Hello everybody and welcome.

Um, I get the month right this time, it's September 17th, 2025.

I got kidded so much about just last month saying October, but it's this month is September.

Okay, call to order and roll call.

Council Member Conan, excuse Councilmember Harrison.

Present.

Councilmember Cap Romo.

Here.

Councilmember Stark.

Thank you.

Okay.

Are there any public comments?

Open forum.

Um, just wanted to touch on two things.

Wait, hold on just a minute.

We didn't talk about the time.

Um, so we don't have a real full agenda, so we could go for three minutes.

Well, just want to touch on two things.

Might not take three minutes, but uh, one is the uh um importance of Sinnol.

Um, it's very tiny, therefore, you know uh people think that uh it shouldn't be uh be too important, but uh and there's a lot of people in each supervisor uh supervisor's district, uh, but that's a lot of uh cities, and in the case of this district, um it's uh a lot of cities in Tri Valley and uh half of it is in Fremont, and the part that's left that's unincorporated is uh a little over 4,000 people.

So when you divide by 4,000, which is a tiny number, then the population of Sinnol becomes uh more important.

I don't think Sinnol realizes you know, I think you're you don't have any uh um, you know, uh Sinnol isn't big enough, but it is if you compare it to that number of 4,000.

Uh and then also um just want to uh touch on the nature of these these meetings, you know, the town town hall style.

I'm from uh originally from New England, and in New England they've got you know some giant cities, and there there's no town halls.

They do everything very bureaucratically with uh you know the the way the uh politicians uh do it with all the rules, but when you get to the small towns in New England, there is a town hall uh tradition, and uh Sinnol seems to be the only only place where where I can go and see some of that town hall tradition uh from from New England, so it's good to see.

Thank you.

Okay, so Irene, I have your slip, you're next.

Good evening.

I've I've come to talk about Wayne Capriati.

I think you most of you know him.

Um he had been a uh rancher here in Sinnol for a couple of decades at least.

Um he had to remove recently because uh his landlord decided to sell his property.

So Wayne has always been a big part of making downtown attractive and uh inviting.

He was one of the tree planters, and he planted many of the geraniums that we see, the colorful geraniums on Main Street.

Now he also worked out uh an arrangement where he was able to get water from the merchants across the street to keep uh the plants that he had helped to plant uh watered and healthy.

Wayne has had to live uh now in uh Livermore.

He found a rental in Livermore, but he still comes once a week to tend to Main Street.

He has to take a bus, which he takes to the Pleasanton Senior Center from there, he pays either a relative or a friend to drive him to Sinnol.

So he's still here one day a week tending to all of his plants and uh keeping in touch with those of us who knew him for so many years.

So the reason I came tonight is to uh ask if there might not be a consideration of giving him some kind of nominal um reimbursement.

Uh you know, he pays, I think, uh, five dollars to the person who uh brings him here to Sinnol.

And uh if the merchants or the business guild might be able to have just a few dollars a month to give to him so that he can continue to come.

He loves Sinnol, he loves uh the plants and is very proud of the pine tree that he uh planted.

It's the biggest one, and he uh he says that it's because his dad taught him how to plant a tree properly.

So anyway, I'm here to see if there isn't some way that we can continue to have him come, but to uh help him with the expense of uh having to pay a driver to bring him here to Sunol.

Thank you.

Definitely benefit from Wayne's work here, really appreciate it.

Do you think that that senior wellness fair would maybe provide something, some information for him on rides?

Yeah, it'd be a great event for him to attend.

Unfortunately, I don't have any budget to get him to and from the event, but once there he may learn of resources that would help cover some of that.

Where's some?

Sorry, I missed it.

Where is he living now?

Grimoire.

Okay, great.

So yeah, that's still in our district and still work in there in Sinol.

Uh in Pleasanton and then as a friend or relative driving to Cinnol.

Okay.

Well, City Serve uh of the Tri Valley, who operates their center at the Pleasanton uh Sinnol.

I'm sorry, Pleasanton Senior uh Center and Library is our co-host on that event.

Uh so hopefully he can join us and uh I'll if you'd like, I'll give you my business card after this.

Okay, yes.

Okay, that is all of the cards I have for public comment.

Um go on to the regular calendar reports updates, Alameda County Sheriff's Office.

And we have a special guest, it looks like we do.

Hi.

How are we doing?

Uh Sheriff Sanchez has been able to take a little time out of her busy schedule to attend tonight.

I know you guys have been asking for a little while, and we're probably able to uh accommodate that.

Good evening, everybody.

Since our last meeting, we've had 34 calls for service, which is down a little bit.

That's good.

Uh unfortunately only 22 proactive stops, and the deputy's have been out here eighty-nine times for business checks and patrol checks.

The only call that we had of any note was two subjects uh a couple weeks ago on Niles Canyon trying to cut phone lines on an ATT box.

Um one of the uh water district folks saw them and called that in for us so we were able to get out there.

Um hopefully nobody experienced any uh outages over it, and ATT was able to get everything fixed in a timely manner.

You guys are our eyes and ears.

You see the stuff before we do, we need you to call when stuff's happening so we can get out here.

Um as I've said before, we cover 450 square miles with three guys on each day shift.

It makes it hard to be everywhere all the time, but we're doing the best we can.

Um on that note.

Uh, I was able to, so we lost two motor positions in the valley due to uh retirement and a promotion.

Happy to say that currently I have one deputy in motor school, and hopefully in October I'll get a second one in motor schools we back up to our full complement of motors to assist HP with traffic.

Uh additionally, having the guys on motors out here gets us to calls a lot faster with the size of area we have to cover.

If we're taking the freeways during commute time, we can split lanes and can get to the calls a lot quicker.

Otherwise, our times get delayed if we're stuck in cars.

So I'm happy that that's happening and we're getting back up to our full compliment of motors out here.

Um, have any questions for me?

Yes, sir.

Can you talk to why we keep having gunfire in about Dallas Canyon Saturday?

I think it was Saturday or Sunday.

There was what 40 shots fired.

Crazy number of shots.

That call in here, um, I saw one of 10 shots, but when the deputies came out here, they weren't able to find anything, and it appears to be an anonymous uh reporting person that called it in.

If you call in and you want to stay anonymous, that means we don't have your information to come contact you and get more information that might point us in a better direction.

Not saying you have to give your name, but it's sometimes it's a little bit more helpful to us.

We have somebody that we can come talk to that actually saw it or heard it, gives us a better direction.

Umiles Canyon, it's it's a long canyon.

Um why people are coming out to the what they think is a remote area to to do that nonsense.

I don't have an answer as to why.

Um we're doing what we can to mitigate it and make arrests.

Uh we got the person off of Foothill last month or um, luckily we were close enough to get here quickly, and he was still here.

Um, it's interesting that you say there was one caller that was anonymous, yet the Facebook group for Sunol just lit up with people saying, Did you hear gunshots?

Did you hear gunshots?

So it sounds like it would be a good idea for multiple people to call the sheriff's office.

If if we get more people calling, not everybody sees or hears the same thing.

It helps us start sorting things out a little sooner and maybe get a little farther in some investigations versus one person, or definitely better than if it's anonymous.

Um, yeah, they when we get a call with an anonymous in a general area.

The guys they drive around, they look for casings on the ground to see if they can find a crime scene.

Sometimes we find it, sometimes we don't.

Um, in the rural area out here, it's definitely more difficult to find it at our Eden Township station in the urban area.

You know, there's houses and streets and stuff, so it's makes it a little easier when we got to find something.

You get several callers in that area.

Okay, we can narrow it down to this.

When it's one person or two people calling for something way down on Niles, it's a big area.

They spend a lot of time driving slope looking out windows and trying to try to pick up stuff at the Eden Township station.

We would get out of our cars and walk, but the streets aren't miles and miles long.

They're you know short blocks that it's easy to walk from East 14th all the way up to foothill and look for casings and things like that.

I can't have my guys spend three hours walking from uh pleasant small road all the way down to mission trying to find a crime scene, it's just not feasible to do.

They have to drive it.

Um the guys on motors, they can slow roll through there and they don't have the car around them.

It's easier to look and find things on the ground.

But I think if there's no like, that's what's that the shot sounds shot spotter, shots that have shot spotter in this area.

That's uh Oakland thing.

So it would be fantastic to have it, but we don't have enough of that activity to justify the expense.

We don't want it, we don't want that activity.

I definitely don't want the activity down here.

I like how this place is.

Who else?

In light in light of um our special guest, um, I wanted to take the opportunity to let you know um that Sergeant Petrini and his team are five stars second to none.

I think we all feel that uh the support that they give the town of Sunol, and it it feels like this is the only area that they're responsible for.

I know he has a big area, but hit when he comes and he represents us and he represents he does his reporting.

It's it's really really good.

So I just want to make sure, took a chance to let you know what a great job he does, and we're lucky to have him.

Yeah, we have a great team out here, they really do care about the community.

They don't when you call them, they're here.

Um, take it real serious.

So thank you for that.

Yeah, yeah.

My job is to make sure my guys provide the service that the sheriff expects us to give you.

I haven't got the question.

Okay, so you fill out a card.

Oh, I'm sorry, you want me to fill it right now?

Yeah.

Okay.

It's just for him.

I know, I know.

Albert's office wants to have a card for every speaker.

All right, okay.

Um can I ask it while I'm filling it out, or do you need to?

Um the question I have is uh sorry.

Um, just I just blanked it now.

That's really bad.

Um sorry, I I've now forgotten that when I question was going to be.

Well, do you I'm sorry.

I draw the car and you'll remember it, and then we'll let we'll let you and when it comes back up, you can you can uh you sit over there, just wave to me when you remember it.

I'll come over and talk to you.

Or Bonnie could give her talk.

Chief Jerry, you'll remember it.

And then can you wait while she's giving her talk and then he'll remember it by then?

Yeah, sorry about that.

Okay, Chief Tara.

Got it.

Good evening, everyone.

Um, so the number since the last meeting, 35 calls for service at a station 14.

Um, as is usual, the majority of the calls and cases are EMS medical related.

Um, that was over 77%.

We did have three fires, one vehicle, one inside of a residence, and one um vegetation.

Um, all were very except for the vehicle, all were very, very small and caused minimal damage.

So that's good.

Um, I know I preach this every month.

I'm going to continue to do that.

We are still in fire season.

If you choose to do any cutting for any reason, don't do it on a high-fire severity day.

Don't do it after 10 o'clock in the morning.

Um, and be really careful not to create a marker or spark.

Um, and on top of that, I know we got a little rain last week.

That was good.

But tomorrow and Friday, we have interesting weather conditions coming in.

So please do pay attention.

And as Sergeant Praterney asked you to do, I'm gonna ask you to do you see anything you think might be a problem.

Call it in.

I'd I'd rather have more than five, um, unable to locate calls um where you thought you saw something, we went out and nothing was found and all was good, or we get to something really small rather than you thinking somebody else has called and you don't call and it's it gets big.

So um please be careful over the next couple of days.

We've got some potential for dry lightning, we've got a change in some conditions.

Um, and as always, be safe.

And I like to report more medicals than fires on any day.

I'd like to report less calls in total, including um medicals, but it's always good to see that we're keeping ourselves as fire safe as we can.

Any questions for me this month?

All righty, have a good night.

Did you remember?

My question was speed cameras on uh the lights, the various lights that we have.

There's the two, there's now two lights, and someone was asserting that there were speed cameras or cameras there for people running lights, or I don't know.

So, no, um, we do not deploy and CHP does not deploy any speed cameras or red light cameras.

Um, the two cameras that are in the SUNOL area are licensed plate readers that we work very hard to get um after some incidents that happened here, those are investigative tools for us to further investigations and hopefully catch people that are doing things in the town that are not supposed to be here, so but generally the little boxes you see on top of traffic signals technology has changed over the years for how traffic signals work.

First, it was just a timer, the light would be set for however long.

Then they put sensors in the ground.

Now they actually use a camera on top of the lights that go to the box on the side of the road, and when a car pulls in, it charts a car in that box from the camera, sends it to the machine, and it starts processing the time for the light to change.

So there's a there's a whole lot of engineering in the traffic lights and how everything works in the timing, and you can fudge numbers and play with it and change it, but it's it's a huge thing.

Are those two license plate readers the ones that Public Works has?

No, okay.

Okay, so you you guys have two license.

They were bought uh I believe, with grant funds through the sheriff's office.

Um it was I was able to the two that we got out here.

I was able to piggyback a huge purchase out of the Eden Township station and get the cameras allocated for here.

Cool.

Thank you.

Sheriff Santos, do you want to say anything?

Stan, sorry.

Good, how are you?

Uh say hello to everybody.

So I'm appreciative of every community member that comes out to listen to our reports and hear what we have going on, but also to hear your concerns.

Good questions on cameras and what we have out here.

So just uh saying hello.

And uh sorry it hasn't been sooner than I've been able to stop by, but uh glad to be here.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Progress reports going on to item two.

Um fire safety.

Rosemary is um not able to attend the meeting today.

She had a conflict, but I think Denise is gonna follow up with emergency notifications.

Should I go now?

Yeah, okay.

Yes, um, I wanted to raise an issue here with the council because we don't often have we don't ever have the opportunity to all chat together, and I wanted to get your input.

Um I think that we realize that making um emergency notification is a real priority in the town.

And I know that I've talked to people, I know you guys live up on Kill Care, you've talked to people, and I and we've had a lot of great meetings over the last year where we've had people come in and talking about preparation and evacuation, and we've kind of talked about notification, but I'd really I really think we want to prioritize finding a solution.

Um we know that emergency preparation is multi-layered and there's no one simple answer.

And right now, um, FEMA did a report in 2023 that said only about one third of folks actually sign up for notifications.

So, like in the Paradise Fire, they found that um less than 40% of the people actually had signed up to get emergency notifications in their town.

And so what I wanted to do was look at several towns and see how they've amplified their notification systems.

I looked at Paradise, Tuolamy, uh Shasta County, Malibu, and Temecula.

And the systems that keep coming up and the things that we've also heard here are sirens, alert FM, and mesh radio.

Um, and I just wanted to, I know that Mary had talked about sirens.

I think sirens could be a great option.

I think some of the pros of sirens are there's no voluntary opt-in, no cellular requirement.

We might need two or four for the kill care corridor on the other side of 84.

It uses battery backup and solar charging, it's built from fire and heat-resistant materials.

Um it's also just very simple, right?

There's a loud noise, nobody has to buy any equipment in addition, or they might have to.

Because the cons are can they always be heard?

Can they be heard with if you have your TV on?

Can they be heard if you have a large property?

Um what do we do for our hearing impaired neighbors?

Who manages them?

Is it confusing?

Where is it learning the different types of signals?

Is it costly maintenance and costs?

Do we have even have FEMA grant money or any grants to help with disaster mitigation?

Um, for Paradise, they purchased 21 sirens, and the residents find that they are hard to hear when they're indoors.

So they also um got additional funding to purchase transmitters that can be placed in the homes.

Their sirens cost a little over three million, which was mostly funded by a FEMA grant, and then they found additional funding for the transmitters.

Um the other system that keeps coming up is Alert FM.

Again, you can use when power, internet, and cellular services unavailable, it's located in residents' home, but the cons are the residents must opt in.

They must get that piece of equipment.

It uses FF FM signals.

So there's a cost for satellite connection, which we know has been difficult.

Um it's an expensive upfront cost for licensing agreements.

For example, in Malibu, they decided against it because the initial cost was $960,000 for a five-year licensing agreement.

So again, it seems like sirens might be the one to look into that might be the most feasible for our community.

The other one is mesh radio, and it's the one option that it that is free to use and doesn't um use cellular networks, Wi-Fi, or satellites.

It's just again, everybody has to have their own little radio.

They have to know how to use it.

And it's you really have to create like a little group.

So it's almost like a walkie-talkie, I guess.

And in saying all of this, my I do not have this is not my um background or experience this type of technology.

I'm a my professional experiences in competitive intelligence and and research.

So I can tell you where to find this stuff.

But I wanted to raise this with you guys because I wanted to know if you had any other ideas, if you had any thoughts before, and then I wanted to talk about next steps, like what should we do next?

Should we try to?

I've contacted someone at Alert FM to try to get some more information, maybe contact somebody with a sirens company, have them come in and talk to us, find out the costs, um, and then find out where we can get funding.

So is it through do we talk to our contact at uh Supervisor Halbert's office, the OES, um because it is very complicated and it is it is hard, but I do think that for people to feel safe.

This is a this is something we've seen at meetings.

Folks are coming up and saying they still don't feel safe, they still don't know when there are fires, and you know, some people don't have a cell phone, some people turn it off at night.

So I really think that we are in a high risk area, and we should try to find um some or at least work on trying to find some kind of solution.

That is my spiel for the thing.

But um, I did want to bring it up here, you know, in this forum, so that we, if you had any comments or wanted to add anything, then we could pull that information now.

I think we certainly could look at options.

I know that since I've been in this chair, there's been half a dozen times we've had speakers about it and yeah, different things, different options, but I don't think we've gone as far as to.

Well, we have, I know that I know that uh um supervisor's office has looked into different things.

We heard Starlink, they looked into that, and that wasn't feasible for different reasons.

So I definitely think we should look at options, but I also, you know, I like that you looked at paradise and different areas.

Um, you know, we're not the only area like this in the Bay Area, I would, you know, but I think it's it's a unique area in the fact that there's not any reception.

Um, so but you know, what is there's got to be some pockets like in Lafayette, maybe some pockets like in the Oakland Hills.

The Berkeley Hills, Berkeley Hills, where they went to sirens.

Yeah.

So, you know, what are they doing?

And then what do they like about it?

What don't they like about it?

And let's just let the Sinoleans hear about it.

And I think it's to have some, you know, have some uh, you know, just get some more um information, you know, presentations and hear about it.

I think it's definitely I I agree with you.

It's it's probably one of the top two or two or three concerns that people have here in Synology.

I think the sirens obviously, I think the only concern I would have is is when the sirens go off.

What's the what's the level of danger here?

And you know, obviously they're I'm from England.

They work in the wars back there, they work here.

People understand when the siren goes off.

Something's going on, you know.

So the next step is how severe is this thing?

Do I need to panic?

What do I need to do?

So from that point of view, we have enough going on, and people can hear them.

What's the next step?

And look on their what's the next one?

What do I do?

What's the severity?

Where is this thing?

Do I need to?

But I mean, in terms of simplistic, even if we could get sirens that could work on maybe solar power or back up buried someone up wireing the whole road.

I think it'd be a great idea, quite frankly.

That's the pro of um the positive of sirens is you can they are solar and battery.

And um, it is really, I think the simplest way to fill in that gap of you know, laying where where people are getting their information.

It's the hey, there's something going on.

Let me check, let me look now.

Do you remember what the cost was for Berkeley?

Was it something 10 million, 13 million.

And I know there were a lot of newspaper articles after they use it for the very first time.

So they got a lot of feedback.

But I haven't heard what that feedback is.

Yeah, the one I was focusing on where it was Paradise.

Um, they had a lot of news articles, and it was mixed reaction.

You know, people um said that you know, sometimes they couldn't hear it through their double pane windows.

So, but you know, Synol is small enough that I think I don't know, I'm thinking maybe two in Killcare, one at the top, one at the bottom, and then on the other side of each.

I mean, you know, you bang a hammer or the dog box you can there for miles.

I don't think we want to try to know that.

Yes, and then we'd have to have a solution for carrying a paired neighbors, um, but I think it's worth exploring because I I do think it is a fear for many people, just not like feeling like, oh no, you know, you can go on um, you know, Facebook, and yes, people are talking about it right away, but a lot of people don't go on Facebook, and and again, I don't know how many people signed up for notifications.

Um so we just I just think it is that we should prioritize trying to find some type of solution because we really I think we I mean I think we had some great meetings talking about hardscaping and how to prepare for the fires, how to what to pack to leave the fires, evacuation routes.

Um, but I think just this very simple getting as many people to hear the alarm as we can initially, I think would be very important.

Okay, so I'm happy.

I'm glad you're working on it.

I don't even continue.

I will continue working on that.

And maybe you and I can meet with red blazer services.

Okay.

Let's talk about funding, yeah.

And um when I went to Senator McNerney's meeting of elected officials, I said our number one concern was fire and evacuations, and they have started looking at funding sources for that.

So they're they're helping us out in that area too, looking at that great.

Um, and they had thought that maybe the Corps of Engineers had some money for that, which was not a source I would have looked at, wouldn't have gone to them.

So that's a possibility.

Yes, because unfortunately the the FEMA mitigation, I think they and BRIC have been pulled.

They're all in April, so we don't have that resource, but there's got to be others because it's important, it is important, yeah, for lots of communities, or and if it's important enough, people would probably support a bond measure too.

That's another option.

You said the P word.

Any other thoughts on that?

Okay, um, tree advisory, Jim.

You uh prepared a very written nice written report.

Um, which I gave to Shibana, and she's gonna attach it to the minutes, but did you want to um talk about your report?

Well, if there are questions or uh comments related to it, I think you uh sorry, I think everyone has seen it or should have uh things it went out in their information, which goes to just about everybody.

Okay, and uh sort of a summary of where we started and what we've been trying to do and what we uh working on now.

We had quite a bit of work done today.

Uh the upper part of the park in terms of the tree work and uh that will continue tomorrow.

And so once we get that done, then the next step is to plant uh trees in that area, which we we have the trees from the native plant nursery and ones that we've propagated ourselves, and so that'll be another community event.

Uh and I think that that there's one philosophical issue that I mentioned in there that uh at some point may need to get further clarification, and that uh there are individuals who feel that the Snow Park is does not include Sandbad Creek and does not include the area behind the post office where we planted our 32 trees, the last big uh tree planting uh activity, and uh I don't understand that because we have a legal document with the county, a memorandum of understanding uh between the board of supervisors, uh the friends of the park, and uh like uh that spells out PLA, and it's basically spells out uh what the property is.

It's property that PLA uh leases from the county.

Uh so it's the defined area, it includes the creek and it includes the area behind the post office.

And uh, it mentions specifically the friends of the park as the group that will maintain the that piece of property and maintain is open for some discussion in terms of what that means, but I think it means keeping it fairly clean and orderly, and especially dealing with fire danger, uh, which we I think of that a good job there.

And one of the big charges of the uh group when you established it uh a few years a few years ago was to look into creek bank restoration, uh, which is really restoration of uh Sendbad Creek to accommodate uh especially very relevant now and to one of your other agenda items.

The fact that salmon uh and steelhead and so on can actually come out of the bay, come up Niles Canyon and come up Sandbad Creek from the Aurora, uh, and go right through our park.

And I think that's a very unique situation because even though that's you know a rather I think significant thing is that you cannot stop any place in Niles Canyon for good reason and go down and you know, see if you can you know observe you know the fish, you know, going upstream, and uh this you know would provide an excellent place to do that.

It'd be an excellent way of uh advertising snow and getting people to come to Sinnal because it is the one place that you could actually get close to the creek and actually see the salmon uh and the other fish that are there, not this time of year, but uh you know, it will rain at some point, and there will be water back in the creek, and at that time the fish will have access to it and they will use it.

So that's what we're sort of trying to do.

I don't want to go through all the other little things that are in there.

The one thing I will mention is that you know we had a big effort on milkweed in terms of uh improving habitat for monarch butterflies, and I think that was you know very successful and and is still in progress.

We still have a few plants left.

Uh PLA wants some, and so we will you know make sure they get theirs.

We have had a few uh including yesterday requests for uh from other Snowlians who uh saw that we have plants.

Uh and and you know, I actually have those in one of my greenhouses, and so uh if any if you know of anyone who didn't get plants before who can use some milkweed, uh we'd love to get them you know sort of naturalized uh in the area so that uh we we don't have to be you know growing them ourselves.

Uh so thank you very much.

Yeah, I don't want to get into all the other details, but if there are any questions, I'd be glad to respond.

Thank you for all you do for the Snowy Depot Gardens, it's very much appreciated.

Okay, the downtown revitalization work group.

We're uh gonna be, I was told today we're gonna be on the next agenda for the board of supervisors to approve on the amount that it goes through planning how to change the amount because we had to go through different sign different paints and different different things, and uh we're all agreed.

So we're gonna hopefully be approved uh and have our check uh soon uh after the next board of supervisor meeting, and then we'll get that to Golden Gate sign, and we'll have our prototype sign for everybody to see and comment on, and if everybody likes it, then uh we will go ahead with the next batch of putting, you know, ordering the next three.

So, but uh looking forward to having the sign out and looking forward to everybody giving their opinions.

Uh good, bad, or indifferent.

We used uh you know it's been a while here and going through all the processes in the county and different things, but we're we're good to go.

And um, this again is what designed by Sinoleans with input from Sonoleans.

Um, this was uh a lot of a lot of time and effort and people's parts and um really credit to the county.

What they just had, it was done all by Sinoleans.

Local artwork, local artists, local thoughts, different ideas, don't like that, don't like that.

And you know, we kind of came on something that I think everybody on on the on the downtown committee really liked.

So excited for everybody to see it, and uh, and uh hopefully we'll be having that coming pretty soon.

So, the phase two report is still phase two um study is still in progress for the on-site wastewater treatment systems.

Um I got a couple of uh responses about restrooms, so we can have a restroom at the train station.

And it turns out that SFPUC is also contacted the same people for the same restroom for out at the picnic area by the watershed.

So we'll get a chance to see that when it's installed and we can have feedback on that.

Okay.

Uh Nichols last time talked about the LE 100s, those are the inspections that they do for defensible space.

Um, he did send a copy of his report also to Tom who asked the question, but they in they did find two properties that did not pass the inspections, and when they came back, they still hadn't passed it.

Um, and they are believed that those are abandoned properties, so they're going through the citation process for those properties.

Okay.

Any other comments?

I know Lindsay probably does have a comment.

Forward to be comments, four events, rather, opportunities for your community to do a variety of different things.

I'm gonna go in order of the calendar.

So starting next Tuesday, the 23rd, 6 to 8 p.m.

in the banquet hall above Bosco's restaurant.

We will, our office, supervisor David Halber, uh will be there more uh as an observer, but it is in partnership with the budget justice coalition to talk to you uh and have a conversation about what services need to be invested in in your community.

Uh the gathering will launch a possible new way uh for your community to impact the county budget process.

So come prepared to talk about and uh relay your concerns, happiness, questions, and input on things like roads, libraries, safe streets, downtown revitalization, etc.

On the Sunday following, that would be the 28th, the um East Bay Regional Park District, Alameda Creek Alliance, California Trout, and a few other organizations, including the Office of Supervisor Haubert is hosting an event at your Synol uh regional wilderness um visitor center, and it's a World Rivers Day.

So come learn about uh all sorts of fun things, do interactive games, do water science activities.

There will be a creek cleanup, and that's from nine to noon.

On then we jump into October, Thursday, October 2nd, 6 p.m.

Same banquet hall above Bosco's is a uh return to the discussion about flood prevention and response in Sinnol.

That's a follow-up to the Town Hall Interagency meeting that we had back in March.

Uh Office of Supervisor David Haubert, representatives of Zone seven, county flood Control, county community development, and other agencies.

I believe Caltrans is RSVP'd and other elected officials as well, to pick that conversation back up, let you know what we've been working on, hopefully get some answers to some of the questions that came up in March and keep this conversation going.

And then a new event in the town on Thursday, October 9th, will be at the Casabella Event Center and is a Sinnol Senior Wellness Resource Fair.

All Sinnol seniors.

Some define that, some agencies define that as 55 plus, some agencies define that as 60 plus.

There are also some agencies that will be present at this event that serve non-seniors that maybe have hearing or seeing impairments or may need mobility services or in home care services for other reasons other than uh senior.

So uh it's for seniors, family members, caregivers, and you'll learn about the various agencies and services available to support well-being, medical care, transportation needs, and more.

And our office is hosting dinner that night, and it's a completely free event.

There are flyers, all of these are free.

There are flyers for each of them here.

Some of them do require RSVPs.

So please take a flyer and make sure you are a speech.

Any questions?

Okay.

Our next item.

Oh, I just want to confirm still no comments.

Okay.

Our next item is a presentation on a project that we've been following since Oliver DeSilva got their permit to have the quarry on Calaborus Road.

That's SME 30.

Um, and I think it's really a celebration of the work that has been done by a large number of people.

And so I have celebration.

Oh, you do.

Yeah.

Could you pass them out?

Sure.

And our speaker is Han.

Hello.

Can you hear me?

So Claire, you're not here to enjoy it, but we brought goldfish crackers.

I bought awesome to celebrate the goldfish and the fish coming up.

Amazing.

Um, can you guys hear me okay?

Yes.

Okay.

Fabulous.

Well, I'm uh thrilled to see everyone celebrating.

That's phenomenal.

Um we are close to celebrating as well.

Um, are you going to be able to show my presentation or should I just talk through it?

Can the folks in the room see it?

I see it shared on the screen.

Yes.

Okay, perfect.

Awesome.

Cool.

So thanks so much for having me here.

And it sounds like you all have been following this for a while.

Um, I don't know if most of you in the room are familiar with Cal Trout.

Love that you guys just shouted out one of our events happening later this um this month.

Hope you guys can all make it.

Should be really fun family friendly celebration and Sinnol regional wilderness.

Um, but Cal Trout is a nonprofit.

We're one of the largest freshwater nonprofits that focuses on fish water and people all throughout California.

Um, I am the Central California regional director.

I cover the um Bay Area, the Eastern Sierras, and the Central Valley.

So a pretty large region.

Um, and I personally have been the project lead for this um Sinnolle Valley Fish Passage project.

So um, yeah, you can go ahead and go to the next slide.

And I bet some of you are probably pretty familiar with the fish history of Alameda Creek, but Alameda Creek is the largest local tributary to the San Francisco Bay, and what I want to do is just kind of like provide even more context for you all to really underscore how impactful this project really is.

And there's about 700 square feet of um or sorry, there's about 40 miles of stream in Alameda Creek, and it was once uh supporting a lot of different anadromous fish.

There, there were Chinook, Coho, and Lamprey, and it had some of the highest steelhead populations as well.

And it is an essential waterhead watershed for the recovery of a federally threatened steelhead population, the Central California coast.

And NOAA has deemed Alameda Creek as having some of the highest intrinsic potential for the recovery of these fish.

And that has to do with the fact that it is so large, but also you can go to the next slide.

As some of you are familiar with, has some of the most incredible habitat available to uh salmon and seal head moving through the under the golden gate through the bay area or through the bay looking for habitat for spawning and for rearing.

So they want to reproduce, and then they would need some habitat for when they're small to get big enough to go back out to the ocean.

And you can go to the next slide.

You guys also sound like you might be familiar with all of the incredible work that's been done in the watershed over the last 20 years.

It's really been this incredible group effort really led by the fisheries work group.

That's a bunch of different municipalities, agencies, and nonprofits just really trying to work forward as a team.

It's a really incredible watershed to work in.

It's unlike a lot of other watersheds in the Bay Area because everyone really is working together to improve fisheries habitat and environmental conditions for other species while also balancing water for the community.

So it's been a really incredible opportunity to get involved.

In the past three years, barriers downstream of the project site have been remediated with fish ladders.

I'm sure a lot of you heard about this epic, you know, fish ladder put in at the Bartwir, and now suddenly salmon and steelhead can make their way through Niles Canyon all the way up to this final, what we're calling the last piece of the puzzle, the last barrier that these fish are running up against, which is what I'm going to talk about now.

So you go ahead and the next slide.

So what you're looking at here is the last major barrier to fish migration and the main stem of Alameda, and it's actually a concrete erosion control mat that protects a PG<unk>E gas pipeline, and it blocks both upstream and downstream migration for fish at most flows.

So this means that a steelhead could make their way from the Pacific Ocean under the Golden Gate through the bay, up Alameda, but would be stopped at this point, and they wouldn't have access to that really incredible habitat in the Sinnol regional wilderness.

And so some history here, the pipeline was installed in the 60s, and then the creek was relocated due to land use, the quarries that are on each side of the creek.

And then quickly PGE realized that there was an erosion issue now that the creek was flowing over the pipeline, and so they had to install this erosion control mat.

And shortly after it was installed, it was identified by a couple different fisheries groups in the watershed as a barrier and an effort began to remove it.

So about two decades ago, this story sort of began.

And Caltrout was asked to kind of come in in the last hour to really get the project over the finish line.

PG<unk>E had all of their pipeline plans set, and I'll talk a little bit about how we have gotten rid of this barrier.

But the PGE side of it was really more of their operations and maintenance.

Like they knew how to move a pipeline, put in a new pipeline, but they were getting stuck at the second part of this project, which is really like the restoration element.

Like what do we do after we do our typical OM and how do we get it funded?

And so that's why Caltrout was uh invited to join this project.

So go ahead and go to the next slide, and it's a really awesome overview of this project site.

So if you're looking at the screen to the far left at the top, you can see a small portion of Calvary's Road, just to kind of orient you.

You're looking upstream towards Synol Regional Wilderness.

And then you can see the erosion control mat that fully spans the entirety of the creek.

And there's active quarries flanking each side of the creek.

So right out the gate, it's a super complicated land ownership situation for this project.

We have San Francisco Public Utilities Commission owns the property at the project site.

And they also lease the property to two quarries, one on each side.

And then there's also a PGE easement where that pipeline is, and you can see those power lines going over the pipeline.

So in theory, there's really four quasi-landowners that I've had to coordinate through with throughout this project.

And so let's go to the next part, which is the most important part, is just all of the folks because of this interesting setting, and because it is a pipeline project, we have had an incredible group of partners.

And we've partnered directly with PGE on this.

And then our project team has been applied river sciences, who's done our design and Hamford ARC, which has done our implementation.

We have DeSilva Gates, as you guys mentioned earlier.

They've been an incredible partner in this.

They've just been really great stewards as far as allowing us onto their property and really making this move forward.

They're also tied to providing one million dollars towards this project.

Um, in addition to on the funding topic, NOAA fisheries, you see at the top.

They are our major funder for the restoration portion of this project.

And I'll talk a little bit more about kind of how we set this project up and how it's all been going down.

Um, but we got most of our funding about 4.2 million dollars from the fish passage grant program that NOAA offers, um, and that was BIL money from the Biden administration.

Um, we'll go to the next slide, which is the fun one.

The anticipated goals.

So I showed you that big erosion control mat, and that is blocking over 20 miles of really high quality habitat for salmon and steelhead.

So once that barrier is removed, they will now have restored access to tons and tons, almost half the length of Alameda Creek is blocked to them currently.

Um, NOAA has commented directly in one of their recovery plans that removing the PGE crossing is a high priority recovery action for the threatened steelhead.

We're also gonna just be improving the Briparian corridor.

Um we're planting native species, and we're gonna create a dynamic channel.

And this whole time we've been working, even when we had to cut the gas during the tie-in process, we maintained quarry operations for both quarries.

That was really important for us to continue to be good partners to them because they've been such good partners to us.

So now we'll talk kind of about what how did we tackle this barrier and what have we been up to?

So the next slide, please.

So here's the restoration plan.

And how we decided to arrange this with PGE is that Caltrout would secure all of the environmental permits and we would be the clinic holders.

So I did all of the permitting for this project.

We also did the proposals for additional funding to cover all of the non-pipeline related activities.

So that would be the first activities of removing the fish and dewatering, and then also the regrading, the revegetation, and the monitoring that follows.

And so we fund rose raised for all of those items, and then CalCraut has kind of been just the main point in coordination between all of the teams.

So that's been my role for the last pretty much two years is making sure everyone's on the same page, making sure that we're coordinating super closely with each other.

Because there's times in which we were both on site at the same time, that we my work that my crew is doing, preceded work that PGE needed to do.

We need to make sure it was exactly, you know, they knew exactly what to expect.

So it's just lots and lots of coordination and lots of meetings, and um, and so what we what we've done is we started the fish removal and have a bunch of pictures for all these, so don't worry, you'll get to kind of see it in action.

But the first plan, the first part of this plan is we have to de-water the creek because we have to do a bunch of digging and regrading, and it's about 2,000 feet of stream.

And before we took all the water out of the Alameda Creek, we had to remove all of the fish.

So I knew there were going to be quite a few fish because I have done a few surveys with SFPUC in the past, but we encountered over 10,000 native fish in the 2000 feet of creek, and we we caught about 150 resident rainbow trout.

So really incredible.

Just kind of underscored how even though when you look at it, it's a really it's a working urban environment, but it's also a great place for fish, even as is, and it's amazing that we're going to be improving it even more.

And so once all the fish were, we removed them from the water and we relocated them upstream and downstream of the project site.

And once we did that, we were able to dewater the creek using a bypass system.

And then once that happened, the creek was dry, and we were able, then we left our my team Hanford left, and PG<unk>E came on site, and that's when they started their work.

And the way that they were gonna be able to remove the erosion control mat without compromising a pipeline is they decided to just install an entire new pipeline, and they did that about a hundred feet downstream of the current pipeline, and it was a two, it was a 20-foot deep trench.

And I have some pictures of this, it's really incredible.

And they were able to tie in that new pipeline to the old pipeline tie-in location, and then they were able to backfill it.

So now the gas is going around through the new pipeline, and it was safe to then remove that large erosion control mat and the old pipeline, and they backfilled that.

So we are done with all of those tasks currently at the creek right now.

The regrading is happening.

It's about to be done.

Um, we have about two more days of regrading.

So my team came back out.

Hanford's out there moving dirt around, reconstructing a new primary stream channel that's allowed to be dynamic.

So that creek will kind of get to flow as it wants rather than being stopped up against this concrete structure.

The concrete structure also created about a seven foot drop in the creek.

So it's being regraded to eliminate that huge gradient change as well.

And then once we're done with that, we'll be coming back in November to re-vegetate the creek with native trees and shrubs and grass species.

And we're anticipating that all of that planting will be done in early December.

So the official end date and goal for this full project completion is gonna be early December 2025.

So we came in June 2025 and we're gonna be done December 2025, which is really incredible how much work has been done in six months.

And then once we're completed with that, we'll have some monitoring that will be done on the project site itself for to make sure our revegetation is successful.

But then we're also gonna be doing a lot of fish tracking to see if our project was successful and fish are actually able to move through the system up into the wilderness.

So now the fun part.

Why don't you go to the first photo?

So next slide, perfect.

So this is a picture of our bypass pipeline getting installed.

You can see these huge pumps are being placed into the creek, and there's multiple contingencies.

There's three different pumps, so that if one pump fails, the other pump kicks on, and so on and so forth.

Um, and that big black pipeline that is moving out of the picture, going towards the right, that's our bypass line, and it's 2,000 feet long and it dumps all the water from the creek back out into the creek at our downstream project location.

There's another one.

Next picture is of them installing the coffer dam, which you'll get to see a pick better picture of the final, but they basically take sheet pile with uh excavator with like a hammer attachment, and they hammered sheet pile in to create a dam in the creek.

So the next picture you can see that whole system working really nicely.

There's the sheet pile coffer dam, the creek is completely dry downstream of that dam, and those pumps are all set up and working.

So pretty pretty incredible dewatering system to keep this project site dry.

Um, okay.

The next photo is some fun fish photos.

The largest trout we recap we captured during the fish relocation was 15 inches, which is amazing.

We were actually shocked, and it was really healthy, beautiful rainbow trout.

And then another really cool thing, we captured two adult lamprey, which you can see the person in the picture below is sort of wrangling that lamprey.

Um, we happened to have a lamprey expert on our staff at Caltrout, and he and he estimated that those lamprey are probably around nine years old.

So pretty awesome that Alameda Creek is providing such incredible habitat for for those lamprey.

They have a little bit of an easier time with barriers because they can kind of like use that creepy sci-fi looking suction and suction themselves up over barriers rather than having to jump like fish do.

Um, but you can see our contractors helping with some sump pumps in those final pools below the dam, and a couple of us are electro fishing, trying to capture the last few fish as the water levels went down.

Um, okay, so then the next photo is a cool before photo.

So this is before the dewatering effort, this is the erosion control mat.

And then if you click to the next photo, it's almost the same angle, not quite, but you can see the erosion control mat on the right side of the screen, and suddenly there's no water and they're starting to dig.

So now PGE is on site and they're working to start that digging that 20 foot trench.

So next photo will show you that trench, and it's really, you don't really realize how deep it is until you look and see how small the people are at the bottom.

Um, this is the new pipeline being installed using a crane.

Um, they had to go, it was like three to one slope so that people could safely walk in and out of the trench for install.

So it's a pretty wide area that was dug and it's 20 feet deep.

And um, this all happened within eight days.

They worked super quickly to get that new pipeline in, and there's a cool new aerial shot.

If you go to the next photo, that shows the project site with that same drone footage that we started with.

So this shows them currently working on the pipeline install.

And you can see that trench.

You can see one of the pieces that's been assembled that's ready to be installed and all the excavators working.

And you can look upstream and see exactly where our dam is and where that water has been blocked.

And if you squint and look really closely, you might be able to see the big long black bypass pipeline on the right side of the creek just flowing the water on the outside along the road.

So pretty pretty complex um project for what looks like something pretty simple, just a slab of concrete, right?

And you can see the concrete is still there, just upstream of that tall crane.

And so the next thing was really exciting, and I got to be there for this, is when they started to actually remove the old pipeline and the concrete mat.

So you can see the old pipeline there under that big pile of dirt.

It looks pretty grungy and gross compared to those brand new green pipes that they're putting in.

And then this is uh me and my engineer Katrina from Applied River Sciences, and we are standing on a pile of the rubble from the erosion control mat.

So that all got removed at the end of August.

And so once all of that was removed, now we're in today's time, which is the last photo I have to share.

And that's just it looks wild.

It's a moonscape right now, and they're working to regrade it.

Um hopefully they will be done here soon, and we can get the water flowing again, and we'll get some plants in in the next few months.

All right, I'm happy to take any questions.

Claire, did they reduce the outflow from the Calaver's reservoir during this time?

That's a really great question.

They did not.

They are on Schedule B currently.

We kept really close contact with them as far as they decided the schedule flow right as we were starting our project.

And it was either going to be a 7, a 12 CFS release or a seven CFS release, and we actually landed on the lower release, which was helpful for us for managing water, and the way that they have their schedule, it actually doesn't change at all in Schedule B.

If it we were in the other schedule, it would get reduced during our projects period, which would be challenging for water management with the pipes, but we've only had to manage a consistent seven CFS the entire project, which has been actually really great.

What a success story.

Yeah, we have very cool questions.

Do you have anything to comment?

Very impressive.

Okay.

Well, thank you so much.

Um the other thing I will plug too is I know, and I don't know if there's any um content or media out on this, but I know there's going to be an event at um at the park in Sinnol along Simbad that it's going to be a similar group of folks hosting it as the um World Rivers Day event, and it's gonna be somewhat Halloween-ish, I think.

People are supposed to come dressed as fish, I've heard, but it's gonna be a community event where there's gonna be a cleanup and um some fun and some games.

So I bet there'll be more information out on that soon, and I can always email Connie once we get that, but that should be really fun and super local for you folks.

Yeah, it's out there.

Thank you.

Yes.

Um, so I have a question for Claire.

I'm wondering, um, are when are we hoping that we're gonna get the fish in the creek at some point in the future?

Yeah, that's a great question.

So in the immediate, I'm sorry.

What other fish might you be hoping to get into the creek at that point?

Yeah, so some of the fish that we encountered when we were relocating those fish were there were roach.

There were a lot of Sacramento suckers, there were some tiny stickleback.

Um, we also encountered tons of lamprey.

Um, so the the native assemblage that you would anticipate in the Bay Area um seemed really healthy, and we anticipate that those fish will continue to thrive in that area.

They're gonna return to the creek once we rewater it, which should be done by October 15th.

So soon.

And then shortly after that, we anticipate migrating steelhead and salmon coming up the creek and hopefully making their way all the way up to Snow Rilderness this this winter when they're making their moves.

They are making that's wonderful.

That's great news.

Thank you very much, Claire.

And thank you all.

Thank you for all your efforts.

For sure.

Have a good night, everyone.

You too.

Okay, going on to item five, the train of lights.

Michael Miller is here to talk about the possibility of a train of lights for the town of Sinnol in 2025 this year.

So I'm here on my capacity as the president of the business guild.

Um we did some negotiating.

There's a new leadership over at PLA.

And they seem to be very eager to work with the town, and we negotiated a deal that this year.

Their tickets sell out within hours when they go on sale.

So October 1st, their tickets will go on sale.

They'll be sold out by the second.

We are going to reserve a train for the day after Thanksgiving, which we traditionally do.

They've reserved the train for us.

The we've negotiated with them that this year they're going to give 50% of that revenue back into the community.

So the community fund at the Snow Business Guild, we'll put that in and um use that to distribute into the community like we do every year.

This year we distributed $20,000 into this community of Sinnol, including 10,000 from us and 10,000 from you for the clock.

And then 10,000 to other organizations Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, 4-H, scholarships for the school, scholarships for the high school for Sinnol Med students.

There's a whole list that we're happy to share with you.

So we're excited that PLA is willing to donate part of that revenue back into the community.

And we hope to have an announcement soon that they will also do another free train, but in the spring.

They don't take in until Christmas.

Christmas is the only time that they really take in revenue for their organization to support a very expensive operation of a train system.

So by giving up giving a free day during the Christmas season, they're losing a lot of money.

So what we what they've decided to do is to give us a free train in the spring, and we're working on how to make that make that happen.

And uh we're gonna keep that as part of our negotiations and hopefully be able to announce that pretty soon as well.

So we're excited about um PLA and the ability with their new management team to kind of moving more in the direction of Sinnol, and um, you know, in addition to them maintaining the parking lots for us and maintaining the park.

Um this will give them another thing for them to put more money back into our community.

So, the regular price, there'll be two types of tickets this year.

There'll be a regular ticket for 40, which is what they were last year.

The last two years, um, two Sinnol residents just paid for the whole train and sold them at cost.

I was one of them, I did last year, um, through this store.

So there's a the 40 ticket that we've had last year, the last few years, and then um this year they actually gave us access to the first class car, and that'll be that's a $70 ticket.

And we're also working on um putting beer and wine and cocktails on the train.

So we're working on doing that with our operations group, and a couple of us have um liquor licenses, so either Bina or I um will we'll put together a license for the train to do an off-site license to do that because I own a couple licenses also.

Um, in addition, the train is actually working on for the first time getting a year-round permit to serve alcohol.

So that's one of the things that they're that they're working on.

Um, I don't I think it's gonna be tough for them.

Um, because of just because of the math with ABC.

Um, we're a very small town with a lot of liquor licenses.

Um, and and when I renewed mine, they told me they said, well, you know, if you weren't renewing licenses, you probably wouldn't be getting them because there's 900 people here and there's like nine liquor licenses between all the wineries and event centers and my restaurant, my store.

So um, but they're they're working on trying to get a year-round license for that for their um their patrons also.

And then half of the so half the money is going to go back to the it's gonna go back in through the Sinnol community fund um with the with the business account.

Yeah, and we'll reinvest all that and all that stuff.

We're we're working on a website, and we're it's all published and available information, but we don't have a website.

Um, so I'm gonna have Andrew send out in Sinnol um informed Sinnol what we've done so far for the year.

Um, and then um we will um post that on our website once we actually get our act together and get it get a website.

So last year you and I sat out on Main Street and sold tickets.

Is that process this year?

Yeah, so in front of the store, um in front of the country store will um starting November first, um, right around the beginning of November, we'll be selling tickets, and we're not sure and we're talking the trained people think that we should sell vouchers and then give away the actual tickets on that day because of some fraudulent stuff they've had in their system.

How all that logistics work, I don't know yet, but we'll be able to give people something um when they get those tickets.

So that'll be originally opened up to Synol residents and members of the school.

Um, and that's our our first run.

If for some reason we get closer within a week and we have extra tickets to sell, then we'll open it up, you know, to friends and family outside the community.

But um, anybody in Sonol, if they want their relatives from Kansas, they're gonna be in town for Thanksgiving, they can buy extra tickets.

So um we'll start with um normally we start with an allocation of four per family, and then we'll open it up broader after that.

It's typically how it's been done to make sure everybody gets a chance um to get into the tickets because there's only I think there's 400 this year, which is more than we've ever had.

I think there's a total of 400 if I remember off of memory.

Depends on whether Caltrans empties out the parking lot.

He's uh I actually talked to Steve about that today.

Normally it's 380, and then they've had to cut back to 350 because Caltrans.

I talked to Steve about that today, and he's been negotiating with Caltrans and the work crew that's using that parking lot.

So they got extended to March, their project.

So Steve offered, he said if we pay if PLA pays to relocate them to a different yard, is that okay with Caltrans?

Caltrans said that's fine with us, talk to them.

So he's now working on trying to get that parking lot cleared so he can open it up for all of his trains.

Yeah, so as it is right now, they're they're playing a limited sell to all of their trains until they get that parking available because that's that's critical parking.

Um in that trend that Caltrans parking lot, yeah.

And the other Michael, I just want to make sure I understand this has been one of the more lively things we've had come up over the last couple years, and I imagine people have good questions about this.

I want to make sure I just know kind of the cliff notes.

Yeah, I have the cliff notes on it.

So there's this there's no more free train, but technically the last two years there wasn't one either because it's two years, two years, four years, I don't think.

Two years ago, somebody well, I think three years ago they agreed one more time to do it, but I think Halbert paid for it.

Oh, did Howard?

Okay, we paid half and the other resident paying.

So, so it's a lot of people, okay, right.

So people have thought that it's free, but it wasn't.

It was it was paid for by Synoleans or Howard's always paid for part.

I think I was actually right.

A couple years ago, Halbert's always paid for half, and then another Sonole paid for half.

Last year you paid for part of it.

I think for all of them, okay.

So this should so people bought tickets.

And then we've got this this year.

It's there, there is no more free tickets available.

What we've done instead of that is there's don't even for sale, and then we've negotiated uh uh a day where they're going to donate half the proceeds to the Synol business guild of of a day, and then SNOL Business Guild will will distribute funds back to the community.

How are they sending it?

By the way, we've also got um we've already had two people um as anonymous donors buy tickets to give to the community for people that can't afford it.

So we've already had um we've got I think we have 20 tickets already reserved that people have paid for that have just said I want to make sure that people can enjoy this.

Um and people did that last year.

I was so impressed.

We did that last year when we were selling them too that said here.

I want to buy my tickets, plus I want to pay paid forward a little bit.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, but but that's why we're negotiating with them to get a free train in the spring when it's outside their normal revenue.

So as I understand the business reason why their board said that they and we need it's a big it's a $20,000 train, and that's what they can get each time they run it, and they have that's a big part of their annual budget.

We heard all that, and we know what there's always a solution for, but yeah, it's a big revenue.

One day is a big revenue day for them for sure.

Yeah, but I just want to make sure you'll be uh understood because I think that's why I've also as a resident of push for a free day, and I said, Well, let's just do it in the spring when you're when you're not working, not doing something, right?

When it's not when you're not gonna be getting the money for it, and they and they seem to be you know, listening to that article.

So we'll hopefully we'll we'll be successful in that as well.

So now we're typical.

And they did give us a free train for the school's a hundred year celebration.

Yes, they did.

Yeah, they did.

Um, they ran, I think they ran like 10 trips for the school battery.

So thank you very much.

There is one person who wants to come up here and comment.

That's Rod's ice.

So um, clarify some things.

One thing I want to point out is that the train, Sonol train, they have more than one association.

So when they tell you this is how much money they have, try to find out which organization are talking about.

One's got a huge amount of money, and one's got a little bit of money, just so we're almost on here knows what's going on.

Um, and I think it's important that we discuss.

I I heard him say that they're talking about opening more hours.

That was there was agreements made a long time ago.

This is one of the problems we have.

This knows the knowledge is not transferred over.

We forget.

I know so and so he tells me a story, but eventually this person passes away, or they lose the history of what happened.

We had deals made with the trains, you know, and I do hear different stories, what occurred, and this is why I'm kind of pushing some things we're doing is making sure that we do walk at what's going on.

And if they are talking about doing more hours, because my understanding from a long time ago is they are doing more than they were supposed to back when he got through COP or permits going through the process.

They need to go to you guys.

You are representing SINOL.

Business skills is a program for us, also.

It's more of a charity, but they represent us, and you guys need to make sure that you're involved in what's going on with that.

Um, and that actually kind of goes back into the next kind of range we discussing, but the the transferring of information and make sure people know what's going on, so that in the long run, if our us have passed away, I can't talk to them anymore.

I can ask what happened back in those days, and this is why I'm kind of trying to push the paperwork.

Thank you.

Okay.

Oh, do you have anything response?

Okay.

Thank you.

And then we'll go on to item six community discussion of the SNOL community improvement fund.

And I put together some slides.

This is in response to the discussion last month.

When people weren't sure about the community fund and how it's managed and purposed.

Um, oh wait to get up there.

All of us, the SNOL Citizens Advisory Council manages the community improvement fund.

We make the recommendations and decisions on it.

And we are the only advisory council that does have a pocket of money.

None of the other ones do.

None of the um Fairview, Castor Valley, none of them have a fund available.

And um, it is held for us by the community development agency, which is the planning department, and it's the same body that manages the quarry permits.

Because that's one of the conditions of what one of the quarries, and then what recommendations we make for expenditures need to be approved by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, so that's why things tend to take a long time.

We we have our process with two readings, and then it has to be uh a letter prepared and put on the agenda for the board of supervisors, and all the requests and the decisions for everything about the community improvement fund are considered in public meetings and these meetings with public input, and we have a procedure and priorities and criteria that we use when we're deciding what's gonna be funded, and I'll go through those um in just a second.

So the source of our money is only one of the quarries.

There are five quarries in Sinnol, and only one of the quarries is obligated to give us money, and that's the Oliver DeSilva quarry, the same quarry that Claire was talking about for the fish.

Um, that was for the fish, I think it was condition of approval 12 for um the 50,000 a year that they give us, it's condition of approval number 17.

And Oliver DeSilva has been very good about providing additional donations.

When I gave them a budget for the um the April 2600-year celebration of the school, they just wrote a checkout.

Turned out our costs were more than that after we got going a little bit, but they were real quick to just say, come and get a check.

We want to support SINOL.

So it's been a good good thing, and they've been true to their word and to their permit.

I've listed the other five quarries there just for your information.

So the condition of the approval on the next slide, I put it there word for word so that you can understand.

So you have that as a reference.

People can go back and look at it.

And it didn't start until 2016.

The quarry goes back another 10 years before that, but it was not a condition of their permit until 2016.

So it's fairly recently.

It was 50,000 a year for the first five years, and then it goes up 2% a year for the next five years, and then it goes up based on an indexed fund.

And there it was really clear what the purpose of it is to enhance the community environment of Sinnol through projects initiated by the community of Synol that will enrich and enhance the environment for the residents of Synol.

And then it talks about us having oversight over it.

Okay.

So when we started working on this and receiving this money, we thought, well, what's our criteria?

What are we, how do we make the decision?

What's important?

Um, so we talked about what our priorities are in the next slide.

Um we got input from a bunch of people who came to these meetings and then other um gatherings, and these were the priorities that we established.

This council established in 2021 with that public input.

And that was number one to protect and preserve the rural historic and agricultural character of Sinnol.

And people felt it was very important to preserve the beautiful trees and the vineyards, Mouse Canyon, the Ali on Paloma Way, the Water Temple Gates.

The second priority was to revitalize the downtown.

People felt it was important for a sense of community.

They also felt it was important for it to be pedestrian friendly.

They wanted to be able to shop and eat in Sinnol, places to meet their neighbors, and they wanted to be able to walk safely from the train station.

We mean the BLA train station, the old one, to the school and to the new watershed center and to the Vargas Plateau.

So that means walking from the school along Main Street to all the way up on Highway 84 across the bridge and across over to the water temple gates.

So some of the ways we've been implementing that is we hired the consultant to come in and help us identify what we wanted with Sinnol, and we had several public meetings to get ideas and input from people.

We worked with Caltrans to make sure those crosswalks were put in at the Water Temple Gates because they started out without them.

And then we also have designed a pathway that will connect to the new bridge when that's built.

The Vargas Plateau, that's the park up above the Sinnol golf course, and um connects up to Sheridan Road.

So people want to be able to walk up to Sheridan Road and down into town.

The third priority was to improve the fire safety and emergency safety information.

We all know that we are a high-fire hazard zone, which I've now learned after a seminar I went to last week that that does not mean a high fire risk zone.

So, but we are a high virus hazard zone.

But cell service is poor in the canyon, and PGE has these uh public safety power shutoffs so that oftentimes we're without power.

And so that's what Denise was talking about to try and develop information about evacuations and fire safety and rosemary too.

So that's why we developed those committees.

The fourth priority was planning for the future, proactively addressing the aging wastewater system.

So that's why we starting in 2016.

We started working on phase one for improving our on-site wastewater systems.

We have 15 to 20 percent of the septic systems in Alameda County.

Most of the septic systems are in Livermore area, but there's some in Oakland, and a lot of them are built a long time ago, and so you know, things don't last forever.

And then the fifth priority, which um we was that people in Sheridan Road on Mill Creek Road, Welch Creek, and Little Valley said keep in mind that Sonol is bigger, bigger than just Main Street and Kilkare Road.

So that's that is the priorities that we really use to frame our discussions and our goals and the things that we work on.

So on the next slide talks about the funding criteria, these criteria were established in 2014 originally in anticipation of getting the money.

Um then we reviewed them here on April 17th of this year, and just to update the process a little bit.

We didn't change the criteria, those criterions criteria themselves.

Um, and so whenever we have a proposal for the community improvement fund, every one of these questions is answered, and we and we review them based on the answers to these questions.

How will the proposal improve the quality of life in Sunol community?

How will it improve the town, and how will the sense of community be enhanced?

Which I think is something that we all value very highly.

The proposal should have community involvement in the planning process, it needs to have people's input on what is going to be built, what the project is, and then for implementation, it also needs to involve the community because there needs to be community buy-in and appreciation for the project.

The fourth criteria is the proposal is cost effective, and we hope that the proposer will identify other sources of funding for those proposals so that we can work together on it.

The next page on number five is using high quality materials, we want them to last a long time, and I think that that goes to like with the Wayfinding sign where we've had to pull it back and revise it a little bit because we wanted to make sure it was material the county felt was the highest quality.

We evaluate the projects based on the applicant's ability to implement the project, and we want to have a description in detail of how it's going to be implemented, and then we want a timeline for how it's going to be when is it going to be for the time period where it's going to be completed.

We want it to be completed in a timely manner.

We also want a detailed budget that anonymizes all the expenditures and includes descriptions for and cost of services and the materials that we used in the project.

Number nine is the applicant has secured other funding to assist in the completion of the project.

That there's a plan for ongoing maintenance of the project, and the community supports the project.

So all of those criteria need to be addressed and need to be satisfied before a project is approved.

The next page, I think a lot of you have paper copies here because that's very difficult to see, but I wanted to get it all on one page.

This lists all the projects that have been approved.

There are some projects that are before before the date where they started funding it, and that is because during the permitting process, Oliver DeSilva provided a lump sum.

And then Hansen, which operates Mission Valley, which operated Mission Valley Rock at the time, also provided a lump sum.

So that we did have some, I'll call it seed money, the very beginning.

These are the projects that we have funded.

The Sennol Depot Garden Improvements.

Everything that's there on that on that park that's an improvement was either paid for out of the Synol community improvement fund or money from the PLA.

The Bosco sculpture that's on Main Street was paid for out of community improvement fund.

The wood oven, the wood oven in Snow Deeple Gardens that we're going to operate Saturday, this coming Saturday for the community picnic.

That was that's $750 because every collection of families each contributed another hundred dollars each to pay for the total project.

The two cert containers in Synol we paid for, downtown maintenance, Diablo Fire Safe Council, and that was for information about evacuation and the training that we went through in 2021 and 22, I think it was.

It was when we were still just online during COVID, the phase one's uh feasibility study, the Sunol Steering Committee to I I know I changed that to establish a community communication system.

That is the informed SONOL, and that was to develop the um the mailing list so that people could get communication and original goal of that was that it was Jim O'Laughlin and Andrew and Shirley Kaminsky.

They were going to work together to have a newsletter that would go out from the council.

Um we decided that maybe we weren't gonna continue that project.

The one day celebration on the history of SNOL in 2019, that was $740.

During COVID, we gave money to the school to modernize the technology infrastructure because we wanted to get back into having hybrid meetings after COVID.

So that bought all of this equipment that we're looking at now that uh we use to connect to the county system so that we can people can join the meetings remotely.

Um, we had to help the school modernize their whole infrastructure because they were unable to provide the Wi-Fi for the technology to even support this system, and then at the same time that we gave them that money, Hansen also gave another $10,000 to the school in support of this project.

For I think that went to Chromebooks for the students.

Then with more additional funds for the Sinnol Depot Garden, upgrading the Sinnol clock, which we just talked about, and then phase two feasibility study for down an on-site wastewater treatment system for the downtown businesses.

Part of our goal is to get restrooms at the train station and possibly restrooms in the park too, and then the wayfinding sign photo uh prototype, and then there's also we uh did approve getting a new arm, a swivel and tilt arm for that monitor, so that to get rid of the glare because it's really hard to see the slides.

So the balance in the fund as of today is 283 dollars and 3, 283,000 dollars.

And um, so we do have some money to buy the restrooms and hopefully make those improvements.

We do have a lot of projects on the horizon that people have talked about.

Um, the weight mining signs, we have the prototype that Ben's been seeing through.

That will probably go up and probably buy a spring, I guess.

I don't know.

So with the wayfinding sign, then it's just to historic places.

It's not to businesses, it's to historic places.

We know we want to do the restrooms at the train station and the Snow Depot Gardens.

Also it's an old evil gardens in the park.

There's a need for lighting and electricity.

When we have movies in the park, it's the electricity is very sketchy.

And then when we have the tree lighting, the trees tour, it's very difficult to see in the park to walk at night.

It's very difficult.

We wanted we were thinking about emergency communication systems in the canyon areas.

So that'd be like Welch Creek and Canyon.

One of the things that came up in the downtown renovation was the safe pathway from Sonol Glen School to the water temple because they walk, they walked that right now, and that's dangerous.

And then also the gateway signs, the things that we're looking looking towards possibly funding.

Of course, that's going to be a lot more cost than what we could pay out of the account that we have.

And you the $600,000 that is in another it's held by the three valley.

Yeah.

Okay.

Any other questions?

Okay.

When you're ready.

We're gonna take your other position again.

Go ahead.

Thanks.

Nice presentation.

Thank you.

No, very, very, very nice.

I appreciate it.

Um, you had some running on the dot.

Um, can you explain that one to me?

The $600,000 that she brought up because I actually was on my notes here for Martin Marietta.

Okay.

So um I can't remember the number of it.

I think it was 23.

Condition of approval 23 for the Mission Valley Rock Quarry.

Was the vineyard.

They the vineyard had been planted by Elliston, and they and they wanted a quarry under it.

They wanted to remove the vineyard.

So I met with the local people about they initiated the conversation when it was still Hansen before even.

Um, because they wanted to remove it.

Well, one of our priorities is the vineyards.

One of our priorities is a natural environment, is agriculture.

I mean, we used to have 32 acres of walnut trees that had already been torn out where the quarry was.

So what I did was I I got a bid from about three bids.

I got two bids, and Jerry B.

Miller got one bid from different vineyard managers as to what it would cost to replace that vineyard, because their condition was if they wanted to quarry that area under the vineyard, they had to replace it.

They had to replant it.

So we got the bids and they averaged about $950,000.

Okay.

So I said, no, you can't just rip out the vineyard and not compensate it.

We we want we want the agriculture, we'd rather have the vineyard than not have the vineyard.

And um, then there was also another condition that they would have to replace the windows on the school with double-pane glass.

If a noise study said that it was noisy, well, so I said, you know, you haven't fulfilled those two conditions, but talking to them.

I didn't get anywhere locally, so then I went to corporate headquarters and I started talking to them.

And they sent me a noise study, which they said proved that they didn't weren't there were no noise impacts.

Well, I've got my degree in industrial operations, so that I knew that that wasn't it didn't prove it.

It didn't prove that there was no noise impact on the school.

So I went to the corporate headquarters.

They had just had a violation of releasing silt into the Alameda Creek, and they've just been paid 365,000 dollars, and they kept saying they were good neighbors, and I said, No, you haven't been good neighbors.

You need to do more for the community.

And so, the course of the year we probably had four meetings, maybe six months.

We had four meetings, and then finally they offered to pay for the windows.

And then they also Alameda County said no, you cannot buy out a mitigation.

Cannot have money instead of the mitigation.

So that sort of left us dead in the water for a long time.

So then, so then I went back to them again and I said we want our vineyard, we want the vineyard.

If you're not if we and it and that is true, it's against the law to buy out of mitigation.

You can't do that really.

So give us the vineyard.

And so then they called me back a couple weeks later and they I went to the corporate offices and talked to the vice president, and they put the letter there saying that they were gonna give us the money.

So they gave us six hundred thousand dollars plus the school because I just thought was a six mix with the school before.

Okay, well, nice.

Yeah, um, and how that is at that so the county cannot accept that.

There's not county money.

And so that's so okay.

Here's the question.

How is it to be used or how does Sonol use it?

That's the same process.

It's it's the same process, the same criteria, yeah.

Yeah.

If it goes out, if it goes through, I think he's trying to if it goes through a 501c3, then if they write the check, even if it's for our project, that's okay.

Is it in the money is in our big account per se, or is it still there's any right to we want it?

We have the actual money at this time, it is invested.

That was a question of that.

It's invested.

Okay, thank you.

It wasn't again very nice presentation.

I was confused.

How is that not buying the mitigation?

Is that uh was that considered a deposit, or I mean, just donated it.

They just donated county.

County had already released them.

County had already said, I just released them from the mitigation.

No problem.

In fact, they did buy the medication.

No, they had already been released, from it, and they gave it to us.

Yep, yep.

Yeah, it's that was yeah, a lot of work.

Thank you again, Connie.

That was huge.

Okay, so the the minutes are next.

Approval of the minutes for July 16th, the next on the agenda.

Um, any comments on the minutes?

No changes, no errors, okay.

Um the evacuation survey, Shibana.

When I clicked on it on the one that was attached, I couldn't, it didn't come up with anything.

So maybe when we post this after it's approved, we can just make sure that it's live because we don't talk about what the results of their survey was in the text.

Okay, anybody want to make a motion?

Well, you want to move a motion of what?

So to adjourn, no approval.

You approve the minutes.

I was on the wrong line.

We'll do that in a second.

I'll approve that one.

I'll pre-approve that.

I'll pre-approve that one.

Bring it up again in five minutes.

I second his motion to uh to approve the minutes as written.

Okay.

Minus what the addition Connie has to fix the hyperlink.

Council member Connet, excuse.

Council member Harrison?

Approved.

Council Member Kedromo?

Approved.

Council Member Stark.

Can I approve it?

Approved.

Chair DeGrange?

Approved.

Okay.

So that takes us to the end of our agenda.

And so the meeting is adjourned.

Okay.

Motion to adjourn.