission.

There were no um, they did not uh comment during the transportation commission meeting.

Shortly after that is when they passed the resolution, not supporting the uh the proposed changes.

I went to in front of their board in March of 2025 and and had a lengthy discussion with them, touching on a lot of their concerns, which a lot of it had to do with uh evacuation safety and in times of a fire or times of tsunami, um just roadway capacity, how roadways function, all that stuff.

And we had a fairly lengthy discussion directly about that.

Um, I we may have at that point agreed to disagree a little bit with some things, but but that was the that was the timeline.

It was first transportation commission meeting, then the resolution, then I met with their board.

So even with your disagreement with the Harbor Bay Homeowners Association, you still felt that you would exercise um the authority that you believe that the um municipal gives you to make the decision to be.

Yes, because uh uh in my opinion, a lot of the objections from the business association or the homeowners association, were frankly somewhat unfounded.

They really a lot of it revolved around emergency access and and island egress during an evacuation.

If we step back, because the evacuation is one that's that's it's kind of touchy and it's kind of sensitive, and I and understandably so, but if you step back from uh from a I'll say larger perspective, you always as a traffic engineer have to look at the bottlenecks.

Where are the bottlenecks?

On Bay Farm Island, there's three ways off the island, right?

You either go down Island Drive and you're up at Doolittle, going right or left up there, you're going down McCartney to Harbor Bay Road, or you're sneaking out the back way through Auginbaugh to Bay Edge Road, right?

Um, those are where if there's ever a mass evacuation event that occurs on Bay Farm Island, those are going to be your bottlenecks.

That's where the traffic is going to be.

What we're talking about here, right in the middle of the island is not going to be the critical path that's gonna prevent people from getting off the island.

It'll be those three bottlenecks.

And so that that's a that's another consideration to figure out.

The other thing that I I brought up with them is um the Cal OES, the it is a low risk for fire.

Um so we would not anticipate a wildfire in the same manner that was observed in LA, which is a basically a hillside environment to heavily treat because of its relatively flat.

It's it's not it's just not a high-risk fire based on Cal OES's definition.

The other concern obviously then is a tsunami and tsunami um the characteristic earthquake that would create the tsunami that would cause problems for the city of Alameda is actually one that would occur in the Aleutian Islands, way, way up, you know, in the far end of Alaska with an estimated arrival time of four to five hours.

So there is a little bit of time to both notify the public and as much as possible get them off.

Again, any evacuation efforts on the on Bay Farm Island are going to be limited by Island and Doolittle, uh Maitland and Harbor Bay, and getting off Bay Edge Road.

So it's not really at all related to the um, say the immediate capacity of McCartney.

The other thing I'll say, and I'll say this for the benefit of you know, for just kind of the audience in perspective as well.

A lot of times we get can we get caught up in the idea of like, well, we're gonna lose the lane, we're gonna lose all this capacity.

On a residential local roadway network, um, capacity is controlled by the intersections, not by the through segments, not by the in not by the mid-block sections.

Kind of basic one-on-one that we took from traffic engineering was at uh, you know, 2,000 cars per lane per hour.

That's kind of your baseline, and there's um teen different factors to kind of bump that up a little bit or reduce it down depending on lane width and a host of other factors.

But you're basically looking at 2,000 cars per lane per hour.

When you get to an intersection, that drops down to 800 cars per lane per hour because you have to go back and forth, back and forth, whether it's a stop sign, whether it's a traffic signal.

Now, a roundabout actually has a little higher throughput than either a stop or a uh a traffic signal, but either way, it's still going to be controlling it.

So a mid-block reduction in the lanes is not actually affecting capacity on the on the on the roadway network.

When we again speak of this area, um, the the highest movement that we see on the daily basis is really um people coming eastbound, McCartney, turning left going northbound on island to get off the island.

That's the morning, and then the evening they're coming home the opposite direction.

It really is those two turning movements.

We did nothing to affect the length of the left the existing left-turn pocket.

Right now there's a single left-turn lane uh from McCartney onto island.

There's always been a one left-turn lane, and and the length of that left left turn pocket is unchanged.

We used to have two through lanes, we never needed that capacity to go through, so we got that down to one just to reduce the number of conflicts at the intersection, but the the flow through that intersection is unaffected.

Um, we are well aware that coming south on an island, we eliminated one of those two right turn lanes, that does put a produce a little bit of extra friction and a little bit of additional backup.

But realistically, as people do make that corner and then turn right on to McCartney, going again westbound.

Now you're going towards the area, going in the afternoon back.

Um, a single lane of traffic is gonna be more than adequate to carry the carry the people that can get through the intersection.

One more quick question.

So there was supposed to be a roundabout, right, at Island and McCartney at some point in time, and um I believe staff has um put that aside as a result of community uproar about that.

So would not the experience of the community uproar about the traffic circle, give you as the um traffic engineer um some alarm that the communities, harbor Bay Isle homeowners associations opposition to the restriping, which should be something that should also be brought to the council.

That's a fair question, and I think that would really kind of fall back into the outreach component, the engagement component.

And and and that's probably a better way that I I think to look back from our standpoint to look back in in retrospect, we could have done our outreach a little differently.

We could have been more expansive and more in and done a better job.

There's no question about that.

From a technical standpoint, I still believe that the technically we made the right decision, that we are making the right decision that the stripe net's that's out there on the ground is actually going to lead to uh both a safer and and I'm gonna say a a slower, and I'm gonna say slower on the mid-block portion of the roadway that people are gonna be less inclined to drive fast.

Uh we well know from all of our vision zero information that speed is speed kills, right?

So people that drive faster lead to you know more adverse outcomes during collisions.

Um I feel confident that the technical decisions that we made are are good that are right.

Um there might be a couple little things that we will we will continue to look at over the next three to six months.

We do that with every paving project that we after we go through our project, we live with it for a little bit and say, hey, is there a minor little change?

We might want to make a little bit of striping here, a little bit of striping there.

But fundamentally, the uh the the road diet, the lane reduction from from Fontana to to County Road, I believe that is the right technical decision.

Um the the changes at the intersection, I believe those are the correct decisions as well.

Um again, it's the the outreach, the engagement could have been a little bit different.

Um I I do wanna also be careful, it's it's hard.

Um, I'll say from my standpoint, and I gotta be I realize I gotta catch myself at times, but sometimes it's it's not necessarily purely a popularity, like what is most popular.

Sometimes a difficult decision has to be made.

Um that might not be popular in the immediate because it seems like this is different than what we've had for the last, in many cases, 30 to 40 years, for as long as that development is has been there, it's different, it's a change, but it it it's not gonna be.

I think if we live with it for a period of time, I think most of the residents will come to recognize it's not as severe as their worst fears, and and perhaps it may even be you know beneficial to them in the in their view as well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Nice job on your answers too, Councilmember Bowler.

I'm going down the road this way, and I know you're a Harbor Bay resident.

And again, these are clarifying questions because we do have public speakers and we'll do discussion after.

Did you have any clarifying questions?

I do have a few, thank you.

Um thank you so much.

Um as far as the transportation commission component approximately a year ago, was that the main location where public input was taken, or there are other workshops or anything?

So there were three places.

There's the Transportation Commission.

Uh we also the Harbor Bay Isle, uh, the homeowners of the board meeting, so it was a little bit smaller group, and then also did attend uh Bay Farm Elementary at one of their PTSA meetings as well.

And then just having watched um transportation uh commission meeting it looked like there was maybe three persons who provided couple public comment on that particular is that close to your memory or that sounds about right.

It was not a huge uh number of uh comments.

And it's as it relates to getting persons to attend those three forums.

What efforts did the city make?

Uh so I we did a news blast for the transportation commission.

Uh there's also an email list we had as a relatively small group of email list uh that we sent out to as well for the transportation commission.

It was also up on our our news page on the on the web page.

Um for the PTSA, I attended one of their standing meetings and the uh uh PTSA president um advertised that we were going to be talking about specifically talked a lot about auginball there because that's where Bay Farm Elementary is.

Um so it was fairly well attended there.

Uh and the I was uh invited as a guest to the active board meeting, so I did not do any additional outreach there.

And I is there is this a common dynamic where despite outreach efforts, sometimes persons who may be quite interested in things just don't get the information and don't attend is this the common sort of uh tug of war that you're trying to do as in from city staff at public works trying to advertise things so people will show up, but then it's always because you may you were very um open about your about saying that perhaps more could have been done.

So I just want to get a little more information.

Yeah, and and I think one of the things we find is you know, and I'll you can use on the other side of the island Central Avenue as as another example where that project had 10 years of lead up to that project, and numerous uh well-attended public meetings, and yet once construction starts, people seem to have forgotten that.

And it's like, wait, we're doing what?

We're doing, you know, and and so a lot of times, you know, I and I and I I'm an engineer, I live in the world of plans and stuff like that, so I can look at a set of plans.

I totally understand what it means, but I think there may be a lot of public that don't really there's a step missing until it's real on the ground, and when it's real on the ground, then it's like okay.

Now I can now I can understand what this means and and and now I bring my concerns forward.

It's maybe a little bit harder to understand the abstract.

Um I'm still struggling, you know, we could have done more.

I'm what I'm kind of struggling with is like, do we send mailers out?

I mean, we could send a letter out to every single resident within on you know on Bay Farm Island that would have been a mail.

We could have done that, that would have and how many people how many additional people would have showed up at the transportation commission meeting as a result of that.

I'm not really sure.

But yeah, there we need to look at what are the ways that we can kind of try to get more voices out there.

I do want to stop short of having you know having workshops and stuff like that, um, in a level of perspective.

We have for transportation, we have corridor projects, right?

This is our Central Avenue, it's Tilden Clement, it's Lincoln Marshall Pacific, these big multi-mile ones.

Then we have paving project, which is an order of magnitude smaller on the scale of things and particularly on the outreach.

Um we used to for a long time just do paving projects where we literally we selected the streets based on pavement condition, we go out there, we pave, we restriped exactly the way it was, right?

That's the simplest, easiest thing in the world for me to do, right?

For us to do is just to do that.

As part of vision zero, we were very much pressed to do more, right?

To do more and to do it faster, and and there's been this recognition that the paving program is basically you're going out and you're paving many miles, in this case 10.2 miles this year of either roads, you're the paving or slillary seal, and you basically have a blank slate that you can basically re you have to, you can put you're compelled to restripe and you know restripe, you have opportunities to restripe in a way that's safer for the public, right?

So that is something we've been doing over the last few cycles, and we're kind of as it's it's a relatively new process for us, and we're trying to find what is that right balance, what is that right amount of engagement?

Um, while still allowing us to have a paving project every single year, that it doesn't turn into a you know, maybe you know, maybe maybe you know, we might be looking at trying to plan our projects two years out, but we don't want to be a multi-year effort with multiple rounds of engagement that slows the process down, right?

We want to we want to stay below that.

Um, and and that's a that's an open question that we're still trying to find out what what is that balance.

Would it be fair to say that the kinge point on whether or not public works in recent times is referred things to city councils, how routine the change might be, and is that something that you think could be benefit from further discussion based on those three categories you indicated at the beginning.

Yeah, I think what would be beneficial for staff would be really to understand from council what are the things that you want to see?

What are the level of of changes within the roadway network that you would consider to be routine?

What are the what are those changes that you would consider to be um a departure from routine, and then obviously there's significant changes, which we already come to you with, like central avenue stuff like that, right?

But that that middle ground kind of thing like that.

And and you know, perhaps as we go forward with this discussion, perhaps you know, in the future, something like McCartney, and even specifically the the changes at the the the stop sign, the intersection of McCartney Island.

Are those the type of things that council would like to see?

Um we can come to council.

Um it does require time, and you know, what we historically paving was always a two-year program, right?

You you design this year, you have paved next year.

You and and while you're paving, you're designed the following yeah.

It's always a it was a one-year cycle, just one after another.

If we start have to adding in stops to city council and potentially transportation commission, it it broadens that that duration.

We can do that.

We just want to understand from our standpoint, what are the things that what are the things that are important that that council would want to see, and is and trying to come up with a bright and clear line that gives and as I you know believe the municode says, delegates some of that authority and responsibility to to staff, um, but clearly I out uh lays out what you guys would want to see.

And then the the referral seems to talk about halting the current work.

Could you comment on how much has been completed so far and what halting would do in terms of safety?

Um we're almost done.

Um you know, I this the referral came out uh a couple weeks ago, and and as these things go, referrals basically is a referral so that could become on an agenda and to agendize it, we're likely a month out.

That would basically mean having the roadways unstriped for an extended period of time, which is itself a a safety hazard.

So we proceeded with the striping.

Um it is nearly complete.

Most of the long lines are in, um, and so there's some detail work that needs to be added in.

The one I'll say major component that's still outstanding on the project is uh the um well, I'm just gonna call it the roundabout at uh McCartney, Maitland, and Melrose, the three ends.

Um we have a roundabout that's it is scheduled to be installed in the next couple weeks, but that really hasn't been an issue that was brought up by any of the commenters that I've been aware of.

So that's the one installed scanner.

But yeah, our decision was to kind of move forward with it because the amount of time it would have taken to get to do that would have been, in my opinion, unacceptable and an unacceptable risk.

Is it you mentioned road diet, but you also said it's four blocks of McCartney, the McCartney was never always in its d in its full duration, a two-lane, I mean four-lane road, right?

Two lanes in each direction.

Is it really a road diet?

This restate for striping, or is that just word words?

I don't know.

It it it would um we're going from four lanes to two lanes for a four-block section, county to island, island to Fortman or Fontana, Fontana.

My name streets, right?

Is it are there things that could be changed possibly uh after city council review that would make maybe keep those same fundamentals present but make the roadway even more safe?

Is there is a possibility that there's things that the review could uncover that would show that the roadway could be made even safer within the basic contours of the change?

Can you elaborate a little bit on that?

I'm not sure I understand.

I'll I'll get specific.

So one of the one of the comments I've heard is that um the the dashed lines are localized to the areas of uncontrolled turns, whereas in other parts of Alameda those dashed lines are extended more.

Do you you understand what I'm asking?

Yeah, I I I clearly so um as I mentioned, you know, we will we we get the striping down, we kind of look at a little bit and if we have to make a couple changes and adjustments.

I I understand exactly what you're saying.

What would I think if I got this correct is as you approach if you're on McCartney and you approach we'll say Baywood, one of the the right turns off of off of McCartney, um the the buffered bike lane goes all the way to the intersection that does not stop short of that intersection and allow that allow the cars to kind of scoot over.

Um that was a was a design intention of our of our consultant when they went through this process, um, but it's something we can definitely look at and we can certainly reconsider that's in in that's something we could evaluate over the the next uh you know weeks to months.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um Vice Mayor Pryor.

Um I don't have questions, I have comments, but I'll wait.

Okay, Councilman Jensen.

Um thank you.

My first question is for the city attorney actually.

Um, is there any issues with noticing or future deliberations since the referral title request that the McCartney matter come back for council input, but then um the narrative summary provides that work will be halted and the the item will come back for council decision, and it won't happen until the council decides to move forward.

Council member, I'm not sure I exactly understand.

If you're asking whether or not this item is c correctly agendized, yes, it is correctly agendized, and staff is uh able to answer these council questions.

So it but with regard to whether we provide input, does that mean it has to be uh that the project can be halted?

I'm just in the title, it doesn't say anything about stopping the project.

The title of the referral.

So I'm just asking whether that's well.

Oh, I think the city clerk, yeah.

I mean, I think the city clerk's about to explain the two-step process of referrals, which I'm happy to.

Nice, nice hand up.

The yeah, there are council referrals specifically that you know, council has adopted the process and the policy for it, and it's a two-step process except for urgent legislative matters, and because this wasn't an urgent legislative matter, it's there for all you can do tonight is provide direction for staff to bring it back.

But you could provide like urgent direction, or you can provide specific direction on what you want to see when it comes back, but you have it has to be this two-step process outs as required by the council referral process.

Okay, so we can either decide to halt it today or to just bring it back for discussion and not have any changes in the actual project timeline.

Well, I don't I think you you're providing direction tonight is all you're doing.

You're not the direction is for what will come back to council specifically.

Okay, so we're not gonna we can't take any action to halt the project today, right?

Correct.

That was my question.

Thank you.

Um and so the other question I have for um our engineer, our city engineer and um uh deputy planning director is I remember on April in April 2025, the um Stephen Buckley, planning services manager and Lisa Foster, transportation manager presented that the annual um 2024 reports on the general plan and the housing element and transportation choices plan.

And in that report, it included um the pavement management and safety improvements, and the city council approved design and construction of a paving project on Bay Farm Island and the active transportation plan on McCartney Road to include additional treatments to support pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicular safety.

So, with the approval of that transportation management transportation plan and the the explicit um consideration of the Vision Zero Plan and McCartney Road and Mainland Drive and treatments to support pedestrian bicycle and behavioral safety.

Is are those is that sufficient council um input or or would you say I guess let me put in another way.

Would you say that council has um approved formally approved this project given that that was in that plan and that approval was provided?

There's a matter of degrees here, and at some point, I'll defer to our city attorney.

But um you there's a question of did you uh uh you city council previously approved a series of plans that support the action.

Um I don't recall exactly the presentation that that uh um planning uh manager Buckley gave along with uh you know transportation manager Foster, but um you know they may have talked in generality about the the improvements on Bayfirm Island, uh, but there may be a question about specificity.

Did the city council actually um see the plans presented the plan, say you know, and this will this will do a lane reduction from four lanes to two for this four block section.

And I think that's that specificity is lacking.

Um, and it's all that you know.

Well, given that the language that was approved says that consistent with the city's vision zero plan and active transportation plan, McCartney Road will include additional treatments to support pedestrian bicycle and behavioral safety.

Since that provision was approved by the council, would that be sufficient authority to do this project?

Um council member, if I may.

Uh when the council engages in strategic planning, you're not engaging in specific project approvals, you're giving staff direction on what you would like to essentially prioritize.

I think the staff has answered your qu uh the question well in that staff is drawing their authority from the very various general plans and policies that the council has adopted.

I think when this item comes back, it'll be an opportunity for the council and staff to work together to refine those policies.

Thank you.

Do you think that there would be any cost associated or um either with staff time or contractor delays or anything if we if the project was halted?

Um at this stage there's enough striping on the ground that um it would be problematic to stop at this time.

Thank you.

Yeah, and and I also, from a uh a safety perspective thing would be unwise to not complete.

Um, that doesn't preclude this body from providing direction to restrict to its previous configuration, we can do that.

But from a safety perspective, I advise we do it now, and there's no point, no value in actually stopping where we are right now.

Um, most of the work within that four block section is already complete.

The the stuff that's not complete is if we will outside those bounds.

Thank you.

All right, thank you so much, um, City Engineer Wickstrom.

Nicely done.

All right, we are going to go to public comment, of which I believe we have quite a few.

What do we have?

We currently have 13, so everybody will get two minutes unless the council elects to do a different time limit.

They do not.

Okay.

And then we'll start with Maria Piper, then Brian Piper, then Joe Matisse.

Okay, and if you can listen for your names and just be ready to scoot right up to the microphone when your time is up.

Welcome.

Hello.

Hello.

Um, good evening, mayor and council members.

I want to start by grounding this discussion in the council's own adopted policy.

While there may have been disagreement when the policy was adopted or debated, once it's approved, it's a clear and binding direction to staff.

The project before you is not a discretionary design choice or an experiment.

It's the straightforward implementation of council adopted policy.

I'd like to briefly highlight a few points from Alameda Resolution number 15648 adopted in 2020 because they explain exactly why staff did what they did, in my opinion.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that when designing, redesigning, or resurfacing streets consistent with this policy, improvements and right-of-way space shall be allocated based on the following principles and priorities.

Provide safe and convenient access for vulnerable users, including children, seniors, and people bicycling and walking, as well as transit riders.

Safety for people walking and bicycling shall be the highest priority.

Support motor vehicle speeds of 25 miles per hour, and motor vehicle turning speeds and pedestrian crossing distances should be appropriately minimized.

These were huge crossings on McCartney.

These directives are unambiguous.

Staff followed them as written, and this project reflects that direction.

A referral at this stage asks council to step into implementation implementation decisions already settled through policy undermining predictable and effective governments.

I also want to briefly address the HOA resolution cited in the support of this referral.

This comes from a subset of Bay Farm HOAs, not all HOAs even on Bay Farm.

While many Bay Farm residents live in HOAs, not all do, and only a small fraction of owners uh typically participate in those HOA meetings.

In fact, this particular HOA doesn't even abut McCartney Road in many of the communities that are part of it.

Um renters are also not included in HOAs, so many people are not included at all.

And those perspectives of that board might be sincerely held, but they should not outweigh adopted citywide policy governing public streets.

And I respectfully urge the council to take no action and allow staff to continue implementing the project as direct.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Brian Piper, then Joe Matisse, then Rachel Lee.

Welcome, Speaker Piper.

Alright, thank you all.

So my name is Brian Piper.

I've lived in Bay Farm for about 12 years.

I'm here to speak in support of the changes that have been made to McCartney and to urge council to take no action on the referral.

There are a few items I want to highlight.

First is procedure.

While some field changes were done via fiat, it appears to me that they result from policies approved by the city council.

Asking for every staff action be subject to rounds of review.

Even the city council supports these actions through policy, seems wasteful.

This is a recipe for civic gridlock.

Second, financial.

We must face the current reality.

The work is mostly done by now.

As such, I think it is financially irresponsible to even consider taking up city staff time to study the issue.

To say nothing of the funds that would obviously be wasted if we were to redo the work.

Especially now that the results are not a dramatic departure from the previous striping, but can be seen, in fact, it can be seen in the complaints that the changes are starting to slow down drivers as intended already.

Third misinformation.

Some of the criticism seems to be at best out of date.

Citing objections to specific changes that did not happen and are not happening.

I would have expected that an informed council member would notice this and try to correct mistakes instead of proposing to waste tax dollars.

Finally, the referral implied to be here is implied to be here because of a transportation researcher's objectives according to the referral.

I looked into the published papers of the researcher to get better background.

The expertise is in the area of environmental health sciences.

In fairness, though, there is one paper from this researcher I would very much like to highlight, the only one that I could find that explicitly focused on transportation, specifically pedestrian and bicycle safety.

The paper found a higher rate of crashes near parks and concluded planners should consider the higher risks of active travel near parks.

And then continues additional traffic calming and safety infrastructure may be needed to provide safe routes to parks.

Given this research, I am grateful for steps that were taken to protect Lady Decker Park along McCartney.

My regret is not that we lost the lane of traffic, but that we didn't do more.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Joe Matisse, then Rachel Lee, then Jackie Zipkin.

Welcome.

Thank you, Mayor Ashka.

Appreciate the opportunity to speak.

I'm Joe Matisse.

I'm a resident of Normandy village in Bay Farm.

I want to take the council back a year, about a year and a half ago, when my son, Jacob, and I were walking back from his friend's house, a little further north of the aisle.

We got to the intersection of Augenbau and the Harney coming down Augenbau towards the fire station on that side of the street.

And then we were inches away from being hit by a driver who did not correctly navigate the four-way intersection as we crossed the intersection.

It was a very dangerous interaction.

I want to speak in support of the actions of the city engineer in the public works department.

I very much appreciate how Meekartney is right now.

People drive 25 miles an hour on it now instead of 35 that I was seeing very frequently before.

And I feel much safer as I walked down Meekarney from Normandy over to Safeway several times per week.

I'm able to cross it safely.

It's a very simple road to cross now.

There's only two lanes in each direction.

I really appreciate the extra lights that they added as well, all these crossing lights have made it much easier for us to cross before.

If we if I forgot and didn't cross it, the one traffic uh one alert lights that were down way over by Safeway.

If I got all the way down to um to Normandy and tried to cross there, uh it would be very unsafe.

Now it's much safer.

Uh they've done a lot of great work, and I would urge the city council uh to take no action on this referral and really appreciate the work of the Almeda Public Works Department.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker.

Rachel Lee, then Jackie Zipkin, then William Pye.

Welcome, Speaker Lee.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, and Council members.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

My name is Rachel Lee, and I'm here today as a resident of Bay Farm Harbor Bay and someone who was present a year ago when community members gathered in Bay Farm to talk through the initial concepts of this project, and noted the thoughtful collaborative tone that marked the entire process.

That meeting was part of a deliberate multi-step engagement that included neighborhood outreach, revisions based on community input, traffic and safety analysis, and open opportunities for questions and feedback.

That's exactly the kind of transparent participatory planning process that builds trust and ultimately makes our city's investments more effective.

This project isn't outside of the paving plan.

It's central to it.

It uses paving dollars wisely to address known safety concerns, improve traffic in the uh traffic flow in a corridor that residents use every day and enhance multimodal access for people walking and biking.

It's not simply repainting lines, it's about making our streets safer without jeopardizing fiscal responsibility.

I understand there are folks who have concerns.

That's the value of an open process.

Concerns get expressed, heard, and considered.

But I also want to point something important out.

Reverting to the old configuration, as some are asking this council to consider, would not only undo months of community engagement and staff effort, it would be a costly move.

Reconstructing pavement layouts, restriping, re-engineering signals, and all of the associated labor would significantly exceed the current project's budget, diverting scarce public resources away from other pressing needs.

We don't need to hit pause.

The process worked well.

The plan is thoughtful, and the project fits squarely within the paving plan you adopted.

For those reasons, and in support of the process that brought this so much in your channel.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, uh Jackie Zipkin, then William Pye, then Amy Chouncey.

Welcome, Speaker Zipkin.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and members of the council.

My name is Jackie Zipkin, and I'm a parent and homeowner on Bay Farm in Harbor Bay.

I'm here to speak in support of maintaining the bike lanes and safety improvements on McCartney Drive and to request additional safety improvements on Kaufman Way at Tillman Park.

For multiple generations now, families have chosen to raise their kids in Alameda and on Bay Farm in particular because it affords the independence and ability to safely explore our community for our kids.

I love that my kids can walk to school and that their friends live close enough that they can walk and ride bikes between houses, but increasingly bigger cars with increasingly distracted drivers threaten that freedom.

The intersection at McCartney and Aganbaugh and its previously previous configuration with two lanes was unsafe, as is the unmarked crossing from Limerick Lane to Tillman Park, which I spoke to the council about on January 6th.

I respectfully disagree with the HOA that purports to represent me.

And commenters who say that Bay Farm streets were fine before the improvements, and that two vehicle lanes need to be maintained on McCartney to prevent traffic.

The intersection was unsafe, and the improvements facilitate the ability for our kids to travel without fear.

Furthermore, the safer bike and pedestrian options are, the more people who will use them, decreasing congestion on the streets.

I urge the council to stay true to the city's values as adopted in the Vision Zero Action Plan and Active Transportation Plan.

Continue with the improvements on McCartney and at a pedestrian crossing at Tillman Park.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, William Pye, then Amy Chouncey, and then uh Sawyer Lindau Lewandowski.

Welcome, Speaker Pye.

Oh, good evening, and thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I appreciate uh everyone's service on behalf of the city.

So you might want to raise your microphone just a little bit so we can hear you better.

Thank you.

I don't know if you could hear me, but I appreciate uh everyone's service on behalf of the city and our community.

Uh my name is Bill Pye, and uh for those of you who are not familiar with the community of Harbor Bay Isle.

It is a group of 20 homeowners associations on Bay Farm Island.

Bay Farm Island has a little over 13,000 residents, over 9,000 of them are in the community of Harbor Bay Isle.

So there are 20 homeowners associations in there.

I was one of the primary signers on the February 2025 resolution that opposed the proposed changes that uh are uh at issue today.

Uh I do acknowledge that uh the city, in my view, did have a relatively transparent process.

I participated in I think almost all of the meetings that were mentioned.

Uh, I do appreciate that, and the city has made an effort, recognizing, of course, there are some people for whom such will never be enough.

But uh Mike, I do want to ask that the city do approve the referral and hear this before city count before the open council.

All right.

My concern here is that the process was not as open as it should have been, or that would the city council should be able to weigh in on this.

Plus, as you may have seen in the you've probably seen the letter, she dated January 6th from Sack Rosendon, the law firm based in Oakland, which the city's not yet had a chance to respond.

That according to the partner there, they believe that according to section 1800 of the California Streets and Highways Code, the action, the process that you're taking right now is illegal.

Only legislative bodies are empowered to improve approve changes to city streets.

That's why we need an open debate here, and that's why the city council needs to uh, in our view, have its open discussion to allow final input.

Some of the change there have been some changes made.

I think we should have that open debate, right?

Finally, we've all seen in Washington how our federal government now feels it can ignore and break the law at any time.

It would be a shame if that applies to that.

Your time is up our next speaker.

Amy Chouncy, then Sawyer Lewandowski, and then we'll go to remote speakers.

Welcome, Speaker Chauncey.

Hi, good evening, I'm Amy Siancy.

Um, I'd like to thank you all for your time and say that I am a homeowner and resident um of Bay Farm, and I live exactly in the area that we're discussing.

I live um right off of McCartney, where it was two lanes in each direction, and now is one.

I live on Camino del Valle, and this greatly affects me and my family, and we are in full support of this project, and thank you.

I have visibly seen with my eyes traffic now going slower.

I have two children that want to walk to the library and ride their bikes to school.

And we have, my husband and I have not let them.

There have been too many close calls in all of those crosswalks with myself walking my dog daily.

Um, I've had to jump back from almost being hit by a car.

The lights flash, you start to walk, one car stops, but guess what?

The next car on the other lane is flying down.

Cars fly up and down that street trying to get to the ferry or home from the ferry.

Since it has become one lane, it is a noticeable difference of people trying to at least drive the speed limit.

Um, I feel that we were given enough notice, we were told what was happening, everything was transparent, and we are my husband and I and family are in full support of this, and thank you so much.

Thank you.

Our next speaker.

Uh Sawyer Lewandowski.

Welcome, Speaker Lewandowski.

Another young person.

If we had ages, but we don't ask for them on speaker slip.

We would have put them in in ascending order.

But welcome.

Good evening.

My name is Sori Lewandowski.

I am nine years old and a fourth grader at Bay Farm School.

I live right off McCartney in the between cross streets of Island Drive and Vermont Drive.

It is a very busy road with lots of speeding cards heading to and from the Harbor Bay Ferry Terminal.

Both my parents on separate occasions have almost been hit by a car while walking in the crosswalk with the lights flashing on near Leidecker Park.

Because of this, my parents won't let me cross the street on the crosswalks alone or riding my bike to school by myself either.

A lot of cars come down McCartney too fast, and there have been too many close calls.

Making the lanes one now instead of two with a large buffered bike lane makes us all feel safer.

Having one lane will force the cars to drive more slowly, and the new wider bike lanes will make it safer for the bikers.

I love biking to school, and now that there is a new wide bike lane the whole way to school with hopefully slower driving cars, I hope I'll be able to bike to school more often.

I wanted to thank you all for your hard work and good decisions to make Alameda and Bay Farm a safer place for walkers and bikers.

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to express my thoughts.

Awesome job.

You should consider running for city council when you're a little older.

Our next speaker.

We'll go to two remote speakers.

The first is Cindy Johnson.

Welcome, Speaker Johnson.

Tough act to follow, I just want to add.

Good evening, Mayor.

This restriping is part of the city's routine pavement management program, which typically does not go before council and exists precisely so that routine resurfacing and safety improvements can move forward efficiently based on staff expertise, data, city policy and plans, and prior public input.

McCartney Road has been discussed at the Transportation Commission and several additional community meetings where the public has had opportunities to review and comment on the designs, which is more engagement than is typical.

Pausing the work now to revisit at a council meeting would not add meaningful new information, but it would create delays, uncertainty, and potentially higher costs.

More importantly, it would delay real safety improvements for people who use the corridor every day.

Drivers, cyclists, pedestrians, and families.

The proposed reconfiguration meets standards for safety, accessibility, and liability, and aligns with Alameda's adopted policies, including the active transportation plan, vision zero, and the city strategic plan priorities around safety and infrastructure investment.

Lane reduction and narrowing are proven tools that reduce collisions and enhance pedestrian safety.

This through striping strategy is not beyond the scope of the pavement management program.

In fact, it's been done before in other streets, like Main Street and Robert Davies.

Staff are doing exactly what they should be doing here.

We also want to emphasize that council oversight is not being bypassed.

The council already exercises oversight through budget approval, program direction, policy adoption, and the commissions you've empowered to do this detailed work.

Revisiting an individual street mid-process undermines the structure and sets a precedent that makes it harder to deliver routine infrastructure infrastructure projects citywide.

In short, this referral risks slowing down a project that is already vetted, already funded, and already aligned with the city-stated goals.

We respectfully ask the council to take no action on this referral and allow the improvements to proceed as planned.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker.

All right.

Speaker, what was the last?

Welcome.

Ah.

Hello, thank you, Mayor Ashcroft.

And uh, Councilmember for opportunity to speak.

Um I'm a pediatrician of 30 years and uh a homeowner and a parent.

And um children's safety is the number one priority.

I'm surprised at um the comments that don't address children's safety, adult safety, and all the children who are biking and walking to school, for them to have a safe community and to be able to um safely go with their friends to the library, to school, um, and safely move about the city, I think is what the city uh is all about.

And I um I urge uh to not take up this uh referral and uh to continue to focus on the plans that are already made and not delay them any further.

We can't wait the rest of the school year is here.

These kids must have time outdoors to be able to safely move about.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Okay, we'll go back to in person.

Um the first is uh Tushan Amar Siri Wardena, then Mitch Ball, then Rayla Graber.

Welcome, Speaker Amara Suri Wardana.

Um Thank you for allowing this 44-year-old to speak in front of you today.

Um I'm I'm uh here to uh voice my uh my voice against this proposal.

While I I really appreciate that you're trying to bring up uh concerns by by the community, I think there's a different time and place for that.

Um, in in my letter that I sent, uh I paint a picture of what I think of a legislative sandwich of how maybe good uh legislation happens, which is at the front end when you all do policy work like Vision Zero.

That sets the goals, the the direction that our really strong city staff can go execute against.

Um, and I'll just frame it from as someone who used to serve in in federal government.

I saw what happens when uh shifting legislative priorities happen, uh, budgets that are shaky, it leads to projects that come over budget and underpromised on their uh deliveries.

And that is something that I want to highlight on the back end of this this sandwich, which is I think here's an opportunity for you to actually look at how projects are going in Alameda and how we can do them uh better going forward.

Uh if you look at the city's Facebook page, you will see a lot of um disappointment about how Central AV is going right now.

And I think there's opportunities to use this important legislative time to figure out ways that we can make those projects more effective on budget uh and and and uh in higher quality because I think we have uh lots of infrastructure projects that are are coming up and uh this I think citizens want to see that this government can deliver on them.

Thank you so much, really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Our next speaker.

Uh Mitch Ball, then Rayla Graber, then Maureen Craw.

Welcome, Speaker Ball.

Thank you.

The email that this referral is based upon contains a lot of misinformation.

It states that McCartney is losing a car lane to add a new bike lane, but that simply isn't true.

McCartney has had a multi-use trail and a bike lane on either side for years.

As someone who frequently bikes says I can't afford a car, I find it really discomforting that cyclists have become such a popular target amongst those who enjoy believing in and spreading misinformation.

So I really don't appreciate how this misinformation has been legitimized by this referral.

A car lane is being removed, but it's being removed to make it easier for pedestrians to cross the street.

This makes sense as the high width of the street encourages speeding and was responsible for pedestrian death in 2023.

Traffic analysis that was presented to the Transportation Commission last January confirmed that this is a low-volume street that doesn't need many lanes.

The exhibited email cleanser traffic study was not conducted.

The multiple unnecessary car lanes in McCartney have always been wasted space, but now that they've been removed, this wasted space has become more apparent.

However, this wasted space may also be an opportunity.

One of the many reasons I chose to live in Alameda is because with Park and Webster Street, it is a 15-minute city with cafes, restaurants, convenience stores, and more all within a 15-minute walk.

However, Bay Farm does not have a park or Webster Street and lacks the same opportunity.

Long term, I believe both directions of travel in McCartney should be condensed down to the north side of the median and the south side be converted into mixed-use housing in local small businesses.

You would need to make the multi-use trail a dedicated two-way bike path, but if you do, there's more than 500 feet south of the median in many places, which is enough room for new lots.

We've seen the concern that arises when Bay farmers at risk of losing a grocery store.

So let's give Bay Form more options for nearby storefronts in a low-impact way to contribute to the housing element.

This wouldn't need to happen all at once, but could start at McCartney and Oginbaugh with near the ferry terminal and progressively move eastwards.

McCartney could be more than just a street you want to get past as quickly as possible, but a destination where neighbors can meet.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, Rayla Graeber, then Maureen Craw.

Welcome, Speaker Graber.

I hope you're gonna vote for this referral tonight.

Um I don't think that this was handled appropriately with enough transparency.

I think the city council, this is a serious thing, McCartney.

It's significant on Bay Farm.

I mean, it's like Central Avenue.

How this ever escaped going from four lanes to two lanes without coming before the council, I don't understand.

And you really need to work on this with public works.

This is it, it wasn't right, and it still isn't right.

And no, Bay farmers do are not aware in general.

There's a besides there's plenty of people, probably 10,000 people out there.

You know, they're not here tonight because they think it's a done deal.

If you open it back up and you have and you put it on the agenda, I think you will find people here that will have very cogent reasons why they are concerned.

You know, uh, about switching from two lanes to one lane.

Personally, I hate the look of it.

They could have put in a bicycle path without all the jagged lines and a big barrier.

You know, uh a painting con one of the truck paint contractors told me it looked terrible.

What they've done with the with the bike path out there.

He said they would never do that in Irvine, maybe a higher-class community.

They would not put it in residential communities, that kind of a thing.

That is a residential community.

It's not commercial, and it sure as hell looks commercial right now.

So, anyhow, I do hope you vote for it.

I think that's the proper thing to do in the large picture.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Our next speaker, our last speaker is Maureen Craw.

Welcome, Speaker Croft.

Hello, I'm Maureen Crom, and I was born and raised in Alameda, and I've lived on Bay Farm for 55 years, and I'm only one house in from McCartney.

So I have been opposing the change from um four lanes down to two, and um they've done it in such a quick fashion that um they've painted the little hash marks for um parking all the way down the street, and they're evenly um spaced, but they haven't looked to notice that people live there in the single-family homes, and they've got lines in the middle of their driveway.

So um, people coming along, if we have a big occasion over at the My Decker Park and they're parking all over, they're gonna be blocking everyone's driveway.

Um, but I so I do oppose it, and I would like to urge you to vote on the referral.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And Madam Wood, that's the end of our public comment.

Okay.

With that, we will close public comment.

And um we will go back to um uh council discussion.

And I'm gonna lead on this one in part because um in the year 2025 I had the honor and privilege of being one of 12 mayors that was part of the um Mayor's Institute on Pedestrian Safety, a national effort.

Um, and I have brought um city staff with me virtually to um follow up um meetings.

I believe we have our last one tomorrow um uh staff.

Um, but I I do appreciate all the the comments that we've heard, and I I think that um I don't think we need to move forward and and open this project.

I I think that um I really appreciate City Engineer Scott Wickstrom, you did a nice job explaining this process, but even more effective or equally effective because one thing I want to hasten to add is I am sure not an engineer, I'm a lay person, I'm a policymaker.

I do have to say, just point of civic pride as the mayor of Alameda, we have as much class, if not more than any city in this state.

Um, and so and I'm sure I know the mayor of Irvine, but we've we've got plenty of class and plenty of heart.

But at the end of the day, health and safety are my top priority, and that means making sure that all of our streets are safe for all users, and um one of the things that we've we've talked a lot about in the mayor's institute on pedestrian safety is for so many reasons we need to get people out of their automobiles, whether they're fossil fuel or electric, but try to drive electric when you can.

Um, but we need to do it for our environment.

We need to do it to move traffic along.

We need to do it for health and safety.

I also represent the 14 cities of Alameda County on Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

We just um heard a study at our last meeting about how travel patterns have in large part stayed the same since the pandemic, except we have more people working from home, working hybrid, and of those people they are walking much more in their cities, which is another reason we have to make sure our streets for are safe for all users.

I do think moving forward, and um Scott Wickstrom, I think you would agree with me.

Lisa Foster who's been on our these um webinars would we can do a lot more messaging, we can do it in real time, we can do it effectively.

We're already starting to do that.

Um there are some improvements that can be done at Central Avenue as far as signage it's coming, but even just to make it as nice as Pacific is looking, but um for right now I I think that um I I am very moved by the speakers we've heard, and I would um not support any change at this time.

Vice Mayor Pryor?

Um I also would not support any change at this time.

Um first of all, I um when we started getting emails or reached out to our assistant city manager to get more information, um and uh you know I uh one of the first things I asked was about safety vehicles, and she explained, well, you know, it's it's really just paint, so the streets exactly the same size.

The vehicles are gonna get in and out, and I was like, okay, great.

Um, you know, and then you know, explained to me that it's gonna be safer for people to cross the street.

Um it's gonna slow traffic down, as people noted it's gonna be easier, you know, to cross as pedestrians, there's crossing lights.

Um, and I and so today I was like, oh, you know what?

I'm gonna go drive down the street.

It was 3:30 p.m.

Um, I came from towards the airport towards Alameda.

I went I went in the big loop, I went all through McCartney, I drove all through Bay Farm today.

Um, I felt like I was the only car on the road.

And I uh and then I get back, I get on to Otis.

Oh my gosh, tons of traffic again, right?

It's 3 30.

Um, and I take a side street to go home that's parallel to Otis because there's less traffic, and on that street with the less traffic, still had more cars than McCartney.

Um I and I think the thing though out of all of that that really uh makes me um not want to take any action is that we get SIG alerts.

This is significant incident alerts all the time that um where people are getting hit by cars, people on bikes getting hit by cars and pedestrians getting hit by cars.

Um, and it's a lot, I mean a lot more than I had realized before I took this position.

And so I I am also really committed to vision zero.

Um I would love to make these streets all over town uh safer um for everybody.

Um, you know, and the we have to think about the next few generations, um, and we need to build a city for them.

Um and this is one way we can make things better because they have a lot of challenges, and so if this is something we can do, I I'm all for it.

I mean, I'm all for not taking action.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um, let's see.

Um, we have a little bit of time left.

Who would like to go next?

Council member.

I have just 20 seconds, so I'm gonna talk really quickly.

Sorry about this.

You you have 58, my friend.

No, uh, okay.

Um you've heard tonight uh reference to active transportation plan to the vision zero plan and the transportation choices plan and how all of these uh justify the uh transition that you're seeing on McCartney Road, which may well be be well and good, but remember this, those very same plans were behind the much community involved processes regarding the changes that we're doing on Lincoln Avenue, the changes that we're doing on Central Avenue, the changes that we're doing on Fernside Avenue, those were incredibly robust community engagement processes, and so I think that's what the residents of of Harbor Bay Isle and Bay Farm are really saying is that they need to be as much involved in planning of this street.

It might be that they will want bigger um a bike paths, uh I'm not sure, but I do believe that the safety question that they're raising needs to be seriously vetted through that community engaged process, and so I would move.

Time is up, and who would like to go next?

Councilmember Bowler.

Can you skip me?

I can skip you.

Um Councilmember Jensen.

Okay.

Well, I'm not hearing anything.

I'm not seeing a motion.

Um I make a motion for three extra minutes.

You want me to and skip you?

No.

We have moved this item up ahead of our regular agenda.

We have staff waiting to present.

So no, but you've got a full 39 seconds.

So I can't make a motion.

You can make a motion.

It will take four affirmative votes.

Okay.

Um you'll need a second and you'll need four affirmative votes.

Second.

Okay.

Um there's been a motion to add three more minutes to our speaking time second by Councilmember Bowler, seconded by Councilmember Desag.

All those in favor, please signify by stating aye.

I'm opposed, but okay.

All right.

Well, three more minutes.

Okay.

Madam Clerk, will you add three minutes to everyone's time, please?

Or how does that work?

You wait Well, yeah, we have to wait for it to drop all the way down.

Then you add three.

Okay, all right.

So do you want to speak next, Councilmember Bowler?

Um, if I may.

You sure can.

You've got three minutes and then some.

Thank you.

Um I want to thank Council Member Daysog for making the referral.

I do think it's flawed in the sense that it continues to have the um objective of halting the work, which would be unsafe.

I do think that the city staff has done a tremendous job in this case.

They do, they are they are indicating that they want more direction in terms of going forward how to evaluate when projects should come to council.

And I agree with Councilmember Days that there are times when the community should be heard, that's important.

We've gotten of overwhelming response and by emails asking for input from the community in Harbor Bay Isle.

I think it's an impossible task to some degree because the city does outreach efforts.

That's why I said they did a terrific job here.

They certainly did, but they also indicate that you know this could be the basis for further discussion about when it's most appropriate to get uh additional council input on um on projects.

When is a street repavement project routine?

When is it not?

I think there's a fair debate over that point.

And I think there's um multiple ways that community input helps the process, mostly transparency, right?

We I'm sure all of us when we ran for office indicated we want to be transparent.

We wanted opportunity for the community to be heard.

We wanted to try to as best we can with our limited time be able to reach out to people, get their input.

Um, that's certainly very important.

Vision zero is very important.

I agree wholeheartedly with um the vice mayor that that is really important.

That's a somewhere we have to start.

If you were listening, you know, carefully, the persons who are in favor of the uh referral, some of them wanted the streets to say there's ways to make it safer.

And there was even more, I think, in in that in from the people that were opposing the fur referral tonight.

I think it's gonna be a hard sell to find that with going back in time and going back to the way that intersection led would somehow be safer.

I think the community has an uphill battle to convince staff that this is an opportunity in disguise to educate and to mostly looking forward what's the best way to have community input so that staff can have more um discretion when they should, and they should have discretion.

They're experts.

We're not, as the mayor said, we're not traffic engineers.

So my sole reason right now for asking for more conversation is to ask that this referral possibly be amended so that it can be in a context of um considering the public input, but not to halt the project.

The project's almost done.

It would be unsafe to do that right now.

We can still look at the project, and at the same time, I would ask that the referral be expanded so that it would be a policy discussion, not just about this particular uh project.

Um let's go down the this side to see if anyone else wants to speak.

Councilman Jensen, we didn't hear from you.

Do you want to anything?

I um, yeah, I I as I mentioned earlier, as I mentioned in my initial questions and comments um to our traffic engineer and planning uh excuse me, public work staff.

I am comfortable that this project has been vetted, that it's been that that there's been information put out, there's been information shared with the Transportation Commission.

There's been information shared with the Harbor Bay HOAs, there's been public meetings, and the city council actually approved the um pedestrian bicycle and vehicular safety treatments on McCartney Road when we adopted the transportation plan, the pavement management and safety improvements as part of the transportation update in 2025.

So, while I I having said that, I also understand that there are a lot of residents on Bay Farm who um don't believe that they got sufficient information and who have concerns and maybe have misinformation about what's happening on McCartney Road, especially.

And I recall and and think back to a similar situation in my neighborhood on Gibbons Drive when people didn't have all the information and they were very concerned about what they perceived as being city council, either city council lack of transparency or city staff overreach.

And I don't think in this case, either of those has happened, but I do agree with my colleague, Councilmember Buller, who who lives in the neighborhood and who has made comments and suggested that there should be an opportunity for additional comment.

I don't agree with the referral provision to stop any work at this project.

And in fact, I would oppose any changes probably in the future.

But I think that we could give residents of Bay Farm residents of Alameda the opportunity to comment, and that we could absolutely have expand our policy of sharing information and our policy of learning more about projects.

And let me just close by saying we have a transportation commission that's very effective that spends their volunteer time in this room listening to the technical aspects of many, many road projects and transportation projects and pedestrian safety and those types of things.

And that commission approved this plan, and I have full faith in them.

But I think what we should do as a city council is give them more support and give them more input into what we do and not either we should listen to them and have them present their recommendation and their concerns when we move forward.

And so that might be an option.

So with that, I will agree with Councilmember Bowler's suggestion that this come back, but not with the potential to halt the project, but with the potential to expand the options for sharing information about projects like this that affect residents.

Thank you, Councilmember Jensen.

Because I do remember at the last council meeting, you cited a lot of statistics.

You've done some study about all of the about all of the vehicle as the vice mayor noted, all the significant information.

So again, for reports we get about bicycle pedestrian bicycle.

And I'm not on the pedestrian mayor's commission, but I do.

So it's not to speak over each other.

Let's just wait to be called on.

But I'm just saying I'm glad to hear you reinforcing the need for safe streets.

Um I will um go ahead, Vice Mayor, but what I also want to do is I believe that perhaps staff is already planning some kind of um improved, maybe um uh process of uh refining the process of public engagement.

Um, if that's give me a high sign or tell me no.

If you is that there is some truth to that, thumbs up.

So um, do you wanna do you want to wait and hear from staff or do you want to make your comments first?

Oh, vice mayor.

Yeah, I'll just like my comments.

I mean because it has to do with this referral.

Um I was gonna say I don't necessarily think um that we need to come back again to seek about how we can go back and forth about hey, these are things that we could do better, um, because I think I trust staff to be able to figure that out and make a choices and and if they want to at some point present going forward about this is what we will do next time.

I think that's great.

I I don't oppose that.

Um I just don't want to make I don't want to set a timeline on that because I do trust them and they're busy and we're busy.

Um, but we also have that workshop coming up, so I just thought that's also something we could discuss at the a priority workshop.

So, so I um so that's it.

So I I would not support that, but only because I trust it will get done, and there are other um forums for it to happen.

Thank you.

And now if I could have is it you um uh public works director Aaron Smith, come on up and tell us um what's what's a fit.

Good evening, Madam Mayor, Vice Mayor members of the council.

I'm Aaron Smith, City's uh Public Works Director.

So just to clarify what you're wanting me to comment on, Mayor, this is our just reflection on improved engagement.

Yeah, lessons learned.

How might you do things differently?

Not to not make this a safer intersection, but the community engagement part, and uh just I mean it's something that I struggle with too, how to let people know what we're doing and why we're doing it.

And um there are there are new developments all the time that we are capturing.

I know your staff is, so just tell us, yeah, if you would just sort of where would we go from here?

Yeah, great.

Um, this project certainly has provided some opportunity on process reflection and what what seems fairly obvious and city um engineer Scott Wickstrom sort of uh hinted at this a little bit, but we did we did take this project to the Transportation Commission in, you know, hindsight's always a little clear.

I think what we can do better when we go to the Transportation Commission is notifying the impacted residents that we're going to the Transportation Commission, and uh, for example, what we do as uh, you know, a couple of weeks before construction, we send out a notice, you know, within a certain defined buffer distance to residents, letting them know construction's upcoming.

Here's our project manager.

I don't see any reason why we wouldn't use that same buffered mailing area to let folks know if we're already going to the transportation commission, so do an additional mailing.

I think Scott was saying the entire Bay Farm.

I think in reflection, I think what's feasible is we would do the same buffer that we're sending out to folks that are impacted by the construction, which is a fairly broad group, and I think that would have helped this process to have more folks informed that we were starting a public discourse about this project at the Transportation Commission.

So I think we can commit to doing that anytime we go to the Transportation Commission to actually notifying of the public hearing.

Thank you for that.

And I would just I will share a little bit about what we've um some of the things I've learned from the Mayor's Institute on Pedestrian Safety that you can do things.

Well, the it you need to communicate about a project before, during and after the project, and you need to do it in real time.

So if this is an area that is a route to school, then during those commute hours, have folks out there in their bright vests with their clipboards, have sandwich board signs with a QR code that you can get more information from, and and you you um communicate before but also during the project and after you can do quick build design projects.

We're doing a few of those, and then invite the public and invite the council to walking workshops to actually come and meet, and maybe you divide it into smaller groups so it's safe, but to walk these streets and see what we're doing and why we're doing it, and whenever possible, do it during the times when that street is the busiest.

I know Saturday afternoon is sometimes a convenient time, but Wednesday at 8 a.m.

is when you really see the school traffic.

So I do think there's a lot um that we can do, but thank you for for your ideas, appreciate it.

Okay, um yes, yes, um, Adrian City Manager Adam Pollitzer.

We haven't heard from you.

And I too want to thank staff for their hard work and focus on this discussion and city attorney and I have been meeting with staff um with the very intent to bring an item back to council uh down the stream, but I think there is a lot of opportunity for us to learn lessons learned as we've heard tonight, uh, and then also improve our process.

So I think you know that would be the direction that we'd be seeking at the staff level to come back at a date uncertain with with with an outline of a process and get further direction from from council and and move this and move this um move the whole um discussion forward um to again re-look at uh relook and and reaffirm vision zero, um relook at our transportation plan, and and some of that will be um some of that will also come during um your upcoming budget process when we look at our capital improvement projects as well.

So I think that um if council is supportive, we would take that direction tonight to come back with a staff report and an overview of a process that improves how we move forward on transportation project specifically, but maybe even look at other projects as they come forth.

I almost want to ask if you'd like to make that a motion, but probably I should ask someone from the elected body.

Thank you for that, and but thank you both of you because I know you have been um speaking.

Okay, um council member Daisog.

Well, thank you very much.

Um with all due respect to um my colleagues on the dais.

Um I don't really think the issue is adequate public engagement.

I don't think that's the issue.

I mean, after all, we had already reached out to the Harbor Bay Homeowners Association, and they gave their their direction.

So I think that the question is not just adequate um public engagement, but meaningful public engagement when an entity that you reach out to who has some semblance of uh legitimacy with regard to representing um uh residents, you know, their concerns ought to be somehow constructively involved.

Um so I don't think the issue is just simply public engagement, rather, I think at the heart of the issue is, you know, uh guardrails that I believe we as city council need to put when it comes to staff members making decisions on a fiat basis, making decisions in the face of several facts that tell them that they should go back to the city council.

Fact number one the residents' opposition to the um roundabout at um uh island and and McCartney.

Um fact number two, the position that the um Harbor Bay Homeowners Association took.

Fact number three, the fact that the major improvements that we did authorized through the Vision Zero, authorized through the transportation choices plan, authorized through a whole host of documents, still came to City Council, the Lincoln Avenue Project, the Fernside Project, the Central Avenue Project.

I get it that if you're um if your parents or family members of children, I get it, that safety is utmost.

I get it.

But by the same token, I think for the process to be served, that we can't just let staff make these kind of decisions.

So I would say that there is a deficiency that we've revealed, and I would move that the city council directs the city attorney and the city manager's office to work together to recommend to the city council updates and revisions to city policies and the uh Alameda Municipal Code ensuring future construction projects receive appropriate review by the city council and to develop a communication and community engagement plan for future construction projects to ensure meaningful public engagement and inclusion.

So we're gonna change the municipal code.

I object to your characterization of city staff making this decision by fiat.

We heard thorough explanation from the city engineer of everything that preceded and formed the basis of the decisions at this particular street.

I needed to say that for the record.

Okay, who else who has time would like to speak?

Just a question if Councilmember Daysog wants to make a friendly um change to his to the referral or not, um, he'd have to nod his head.

Um, you know, I think the interim city manager had a very good suggestion.

I would really like the council to vote to follow that.

It'll still come back to the council, but it's been vetted by the city attorney.

I think that's a good way to proceed.

I would support that.

What's the question?

Um, I was also gonna support that.

And I also want to go um take into um what our uh city engineer had said.

He said the three things to consider, the the technical, like you know, the engineering issue, um public engagement issue, and legal authority.

So it's really essentially what you guys just said, but I thought that was really succinct, and it really kind of I don't know, kind of broke it down nicely.

Would you like to make a motion?

Um, well, I do have a clarifying question.

Was there's no time constraint about when just you will come back?

Okay, so I move that at some future date the city attorney and the acting and or city manager um come back with um how uh plans how we're gonna carry out um infrastructure projects that include not just the technical specs but also the public engagement plan and the legal authority and maybe in conjunction with staff.

In conjunction with staff.

Any interest in a second.

Okay, well, is there um a substitute motion?

Isn't my motion still on the floor?

Um I didn't get a second, by the way.

Uh council member Daysog against my better judgment.

Restate your motion if you would please.

Oh wait, yes, better so the clerk.

Um so he moved approval of directing the city attorney and city manager to work with oh the recommendation.

Yeah, or the recommendation to review the city policies and codes to ensure.

Oh, wait.

Oh, here we read it.

Thanks.

Okay, to oh, to address deficiencies.

That was that word.

Um, okay, uh, to update revisions of city policies or in the municipal code to ensure future construction projects receive appropriate review by the city council and develop a communications and community engagement plan for the future construction of projects to ensure adequate public engagement and inclusion.

I kind of think that's what the city manager was saying.

Uh interim city manager was saying, but nonetheless, there is a motion.

Did you want to add anything?

Second.

Okay.

There's been a motion.

There's been a second.

All those in favor signify by stating aye.

Aye.

All those opposed.

Opposed.

Abstention.

That was an abstention, Councilmember Jensen?

Yes.

Okay.

That did not pass.

City attorney, did you want to make a motion?

Oh no, I just wanted to clarify whether Councilmember Bowler was seconding councilmember Desog's motion or Vice Mayor Prior's motion.

No, he was, I I'm sorry, he was he was second.

I would not have gone forward with the vote without it, yes.

Councilmember Jensen.

Thank you, Madam Mayor.

I just wanted to um just clarify.

I I abstained and and I didn't support that.

I I would like to I think that the city manager coming back and the city attorney have a a good idea as well, but I do want to hear from um in some venue from the concerns of Bayfront Island residents about the McCartney changes, not to change it or make stop it, but to just hear from our community.

And that was a comment, not a motion, correct?

Okay, I will say we do not have a motion that passed.

We do have um the will by our interim city manager and city attorney.

So they will come back with that information.

They don't need permission um from us.

So all right.

That um thank you.

Um thank you all for those who spoke those for bringing the motion.

Now we are going to take a break because we've been going for two um hours.

It's 9 15 now.

Let's all be back here by 9 30, please.

No later than 9 30, we're starting.

Thanks, everyone.

With that, I am calling the council meeting back to order.

And Madam Clerk, would you introduce the next item?

We're going back to the our regular programming.

7B is a recommendation to adopt the 2025 Zero Waste Implementation Plan update.

This project is categorically exempt from further environmental review pursuant to California Environmental Quality Act Guidelines Section 15308 actions by regulatory agencies for protection of the environment.

Thank you.

And is that you, Ms.

Group?

Come on up, welcome.

And go ahead and introduce yourself.

Hello.

All right.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and members of the city council.

I'm Liza Cord, Public Works Coordinator.

And the item before you tonight asks City Council to adopt the 2025 Zero Waste Implementation Plan.

Our agenda for this item will briefly go over the background of Zero Waste in Alameda, the work completed to update the Zero Waste Implementation Plan, and then we'll shift to the key points of the plan presented to you this evening.

We'll first start with a quick overview of Alameda's Zero Waste Implementation Plan, which we for short call the ZWIP.

Because that's a mouthful.

The ZWIP was first adopted in 2010 following the adoption of the 2008 Local Action Plan for Climate Protection.

And that initial ZWIP set a goal date for Alameda achieving zero waste by 2020.

In 2018, the ZWIP was updated to assess progress towards that goal.

And that update included adopting five new strategies to continue the 2020, I'm sorry, the 2010 ZWIP and integration of new organics legislation, or what we refer to as Senate Bill 1383.

At this time, those five strategies have largely been completed, and the goal date has passed.

And so staff have now prepared the twenty twenty-five ZWIP, which focuses on continuing progress towards that twenty ten zero waste goal.

So what is zero waste for Alameda?

Zero waste amounts to 89% diversion of waste materials from landfill, which at the individual level is no more than 1.2 pounds per day of landfill per person.

As of 2024 reporting, Alameda's diversion is at 81%.

This represents a really a good amount of progress to that 89% goal, despite the fact that we have passed the 2020 date.

This is building on the existing zero waste culture that's been built up since 2010 and the adoption of the initial ZWIP, and it focuses on removing barriers to participation but also continuing to invest in the engagement infrastructure needed to continue the work.

As part of that focus for this plan, we had a fairly robust engagement approach.

We had 12 community meetings and focus groups.

We also conducted a residential survey and then came back to council in late 2024 to share a progress update.

So I want to touch briefly on some key takeaways from those outreach efforts.

From the meetings and focus groups, we heard pretty clearly that there's a need for an increase in education and outreach, and need to remove some participation barriers for existing programs.

We also learned that there's an opportunity to increase diversion for additional types of materials and to provide opportunities for reuse, and then, of course, that there should be both incentives and enforcement for zero waste programs.

From our survey, we found out that few of those participants in the survey knew about the ZWIP, but overwhelmingly they did support the program goals.

There's a lot of support in Alameda for conservation and environmental protection is highly motivating to Alamedans.

There's low enthusiasm for reusable foodware and some division on the effectiveness of reusable foodware as a zero waste strategy.

However, programs like edible food recovery, requiring bins for proper sorting, and the bulky pick-up program were all considered very effective.

And finally, there's a lot of confusion and a lot of barrier to sorting materials and knowing where materials go in the waste stream.

Residents know how to commute how to dispose of common items but are less clear about specialty items or items that aren't as common, and this results in most folks throwing away those items when they're not sure.

In addition to the work completed to assess the current programs in the Zero Waste program, these engagement takeaways were fairly critical to developing the 2025 Z WIP that you see tonight.

This brings us to the key points of the 2025 ZWIP presented to you this evening.

The 2025 ZWIP most notably does not include a specific goal date.

It keeps that 89% diversion goal, but instead the plan focuses on taking the work, zero waste work into perpetuity and really continuing to try to increase participation across all segments in Alameda, invest in behavior change, and we'll be reporting to City Council on that progress annually.

The ZWIP presents 12 programs, which are collectively estimated to increase Alameda's diversion by 4.46% at maturity of those programs.

And while this does not fully close the gap towards that 89% goal, these 12 programs are recommended as critical to furthering our progress in zero waste.

As key state waste legislation like Senate Bill 54 move forward and single-use plastics are reduced, there may be additional diversion gains for Alameda, and these programs included in the ZWIP are designed to be flexible and to integrate those changes.

The item tonight, the item before you tonight does not include requests for necessary funding for these programs.

Staff intend to bring those requests back as part of the budget process if the ZWIP is adopted.

And of the 12 programs, staff are recommending four as priority programs that would be implemented first, pending approval of funding, of course, and we'll talk a little bit about those programs in the next slide.

The 12 programs that are included in the ZWIP are shown here.

It's a lot of programs on one slide, but I want to note that they all fall into one of the four, if not more than one of the four categories of focus area for this plan, which are behavior change, waste reduction, increasing reuse, and then improving diversion of our construction and demolition debris materials.

The four that are bolded are the priority programs that we'll go on to talk about for a moment here.

Those four priority programs are first conducting a targeted campaign to increase multifamily participation in the bulky collection program.

It's that once annual collection pickup that was previously only available to single-family customers and extended to multifamily in 2021.

We are not having a lot of participation in that program, that's not specifically unique to Alameda, but we do understand that there are specific barriers to participation and considerations for the multifamily community.

So we're recommending that this program focus the efforts to increase that participation.

The second program is to conduct enforcement for legal dumping.

Alameda has a really good program for submitting complaints and requests to abate illegal dumping, but we don't have the corresponding enforcement piece for that program, which is really important for the ongoing monitoring and changing some of those especially hot spots of illegal dumping and perpetual problems.

So this program proposes bringing enforcement into the current program for abating illegal dumping.

The third and fourth programs are to pilot resources for Alameda's low income and unhoused communities and address specific barriers for participation.

And I'll say a few words about cash for trash.

This would be a pilot program modeled on San Jose's Cash for Trash program, which provides monetary incentive for the unhoused community members to pick up trash and collect trash.

These four programs are estimated to yield a total of 1.3% increase in diversion at program maturity.

So I have a quick overview as I'm running out of time here on the costs, both one-time implementation costs and ongoing annual costs for the four priority programs.

The snapshot of the of those costs for all 12 programs is included in the attachment to the staff report, so the ZWIP for tonight.

So that brings us to where we are tonight.

Although staff is focused on moving priority programs forward first, we do recommend city council approve all of the 12 programs in the 2025 ZWIP as presented tonight.

As mentioned, program funding will return as part of future budget actions.

And with that, my presentation is complete.

I'm available for questions you may have.

I'm also joined by our Zero A staff team and our consultants with HFNH tonight.

Very impressive timing, Ms.

Accord.

Um Madam Clerk, do we have public comment?

Yes.

Okay, so council, do we have any clarifying questions?

Just clarifying questions before we go to public comment.

Okay, let's go right to public comment.

Thanks, Ms.

Accord.

Our one speaker is Ruth Abbey.

Oh, Ruth Gabby.

Of course.

Welcome, Speaker Abbey.

Good evening, Mayor Ziashcraft and Vice Mayor and members of the city council.

I'm Ruth Abbey with Community Action for Sustainable Alameda.

We very much support the adoption of the updated zero waste implementation plan.

As you are aware, we have excellent collection and processing infrastructure in Alameda.

In fact, we have had the same excellent collection and processing infrastructure since 2001.

What we don't have is maximum participation in our collection and processing infrastructure, which is what this plan focuses on.

Behavior change, community-based social marketing, and outreach and education.

We have expanded that to the Berkeley and to Oakland.

We have spearheaded a monthly cleanup program out at Alameda Point in collaboration with the Wreckin Park staff, and we have done a lot of support of both the public events and schools programs, received grant funding and provide technical assistance to provide that support.

And we have recently engaged some interns that have been researching public policy, which is of the course their interest, uh university interns.

They and they have been researching options for potential future implementation of an updated foodware ordinance and or potentially other aspects of outreach and education to renters so that they can fully participate in our um on our programs.

So we're really looking forward to collaborate with city staff about those issues, and maybe you'll maybe seeing a referral coming one of these days.

So we really do support the adoption of the plan and full funding as soon as possible.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So with that, we'll close public comment.

I did realize Ms.

Accord, I did have one clarifying question.

You mentioned in your presentation that reusable food where it just really hasn't caught on.

Can you tell us more about that?

Those are programs like the copy reusable cups and what else?

Sure.

Um, so we do I I can clarify a little bit about Okapi.

We do have a reusable coffee cup program with I think now 11 participating cafes across Alameda.

Um and within those users, there's a lot of enthusiasm and support for reusables.

Um what we experienced when we went out and did the residential survey is that there was less support, both less support for extending reusables, um, perhaps some unawareness of the existing reusable cup program, and then also folks didn't feel like it was an effective strategy.

They also told us that they didn't really want to have reusables to go, that that process felt cumbersome and clunky, and and there wasn't a lot of interest in that part of the program as well.

Okay, well, we tried, but I mean it still exists, right?

Just not the program still exists.

So copy does still exist, yes.

Just not a very big part of the reusable.

Yes, and you can find a list of those participating cafes on our public works zero waste page.

I've got the app on my phone.

Um council, we are open to council comments, discussion, and um ultimately approval of this um this uh plan.

So who'd like to start?

Should we start on the left?

I feel like I'm always looking to my right.

Councilmember Jensen, do you want to lead us off?

Sure, thank you.

Um thank you for the presentation, and I also will just thank um Casa and Ruth Abby and uh for all the information and partnership with the City of Alameda.

I appreciate the work of public work staff, those accord Mark Green and Emily Antonin.

We I I often hear um applause and accolades for our city staff for our public work staff because as the chair of the Alameda County Waste Management Authority, I am in kind of um have the some authority to establish the requirements and the regulations for the county that come down and are implemented by our city.

And I know that our staff works really hard to and really closely with Stop Waste, Alameda County Waste Management staff to make those improvements and make it easier in our city for um for especially for waste reduction goals and to to um comply with state laws as are mentioned, some of which are mentioned in this report.

And so um during the last discussion that just ended, this council talked about outreach and how much outreach is enough and what more can we do to ensure that residents have the information that they need to make decisions.

And so I really appreciate in the ZWIP report that um one of the focus areas will be on outreach and especially outreach to tenants of multi-unit buildings.

So I want to appreciate the priority programs focus, and I think we I definitely support that, and we need to move forward, but I also want to explore perhaps in the future more rigorous ways to enforce and educate and that might be using some tools that we use for other.

So I was really excited to hear some of their proposals.

And one of the things that was suggested that I think could work, first of all, it does work in other cities and other parts of, especially in California, is tenant education and compliance requirements through landlords.

And the example that was used and brought forward was that in Alameda, we have a we have smoking prohibition in apartment buildings and multi-unit buildings and rentals.

And so landlords are required to include in their lease agreement that and the tenant is required to agree to not smoke in a building.

So that we know and we're assured that tenants have that information because unfortunately tenants do not often receive ACI updates unless they ask for it from our hauler.

They don't receive the service guides unless they go online and look for it.

They tend to have much shorter tenure and than do homeowners, and there of course will be time and language barriers.

People aren't often paying attention, but the landlord has requirements as well.

And I I should say that I've spoken briefly about this to our city attorney, and I know that our rent program does give landlords the these disinformation.

I know that ZWIP also goes out to buildings and shares with landlord the requirement and the best way to do sorting, and we have also have posting requirements to ensure that tenants know if they if they're paying attention, they know where to sort and how to throw things away by if they look at the signage, but that puts a big burden on our staff to go and make sure that that enforcement is on staff and make sure that compliance is happening.

So what I will come forward with in the future is a suggestion to through the referral process, most likely, to work with our rental program to develop after the city council could take an action to develop some provisions in our our lease language, lease examples similar to what we have for the to implement the no smoking ordinance in the city so that we can be more assured and comfortable and confident that especially tenants of multi-unit buildings are sorting and landlords are aware of this as well.

That would be the burden would be on them.

And I'll just close by saying again the report also addresses the issue of illegal dumping, and that could be part of a future some future outreach and some future specific compliance provisions that I would suggest.

So I'll be working with you, Liz.

We'll be talking.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Jensen.

Vice Mayor Pryor.

Oh, I was just gonna say I really liked uh council member Jensen's um I thought it was thoughtful.

Like we do have smoking bans and public buildings and apartments.

So it would be interesting to see what we could come up with with regards to sorting trash.

Um I always say that's one of my f I always joke, that's one of my favorite things.

I love to sort trash.

Um I I do appreciate um when I first moved to Alameda years and years ago, but just having the three receptacles, you know, you get in the habit.

It it's it's a very easy habit.

Um, and I think um it's really important.

Um I've one of the things I do as a teacher.

I've shown pictures of landfills to my students, and like this is your future, which is why you need to recycle.

Um, so I think this is so important.

I love um that we're you know getting closer to our goals.

Um, so I just want to appreciate everything you've done.

Um, and really that's it.

I just think this is great.

Thank you, Vice Mayor, Councilmember Bowler.

Well, I just really want to thank staff for this um update today.

It's it's exciting to see the progress, and I I feel that um councilmember Jensen is on to a few things over there, so I'm really looking forward to seeing what she possibly brings forward next with that.

And I because it really feels like that educational piece is just such an important part of it, and um, you know, anything we can do to be collaborative in different pieces of the community, which we are doing a lot, but anything more would be great.

Thank you, Councilmember Gasog.

Thank you very much for that presentation.

Very much appreciated.

Um, look forward to um implementing you know the various uh proposals that you have there.

Um I think uh, you know, the improvements that we've done with regard to um reducing uh any amount of waste to landfill.

I think um I think we should certainly uh be proud of the um successes we had, but I think with this program uh we should uh hopefully enjoy even more successes.

So um can't wait to uh you know the program that you bring forward for um when the budgeting time comes.

And lastly, um I want to thank you for bringing this forward.

Ruth Abbey, hi, I see you there.

Thank you for all that you and Casa have done over the years, really decades, um, to keep us on track and just to support these important um initiatives and also to bring the next generation in to work with students, and this is always you know, this is our future, and this is how we're gonna go forward.

So um, and and then just a reminder, I remember last year I heard from a couple of businesses.

It's always challenging sometimes for businesses to be able to implement some of these new regulations and to work with their financial um and other constraints, but I know it is like so many other things just a matter of communication and education and some more communication, but I'm really proud of um all the work that our city has done because of great staff and great community partners like um Ruth Abbey and Casa.

So um thank you, thank you, thank you.

And with that, I am looking for a recommendation that we adopt the 2025 Zero Waste Implementation Plan update, but it's so much more fun to say z whip, z whip.

Um, so who would like to council member Jensen?

Perhaps you'd like to make that motion.

I really like to move approval of the update.

Councilmember Jensen approves, and the vice mayor who loves to sort trash would like to send it.

All right, we've had a motion by Councilmember Jensen, seconded by Council uh by Vice Mayor Pryor.

All those in favor, please signify by stating aye.

Aye.

That was five eyes, correct?

That measure motion passes unanimously.

Thank you, everybody.

All right.

Moving on to item seven C, Madam Clerk.

Workshop to receive an update and provide feedback on disposition strategy for leasing and sale of properties within the reuse area at Alameda Point.

Welcome, welcome.

Thank you.

Are you good with 10 minutes for your present?

I'm gonna make it work.

You're gonna make it work.

That's what I like to hear.

Alright.

It's 10 o'clock.

So 10 minutes at 10 o'clock.

Let's do it.

Great.

Thank you.

Good uh good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of the city council.

My name is Abby Thorne Lyman.

I am the director of base reuse and economic development, and I'm here tonight tonight to provide you with an update on the disposition strategy for properties in the reuse area of Alameda Point.

I'm going to start with a little overview of the disposition strategy that was presented to council in spring of 2023, share a little bit of updated information on what we've done since then, and seek your feedback on the recommended work plan that the base reuse and economic development team has in store for 2026 and 2027.

First, a little bit of background.

I know you're all familiar with the Master Infrastructure Plan or MIP, but for those who are not, this is a foundational document that guides the sale and lease of properties at Alameda Point, as well as of course the implementation of infrastructure.

The master infrastructure plan was adopted by City Council in 2014 and updated again in 2020.

And it provides us a literal roadmap of where all of the various backbone infrastructure will go throughout Alameda Point, what it will look like and how much it will cost.

And this doesn't just guide roads, wet and dry utilities that are under the roads, parks, open space, recreational needs, multimobility needs, transit, and sea level rise adaptation.

So it provides us with a fantastic reference point for where we're trying to head.

In 2020, the cost estimate for the total package of remaining infrastructure was 700 million.

We recently completed a cost estimate and found the current price tag for the total remaining infrastructure is 900 million dollars.

I would like to differentiate how we're delivering the master infrastructure plan for the reuse areas versus the development areas.

So in the development areas, we really rely on private master developers to provide us with that infrastructure generally as consideration for the value of our land.

Whereas in the reuse area, we're selling properties in a much more fragmented way, and so we're really um we're taking a leadership role here where we are piecing the money together through the sale of these properties, and the city, namely the public works department, is leading on the implementation of the infrastructure in the reuse area.

So in the reuse area, we are guided by three phases of development.

These were established in a 10-year East Bay MUD water infrastructure agreement.

And this agreement was put in place because East Bay Mud has a requirement that we cannot sell property to a private entity if it is not connected to their water system.

Currently, areas without East Bay Mud water systems are operating on the existing city, the existing Navy era water water infrastructure, although East Bay Mud is providing the water.

So as of 2025, Public Works had completed the full backbone package for the phase one infrastructure loop, which is fantastic, and they completed the full water loop for phase two.

So they have made tremendous progress, and now it is base reuse and economic development's turn to do the disposition of more land to help raise money for the phase two infrastructure.

So the disposition strategy as brought to council in 2023, really focuses on selling land in areas where the backbone infrastructure has already been completed, under the theory that streets areas with new infrastructure have higher value land adjacent.

So we're actually able to capitalize and recapture some of the value that we have added to that land by building these new backbone infrastructure and the new streets.

So that is still our plan, and we are still proceeding with uh with uh the sale of property in areas that are connected to the phase one loop.

So just as a reminder, this is West Tower Avenue, Saratoga Street, West Midway Avenue, and Pan Amway.

So we believe we brought to City Council in closed session the sale of building 92.

So we are working through the negotiation of that right now, and we are intending to proceed with the sale of other properties that are adjacent to the phase one loop.

Now, oh, sorry, I just want to go over a couple of other of the goals here that were that were brought forward in the disposition strategy.

So, in addition to maximizing land value by focusing on the phase one loop area, we also see benefit in retaining some of the high value leasing assets until our own operational and property management costs are reduced.

And I'll talk about that a little bit more in just a second, but also maintaining flexibility, and I think you guys hear this from me a lot that it's important for us to be nimble, be opportunistic, take take offers as they arise and consider them and decide if they're the best for the city.

So we're open to other opportunities, but our focus is really around that phase one loop.

For those who are not familiar with the way that the revenue flows at Alameda Point, under the economic development conveyance agreement with the Navy, all proceeds from the lease or sale of property at Alameda Point are to be reinvested in the long-term job creation and economic redevelopment of or related to the property at the former base until 2037.

So what that means is we are accounting for those revenues separately, and generally we have operated under the premise that the year-to-year lease revenues pay for the operating expenses of Alameda Point, where the sale of land, the sale of assets, that money is reinvested into the capital improvements into the infrastructure primarily.

What's really important about this is if you look at where those phase one, phase two, and phase three loops are, you'll see that the phase three loop connects a lot of our more challenging properties.

It connects our historic properties that are often vacant or blighted.

And we do not want to be caught in a scenario where that's all that the city has left, and we have a huge operating burden and no lease revenue to show for it.

So I do think there is some value in being creative and contemplating the future of those historic vacant buildings as we are going forward, trying to dispose of the phase one and deliver the infrastructure, if that makes sense.

So I consider our team to really be curating the future here.

It is really important for us to be kind of fiscally balancing these kinds of transactions.

The new infrastructure, the second phase two loop is where our focus is.

The backbone infrastructure is estimated to cost 43 million dollars for that phase two loop.

That's that's um that's net of the water line that was installed.

I would also note that it is important that isn't that 2027 is next year, so we do have to renegotiate that agreement with East Bay Mutt.

So, as I mentioned, the cost of that infrastructure package has gone up.

We all know we've experienced a period of significant inflation since 2020.

Unfortunately, the value of our land and our assets has not gone up correspondingly.

That's partly you know due to the softening of the market related to COVID.

Um, but I would remind the council that we well we approved a deal earlier this year that was for 2.25 million per acre in order to deliver the full $900 million master infrastructure plan, just relying on land sales, we would have to achieve a price per acre of 2.55 million for all of the remaining acreage at Alameda Point.

So I'm not sure this place can pay for itself, that's the bottom line.

The seed I'm planting for you, we really need to start looking for grants and external funding sources.

Um, and I want to focus on three properties very briefly that I just like to focus on for the next two-year work plan.

Uh, one is building 41.

This is 650 West Tower.

It is connected to, it is connected to the phase one loop.

However, I do want to know that it is still owned by the Navy.

Staff's recommendation is regardless of the fact that it is owned by the Navy, we would like to proceed with a long-term ground lease with an option to purchase when it is conveyed by the Navy, because we do believe this is one of our highest value assets.

We also would like to propose that though it is not on the phase one loop, we consider the disposition of the phase of the building 11 412 complex at West Tower Avenue and Monarch Street.

The reason for this is that this building is obviously tremendously valuable, but it does need a 12 million dollar roof replacement.

And our concern is we're going to be ending up spending more capital on the repairs of the buildings than we are on our new infrastructure.

And also, this is a 300,000 plus square foot building, and we believe a private developer could do a much better job of demising it and leasing it than we could.

And then lastly, we would like to propose that we give some consideration to the bachelor enlisted quarter complex, which obviously is a is a it's a major burden for Alameda Point.

This uh whole complex is largely vacant with the exception of a couple of the wings of building two.

Um, and we want really want to just explore creative options for the disposition of this property and the adaptive reuse of this property.

It's also one of the few properties that is zoned to accommodate residential uses.

So with that, I just want to conclude by reiterating our two-year work plan here that our intent is to continue to focus on the phase one loop, sale of building 92, sale of building seven, and lot 101 and 114, look at a long-term lease for building 41 and be open to the other opportunities that come our way.

Um, I will just conclude with a image of everything I just said.

Thank you for your time.

And look at you with 11 seconds to spare.

Good work.

Thank you.

Um Council, any clarifying questions for Ms.

Thorne Lyman, Councilmember Jensen?

Um, would the potential building 41 sale?

Would that terminate the lease?

Would we with the deep ocean expression?

Uh so their lease is up in the fall of this year.

So we will need to contemplate a long-term future home for them.

And so it would actually be best for us to start to think about the long-term future of the building so that they can gain some certainty in where they're going to be.

Thank you.

And um, how would the building 400 adjacent to building 11 and 12 be when or how would the schedule be for that to be conveyed?

That's a good question.

There's some due diligence we have to do because building 400 is in fact owned by the Navy as well.

So this is going to be a very complicated transaction.

Um, so I think we actually have a lot more due diligence to do.

It's sort of the beginnings of an idea, but like, for example, one of the things we need to explore is um because we would continue to own the middle until the navy conveys it to us.

Would we need to bet have create better firewalls between the three buildings, which right now there's kind of just these hangar doors dividing the spaces up?

In the presentation, it says phase three conveyance, three phase three C conveyance.

Does that at some point or timeline or yeah, that that is a confusing, especially because I was using phases to refer to the infrastructure?

Um the phase three C is the Navy's conveyance phase.

So they have conveyed phases uh one through three B.

So phase three C is their next conveyance.

So that is comprised of the building 41, the building 400 complex, and a little bit of property near the Pacific Fusion, the former Pacific Fusion site.

So we anticipate having building 400 sometime along when building 40 or around the same time as building 41.

They would be conveyed simultaneously, okay.

Great.

Thanks for your help.

Any other clarifying questions, Council of Vice Mayor Park?

I just have a uh quick question.

So it sounded like you um had said that be based on the expense of where the site was where Pacific Fusion was, you know, sub-hopefully you know they didn't go.

But um, that uh you're gonna uh start looking into a grant.

Do you know like how much we're gonna ask and what the timeline is to you know write the grant and submit it, and if it gets approved, like what is the is there, anyway.

I was just trying to get more information.

Yes, so the my reference to a grant could it is just that we need to look at outside funding opportunities available to us.

Obviously, you know, C-level rise adaptation is one one area.

I think we need to be thinking about areas where grants are available.

That's one, uh, another one that that um some of our tenants have been encouraging me to look at is the port infrastructure development program that is a federal grant that could actually repair the peers.

So just we're just I think it's just really our way of saying we should not be assuming this place is going to pay for itself and just really start looking for the opportunities that exist.

I mean, obviously, we're looking for grants for Deepaved Park, which is part of the MIP.

So, great.

Yeah, great.

Thank you.

Councilmember Voller.

Thank you.

Um have you looked at other like um structures in terms of, I know you mentioned grants, but we got that letter yesterday from common ground.

I don't know if you had a chance to look at that.

It's interesting.

I don't know to what extent historically the staff has looked at things like that.

Um, long-term ground rents and how that could possibly back revenue bonds, things of that nature.

Uh yeah, we have looked at revenue bonds and and um in fact uh Kaiser Marston did look at revenue bonds for the 2023 um disposition strategy effort, and it's it's certainly an approach we could consider we don't have to back it necessarily with a long-term ground lease, it could be backed with any kind of steady source of income.

Um but you know, we haven't dived into the bond market or really really contemplated that because our strategy has been really focused on the sale of land.

So if that's a direction council would like us to see, go look at more financing options, you know, that that's certainly we're open to that.

I mean, it definitely seems worth taking a look at, right?

Kind of diving into and just getting a better sense of it because we've we have these challenges now, so looking at all the options would seem to make sense.

Yeah, I definitely agree, and I I um in in that letter they do propose ground leases, and I I do have thoughts on that, but I that's not the question you asked me, so um, but I I mean I would just generally say you do a you do a ground lease when you are looking for a um when you have a reason to continue to own the land in the long term, and that's not really the direction the city's taken um since it started receiving the land.

Um, and there's other ways if you want to be capturing on the long-term basis and be capturing the the gains, you can do that through a sale as well.

There's things you can build into the deal structure where you get a you get a you get a uh share of the profits when it's sold, for example.

So yeah, right, and just that overall kind of the premise of some of that discussion was um around the idea of when the market's low, you don't necessarily necessarily want to sell your valuable assets, right?

You want to find a way to stay the course until it improves.

But I I don't pretend to to know where we are exactly in terms of the market, but yeah.

Yeah, no, I think there were some really compelling um thoughts and ideas in that letter for sure.

And I I would just say that um on that one, like our assets are not appreciating in value, they're depreciating because we have when we received them from the Navy, we they already had deferred maintenance.

I recently found a letter from the mayor at the time saying Navy, you need to do a better job of maintaining these.

So we have this deferred maintenance problem, and it's just it's just becoming more and more of a burden on the city, and it's it's causing the assets to depreciate themselves.

So when we're looking to sell these buildings, we're finding they need a new roof.

They you know they need structural work, and so that's coming out of our land value as it is.

So I think the challenge is that the value of our assets, the value of our assets is not correspondingly strengthening as the market strengthens because the assets themselves need so much work.

Um, and I would also just add that um our goal as a city like um as far as I am aware is not really to generate the maximum amount amount of revenue, it's to create the best place and generate the most economic development, and doing that creating that momentum and doing that more quickly has other added benefits to the city that I think you know, I think we'd also just need to be balanced into that equation.

I'm not saying we shouldn't make money, of course we should make money, but just that we're trying to achieve other things too.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Council member Desig, any clarifying questions?

Yeah, in terms of like as you said, achieving other things.

Um do we capture any, do we contemplate or do we already um capture any amount of the sales proceed and uh set it aside for say the um long discussed regional sports park or even um uh transportation um long-term transportation uh uh solutions out of um Alameda Point?

That's a very good question.

Um as far as I obviously I have not been, I don't have a very long tenure at the city, and so I don't know how we've done things in the past.

I do know that um in 2023 we had quite a um we had amassed quite a fund balance in the Alameda Point fund that did go towards investments in the phase one infrastructure, and I think I think we've been thinking a little bit more piecemeal than that.

I guess that's what I would say.

My impression is is that it's really, okay.

We've done phase one, now let's do phase two, and not thinking holistically in terms of like, well, let's set aside little pots of funds, you know, for those long-term infrastructure improvements.

Um, so um I guess that would be how I how I have seen in my two years of observation that things have been done.

Okay, thank you.

All right, I'm I don't have any cloud-friendly questions, but I appreciate your report.

But we do have please have a seat.

Um we have public comment next.

Thank you.

Uh the first speaker is Mitch Bong.

Uh is he remote?

Oh no, he left.

Uh I think he's um absent.

So we only have one now.

One of the starian.

Uh remote.

Yes.

All right.

Welcome, Speaker Biasterian.

Hi, everyone.

This is Paul Eustarian.

I want to speak in support of biasing towards selling more of the point property.

Um I think it would be great to get that cash infusion for the much needed infrastructure out there.

Um, and I and I want to really focus on the property management side of it.

Um, I've watched uh several city council meetings over the last few years where property management has taken up a lot of time and complexity.

I've seen potential leasers come to meetings, wait till 11 o'clock, it postponed to the next month, and then wait till 11 o'clock the next meeting.

Then they have like go through like a beauty contest without clear concrete requirements.

It's it doesn't seem great for either the potential leasers or for the city.

Um there's been landlord challenges both with businesses and um individuals.

Uh I think the city is really good at um at dealing with property owners dealing with landlords and helping landlords treat their tenants well, but it's not doesn't seem like the core expertise for the city.

There's a lot of important city things the city can work on.

So I think getting out of the landlord business is a good direction to go.

I understand there's good reasons for um some to do some leasing, but I encourage to be supportive of strongly biasing a lot more toward property sales.

Thanks.

And that's the extent of our speakers.

Okay.

With that, we will close public comment.

And um I want to thank um uh Miss Thorne Lyman for always insightful report and overview of this.

And I just want to say something that um is sort of implied in in this report that not that Miss Thorne Lyman brought it up, but we have had since the beginning um with the conveyance from the Navy to the city, this policy of fiscal neutrality for Alameda Point.

And for a long time, really going back to when I was on the planning board before I was ever on the city council.

I thought that that isn't quite fair, and that is not to say that the city is swimming in money.

Um, but when we look at Alameda Point that way as fiscal neutrality, we must not have any funding from the main island for Alameda Point.

It really is setting up an us versus them dynamic at a time when we from the beginning when the Navy conveyed this property.

Our goal was to make it feel like one continuous city.

And I would also note that um we ask a lot of Alameda Point.

We have a ferry terminal out there that is very um robust and busy during the work week because that's when the seaplane lagoon ferry runs, but we have people certainly from half of the island um coming to take the ferry from there.

It um is also has housed Alameda Point Collaborative, formerly homeless individuals and families and others, Operation Dignity and Building Futures.

We're providing transitional housing.

We were able to provide transitional housing for people who are emerging from homelessness, not quite ready to live on their own, but we have we've taken some of our big white, some of our um uh townhomes, and transition them to supportive transitional housing.

The Oak Club um out at Alameda Point supports many nonprofits with the events that it holds.

And so all of those uses bring bring people to and from Alameda Point, and just I'm not saying that that revelation or that realization is going to change the things that we need to do, but I would like us to just update our thinking.

I realize it's still a policy, but I don't think that we need to so much say, oh no, only revenue generated at Alameda Point can be used for Alameda Point.

That said, we have a whole city budget that we need to balance, so we need to um keep our eye on a lot of balls.

I um I think you've laid out a great plan.

I um it is um somewhat daunting.

I also think that well, things are gonna get better, they have to get better economically at the same time, those properties are just going to be getting older.

So we do need to do uh what we can when we can do it.

I I think um that Ms.

Thorne Lyman, you and your department have laid out a really good strategy for us, and I think I think we stay the course on that with, as you said, the need to pivot to stay flexible if we see the market changing in a certain way, or a particular sector might present itself as an opportunity.

I know we were bereft not to get Pacific Fusion, but at least they went to another state.

Um the um but we we really considered that a great trial run for you know putting together, I thought an excellent proposal, and I know from talking to the executive team at Pacific Fusion that it wasn't for lack of um opportunities that they went to New Mexico.

It was it was it really was economic.

They they very much love this place.

I think some other users will will present themselves.

Um right now I would say the whole economy is kind of um in a holding pattern just with a lot of uncertainty and flux out there.

Um, but anyway, I um I appreciate you bringing all these um IPOpping numbers to us.

We need to we need to be uh aware of that, and I think the strategy that you've laid out is sound, and I um am certainly um in favor of this is a report, but I certainly um support and approve everything that you've brought forward to us.

So thank you for that.

Um across the dais, anyone else wants to weigh in.

I would mayor I just really quickly I uh the report was so thoughtful.

Um you presented us with uh creative options.

Um, I appreciate you just knowing you know, or even stating that we're gonna have to stay flexible and um thank you.

You work really hard and um I feel I mean it's like the mayor had just said like when you're like well we have buildings as the property might grow in value, but the the buildings are just um not.

They're doing the opposite.

So um thank you for uh working hard and um trying to come up with long-term solutions.

So I appreciate your heart.

Thanks.

Anything further?

Thank you so much.

We really appreciate all your work and um look forward to continuing to work with you.

All right, with that, Madam Clerk, will you introduce the next item?

My iPad has come to the time of the evening when it's completely frozen.

It's tired two.

7D.

Introduction of ordinance authorizing the interim city manager to execute a new lease with Chi Concepts LLC, a California limited liability company for 60 months for a portion of building 168 located at 1651 Viking Street, Alameda, California, and at least with Kai Concepts LLC for 60 months for a portion of Pier 1 located at Alameda Point, Alameda, California.

In accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act, this action is categorically exempt from further environmental review for certain sequel guidelines, section 15301 existing facilities, and 15061B3 common sense.

Thank you and welcome.

Thank you.

Uh good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, uh Council members.

My name is Annie Cox.

I'm a management analyst with the base for use and economic development department.

And I am here today to present our staff recommendation that council consider approving two leases with CHI concepts, who is an existing tenant for a portion of both building 168 and Pier 1, both located at Alameda Point.

Both proposed leases are located within the enterprise district in close proximity to each other, as illustrated here by the red stars and on the right in more detail.

So the first proposed leases for building 168.

It's located at 1651 Viking Street.

This former Navy Storage Warehouse was constructed in 1946 and conveyed to the city in 2013.

It is a non-historic structure that sits outside the state tide lands.

The proposed lease premises include approximately 28,000 square feet of interior space of building 168 and just over 17,000 square feet of adjacent yard space.

The warehouse is divided into two suites.

The other occupant is MARAD, they are a long-term tenant, and there are no conflicts of use.

Pier 1 is located on the south side of Seaplane Lagoon.

It sits on state tide lands property that was conveyed to the city in 2016.

The pier is not a contributing historic structure.

The proposed lease is for non-exclusive use of a portion of the pier for launching and retrieving watercraft.

Power engineering also leases the pier, and there are also no conflicts of use.

So a little bit about the tenant.

The use is consistent with the general plan policies for Alameda Point.

So the new lease terms, the negotiated leases both use the city's new lease template.

Each is for a term of five years with no renewal options.

They have a combined monthly base rent of 27,150 with an annual increase of 3%, and they hold the tenant responsible for all utilities, taxes, and fees.

For the building 168 lease, the city has an exclusive right to terminate with six months prior notice, whereas the Pier 1 lease includes a relocation right with a 90-day notice.

The proposed lease rates are a 3% increase over the tenant's current rent and reflects a fair market value for the use, particularly considering the shorter term duration and the city's termination rights.

Given the information provided, staff asked the council approve the first reading of the ordinance authorizing the interim city manager to execute these leases with CHI concepts.

The rationale for this recommendation is as follows.

First, these two leases contribute significant revenue of over 1.7 million dollars over the five-year term.

Second, they allow a well-established tenant in good standing to continue Blue Tech research and development in alignment with the city's economic development strategic plan.

Third, the shorter term nature of the leases and termination rights allow the city flexibility regarding future development opportunities within the enterprise district.

And finally, the tenant will continue to occupy and maintain the premises, thereby uh reducing security concerns at Alameda Point.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to present these two leases.

I'm available to answer any questions.

Thank you to you.

Any clarifying questions, council?

Okay.

My only clarifying question was when this item came to our agenda meeting.

It was like, why have we never heard of them?

We were looking at the website.

It's pretty pretty cool.

Anyway, um do we have public comment?

No public comment.

Well, council, I think at this point we're probably just looking for a motion to approve the first reading of this ordinance.

So moved.

We've had a motion by was that a second on the left side of the dies.

The left side of the dive is very active, and I've got my iPad back.

So we've had a motion by Vice Mayor Prior, seconded by Councilmember Jensen.

Any further discussion?

Any discussion?

All those in favor signify by stating aye.

Aye.

All right, that motion passes unanimously.

Thank you so much.

Let's queue up.

Item 7E, right?

Yes.

Yes.

Introduction of ordinance authorizing the interim city manager to execute a five-year lease agreement and an amount not to exceed 783,636 with G and I 9 Marina Village Office Park LP for approximately 6,944 square feet of office space located at 1001 Marina Village Parkway to serve as the Alameda Fire Department Admin Administration Facility.

In accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act, this action is category exempt from further environmental review pursuant to sequel guidelines section 15301 existing facilities and 15061B3 common sense.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Good evening, Madam Mayor and Vice Mayor and Council members.

I'm Nicholas Luby, your fire chief for the Alameda Fire Department.

This evening, we'll be presenting a leasing proposal to consolidate fire admin staff and relocate the fire administration offices.

The item before you this evening is to enter into a five-year lease with Marina Village office park for a total cost of 783,633,636 over the five years.

Lease represents a fiscally viable solution that the annual costs can be fully supported within the department's existing budget and implemented by July 2026.

Entering this agreement will improve operational efficiency by consolidating fire administration functions, allow the department to begin implementing the first phase of recommendations from the facilities report that was completed, and enhance health and safety for both the crews assigned the fire station one along with fire admin staff.

Why does this matter?

The facilities analysis identified that Fire Station One is missing several critical functional spaces, including adequate storage, fitness and wellness areas, adequate gender-inclusive restrooms, and fully functional kitchen capable of supporting 27 assigned personnel.

Station also lacks appropriate contamination control and decontamination rooms, separate turnout gear storage areas away from the apparatus and require improvements to building systems and seismic upgrades.

So decontamination, as we talked about in the workshop, is the cancer reduction for the workforce of the firefighters.

Facilities report also identified that the current fire administration footprint is undersized and does not allow for staff consolidation that supports effective collaboration and coordination among fire admin staff and between the divisions.

Fire administration personnel are currently dispersed across five offices in the city.

This proposal would allow three of those divisions fire administration, fire prevention, and emergency medical services to co-locate at the marina village location.

The facility also has the capacity to accommodate uh the future relocation of other staff as needed.

The proposed solution uh or the proposed facility is located at 1001 Marina Village Parkway and consists of a ground floor office space with a dedicated public entryway.

Spaces just under 7,000 square feet and will accommodate the current fire admin staff.

And as I stated earlier, does have room for some future growth as needed.

Strategic benefits uh from this proposal.

Uh the proposal directly supports the following city council priorities, enhancing public safety and modernizing infrastructure.

The proposal enables planning for the recommended improvements to fire station one to commence while simultaneously providing stable and uh functional work environment for fire administration staff.

New office facility includes sufficient space to support fire administration operations and can be utilized as a department operation center if needed during disasters.

Department operations centers would support department operations while the emergency operations center supports overall citywide operations during disasters.

The relocation also enhances customer service.

Currently, community members frequently visit fire administration on Park Street and come to inquire about fire prevention items, only to be told that fire prevention is allocated at City Hall West.

Sometimes requiring them to make the drive over to City Hall West.

We try not to do that, but to have one stop shop for some of these services, will increase customer service, and also comes with an abundance of parking for uh for the residents if they do come to fire administration.

In addition, there are times when administrative staff must work uh alone in their offices because sworn personnel are out in the field conducting inspections or other duties, consolidating staff into a single location will ensure that office personnel do not have to work alone uh when interacting with the public.

Uh and finally, uh new facilities parking lot includes 10 level 3 EV charging stations with plans for future expansion.

I bring that up because the department uh is we're we're focused on trying to become compliant with EV vehicles.

Currently, none of the fire facilities have EV charging capabilities.

Uh, this will allow us to work closely with public works and maybe buy our first emergency or electric vehicles for staff assignments.

Uh the red circles on the on the screen uh designate the three divisions that would be moving in the uh Marina Village is the star that's on the screen for the location.

So additional strategic implex uh on this slide illustrates the recommendation from the facilities analysis for fire station one, which propose uh repurposing of the space currently occupied uh by fire administration.

That's the area in the red circle.

This area identified um correction.

This would be converted to support station one's operational support needs.

So the recommendation from RRM was to remove move fire admin to open up the space for station one's needs uh that they have identified without increasing the footprint of the building.

So it wouldn't the plan would be no uh expansion of the existing building to reduce overall costs associated with any remodel tied to the project.

The lease would commence on July 1st, 2026 with access to space provided in April to allow the department to begin the move-in and transition process at no cost.

Monthly rent for the first year will be 12,000 dollars, um, dollars with which is approximately 64% below current market rate for comparable office space in the East Bay.

Lease includes an annual rent escalation of three percent.

Utilities, mobile security, and building maintenance are included in the lease agreement.

As part of the agreement, the landlord uh will complete a lobby build out and has approved installation of department signage at the entryway to the building.

Total rent cost for the five years, as I stated earlier 783,636 and will be funded through existing departmental budget allocations along with operational cost savings from consolidation.

These savings include reduction in internal service fund charges associated with our current uh occup the current offices at City Hall West.

Uh photo copier leases will be reduced, and other expenses currently incurred by operating in separate administrative locations.

To insert ensure the department has adequate funding to support the transition of one-time budget request of 250,000 will be included in the mid-year budget.

The department plans to also use existing budget allocations to cover as much of the move-related costs as possible, including network connectivity, new furniture as needed, IT configurations, installation of media platforms, and the signage.

As the city continues to navigate a path forward to address long-term infrastructure needs, leasing offers a financially feasible near-term option.

The facilities analysis estimates that constructing a new fire administration building in conjunction with say a new fire station 5 at Alameda Point or a training facility would add approximately 20 million dollars to the overall project cost.

So leasing office space could become a long-term option if adequate funding is not identified to include a fire admin in any future builds.

Staff recommend recommendations to approve an ordinance authorizing interim city manager to execute a five-year lease agreement with Marina Village Parkway for 1001 Marina Village at 1001 Marina Village Parkway to serve Alameda Fire Department's consolidation administrative facility.

Thank you.

Available for questions.

Thank you, Chief.

Nice job.

Um, I've got a question on the presentation.

What page is that?

It's the one that says strategic impact.

It's the um the site plan for for um station one.

Where exactly would the decontamination expanded decontamination area be?

It would be in an area that comes off the apparatus space.

So it's a decontaminate, and this is just a rough rendering that RM did, so obviously it's not um architect ready to build a rendering, but it would be off the apparatus area with the idea that uh firefighters should come back from whether they're going on medical calls or firefighter calls, and we have a decontamination room or corridor where they can um clean up if they have to disrobe.

I know what it's for, it's really important.

But the I mean the you're vacating the administrative offices, which are closer to Park Street on right along Park Street, but isn't the apparatus base still going to need to house apparatus?

Yes.

So to find so something will move in the existing firehouse to make room for the decontamination area.

Is that kind of what you're just doing?

That's what I mean.

That's what would happen.

Something something whether the day room uh or the dining room gets uh reconfigured to make room for the decon, and then that give would get pushed into the fire administration building.

It's okay.

The decom would be in the fire administration building as a Dcon would be in a decon.

Dcon would be in a place that uh the staff would have to go through before they go into the living space, which would be probably in the existing firehouse requiring relocation of other certain functions in that partial portion of the building to fire admin.

Because I know that was one of the um the benefits of of um opening up the space there.

Okay, thank you for that.

And Madam Clerk, do we have public comment on this item?

We do not.

Okay, so council, you can go hog wild, you can ask your questions, you can make comments.

Well, don't go hog wild, but yes, let's start with council member Jensen.

Thank you.

Um, did you look at other sites or how did you arrive at this um particular site?

Well, we looked, we looked at city sites or look for spaces in the city, and fortunately, City Hall West, City City Hall is is completely full.

Um we spoke to uh base reuse about other possible buildings.

Uh, the only other possible office space that's in usable condition that wouldn't need a significant investment are the bachelor enlisted uh quarters uh in building two.

Um that is currently being utilized by uh other tenants.

Thank you.

Um Vice Mayor Power.

Hi.

Um, so um I we had talked earlier, but I just wanted to ask this publicly.

Um so is the setup, this consolidation of uh is it the industry norm?

Like, uh yes, it's it's most fire departments, at least administrative divisions are all consolidated under one roof for efficiency collaboration coordination.

Um I believe talking to others in this organization because I'm relatively I'm a new the new person at four years, but uh it's just over time that the city has grown.

Uh the work assignments have increased, the responsibilities of the fire department has increased, and the space just did not exist from a 1960 building for that was built for fire administration.

So as that happens, such as fire prevention was uh reopened, they had to find locations throughout the city.

So that's how that's why we are dispersed over five locations.

Um yeah, and then I'll just go with my comment, which is um, oh gosh, I just my mind went blank.

Um, come back to you if you like.

Yes, thank you.

Sorry.

Back to you.

No worries.

Um thanks, Chief.

Uh Lubia, we appreciate you and the presentation.

It seems like there's a lot of different um opportunities for synergy here between not just the combining, some of the geography, um, possibly cost savings, sounds like is part of it to get to that um that goal and then the fact that that particular the building could possibly use in the long term if that's necessary.

So I just I I don't um I don't have any particular questions about that.

It sounds like sounds like a pretty good solution to get to move our infrastructure needs along because obviously with Fire Station One needing the enhancements and improvements, ultimately, what this means is a better service for the residents.

It's not just about admin costs and admin enhancements, which have their own benefits, but it sounds like ultimately we get a better service for our residents because we get a better fire station for direct service too.

100% and also a fire admin that's working cohesively towards serving the community.

Not saying that we don't now, but being geographically separated does make its challenges.

One thing I did want to add is uh our vacating of the City Hall West Office spaces.

Uh already uh public works and other departments uh are already looking at uh are bursting at the seams within their departments, and that space will be used very quickly by other city departments, so it's not gonna go sit vacant very long, is my understanding.

You should bargain with them for you should bargain with them.

Was that all for you, Councilmember Bowler?

Okay, Councilmember Desag.

Uh yes.

Uh first of all, I want to thank uh Chief Luby for uh and responding to uh email slash text question that I had raised, and I think for the purposes of the public, I'll I'll re-read it reiterate it again so that the public um uh can uh hear hear the response.

So I I asked um why couldn't the emergency operating operations center be utilized for this purpose?

Thank you for the question.

Uh emergency operations center is a very mission-focused uh task purpose building to be there in our worst days, uh disaster response.

So uh the main floor of that building sits in a state of readiness.

Uh, could not, you know, we really couldn't occupy it as day-to-day offices because it has to be ready to go at a moment's notice.

Um we also do use that space uh for city meetings and city uh trainings while maintaining a state of readiness, but it's not configured in a way that we could have cubicles and such forth there.

There are two spaces on the ground floor that um our offices, breakout rooms, and currently are occupied by two emergency management staff members.

Um, so and that is it for office space there.

Great.

Well, thank you.

I appreciate that.

And okay, back to you, Vice Mayor.

Sorry.

I I this was just my comment.

Um, that I was like, you know, Alameda is growing, we have the housing element, um, we have more fires more often.

We have sea level rise, so making this change now makes sense.

So I just wanted to say that.

And I'll just wrap up by saying I met recently with the landlord, not about this, about something else.

They're very excited to have you coming.

Um council probably recalls that um APD has a substation out at Marina Village Business Park, and and they they like the public safety aspect of that.

I think this is a great idea, and I'm fully in support of it.

So I am just looking for a motion to introduce this ordinance, and uh in a second, you're nodding your head.

Councilmember Bowler is that a motion?

So moved by Councilmember Bowler, seconded by is that you with your hand uh vice mayor prior.

All those in favor, please signify by stating aye.

Aye.

Aye.

That was unanimous.

That passed unanimous.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Sorry to keep you up a bit past.

Thank you for staying.

Oh, yeah, well, we we don't leave before meetings over.

Okay, thank you.

Um, Madam Clerk, let's go on to I'm item eight, city manager communications interim city manager Adam Pollitzer.

Uh thank you, madam mayor.

I have no report for this evening, but happy to respond to any questions from our council.

Lovely music showers.

Um, Madam Clerk, do we have any um any public uh oral communication?

Only if the officer fire staff want to make any.

Okay, um, we've already taken care of the council referrals, so then we will go to council communications, council members.

Oops, and there's a I that was my timer that we'd have to make a motion if we had an item that we showed.

Okay, um, starting on my right, Councilmember Desag.

Any communication?

Well, you want to start, Councilmember Bowler?

I actually don't have anything.

Okay, I'll take that, Councilmember Desag.

All right, I just want to say uh along with uh Mayor Ezy Ashcraft uh attended the um grand reopening of the football field, soccer field, um, and even um flag football field.

It was uh it was um uh draw lines were drawn to accommodate that was a red line, by the way.

The red lines was for flag football.

Oh, when we were walking in the beautiful, so um it was a very uh, you know, the school district did a great job, and uh kudos to the public for supporting that.

Um just want to say how breathtaking it is to completely see the um the uh bay um because they move the scoreboard from that end to the uh to the school side um so and I know that um that they're also uh working on um a public access um path on behind um which will be completed five years.

What agencies were here on the um but it is quite beautiful though, so um thank you to the school board for inviting us to that.

It was really nice.

And did you all know that in addition to being a tennis player?

Councilmember Daysog ran track, so he ran around that very field.

But wow, is it nice now?

Yes, yeah, anyway.

Um, just going down the line.

Yes, you did the athletic field on January the 12th.

I attended and spoke at APD swearing in two new officers, and it's always nice they recognize and acknowledge um staff for outstanding performance.

Um last week on um the 14th, which was maybe Wednesday, I met with um a Girl Scout troupe, and they were elementary and middle schoolers, I believe.

Yeah, um they were recipients of gold and silver awards, and it was just really touching to see the the projects that they worked on um to achieve these awards, and um it's always fun doing that.

And then later that evening I went out to um Fremont, um Fremont, to um for Alameda County Mayor's Conference, and our speakers were from uh BCDC and also Save the Bay.

And I think you would all be proud to know that Alameda featured in the slide presentation because we um we are way out there ahead of other Bay Area communities in our um sea level rise protection plans and we were and I um Danielle Miller, our sustainability and resilience coordinator went to the meeting with me, and it was just very proud to hear us referenced and acknowledged for the work we're doing.

So, you know, we just we are doing um we're setting an example for others.

We're working collaboratively with other stakeholders and um and setting an example and then uh this morning I and I saw council member Jensen and Assistant City Manager um Amy Woldridge and Lieutenant Ryan DeRaspini.

We were all on a uh League of California Cities webinar on e-bike regulations, really eye-opening, um, and I think there's probably some things we can do in this city, so um stay tuned.

We're gonna get more material um uh from but there were there were over 200 participants from around the the state, which is high for um uh um webinar like that Vice Mayor Pryor.

Um I did a couple things.

I did uh a CASA cleanup.

So they have um every month uh you go to Seaplane Lagoon, and um there were so many people there.

They ran out of like you know, the buckets.

I was like, yes, I mean it was a good problem.

Um it was a beautiful day.

Um and today I was with you and Councilmember Bullard.

We did the pit count training.

That's right, we did because we are gonna get up really early on Thursday.

What time are we gonna be there, Vice Mayor?

Like we have to be there by five.

So we have to get up by 4 30.

All right, that's it, thank you.

All right, thank you.

Councilmember Jensen.

Um thank you.

And and yes, that the um the e-bike, the e-bike forum was quite interesting.

I learned a lot, and I hope that we can bring some some of the things to Alameda.

Did you notice that a lot of the cities were Southern California, like beach towns?

Yeah, I didn't.

I and I also thought, you know, we have an opportunity here because we we're we're flat and we have a lot of bikes and we have a lot of um bike shops.

So I got some of that out of it as well.

I thought it was it was good, but there were some sad stories too about about e-bike.

Fatalities, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, I want to start as I mentioned during the discussion of the zero waste implementation program.

I'm currently serving as the chair of the Alameda County Waste Management Board and the Alameda County Recycling Board.

These boards are comprised of elected representatives of all Alameda County cities, the Board of Supervisors, and sanitary districts.

So thank you, Mayor Ezie Ashcraft, for appointing me to Stop Waste when I joined the council in 2023, and thanks to Stop Waste colleagues for appointing me as the chair.

As the chair, I work closely with the Stop Waste Executive Director Timothy Burroughs to implement Alameda County's integrated waste management plan and hazardous waste management plan.

And so I bring this up because we had recent meeting at Stop Waste and where staff presented an update on the Plastic Pollution Packaging Producer Responsibility Act of 2022.

Say that real fast.

And it's made more relevant.

The presentation was made even more relevant because our executive director of Stop Waste, Timothy Burroughs, is also the chair of the technical task force that's implementing the Plastic Pollution Packaging Producer Responsibility Act.

Did you hear that, Laura?

See how fast I can do it.

You can say it to us as fast, just say.

Timothy is the statewide leader for SB 54, and as I mentioned earlier, also we um Hasa and others look to him as do ZWIP staff and organizations as a leader at in improving waste reduction and improving our environment.

So these activities are so important to Alameda and to our next generation.

So I was excited to be able to provide and receive input from three Brown University students who did an internship recently with CASA with the intent of developing reusable foodware and tenant waste education policy options for Alameda.

And you'll hear more about that from me soon.

On a more somber note, and in closing, I attended the Memorial Service for Alameda teacher and activist Gretchen Lippo.

Gretchen not only taught a generation of Alameda youth to be politically responsive and socially impactful, she worked on social issues and established two of Alameda's enduring public affairs organizations, the Alameda Public Affairs Forum in 2004 and the Center for Global Peace and Democracy.

So with that, I want to close my report and I'll be thinking about Gretchen and all her hard work the day after Martin Luther King Day.

All right, thank you everyone.

Thank you, staff, and members of the public.

This meeting is adjourned.

It's not even 11 o'clock.

Drive safely.

Bye bye.